Life Sciences: Year In Review 1996


Zoological research during the past year contributed to an improved understanding of the relationships between genetics and the aging process, further explored some of the intricacies of internal physiology, and uncovered the first known example of eusociality in a marine organism. A new species of mammal was discovered in the rain forests of the Philippines, and studies of turtles and lizards provided insight into current conservation issues. Molecular techniques established that the guinea pig is not a rodent, as had been thought.

Bernard Lakowski and Siegfried Hekimi of McGill University, Quebec, presented evidence that four genes, named the Clock genes , interact to determine the life span of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, a microscopic, wormlike soil animal used extensively in genetic studies. The Clock genes appear to extend life span by a mechanism distinct from that of other Caenorhabditis genes, the dauer genes, that previously had been found to affect life span. Nematodes containing mutations in both a Clock gene and a dauer gene lived nearly five times longer than normal wild-type nematodes--the greatest increase in life span over the species average that had been achieved by any means in any organism. The Clock genes also were found to affect other timed processes, including the length of development and the cell cycle. The study showed that Clock-gene mutations affect the rate of development and adult life span in a similar manner, which suggests that the long life of the mutant nematodes may be a consequence of a "slower rate of living," possibly due to a slower rate of metabolism. The Clock genes may be regulatory genes that control metabolic rates and influence a general physiological clock in nematodes.

Lawrence C. Rome and Stephen M. Baylor of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues investigated the physiological mechanisms that allow muscle fibres involved in sound production in vertebrates to have contraction cycles 10-20 times faster than most vertebrate locomotory muscles. The tail muscles causing the rattling of western diamondback rattlesnakes (Crotalus atrox ) contract repeatedly at about 90 hertz (Hz; cycles per second), whereas muscles that surround the swim bladders of the oyster toadfish (Opsanus tau ) and are used in creating a mating call contract at about 200 Hz, the fastest known rate for any vertebrate. The investigators found in both instances that calcium, the trigger for muscle contraction, cycles in a manner that allows the muscle fibres to activate and relax at a rapid rate. Movement of calcium through toadfish bladder muscle is as much as 50 times faster than through most muscles used for locomotion. In addition, the myosin-filament cross bridges, whose repeated binding to actin filaments and subsequent release generate the force in muscle contraction, attach and detach about 50 times faster as well. One significant revelation of the study was that the physiological traits necessary to permit muscle fibres to move rapidly evolved independently in the rattlesnake and toadfish.

A study of the rubber boa (Charina bottae ), a nocturnally active snake, by Michael E. Dorcas and Charles R. Peterson of Idaho State University revealed that the internal temperature of the animal’s head is significantly warmer than either its internal body temperature or cool nighttime air temperatures. Precise regulation of temperature in the head region of an organism is presumed to be advantageous in optimizing functions of the central nervous system. Although differential temperatures in parts of a reptile body had been reported for other species, the findings in the rubber boa represented the first instance of the phenomenon in a reptile active at night. The study suggested that some reptiles may have greater versatility in regulating temperatures in different bodily regions than formerly suspected.

Social insects, such as ants, honeybees, and termites, and the naked mole rat, a mammal, are considered eusocial, with reproduction often being limited to a single female, or queen, within a colony. Additional characteristics of eusociality are cooperative care of the young and division of labour among nonreproductive members of the colony. The discovery by J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Gloucester Point, Va., of eusociality in a coral-reef shrimp (Synalpheus regalis ) was the first such report in a marine organism or a crustacean. S. regalis lives in the internal canals of sponges. Duffy dissected more than 30 sponges from the coast of Belize, each of which housed a shrimp colony with a single reproductive female and usually with multiple generations of her offspring. Examination of the shrimp colonies supported previous hypotheses that altruistic behaviour among nonbreeding members of a colony can be favoured as a result of kin selection in species living in enclosed habitats that provide protection against predators and an adequate food supply.

In the area of conservation ecology, investigators found evidence that the use of turtle excluder devices (TEDs) by shrimp trawlers indeed did result in reduction of the numbers of sea turtles killed in trawling operations. TEDs are grid attachments within trawl nets that retain shrimp but allow most turtles to escape. Without TEDs, shrimpers can unintentionally drown turtles in their nets. Larry B. Crowder and J. Andrew Royle of North Carolina State University and Sally R. Hopkins-Murphy of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources completed a statistical analysis of the numbers of dead loggerhead sea turtles washed ashore in South Carolina in a 15-year period. In years when shrimping was under way, 44% fewer dead turtles turned up on shore when TEDs were in use than when they were not. TED use also reduced the rate of decline in the population of nesting females along South Carolina beaches and, according to the investigators, had the potential for allowing the loggerhead population to expand by a factor of 10 by the year 2055.

