Not created equal: Wing structure helps female monarch butterflies outperform males in flight

Evidence has been mounting that female monarch butterflies are better at flying and more successful at migration than males, and researchers from the University of Georgia have now come up with an explanation but not one they expected.

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Model demonstrates link between species’ traits, competitive success, environmental conditions

Researchers at Yale University and the University of Georgia have developed and experimentally tested a new mathematical model based on the work of the late Ken Leonard, PhD ’10, that helps explain when and where species are likely to outcompete or coexist with one another.

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Genetic analysis reveals surprises about the monarch butterfly

A team of researchers, led by scientists at the University of Chicago and including Odum School Associate Dean Sonia Altizer, has published a study in Nature that reveals unexpected answers to the origins of monarchs and the genetic basis of their best-known traits.

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Species going extinct 1,000 times faster than in pre-human times, study finds

The Odum School’s John Gittleman and Patrick Stephens are contributors to a major new study that finds that species are going extinct today 1,000 times faster than during pre-human times?a rate an order of magnitude higher than the previous estimate.

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Study finds sexual selection predicts high variation in immune genes across mammal species

A study by University of Georgia ecologists has found that diversity in mammal immune system genes may have more to do with the opportunity to choose a mate than with exposure to parasites.

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UGA Ecology “Parasite Ladies” Take Second Place in NSF Graduate Education Challenge

Dara Satterfield, Sarah Budischak, and Sara Heisel, doctoral students in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology, have taken second place honors in the National Science Foundation Innovation in Graduate Education Challenge, the NSF announced on June 13, 2013.

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New studies reveal connections between animals’ microbial communities and behavior

New research is revealing surprising connections between animal microbiomes?the communities of microbes that live inside animals? bodies?and animal behavior, according to a paper by University of Georgia ecologist Vanessa O. Ezenwa and her colleagues.

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Mouse to elephant? Just wait 24 million generations

Scientists have for the first time measured how fast large-scale evolution can occur in mammals, showing it takes 24 million generations for a mouse-sized animal to evolve to the size of an elephant.

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“Think globally, act locally” also applies to extinction

Study finds considerable regional variation in the impacts of extinction on biodiversity When a species becomes extinct, its loss has an impact on global biodiversity. But a new study by University of Georgia researchers has found that species extinctions may have even greater impacts at the regional level, depending upon how closely related the lost species are to others nearby.

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Study may help predict extinction tipping point for species

What if there were a way to predict when a species was about to become extinct?in time to do something about it? Findings from a study by John M. Drake, associate professor in the University of Georgia Odum School of Ecology, and Blaine D. Griffen, assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, may eventually lead to such an outcome?and that is only the start.

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