Begging dolphins prompt calls to reform recreational fishing

 

Originally published by University of Queensland on June 23, 2023

Credit: Dr Léonie Huijser

University of Queensland researchers have found bottlenose dolphins in Moreton Bay off Brisbane could be teaching other dolphins to "beg" for food from recreational fishers, with the behavior creating short and long-term risks.

Dr. Léonie Huijser from UQ's School of Veterinary Science made the surprise discovery as she investigated the social structure of Moreton Bay's population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins for her Ph.D. thesis.

"Within the dolphins' social network, I found a cluster that would consistently patrol moored boats, waiting for recreational fishers to illegally toss them discarded bait or catches," Dr. Huijser said. "Fishing is popular in the bay and it seems some dolphins have learned to exploit it."

Read more

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Research finds resin that destroys coronavirus on plastic surfaces

Image
O riginally published by University of Jyväskylä, on January 30, 2024 Studying the impact of rosin-functionalized plastic and standard LDPE on the structure of HCoV-OC43 using (A) TEM and (B) AFM in liquid. The scale bar corresponds to 100 nm and 1 µm in the TEM and AFM images, respectively. In panel B, the blue circle highlights a doughnut-shaped virus. (C) The histogram derived from the AFM images illustrates the average size distribution of the height of individual viruses after being flushed from their respective surfaces. Credit: Microbiology Spectrum (2024). DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.03008-23 Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland , are currently developing anti-viral surfaces to decrease the spread of infectious diseases. A recent study published in Microbiology Spectrum found that a resin ingredient is effective against coronaviruses and strongly decreases their infectivity on plastic surfaces. Viruses may persist on solid surfaces for long periods, which ma
Read more

Engineered Rabies Virus Illuminates Neural Circuitry

Image
Originally published by Hannah Thomasy, PhD, for the Scientist on June 14, 2024 Scientists turned a deadly virus into a crucial tool for understanding the wiring of the brain.   Rabies labeling helps scientists identify neurons in the primary visual cortex that connect to two different higher visual brain regions. Marina Garrett  In 1906 , pathologist Camillo Golgi and neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal won the Nobel Prize for their work on the structure of the nervous system . More than a century later, the puzzle of nervous system organization —the intricately tangled mess that results from each neuron’s connections to thousands of others— remains incomplete . Yet, fully developing scientific understanding of these connections is crucial , said Edward Callaway , a systems neurobiologist at the Salk Institute . “If you don’t have some knowledge about how the different parts are interacting , there’s no way to generate a hypothesis about how they’re working together .”  N
Read more

Study discovers cellular activity that hints recycling is in our DNA

Image
Originally published by by Rose Miyatsu, University of California - Santa Cruz , on May 11, 2024 Shown is the splicing pathway. The pre-messenger RNA (pre-mRNA) has exons (blue) and introns (pink). The spliceosome (not shown) was known to catalyze two chemical reactions (black arrows) in a two-step process (green arrows labeled 1 and 2) that splice the exons together and removes the intron as a lariat. This study demonstrates that after splicing is finished, the spliceosome is still active and can convert the lariat intron into a circle using a third reaction (green arrow 3) marked by an asterix. Credit: Manuel Ares, UC Santa Cruz Although you may not appreciate them, or have even heard of them, throughout your body , countless microscopic machines called spliceosomes are hard at work . As you sit and read, they are faithfully and rapidly putting back together the broken information in your genes by removing sequences called " introns " so that your messenger RNAs can
Read more