In a continuation of a long-term study on islands in The Bahamas, Thomas W. Schoener and David A. Spiller of the University of California, Davis, experimentally demonstrated the way in which introduction of a predator (an anole lizard) into a system can have devastating effects on the diversity and abundance of prey species (web spiders). The investigators ran a seven-year experiment in which they selected four groups of three islands each, one inhabited by lizards and two without lizards; all of the islands were inhabited by spider species. In each trio of islands, lizards were introduced onto one of the two lizard-free islands. Within two years the islands onto which lizards had been introduced were almost identical in spider diversity and abundance to those with natural lizard populations. The proportion of spider species becoming extinct on islands with introduced lizards was 12.6 times higher than on islands with no lizards, and most rare species disappeared. The study underscored the impact that predator introductions can have in some situations by severely threatening species composition and integrity of natural systems.

The order Rodentia traditionally has been divided on the basis of morphology into several suborders, one of which, Caviomorpha, includes such animals as chinchillas, degus, agoutis, porcupines, capybaras, and guinea pigs. On sequencing the complete genome, or genetic endowment, of the mitochondrion (a DNA-containing cell organelle) of the guinea pig (Cavia porcellus ) and using three distinct analytic methods, Anna Maria D’Erchia and Cecilia Saccone of the University of Bari, Italy, and colleagues provided evidence supporting an earlier contention that guinea pigs are in a separate phylogenetic line from the rodents. They concluded that guinea pigs should be placed in a new order of mammals distinct from Rodentia.

A new mammalian species from the Philippine rain forest was reported by Robert Kennedy of the Cincinnati (Ohio) Museum of Natural History & Planetarium and Pedro Gonzales of the National Museum of the Philippines. Named the Panay cloudrunner (Crateromys heaneyi ), the tree-dwelling, squirrellike rodent has soft brown fur, small ears and eyes, and a long black tail and weighs about 1 kg (2.2 lb).


Anne-Geneviève Bagnères of the Laboratory for Neurobiology-Chemical Communication, Marseille, France, and colleagues reported on the way in which one species of paper wasp, Polistes atrimandibularis, which is incapable of building a nest or producing a worker caste, persists as an obligatory social parasite on a related host species, P. biglumis bimaculatus. Social insects characteristically produce chemical signatures that enable colony members to recognize each another. Annually in late June a fertile parasitic P. atrimandibularis queen searches for the nest of her host species. At that time the chemical signatures of the two species differ, with the cuticle of the parasite producing a family of hydrocarbons distinctive from the composition of hydrocarbons produced by the host. On colonizing the nest, however, the parasite ceases producing the distinguishing hydrocarbons, and a month later her signature, based on gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, is indistinguishable from that of the host queen. For the remainder of the colonial cycle before the emergence of adult wasps and mating in late summer, P. biglumis bimaculatus workers feed and care for parasite offspring as they do the offspring of their own species. The study demonstrated the versatility of the parasite in adjusting its chemical signature at a critical time in its colonial cycle and supported the idea that, in addition to a simple role as an enclosure and a barrier, the cuticle of insects functions as a true gland.

Researchers used training techniques to explore the ability of honeybees to distinguish between symmetry and asymmetry, a critical skill for pollinators in that the symmetry of a flower may indicate its quality. Martin Giurfa, Birgit Eichmann, and Randolf Menzel of the Free University of Berlin presented bees with different stimuli designed to be distinguishable only on the basis of their bilateral symmetry or asymmetry. One group of bees was rewarded for selecting symmetrical patterns, the other for selecting asymmetrical ones. Afterward, both were presented with either symmetrical or asymmetrical patterns that they had not seen before. Individual performance was measured by means of a microphone apparatus, adjusted to detect the bee’s flight noise. The investigators recorded how often a bee chose the novel symmetrical or asymmetrical patterns, how close the bee went, and how long it hovered. The results indicated that bees could easily be taught to favour either symmetrical or asymmetrical patterns and could transfer that learning to patterns not seen before. Although bees could be trained to prefer symmetrical or asymmetrical patterns, they showed a predisposition for symmetrical ones. Previous studies had shown that bees are attracted to symmetrical shapes, but the new study demonstrated that they recognize symmetry as a property and respond to it on the basis of their experience.

