Articles written by Albert Burchsted
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Bola Spiders Lure and Eat Moths
Bola spiders release sex pheromones of moths to lure males. When one arrives, the spider swings a silk strand with a sticky ball on the end to capture the moth.
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Why Insects Migrate
Prior to the Pleistocene, animals had little need to migrate. Glaciation events and concurrent droughts forced insects (and others) to develop seasonal movements.
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Web Manipulation Explains Spider Behavior
Hungry spiders build webs with sticky fibers while sated spiders remove these insect traps. An elegant experiment demonstrates the value of this manipulation.
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One Spider's Method to Prevent Overeating
Some spider brains are hard wired to kill and eat prey when it is captured. Replacing sticky threads with non-sticky ones prevents overindulgence.
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Matricide and Infanticide in a Spider
Some baby spiders eat their mothers and second mates kill eggs of former mates. These behaviors carry severe penalties for the female while the babies and males benefit.
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Spiders Without Poison Glands
Having lost their poison glands, uloborid spiders wrap their living prey in a silk cocoon that smothers and sometimes crushes the prey to death.
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Neurology of Insect Migration and Navigation
Genetically wired into insect brains are seasonal clocks, innate compasses, and maps that help these tiny long-distance migrants travel.
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Newfound Understanding of Insect Migration
Migrating insects return to the same wintering locations while they fuel, rest, and use routes and flight patterns that are similar to those used by birds.
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A Fantastic Dragonfly Migration
Dragonflies leave India, fly across the Indian Ocean to Africa with the assistance of storms, and their great grandchildren may make the return journey to India.
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How to Avoid Tick Bites and Lyme Disease
Long, snowy winters and cool, rainy springs allow ticks to survive in high numbers. Thus, defensive prevention and tick checks are a must.
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Wasp and Bee Stings
Wasps and bees have stingers to fight off rivals, defend nests, and deter predators. The insects vary in willingness to sting and the venom varies in the pain produced.
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What Dragonflies Eat and What Eats Them
Both larval and adult dragonflies are preyed on. Unwary odonates are fair game as aquatic and flying predators enjoy dragonfly protein in their diets.
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Dragonfly Mating and Reproduction
Dragonflies and damselflies display unusual courtship. Eggs may be deposited underwater, drilled into mud, carved into stems, or dropped while in flight.
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Life Cycle of a Dragonfly
Dragonflies are ancient amphibious insects in the order Odonata. Their aquatic predatory larvae metamorphose into aerial predators with better agility than bats have.
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Dragonfly Surveys
Dragonflies and damselflies are counted all over the world. Distribution is uneven and depends on the presence of proper habitat and environmental factors.
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Beetles That Burrow and Tunnel
Whether carnivorous or herbivorous, many beetle larvae live invisibly inside plants or underground, sometime in numbers large enough to cause severe damage.
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Asian Tiger Mosquito, a Recent US Introduction
A once tropical mosquito is now well established in the US with the potential to initiate a devastating epidemic of viral, bacterial, or protozoan tropical diseases.
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Cowbirds - Nest Parasites of the US
Not being able to raise their own offspring, cowbirds are dependent on other birds to nurture their young. This poses problems for both hosts and cowbirds.
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Why Bird Parents Carry Feces From Nests
Removing feces from the nest helps keep the area clean and also reduces visibility of the nest to predators. Which of these is more important is discussed here.
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Thermoregulation in Insects
Most insects cannot fly until their body temperature approaches 100oF (38oC). Various behavioral and physiological methods of increasing temperature are used.
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Chemical Communication in Aphids
Scientists are busy identifying the myriad of molecules that regulate social, reproductive, and emergency interactions of aphids and associated animals.
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Ants Tightly Control Their Aphids
Although ants and aphids are known to share a mutually positive relationship, the ants keep their "cows" in line through behavioral and chemical constraints.
