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Sustainable
eNews |
October 2002 |
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IWMC
World Conservation Trust |
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Scientists: Suckers
for Cuteness?
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IF YOU PUT A PANDA ON YOUR WILDLIFE conservation
brochure you are far more likely to raise money than if you use a clam or
an insect." So says Alan Clark, a zoologist at the University of
Washington, citing a recent review of some 32,000 articles on conservation
research revealing a tremendous bias in the types of animals studied by
scientists. The cuter and furrier the critter, the more likely it is to
receive attention from the scientific community.
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WHO DO YA LOVE?
The panda or the Deli Sands flower-loving fly?
Guess which one gets more attention from scientists. |
Invertebrates tend to be at the bottom of
the food chain—and at the bottom of the list when it comes to research
and conservation efforts. In the 1990s, state and federal research agencies
charged with saving endangered species spent an average of $1.1 million a
year for each protected bird, $684,000 for each mammal, and only $44,000
for each invertebrate. Though researchers have been aware of the
discrepancy for some time, Clark says there has been little or no
improvement over the last 15 years—which is alarming when you consider
that invertebrates make up nearly 80 percent of known species.
The solution, says Jeff Baumgartner, who directs the
Developing Strategies Group of the Nature Conservancy, may well be an
approach called "conservation by design, which essentially means
preserving entire ecosystems, rather than individual species. 
— Rob Barnet
(Source: Popular Science October 2002)
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A
Cute One!
Female Lions like Dark Manes
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On the Serengeti Plain, the lady lion prefers a
swain with a black mane.
That's the finding of a study analyzing how the dense collar of hair
about the neck of male lions affects the love life of Africa's biggest cat.
Peyton M. West, a researcher at the University of Minnesota, said it's
the mane color, not the length, that matters most to the female lions of
Tanzania.
"We were completely surprised by this:, said Wet, first author of
the study appearing in the journal Science, August 2002.
West said the female lions may instinctively be drawn to the black manes
because males with darker manes seem superior in a number of ways.
"A dark mane is apparently a marker the female uses to evaluate the
fitness of a male", she said. This suggests that lions' manes evolved
over time through sexual selection, said West.
Dark-maned male lions generally have a higher level of testosterone
"which means they are more aggressive fighters", said West, and
this can be key to raising cubs successfully.
An aggressive male is more able to chase away invading bachelors who try
to take over the pride, said West. This is important because if there is a
change in male leadership of a pride, the new dominant male routinely kills
all the young cubs sired by the deposed male. Thus, by choosing to mate
dark-maned, aggressive males, a female lion gives her young a better chance
of surviving, the researcher said.
West said that records collected for decades by scientists observing
lions in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park show that male lions with dark
manes are more likely to recover from wounds. She said it is not clear why
this is so.
She noted that dark manes seem to intimidate other male lions, which
means a lion with a black collar of hair has to fight less often and
therefore has fewer injuries.
West and her co-author, Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota,
investigated the effects of mane color with life-sized models of lions near
where the animals lived in the Serengeti. She said they found that female
lions, when given a choice, would try to seduce the models that had the
darker mane, ignoring those with blond hair.
(Source: St. Petersburg
Times, 23 August 2002)
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