ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Ancient cycads found to be pre-adapted to grow in groves
• Epic ocean voyages of coral larvae revealed
• The Vikings were not the first colonizers of the Faroe Islands
• Divers willingness to pay for biodiversity could help conservation efforts
• Dams destabilize river food webs: Lessons from the Grand Canyon
• Unscrambling the genetics of the chicken's 'blue' egg

Ancient cycads found to be pre-adapted to grow in groves Posted: 20 Aug 2013 03:58 PM PDT Cycads been around since before the age of the dinosaurs. Cycads living today have large, heavy seeds that suggests they rely on large fruit-eating animals to disperse their seeds. Yet there is little evidence that they are eaten and dispersed by today's larger-bodied animals, such as elephants. If these plants are adapted for dispersal by animals that have been missing from Earth's fauna for tens of thousands of years, how are they still around today?

Epic ocean voyages of coral larvae revealed Posted: 20 Aug 2013 10:50 AM PDT A computer simulation has revealed the epic, ocean-spanning journeys traveled by millimeter-sized coral larvae through the world's seas. The model is the first to recreate the oceanic paths along which corals disperse globally, and will eventually aid predictions of how coral reef distributions may shift with climate change.

The Vikings were not the first colonizers of the Faroe Islands Posted: 20 Aug 2013 07:25 AM PDT The Faroe Islands were colonized much earlier than previously believed, and it wasn't by the Vikings, according to new research.

Divers willingness to pay for biodiversity could help conservation efforts Posted: 20 Aug 2013 06:46 AM PDT New research shows divers were willing to pay to improve the reef's attributes and were able to differentiate and rank their preferences of biodiversity, numbers of fish and corals, coral species richness, fish species richness, coral size, coral abundance, and fish abundance. Respondents ranked biodiversity as the most desirable value, while fish abundance was the least important.

Dams destabilize river food webs: Lessons from the Grand Canyon Posted: 20 Aug 2013 06:46 AM PDT Managing fish in human-altered rivers is a challenge because their food webs are sensitive to environmental disturbance. So reports a new study based on an exhaustive three-year analysis of the Colorado River in Glen and Grand Canyons.

Unscrambling the genetics of the chicken's 'blue' egg Posted: 20 Aug 2013 05:36 AM PDT Researchers have unscrambled the genetic mutation that gives the distinctive blue eggs laid by some breeds of chickens.

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