Study shows different exotic plants affect native moth’s size, life cycle
July 16th, 2013By Danielle Torrent
Museum volunteer Logan Locascio collects plants from the genus Crotalaria outside the Florida Museum on Hull Road near 34th Street.
Florida Museum of Natural History photo by Andrei Sourakov
Florida Museum of Natural History researcher Andrei Sourakov has a soft spot for small, winged creatures, and an extraordinary commitment to sharing his passion with younger generations.
His latest study published online in the June 2013 issue of Florida Entomologist is co-authored by Museum volunteer Logan Locascio, a student who graduated from Lincoln Middle School this year. Their experiments show ornate bella moths feeding on some plant species cause the insects to develop faster than those feeding on others. For Locascio, the experiments resulted in a project that earned third place in zoology in the junior division at the state’s science and engineering fair and a special award for the second-best agriculturally oriented project.
“It was a good project for a middle school student,” said Sourakov, collections coordinator at the Florida Museum’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and (more…)
Jumping spider vs. hairstreak butterfly: Museum scientist puts predator, prey in the ring
April 15th, 2013
The jumping spider, Phidippus pulcherrimus, feeds on prey much larger than itself, including this striped grass looper moth, Mocis latipes.
Florida Museum of Natural History photo by Andrei Sourakov
By Danielle Torrent
Butterflies are among the most vibrant flying insects, with colorful wing patterns sometimes designed to deflect predators. From frogs and lizards to birds and spiders, butterflies have scores of enemies, so thousands of Lepidoptera species have evolved to imitate leaves, eyes, beaks or other insects.
When biologists first started asking questions about butterfly evolution, they looked to the vertebrates for answers. Birds and lizards are known to hunt butterflies, and for the last 150 years, researchers have assumed these vertebrate predators were driving the evolution of wing patterns. New Florida Museum of Natural History research shows that in the case of hairstreak butterflies, evolution may be driven by a much smaller enemy: the jumping spider.
“I think it’s a big step in general and a big leap of faith to realize that a creature as tiny as a jumping spider, whose brain and life span are really small compared to birds, can be partially responsible for the great diversity of patterns that evolved out there among Lepidoptera and other insects,” said Andrei Sourakov, collection manager at the McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity. “These seemingly primitive creatures have a very complex way of hunting, memory, conditioning and problem-solving intelligence.” (more…)
Museum researchers help revise ‘Red Book of Endemic Plants of Ecuador’
November 13th, 2012By Danielle Torrent
With an area about the size of Arizona, Ecuador seems small when compared to other South American countries, such as Argentina or Brazil. But what it lacks in land, it makes up in biodiversity.
Florida Museum researchers Lorena Endara and Mark Whitten co-edited the second edition of the “Red Book of Endemic Plants of Ecuador,” which describes about 4,500 plant species.
Photos by Jeff Gage
Deemed one of 17 “megadiverse” countries by Conservation International, Ecuador has the highest concentration of species of any nation, according to the organization’s website. But agricultural expansion, petroleum production and a lack of ecological awareness have hindered conservation efforts.
Hoping to bring attention to plants in danger of extinction, Florida Museum of Natural History researchers helped co-author and revise the second edition of the “Red Book of Endemic Plants of Ecuador” published in March 2012, setting precedents for Ecuador’s vast neighboring countries.
“Ecuador was the first country to have a Red Book devoted to plants,” said co-editor Lorena Endara, a Florida Museum researcher and Ph.D. candidate at the University of Florida who also helped compose the first edition of the “Red Book of Endemic Plants of Ecuador” published in 2000. “Most of the species we evaluated are vulnerable and some are endangered or critically endangered. This is the first step to estimating their conservation status at a regional level.” (more…)
Researchers tag record number of endangered sawfish
April 24th, 2012By Danielle Torrent
After catching small-toothed sawfish, researchers tie the rostrum with a rope to help hold the fish while tagging it. © Photo by Jim Wilcox
Scientists studying marine animals at the Florida Museum of Natural History seem to be living the high life, heading to the coast for fishing trips in the name of research.
But when you take away the refreshments, the relaxation most people associate with going fishing and consider they’re looking for one of the most rare and dangerous animals in Florida’s waters, being on a boat takes on a new meaning.
Tasked with developing a conservation plan for the federally endangered small-toothed sawfish, researchers have been attempting to track their movement patterns since 2010. But until their last trip in late March that resulted in eight tagged individuals, they had only hooked a few of the massive creatures in the Florida Bay.
“I was pretty surprised, I mean we caught one a day, and on two days, we caught two a day,” said marine biologist Yannis Papastamatiou, who is responsible for placing tracking devices on the animals. “And on one of those days, we caught two at exactly the same time.”
The crew is often accompanied by George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the Florida Museum, but Burgess spent this trip nursing sawfish wounds inflicted during a previous excursion in Florida Bay.
