PROTAbase connected

African plant species through the NLBIF portal: PROTAbase connected.

Plant Resources of Tropical Africa (PROTA) is an international, not-for-profit foundation. It intends to synthesize the dispersed information on the approximately 7,000 useful plants of Tropical Africa and to provide wide access to the information through Webdatabases, Books, CD-Rom’s and Special Products. The direct target groups for the PROTA information are the decision-makers in government, private sector, research,...

Towards a Dutch national Life Watch network

Scientific meeting and discussion, 10th of June 2008, Amsterdam.

Life Watch is a new instrument for biodiversity research. This European large-scale research infrastructure creates a virtual environment for the processing, integration and analysis of biodiversity data for scientific and societal use. Life Watch will be constructed as a distributed network of databases, research facilities and service centers in the different participating European...

Dutch plant names linked to NLBIF portal

Dutch and Flemish popular names of some 600 different species of plants can now be found through this NLBIF biodiversity portal. These names have been made available by linking the unique Databank Plantennamen in de Nederlandse Dialecten (Database of Plant Names in Dutch Dialects, or PLAND). This database is maintained by the Meertens Instituut of the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences.

In total, the PLAND database contains nearly 20,000 Dutch-language plant...

Results of Landmark Montana Grizzly Bear Study Now Available

With an estimated population of 765, the genetic health of grizzly bears in northwest Montana is good, according to a study recently released in the publication Journal of Wildlife Management.  The Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project sampled the grizzly bear population in the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem (NCDE), a 7.8 million-acre area in northwest Montana stretching from north of Missoula, Mont., to the Canadian border.  Initiated in 2003, the project was...

Animal behaviour: The song of songs

A hyrax’s song gives a detailed account of his waresAS WE reported a few weeks ago (“Why music?” December 20th 2008), one explanation for the evolution of human music is that it helps to seduce the opposite sex. Both singing and playing an instrument are complex activities in which errors are easily detected, and which require both intelligence and muscle control to do well. Music is thus a demonstration of...

Deforestation and extinction: Second life

Biologists debate the scale of extinction in the world’s tropical forestsA RARE piece of good news from the world of conservation: the global extinction crisis may have been overstated. The world is unlikely to lose 100 species a day, or half of all species in the lifetime of people now alive, as some have claimed. The bad news, though, is that the lucky survivors are tiny tropical insects that few...

Uganda: Chimpanzee Sanctuary Needs Insurers

THE Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust (CSWCT) has stepped up efforts to protect its staff and animals on the Ngamba Island Chimpanzee Sanctuary.

Possible mammoth tusk found on Santa Cruz Island

Researchers hope the find, if confirmed, will yield further clues about the evolution and eventual extinction of the pony-sized pygmy mammoths. ...