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Persistent Viral Infections of Aphids
Viral diseases that aphids transmit to plants are either persistent or last only a few days. The viruses of persistent infections permeate the entire body of the aphid.
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Aphids Transmit Plant Viruses
While a heavy infestation of aphids may deplete a plant's resources and kill it, a light scattering of aphids might transfer viruses that destroy an entire crop.
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Hazards to Aphids Living in Galls
Dangers and restrictions of gall living affect the dwellers. The ways in which aphids attempt to overcome these are highly evolved, yet are sometimes insurmountable.
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Unusual Lifestyles of Aphids
Although most are aerial, many aphids cause plants to produce galls, produce external camouflage, or even go underground and spend the winter in ant burrows.
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Galls Benefit Aphids
Living inside an overgrowth of plant tissue, some aphids are both hidden from predators and derive higher quality nourishment than do free-living aphids.
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How Aphids Reproduce
It seems aphids have two purposes in life: eat and reproduce. Though their feeding method is simple, their reproductive methods are highly varied and complex.
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Aphids and Ants
Although ants will eat anything, they show a different behavior to aphids: protecting them, milking them, and even carrying them onto new plants.
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Aphids Can Cause Serious Damage to Plants
Aphids pierce plant phloem cells and drink the sap. Their feeding method is wasteful. Sometimes they remove so many nutrients the plant withers and dies.
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Tests of Functions of Insect Metamorphosis
Insect metamorphosis reduces food competition. But there are other possible benefits of metamorphosis that may be essential for survival of these animals.
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Metamorphosis Reduces Competition in Insects
Metamorphosis enables insects to grow and reproduce. But there are several benefits of changing shape and function that may be essential for survival of these animals.
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Types of Insect Metamorphosis
Although all insects molt and change body shape through their life, some of them undergo only minor changes while most undergo extreme changes in structure and function.
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Control of Insect Metamorphosis
As insects grow, they molt several times, growing rapidly afterward. They often change body form and function under the influence of environmental parameters.
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Nature's Signs of Spring are Everywhere
When spring arrives in the northeast USA, the earliest signs are subtle but incontrovertible. The natural world is waking as the days get longer.
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Finding Florida Shorebirds in the Spring
Although many shorebirds winter in Florida, hundreds of thousands of additional birds stop to visit Florida beaches and waters in the spring on their northward migration.
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Observing Florida Shorebirds in the Spring
Bird behaviors are adaptations that enable them to feed, reproduce, and avoid predators. These, in concert with plumage characteristics provide the essentials to survive.
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Observing Florida Diurnal Raptors in the Spring
Raptors begin nesting in early spring. Knowing how to find them makes nest observation enjoyable. Be sure to stay a respectable distance from the nests, though.
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Finding Florida Diurnal Raptors in the Spring
Whereas some hawks and falcons can be found along many roadways and waterways in Florida, several raptors are found only in specific habitats.
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Observing Florida's Stork Relatives in Spring
Once found, understanding the behavior and spring plumage changes of limpkins, cranes, ibises, spoonbills, storks, and flamingos is rewarding.
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Finding Florida's Stork Relatives in the Spring
Limpkins, cranes, ibises, spoonbills, storks, and flamingos have specific habitat and food needs and may be difficult to locate. A successful search is its own reward.
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Florida Herons and Egrets in Spring
Some species of wading birds can be found along every roadway and waterway in Florida. A few have specific habitats in which they will be found.
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Birds in Southwest Florida Through the Seasons
From Tampa to Everglades City, bird watching is exciting and rewarding . This guide identifies hot spots, species to see, and suggests methods of moving through the area.
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Spring Tonic for Lakes and Ponds
Melt water in the spring transports oxygen deep into lakes and ponds, stirs up nutrients from the bottom, and removes carbon dioxide and built up metabolic wastes.
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Physics of Ice and Water
The molecular nature of water causes molecules to attract and repel each other and to form links between them. These features affect water's functional properties.