Mary E.A. Whitehouse and Klaus Jaffe of Simón Bolívar University, Caracas, Venez., studied leaf-cutting ants of the species Atta laevigata to investigate two laws of combat strategy. The linear law proposes that a few good fighters are a better strategy than many poor fighters in a series of one-on-one conflicts. The square law holds that if all individuals are equally susceptible to attack, many poor fighters are better than a few good ones. During manipulative field experiments the investigators staged battles between ants from one colony and those of another or against vertebrate predators. The ants responded to vertebrate threats according to the linear law, by recruiting specialized soldier ants from their colony. On the other hand, their response to threats from other ant colonies followed the square law; they recruited large numbers of smaller individuals. Thus, leaf-cutting ants alter their mode of fighting according to the threat and follow the combat strategy law most effective for the situation.

This updates the article insect1.


Scientists regarded birds’ use of tools as mostly stereotyped and their manufacture of tools as involving only limited modification of material objects. In 1996 Gavin R. Hunt of Massey University, Palmerston North, N.Z., reported that to assist in capturing insect prey, New Caledonian crows make and use two different types of hook tools from twigs and one kind of stepped-cut tool from the barbed leaf of the pandanus tree. According to Hunt, these instances of tool manufacture by a bird species had three features new to tool use in nonhuman animals: a high degree of standardization, distinctly discrete tool types with a definite imposition of form in the shaping of the tool, and the use of hooks. During the course of human evolution, such features first appeared in stone and bone tool-using cultures only after the Lower Paleolithic Period (about 2.5 million to 200,000 years ago).

The foraging success and habits of pelagic (open-ocean) seabirds were largely unknown. Using satellite transmitters attached to the birds in conjunction with recorders for measuring feeding times and the weight of ingested food, researchers found that wandering albatrosses on foraging trips from the nest encountered prey on average every 4.4 hours and consumed 2.1 kg (4.6 lb) of food daily. Birds traveled as far as 3,600 km (2,200 mi) from the nest in search of scarce prey, mostly pelagic squid.

Ornithologists had long hypothesized that seagoing birds such as petrels use their sense of smell to find food in the open ocean. Research in the past year showed that petrels indeed can sniff out minute amounts of a telltale chemical released by plankton. Gabrielle Nevitt of the University of California, Davis, and Richard Veit and Peter Kareiva of the University of Washington staged a number of experiments in the waters around the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. They created small "slicks" of vegetable oil laced with small amounts of the compound dimethyl sulfide (DMS). Microscopic plants in plankton release DMS when consumed by small animals such as krill. Because petrels and their relatives eat such animals, the researchers reasoned that the birds might be able to detect DMS. In fact, DMS turned out to be highly attractive to several seabird species, including Wilson’s storm petrels, black-bellied storm petrels, and prions. As storm petrels and their allies often hunt by night, they would gain from their sensitivity to DMS. Furthermore, some areas of the open ocean, where plankton thrive, tend to have higher concentrations of DMS than others. Birds may be able to detect these chemical patterns and use them to help navigate over the otherwise featureless oceans.

Two fossil discoveries prompted paleontologists to rethink theories about the diversity of bird life in the age of the dinosaurs. The beautifully preserved bones of Vorona berivotrensis, a new, very primitive bird species unearthed in Madagascar, was the first specimen from the Mesozoic Era (245 million to 66 million years ago) to be found in a large portion of the ancient continent of Gondwana (mainly present-day South America, Africa, India, Australia, and Antarctica). It was also the first pre-Holocene bird (older than 10,000 years) found in Madagascar. The lower limb of the crow-sized fossil indicated a close relationship to the extinct Enantiornithes, the most common group of birds contemporary with the dinosaurs.

The second fossil, Eoalulavis hoyasi, from Spain, showed that birds had evolved their efficient, modern style of flight as early as 115 million years ago. According to Luis Chiappe of the American Museum of Natural History, New York City, who helped describe the Madagascan and Spanish fossils, "The diversity of early birds was much larger than we thought five years ago." E. hoyasi was about the size of a goldfinch. Its remains included a well-preserved wing with many feathers in their original positions and showed a crucial stage in the evolution of flight. It lived only about 30 million years after the first bird, Archaeopteryx, but already possessed the alula, or bastard wing, that allows modern birds to maneuver among trees.

This article updates bird.