Museum ornithologist researches 6,000 years of history in the Bahamas
February 1st, 2012By Danielle Torrent
The field of restoration ecology, in which native flora and fauna are re-established to create more sustainable environments, is taking off in the 21st century as researchers become more aware of the potentially negative impacts of invasive, non-native species. Humans are among the “non-natives” in many areas, having taken over as apex predators in many situations. In the Bahamas, the arrival of humans about 1,000 years ago led to a considerable disruption of the natural food chain.
The beach on the west side of Clifton National Heritage Park on New Providence Island. Photo by Michael Dion
With a three-year $164,000 National Science Foundation grant awarded in September 2011, Florida Museum of Natural History ornithologist David Steadman is digging into 6,000 years of history, with hopes that a better understanding of how island organisms respond to human influence may aide efforts to restore a more functional ecosystem. By collecting fossils from the Bahamas over the last 6,000 years, well before humans reached the area, he will also analyze how plant and animal communities responded to long-term natural environmental fluctuations.
“People arrived in the Bahamas and soon they wiped out the tortoises, they wiped out the crocodiles, and became a new apex predator capable of eating just about anything, marine or terrestrial,” said Steadman, Florida Museum natural history department chair. “People are also warm-blooded, or homeotherms, so we need more energy per pound of body weight to keep going. This requirement rearranges energy flows. All that gets complicated even further by people wiping out certain species, whether they’re prey species or other predators, and introducing non-native plants and animals.”
Genetic analysis of hybrid plants may have far-reaching evolutionary consequences
January 1st, 2012By Danielle Torrent
Study co-author Doug Soltis observes one of the artificial Tragopogon miscellus hybrids researchers remade in UF greenhouses. © Florida Museum photo by Jeff Gage
For morning drivers on the roadways of the northwestern U.S., an innocuous purple or yellow flower similar to a daisy should be a familiar sight. Widespread and often considered a weed, goatsbeard is also known as “John-go-to-bed-at-noon” because its flower only blooms for a few hours in the morning.
The European parent species of this plant never produced fertile hybrid offspring. But once the parents arrived in North America about 80 years ago, they not only formed hybrids, but those hybrids then experienced genome (chromosome) doubling. The parents yielded two new species (Tragopogon mirus and Tragopogon miscellus) native only to North America. Plants of these new species have since multiplied throughout the Pacific Northwest, with estimates of more than 10,000 near Spokane, Wash.
To better understand this phenomenon of genome doubling, which is common in plants, including many crops, Florida Museum of Natural History researchers re-created T. miscellus in UF greenhouses and analyzed its genes and chromosomes to find patterns that may have far-reaching evolutionary consequences.
“We caught evolution in the act,” said Doug Soltis, a distinguished professor in UF’s biology department. “New and diverse patterns of gene expression are seen and these may allow the new species to rapidly adapt in new environments.”
Pam and Doug Soltis have been studying T. miscellus for more than 20 years, and a series of publications have given scientists a clearer view into what happens when a hybrid species experiences a genome duplication event, or polyploidy, following hybridization.
Florida's invasive amphibian and reptile problem leads world
November 2nd, 2011By Danielle Torrent
The Burmese python is Florida’s largest invasive species documented in a recent study led by Florida Museum researcher Kenneth Krysko. © Photo by Eric Zamora
During the 1800s, the world was going through transformations steered by war, invention, scientific innovation and the discovery of new land. The time period saw the collapse of some empires and the rise of others, from the British and Japanese to the booming United States of America. The Industrial Revolution brought about the invention of railroads, and cargo ships made an unprecedented number of journeys to the New World. But unbeknownst to conquerors, amphibians and reptiles were along for the ride, and their presence is having a seemingly irreversible impact today.
In Florida, it started with the first documented introduction of the Greenhouse Frog in 1863, a native of the West Indies. This species has become widespread and occurs in areas where many native frogs are now seldom seen. Circa 1887, cargo ships brought the brown anole from Cuba to the state, and the small, brown lizard is now one of Florida’s most easily recognized wildlife species. The state’s largest established invader, the Burmese Python, made its way from the rainforests of Southeast Asia to become household pets for Floridians, and recent studies show the devastating effects these up to 20-foot-long creatures have on native wildlife in the Everglades. In total, Florida has seen at least 137 introductions of non-native amphibians and reptiles, more than anywhere else in the world.
“Most people in Florida don’t realize when they see an animal if it’s native or non-native and unfortunately, quite a few of them don’t belong here and can cause harm,” said Kenneth Krysko, Florida Museum of Natural History herpetology collection manager and lead author of a 20-year study published in Zootaxa Sept. 15, 2011, documenting all known introductions to the state from 1863 to 2010. “No other area in the world has a problem like we do, and today’s laws simply cannot be enforced to stop current trends.”
Until about 1940, the introductions were incidental, primarily resulting from the cargo trade. But in the 1970s and ’80s, pet dealers began importing more species to meet the boom in popularity of exotic terrarium animals. The study attributes 84 percent of the introductions to the pet trade, with 25 percent traced to one animal importer.