I have been really lazy for the past month or so and haven’t really been blogging, even though there have been some really cool science news stories and new papers published. In a half-hearted attempt to get back on the blogging horse, here are some links to a few interesting BBC science stories:
 
Positive news for the rare large heath butterfly: a population has been established after captive breeding and reintroduction!
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36865426
 
Amazonian droughts stop the vast rainforest being a carbon sink. Not great news for increased extreme weather events and climate changes… positive feedback loop?
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36856428
 
Cuckoo decline mapped for the first time:
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36837641
 
Honeyguides and humans ‘speak’ to each other! (although the babblers come to a whistle, so I’m not super surprised that this type of behaviour exists):
 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-36854465
 
Abstract and link to the paper in the last news story:
 
Spottiswoode et al (2016) Reciprocal signaling in honeyguide-human mutualism. Science, 353:387-389
Greater honeyguides (Indicator indicator) lead human honey-hunters to wild bees’ nests, in a rare example of a mutualistic foraging partnership between humans and free-living wild animals. We show experimentally that a specialized vocal sound made by Mozambican honey-hunters seeking bees’ nests elicits elevated cooperative behavior from honeyguides. The production of this sound increased the probability of being guided by a honeyguide from about 33 to 66% and the overall probability of thus finding a bees’ nest from 17 to 54%, as compared with other animal or human sounds of similar amplitude. These results provide experimental evidence that a wild animal in a natural setting responds adaptively to a human signal of cooperation.

​The common cuckoo is a regular feature of the European spring. Its melancholic call is a harbinger of warmer weather but also a reminder that local birds better beware. Many cuckoo species, but not all, are brood parasites. They lay their eggs in the nests of other bird species to be raised by the unsuspecting host parents. This behaviour is not a trait unique to cuckoos though: ducks, finches and wydahs also trick others into caring for their young.

Cuckoos have multiple adaptation to achieve their nefarious objective, from laying quickly to mimicking the appearance of hawks but their mimicry of their hosts eggs is spellbinding. Females of the common cuckoo typically lay eggs in the nest of only one host species, and so their eggs need to look like the other in the nest or they risk being thrown out of the nest. It appears that cuckoos fall into different ‘races’ and each one specialises in a single host. However, scientists are still unsure exactly how this system works.

One of the prevailing ideas about how cuckoo races work in that egg mimicry is passed down almost exclusively along the female line. This line of thought posits that males can mate indiscriminately and this won’t impact on the ability of females to mimic the eggs of their host species. This is theoretically possible because of the way sex is determined in birds. Unlike mammals, where males are the heterogametic sex (XY), in birds it is the female who possesses two different sex chromosomes (ZW) while males are homogametic (WW). If genes that specify egg patterning are on the Z chromosome then it doesn’t matter who the father is because the female offspring will still inherit the ability to deceive a specific host species.

However, male genes may still play a role in all of this. An alternative idea of how brood parasites maintain their host specificity comes from work carried out on the indigobird, which parasitizes the red-billed firefinch (Payne et al. 2000). In some cool aviary experiments, indigobirds wwere fostered by different host species and then the female offspring were given the choice of which species’ nest to lay in when they matured. Females chose the species that brought them up, so host species that brought them up, so host species is likely to be learned, but interestingly they also chose to mate with males who had been raised by the same host species. The reason for their choice is that males learn their song from their host species, and females exposed to that same song in the nest develop a preference for it. Now this is unlikely to be a direct analogue for how the races of common cuckoo are maintained but it has been shown that males in different habitats, where some host species are more common, have different songs but it remains to be seen if this is just an ecological adaptation or a true signal for female mate choice.
 
Currently we still don’t know exactly how it works, which is great because it mean that there is still a great reason to wonder around places like Wicken Fen and study these amazing birds!

As part of my job I have to read a newspaper every day. I check to see if there are any dodgy science stories, if there are any major misrepresentations of research and collect articles related to ongoing projects. Currently I'm on the Times, not as bad as the Telegraph and with less hype than the Daily Mail. In the last couple of weeks I've seen some stories about British wildlife that have made me sad and slightly despondent with the current state of our wildlife and how we treat it.

The first was reporting on the huge decline in the number of British hedgehogs. These lovable creatures, favourites among children's cartoons and Green Cross Code adverts, are an integral part of our culture. But they have suffered a huge decline from their number of around 30 million in the 1950's to less than a million today. They are declining at a rapid rate and Micheala Strachen has warned that they could be extinct within 10 years. However, the treasure of British children's wildlife TV is over blowing the reality of the situation. But just because they wont be extinct within a decade doesn't mean nothing should be done. The habitat of these nocturnal foragers has become highly fragmented, making it difficult for them to search for food. Decreasing pockets of habitat are never good for a species, as smaller areas can support fewer individuals and if dispersal is difficult it can lead to reduced genetic diversity. Smaller populations are also more vulnerable to stochastic events that can lead to local extinctions. All-in-all, not great.

But hopefully a bit of publicity will do the hedgehog some good. People don't tend to like it when cute, charismatic species are doing badly. With this one on our door step, it should be easy to encourage people to make the minor alterations to their gardens, such as cutting small holes in fences, that can de-fragment their habitat. But hedgehogs might be the victim of the perceived dullness of British nature, and people caring more about animals in distant corners of the globe than declining species like starlings and cuckoos that live within our shores. I'm a victim of this, I went of to South Africa to study exotic species rather than any one of the plethora of our native fauna. In South Africa everyone wants to study their native species and are intensely interested in their conservation, they take pride in their local biodiversity. This is starting here in the UK, with the growth of programmes like Spring and Autumn Watch, but we need to do more to educate and engage.