The discovery of a species of marine animal that appeared to constitute an entirely new phylum was reported in the science journal Nature as the "zoological highlight of the decade." Two Danish investigators proposed that their newfound invertebrate species, Symbion pandora, be attributed to a new phylum, Cycliophora, related to the phyla Ectoprocta (Bryozoa) and Entoprocta. Symbion is an acoelomate metazoan--i.e., a multicellular animal lacking an internal fluid-filled body cavity. Its sessile stages were found abundantly on the mouthparts of the Norway lobster (Nephrops norvegicus), where they capture food being ingested by their host.

Vertical migration rhythms in plankton living in the open sea typically show a daily pattern. However, a U.K. study of newly hatched larvae of the shore crab Carcinus maenas demonstrated endogenous rhythms geared to the tides. Upward swimming during ebb tides evidently disperses the larvae offshore and thus prevents their premature stranding onshore in the intertidal area. In a Polish study two species of mid-water lantern fish from the Atlantic, Hygophum macrochir and H. taaningi, were shown to avoid vertical migration at night during the new moon lunar phase. The fish stayed in cold water below 400 m (1,300 ft) at new moon and did not, as during other lunar phases, rise to warmer surface waters at night. The lunar variations of vertical migration were found to be recorded in the animals’ otoliths, so-called ear stones used in maintaining balance. The microstructure of the otolith shows a pattern of daily growth rings, which varies according to the sea temperatures experienced by the fish. A similar record of carbon isotope ratios was detected in baleen plates taken from stranded southern right whales from South Africa. Changes of isotope ratios along the length of the plates provided the first direct evidence of seasonal migrations of the whales north and south of the Subtropical Convergence.

French and German researchers fitted five albatross of the species Diomedea exulans with miniature sea-temperature recorders and satellite transmitters and released the birds to forage over the Southern Ocean. During frequent pauses on the sea surface, the birds transmitted, via satellite to a tracking station, the sea-surface temperature where they rested. The technique could be useful for verifying the accuracy of satellite-measurement data and for obtaining data from remote areas when cloud cover precluded direct satellite measurement. Caulerpa taxifolia, a green alga with a circumpolar distribution, was observed for the first time in the Mediterranean Sea in 1984. During 1996 the alga was reported to occur in the Mediterranean over an area of 1,000-2,000 ha (2,500-5,000 ac) and to be spreading annually by a factor of 2-10.

The marine coccolithophore Emiliana huxleyi is a single-celled alga that undergoes massive blooms, or rapid population increases, worldwide. Researchers estimated that once the algal masses die off and sink, they transport 800 million tons of carbon as calcite (a form of calcium carbonate) and 500 million tons of carbon as organic compounds to the seabed each year, which confirms the major role of the blooms in regulating global ocean carbon flux. The blooms also emit into the atmosphere dimethyl sulfide, a greenhouse gas, which was shown by European researchers to derive from death of the algal cells following viral infection, which contributes to the termination of the blooms.

A laboratory study carried out in the U.S. showed that the tropical flatfish Bothus ocellatus can adjust its pigment patterns for camouflage purposes with surprising fidelity in two to eight seconds to blend with different backgrounds. It even was able to adapt to a black-and-white checkerboard pattern put into the laboratory tank. U.S. and Australian investigators marked coral-reef damselfish (Pomacentrus species) with fluorescent dyes and tiny, implanted, code-carrying tags, which for the first time allowed long-term recognition of individual reef fish in studies of immigration and emigration. Related studies around Apo Island in the central Philippines provided evidence of the emigration of adult fish from protected reserves to fished areas, justifying the establishment of reserves.

Larvae of vestimentiferans, gutless worms that live around deep-sea hydrothermal vents and cold seeps, were cultured and described for the first time. The larvae resemble trochophores, the free-swimming larvae characteristic of polychaete annelid worms, which places the vestimentiferans phylogenetically closer to that group than hitherto recognized. An investigator reported the first known case of eusociality in a marine invertebrate, analogous to the social behaviour of bees and termites. A sponge-dwelling shrimp, Synalpheus regalis, was found to live in colonies of more than 300 individuals. A single reproductive animal functions as a queen, while other members serve to protect the colony against intruders. (See Zoology, above.) Living specimens of the sea anemone Gerardia, obtained from a depth of 620 m (2,034 ft) off The Bahamas, were revealed by means of carbon-dating techniques to have been alive for 1,500-2,100 years.

This article updates crustacean; fish; mollusk.

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