PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Skunks’ warning stripes less prominent where predators are sparse, study finds

Skunks’ warning stripes less prominent where predators are sparse, study finds
2023-11-22
(Press-News.org) Striped skunks are less likely to evolve with their famous and white markings where the threat of predation from mammals is low, scientists from the University of Bristol, Montana and Long Beach, California have discovered.

Skunks’ iconic black and white colouration signals its toxic anal spray. However some skunks show very varied fur colour ranging from all black to thin or thick black and white bands to all white individuals. Variation is huge across the North American continent.

Findings published today in Evolution, suggest that this is a result of relaxed selection, when environmental change eliminates or weakens the selection of a normally important trait – in this case black and white pelage.   

Prof Tim Caro from Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences explained: “Warning coloration is an antipredator defence whereby a conspicuous signal advertises the ability of prey to escape predation, often because it is toxic or has spines or is pugnacious.”

“Usually predators have to learn the significance of this signal and so it is predicted that warning colouration will look very similar across prey individuals of the same, as well as perhaps different, prey species to be an effective education tool. Yet some warningly coloured prey show rather different advertisements even within the same species.”

Researcher Hannah Walker from the University of Montana documented the distribution of these different pelage colours across their range in North America using museum specimens. She plotted these against a menu of variables that the team thought might drive this variation in coloration.

The team found that in locations in which skunks overlapped with rather few mammalian predators that might be capable of killing them, fur colour was varied even within the same litter.

Where there were many species of predators that were a danger to them, they showed little variation.

The team also examined owl and raptorial predators however while the effects were the same, they were not as evident. This is perhaps because birds have a poorer sense of smell and are less deterred by smelly anal defences. 

“Our results indicate that relaxed predation pressure is key to warning signal variation in this species, whereas stronger pressure leads to signal conformity and stronger signals,” said Professor Caro.

“We now know why not all skunks look alike, and perhaps why members of other warningly coloured species look different from each other.”

Now the team plan to see if this occurs across other skunk species whose geographic ranges overlap in North America.

Prof Caro concluded: “If relaxed selection operates within species, it should do so across prey species too. More broadly, this study provides another brick in the wall of explaining the evolution of coloration in nature.”

 

Paper:

‘Predation risk drives aposematic signal conformity’ by Hannah Walker, Tim Caro et al in Evolution. 

END

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Skunks’ warning stripes less prominent where predators are sparse, study finds

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Chlorine disinfectant is no more effective than water at killing off hospital superbug

Chlorine disinfectant is no more effective than water at killing off hospital superbug
2023-11-22
One of the primary chlorine disinfectants currently being used to clean hospital scrubs and surfaces does not kill off the most common cause of antibiotic associated sickness in healthcare settings globally, according to a new study. Research by the University of Plymouth has showed spores of Clostridioides difficile, commonly known as C. diff, are completely unaffected despite being treated with high concentrations of bleach used in many hospitals. In fact, the chlorine chemicals are no more effective at damaging the spores when used as a surface disinfectant – than using water with no additives. Writing in the journal Microbiology, the study’s authors ...

Rice receives $2.5M grant to support inclusive STEM education

2023-11-21
HOUSTON – (Nov. 21, 2023) – The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) awarded Rice University with $2.5 million spanning over five years as part of its Driving Change initiative designed to connect research universities that are working to build inclusive learning environments for students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). “I’m honored and grateful to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute that Rice University was selected for the Driving Change initiative,” said Amy Dittmar, Howard R. Hughes Provost and executive vice president for academic affairs. “Rice has laid the groundwork for student ...

Medical AI tool from UF, NVIDIA gets human thumbs-up in first study

Medical AI tool from UF, NVIDIA gets human thumbs-up in first study
2023-11-21
A new artificial intelligence computer program created by researchers at the University of Florida and NVIDIA can generate doctors’ notes so well that two physicians couldn’t tell the difference, according to an early study from both groups. In this proof-of-concept study, physicians reviewed patient notes — some written by actual medical doctors while others were created by the new AI program — and the physicians identified the correct author only 49% of the time. A team of 19 researchers from NVIDIA and the University of Florida said ...

Getting to the root of visceral gut pain

Getting to the root of visceral gut pain
2023-11-21
MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. Researchers at Michigan State University may have discovered why visceral pain is so common in people who have experienced inflammation in their guts, including patients with irritable bowel syndrome, or IBS. Working with mouse models, MSU physiologists showed that nervous system cells known as glia can sensitize nearby neurons, causing them to send pain signals more easily than they did prior to inflammation. “The glia drop the threshold for activating a neuron,” said MSU Research Foundation Professor Brian Gulbransen, whose research team authored the new report in the ...

