News by Subject Agriculture

A meta-analysis of fifty years worth of sea turtle research reveals some important information about ocean trash, but important data is largely missing.

While a warming climate in recent decades may be a factor in the waning of some local populations of frogs, toads, newts and salamanders, it cannot explain the overall steep decline of amphibians, according to researchers.

University of Massachusetts Amherst food scientists have mapped and characterized microbial populations in a vegetable fermentation facility and report that its microbiome was distinct between production and fermentation areas and that the raw vegetables themselves -- cabbages destined for sauerkraut -- were the main source of fermentation-related microbes in production areas rather than handling or other environmental sources.

A new study uses modern genetic sequencing tools to describe several distinct molecular signals produced by the optic gland after a female octopus reproduces. The research also details four separate phases of maternal behavior and links them to these signals, suggesting how the optic gland controls a mother octopus' demise.

New research finds that 500 years of over-exploitation has halved mammal populations in South America's once majestic Atlantic Forest. A new analysis of mammal populations reveals the devastating effects of human disturbance since the area was first colonised in the 1500s. They found that apex predators and large carnivores, such as jaguars and pumas, as well as large-bodied herbivores, such as tapirs, were among the groups whose numbers had suffered the most.

New findings show that a micro RNA from the shoot keeps legume roots susceptible to symbiotic infection by downregulating a gene that would otherwise hinder root responses to symbiotic bacteria. These findings help us understand what it takes to make nitrogen-fixing symbiosis efficient, and what we need to do to exploit it agronomically.

Polyploid plants have a duplicate set of chromosomes. As a result, large-scale genetic changes are therefore possible in the new species, making it more adaptable in comparison with the parental species, as has now been proven by UZH researchers with rockcress.