Weird science: top conservation studies of 2009

As 2009 has passed us by, we profile some of the interesting, unique, and downright bizarre studies that have come out in the past year in the world of conservation science (and related disciplines). Since we just started the site in July, we may have missed some studies from the first half of the year that merit making the list. Feel free to tell us about any worthwhile studies that we omitted. Thanks and Happy New Year!

1) Twisted duck penis

So at is it turns out, there is a downside for male ducks having a corkscrew shaped penis. Females have vaginas that spiral in the opposite direction thwarting unwanted copulation. Scientists from Yale studied the muscovy ducks' explosive phallus (their terminology, not mine) which can go from flaccid to erect in a ½ second. To test the hypothesis that females have developed their uniquely shaped genitalia to exert control over who fertilizes them, scientists brought male ducks into the lab and had them mount glass tubes of different shapes. The authors write, " A straight tube or a tube that spirals in the same counter-clockwise direction as the male penis doesn't slow down the eversion process. But glass tubes that mimic the female vaginal shapes with a clockwise spiral or a sharp bend can completely stop the penis from everting. These results suggest females have evolved anatomical mechanisms to impede forced copulation."

Brennan, P., Clark, C., & Prum, R. (2009). Explosive eversion and functional morphology of the duck penis supports sexual conflict in waterfowl genitalia Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.2139

2) Evolution in robots

Further evidence that we have unknowingly passed into an Orwellian age, scientists look at the evolution of animal communication by studying an arena of foraging robots that compete for food. The robots emitted blue light and used floor sensors to locate the food and avoid poison. The scientists set up a system of experimental evolution which they ran on the successful robots' artificial genomes after each competition. Over the course of generations this led to natural selection in favor of robots that could suppress blue light emissions to conceal information from competitors about the location of the food. Scientists believe that this phenomenon helps explain the diversity of communicative strategies among species in the wild. Sounds innocent enough, until we're beaming Kyle Reese back in time to stop this study from being published.

Mitri, S., Floreano, D., & Keller, L. (2009). The evolution of information suppression in communicating robots with conflicting interests Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (37), 15786-15790 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0903152106

3) Wrestling with bighorn sheep

It takes guts to enter a pen and get thrashed by an animal just to further our understanding of wildlife biology. Researchers from Canada published a study on their experiences wrestling with bighorn sheep. They wanted to determine the animals' personality types and see how they affect life history traits such as reproductive success. It turns out dominant sheep live longer and are more likely to mate later in life. The findings likely came with some bruisings for the scientists. Researcher David Coltman mentions, "We were filled with dread when one ram we nicknamed 'Psycho' turned up in a trap. Year in and year out Psycho's reaction was the same. He tried to kill us."

RÉALE, D., MARTIN, J., COLTMAN, D., POISSANT, J., & FESTA-BIANCHET, M. (2009). Male personality, life-history strategies and reproductive success in a promiscuous mammal Journal of Evolutionary Biology, 22 (8), 1599-1607 DOI: 10.1111/j.1420-9101.2009.01781.x

4) Anything in the journal Extremophiles

Etremophiles are the organisms that thrive in the planet's most insane environments like deep-sea thermal vents or the microscopic cracks within a grain of rock. So if you ever have the urge to read a study about the microbes that live happily in a pool of smoldering heavy metals, this is the journal you want to pick up. Of course, this is microbiology at it's most intense, so you'll probably need to read this with a mental machete to cut your way through the thicket of jargon. But what else are you going to do on a Saturday afternoon when you're painfully, hungover?

5) Hurt yourself to hurt your enemy

Scientists from Austria describe a bizarre defense mechanism in the Spanish ribbed newt (Pleurodeles waltl) in the Journal of Zoology. When faced with predators, the newt will rotate its body up to 65 degrees causing its sharply pointed ribs to lacerate its torso and project freely from its trunk like spines. Here's a piece of trivia you can whip out at cocktail parties, the Spanish ribbed newt is also famous for having been studied in space on at least 6 missions! What a lucky newt.

Heiss, E., Natchev, N., Salaberger, D., Gumpenberger, M., Rabanser, A., & Weisgram, J. (2009). Hurt yourself to hurt your enemy: new insights on the function of the bizarre antipredator mechanism in the salamandrid Journal of Zoology DOI: 10.1111/j.1469-7998.2009.00631.x

6) Fruit bats dig oral sex

Well, now we can add short nosed fruit bats (Cynopterus sphinx) to the growing list of species that partake in oral sex. Researchers from China found that females bats prolong copulation time by performing fellatio on their male counterparts. The scientists are not entirely sure why the bats engage in the sinful behavior though they hypothesize that it may increase the chance of fertilization.

Tan, M., Jones, G., Zhu, G., Ye, J., Hong, T., Zhou, S., Zhang, S., & Zhang, L. (2009). Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time PLoS ONE, 4 (10) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0007595

7) Black bear break-ins

If you were a hungry (or pissed off) black bear, what type of car would you target in Yosemite National Park? Wildlife biologists were wondering that very question. They looked at bear break-in records and found that the animals favored the minivan. The researchers speculate that families driving in minivans are sloppy eaters. Personally, if I were a black bear, I would sleep all day and spend my nights trashing every hummer that I came upon.

Breck, S., Lance, N., & Seher, V. (2009). Selective Foraging for Anthropogenic Resources by Black Bears: Minivans in Yosemite National Park Journal of Mammalogy, 90 (5), 1041-1044 DOI: 10.1644/08-MAMM-A-056.1

8) Puncture resistance of gloves for handling bats

When I first read the title of this study, I imagined the authors coercing their first-year grad students into being the subjects. "OK Timmy, we're going to start you off with the wool mittens." However, reading the article, I was relieved (disappointed) to find out that the authors did not use grad students as subjects, or even a real bat for that matter. Instead they used a machine press that replicated a bat bite. Oh yeah, and if you're in the market for bat handling gloves, I would definitely stay away from cotton, plastic coated, or synthetic fabric and go for the split leather or deer skin.

Freeman, P., & Lemen, C. (2009). Puncture-Resistance of Gloves for Handling Bats Journal of Wildlife Management, 73 (7), 1251-1254 DOI: 10.2193/2008-295

9) Training a dog's nose for wolf scat

Measuring the abundance of carnivorous wildlife like wolves has historically meant capturing and tagging animals, which can be expensive, difficult, and invasive. A lower budget method involves ongoing collection of scat and doing genetic testing to differentiate between individuals. Then there's the super low budget method in which you skip the genetic testing all together and instead use dogs trained in wolf scat sniffing…or at least that's the hope of this study. The researchers found that trained dogs could correctly match 25 out of 28 scat samples from six captive maned wolves (Chrysocyon brachyurus) which means the technique has promise for measuring animal abundance in the wild.

Wasser, S., Smith, H., Madden, L., Marks, N., & Vynne, C. (2009). Scent-Matching Dogs Determine Number of Unique Individuals From Scat Journal of Wildlife Management, 73 (7), 1233-1240 DOI: 10.2193/2008-530