How AI could help optimize nutrient consistency in donated human breast milk

How AI could help optimize nutrient consistency in donated human breast milk
2023-11-21
A team of University of Toronto Engineering researchers, led by Professor Timothy Chan, is leveraging machine learning to optimize the macronutrient content of pooled human donor milk recipes.   The researchers introduce their data-driven optimization model in a new paper published in Manufacturing and Systems Operations Management.  Chan and his team worked with Mount Sinai Hospital’s Rogers Hixon Ontario Human Milk Bank — which provides donor milk to preterm and sick babies who are hospitalized across Ontario — as well as Dr. Debbie O’Connor, a professor at the Temerty ...

Dwarf galaxies use 10-million-year quiet period to churn out stars

2023-11-21
Contact: Morgan Sherburne, morganls@umich.edu  Images ANN ARBOR—If you look at massive galaxies teeming with stars, you might be forgiven in thinking they are star factories, churning out brilliant balls of gas. But actually, less evolved dwarf galaxies have bigger regions of star factories, with higher rates of star formation. Now, University of Michigan researchers have discovered the reason underlying this: These galaxies enjoy a 10-million-year delay in blowing out the gas cluttering up their environments. Star-forming regions are able to hang on to their gas and dust, allowing more stars to coalesce ...

New report highlights vital contribution of ‘virtual schools’ for children in care

2023-11-21
A new study highlights the vital contribution of ‘virtual schools’ for children in care and recommends ten ways to improve their educational outcomes. The research, by the University of Exeter and the National Association of Virtual School Heads (NAVSH), shows strong disparities in progress and attainment for children in care depending on where they live. They found these differences are not driven by neighbourhood deprivation but by patchy distribution of school places, confused funding policies and variable regulation. As a result, some virtual schools have difficulty ...

Parental age effect on the longevity and healthspan of flies and worms

Parental age effect on the longevity and healthspan of flies and worms
2023-11-21
“[...] little work [has been] published on the effect of parental age in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a common model organism for aging studies.” BUFFALO, NY- November 16, 2023 – A new research paper was published in Aging (listed by MEDLINE/PubMed as "Aging (Albany NY)" and "Aging-US" by Web of Science) Volume 15, Issue 21, entitled, “Parental age effect on the longevity and healthspan in Drosophila melanogaster and Caenorhabditis elegans.” Several studies have investigated the effect of parental age on biological ...

Two new UW–Madison-led studies inform outlook on scaling of carbon removal technologies

2023-11-21
MADISON, Wis., - Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies that could be critical tools to combat climate change have developed in line with other technologies from the last century. However, according to new studies led by Gregory Nemet, a professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, these technologies need to develop faster to meet policy targets aimed at limiting global warming. As policymakers, researchers and climate activists from around the world prepare to meet for the UN Climate Change Conference beginning on ...

Nuclear physics traineeship program offers launchpad for research careers

Nuclear physics traineeship program offers launchpad for research careers
2023-11-21
Associate Professor of physics Benjamin Jones has received a $341,571 grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to continue his successful traineeship program at The University of Texas at Arlington. The program exposes undergraduate students to opportunities in particle and nuclear physics, which offer key components in many diverse careers, such as nuclear medicine, radiation therapy, archaeology, precision management and astrophysics. UTA’s Nuclear Research Experiences for Minority Students (NREMST) started in 2021 with the goal of immersing students from historically underrepresented populations in nuclear physics. “We know that many students ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

QUT scientists create material to turn waste heat into clean power

Major new report sets out how to tackle the ‘profound and lasting impact’ of COVID-19 on cardiovascular health

Cosmic crime scene: White dwarf found devouring Pluto-like icy world

Major report tackles Covid’s cardiovascular crisis head-on

A third of licensed GPs in England not working in NHS general practice

ChatGPT “thought on the fly” when put through Ancient Greek maths puzzle

Engineers uncover why tiny particles form clusters in turbulent air

GLP-1RA drugs dramatically reduce death and cardiovascular risk in psoriasis patients

Psoriasis linked to increased risk of vision-threatening eye disease, study finds

Reprogramming obesity: New drug from Italian biotech aims to treat the underlying causes of obesity

Type 2 diabetes may accelerate development of multiple chronic diseases, particularly in the early stages, UK Biobank study suggests

Resistance training may improve nerve health, slow aging process, study shows

Common and inexpensive medicine halves the risk of recurrence in patients with colorectal cancer

SwRI-built instruments to monitor, provide advanced warning of space weather events

Breakthrough advances sodium-based battery design

New targeted radiation therapy shows near-complete response in rare sarcoma patients

Does physical frailty contribute to dementia?

Soccer headers and brain health: Study finds changes within folds of the brain

Decoding plants’ language of light

UNC Greensboro study finds ticks carrying Lyme disease moving into western NC

New implant restores blood pressure balance after spinal cord injury

New York City's medical specialist advantage may be an illusion, new NYU Tandon research shows

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

Warming of 2°C intensifies Arctic carbon sink but weakens Alpine sink, study finds

Bronze and Iron Age cultures in the Middle East were committed to wine production

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Temporary medical centers in Gaza known as "Medical Points" (MPs) treat an average of 117 people daily with only about 7 staff per MP

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

[Press-News.org] Skunks’ warning stripes less prominent where predators are sparse, study finds