The second story was about badgers...oh the poor badgers. I wont write too much as I have written stuff about badgers before (and sadly not much has changed!). The Times ran two stories, one about DEFRA ignoring the British Veterinary Associations calls to stop the cull because it's not been shown to be an effective or humane way of killing bagders (LINK £). The second was an opinion piece by the Deputy President of the National Farmers Union, Minette Batters (LINK £). Ms Batters' piece argues that culling badgers is the same as culling any other species of animal, but this misses the point. Deer are culled because they damage vegetation and prevent the growth of trees, by culling deer there are less of them and so less damage is caused. The number of deer killed is probably (I'm not an expert on deer ecology, so this is with pinch of salt) highly correlated to the amount of damage caused to vegetation. Badger are a completely different kettle of fish. They are culled to reduce the spread of bovine TB, and a very extensive, long-term and well carried out study looked into the effect of culling badgers on the spread of TB. If you cull but not to a high enough level then you actually make the spread of bTB worse. All of the evidence that has been gathered points to this course of action being one that will not achieve its aim. So the argument put forward doesn't work: one type of culling we know works and the other we know doesn't.

The argument made by people like the NFU's deputy president assumes that the opposition to the badger cull is an emotive, bunny hugging, tree-hugging hippie one. It's not. It's one based on the science and evidence. All the major scientists have said that it won't work and have huge problems with the way the cull is being evaluated (no longer independent and with marksmen collecting their own data). I just hope that someone, somewhere in DEFRA decides to look at the evidence, because this course of action could make the problem of TB in cattle worse.

This is not so much science as a bit of fun. This morning in the Daily Mail, I read it because it's part of my job not out of choice, was an article about choosing the national bird of Britain. This is apparently the brain child of David Lindo, the Urban Birder. The Mail makes many references to the majestic birds that other nations have as their symbol, the bald eagle of the US and Zambia's African fish eagle. These sound impressive birds, but national birds aren't always great: South Africa has the blue crane, it's a nice enough bird to see when your driving through the Overberg but it's hardly imperious. But I digress.

Here is Liindo's top 10 list (in a random order decided by the Mail):

1. Mute Swan Cygnus olor - pretty, but I've seen them attack rowers and they're very scary.
2. Red Kite Milvus milvus - having grown up in Thame, Oxfordshire, these birds fill me with joy. Hearing their cry on a summers day and watching them swoop over the garden or ride a thermal makes me think of home. A strong contender from me.
3. Hen harrier Circus cyaneus - lovely bird, but I've never seen one. I'd personally swap them for peregrines in this list, but that's because they're one of my favourite birds.
4. Puffin Fratercula sp. - they're great, and watching them fly is awesome but for some reason to me they feel Scandinavian, no idea why!
5. Barn owl Tyto alba - eerily majestic, but as we had a resident in our 'gym' in the Kalahari they will always remind me of Africa not Britain.
6. Wren Troglodytidae sp. - cheerful and cheeky, always fun to watch, a bit to much of an LBJ for a national bird (LBJ = little brown jobbie)
7. Kingfisher Alcedo atthis - nothing quite like the flash of blue on a river bank, but they're the symbol of cheep Indian beer at curry houses!
8. Robin Erithacus rubecula - boom, my vote! Cheeky little robin in the garden or the park, singing his heart out and they're pretty tenacious too.
9. Blackbird Turdus merula - I love black birds, seeing them whizz across suburbia calling as they swoop into a bush - reminds me of home.
10. Blue tit Parus caeruleus - very pretty, but perhaps a bit too pretty for us Brits. Lots of good research has been done on them though!


But there is one bird that isn't on the list and you could argue, given it's cultural importance to the UK - it's in the first song in the English language* - it should be. The cuckoo Cucculus canorus. Bringing me onto the awesome book that I've just bought written by Nick Davies about cuckoos: Cuckoo - cheating by nature. So excited to read it!!

*
Sumer is icumen in,
Lhude sing cuccu,
Groweth sed, and bloweth med,
And springeth the wode nu,
Sing cuccu!

In the last week we have been helping Martyn with darting, outside our skull duties. He uses an air-pressured rifle to shoot the deer with darts, then once they have been knocked-out he marks them with ear flashes and cattle collars and then takes various morphometric measurements. It has been fun to help out and he even taught us how to use the gun. Becca is a dead-eyed shot, possible due to her Robin Hood heritage, hitting the bull from 15, 20 and 25 metres. It has been good fun to help out with work outside the skull measurements and see how work on large mammals is carried out. Marking deer is very different from meerkat captures or babbler ringing. We are also now able to ID at least a few deer: the one’s we helped mark!

We had a wander over to Harris, and on our way we spotted a peculiar South African rock formation. Right in the middle of Rum there is a group of mountains that look like Devil’s Peak, Table Mountain and Lions Head!! All together and even with a long low hill that resembles Signal Hill, I felt very home sick for the Mother City!

We have a new biggest skull: Samson, at 450ml and from some preliminary plotting of the data we have found, not very surprisingly, that skull length appears to be positively correlated with cranial volume. But there is a fairly large amount of variation, with some animals having very big volumes to their lengths. In addition, from looking at the data as we have been entering it in, individuals who are related seem to have a fairly similar volume: length ratio. We haven’t looked into this statistically but it’s just some anecdotal observation. So hopefully there may be some heritability, which Corina will hopefully be able to show (if it’s there).

On our walk down into the village this morning we also heard our first cuckoos of the year, so spring has arrived in Rum.

I have added a few pics from our wanderings, our office view and some long exposures that I have taken from the beach at Kilmory!