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Spattering Spring Salamanders
Vernal pools are essential for salamander breeding, providing food and shelter in the absence of predatory fish. If pools dry up, immature salamanders may die.
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Winter Chickadee Nesting
Roosting sites in winter can save a bird's life in many ways: hiding it from observation and predation, and providing warmth through the night.
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Simple Pipe Repair
A recent, readily available quick connector allows almost anyone to be able to make plumbing repairs and upgrades.
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Ice's Protective Properties
A change in physical state when water freezes causes the release of heat, insulates, and prevents pond organisms from freezing solid.
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Protecting Birds From Predation
When birds are attracted to feeders, raptors and cats often follow. By making changes near the feeders, predation can be reduced or eliminated.
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How to Tell the Oaks Apart
North American oaks separate naturally into two groups having many distinct characteristics described here.
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Merganser Feeding Frenzies
Although they are active foragers all times of the year, red-breasted mergansers congregate in winter to form frenetic feeding flocks.
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Raptors at Feeders
People who feed birds are upset to find hawks using bird feeders to capture prey. Birds at feeders are as important to the hawks as the seeds are to the smaller birds.
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The Ecology of Mast Cropping
The phenomenon of plants producing massive crops of seeds affects both wildlife and humans through a chain of changes in reproductive success.
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Where are All the Acorns?
Oaks across much of the US produced a bumper crop of acorns in 2007, but in 2008, there is a lack of acorns across most of the country.
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Winter Birds are Arriving in the Northeast
Seasonal variation in birds involves distributional, behavioral, and phenetic changes. These changes increase the enjoyment of birding.
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Winter's Butterfly
The mourningcloak butterfly has many features that allow it to fly in all seasons of the year. These features are activated by seasonal rhythms.
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Deceptive Squirrels
Gray squirrels dig several holes for each nut they store. When thieves steal nuts, squirrels increase the frequency of their deceptive actions.
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Insect Strategies for Winter Antifreeze
When winter comes, most insects die, but some can tolerate freezing temperatures by controlling where ice crystals form or using antifreezes.
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Raising Mantids From Egg
Although easy to hatch and educational to watch, young mantids are cannibals and must be kept separated.
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Mantid Femme Fatales
Most male mantids mate and live for another day because well fed females do not attack their mates.
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Praying Mantid Feeding
Mantids move slowly as they hunt, surprise their prey by suddenly striking, and eat at their leisure. Anything is fair game, even the female's mate.
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VlsE and Lyme Disease
VlsE is a protein that masks the presence of Borrelia from the immune system with variable regions that allow it to escape attack.
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Autumn Foliage Displays
Fall colors are furnished by increased carotenes and anthocyanins that regularly serve in photosynthesis. They play different roles in the autumn.
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Autumn Bird Songs
Spring is the season for birdsong, but in the middle of October, some birds sing almost any time of day or night. That they are out of season makes the songs more sweet.
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Lyme Disease Bill HR741 Moved to House Floor
A bill providing money for Lyme disease research, but buried by Pallone, was heatedly debated in the House of Representatives on Sept 27, 2008.
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What Ants Eat
Most ants are omnivorous, some specialize, and a few eat only a single species. Many relationships are mutualistic, and in a few, each species is dependent on the other.
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Slipper Shells
The shells of slipper shells are not their only unusual characteristic. They exhibit different feeding, locomotion, and reproductive behaviors from other snails.
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What is the Lyme Disease Rash?
The "typical" rash of Lyme disease does not always develop as a bull's-eye. It can take many forms or be absent altogether.
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Winter Birds in Phoenix
Conservation areas, farms, and parks provide necessary habitats for birds of farmlands, deserts, mountains, and even shorebirds.
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Birds Remember Locations of Food Caches
Some birds can hide thousands of seeds and go right to them five or six months later. This is important because their survival may depend on finding the seeds again.
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Squirrels Often Eat Pine Nuts and Maple Sap
Squirrels have many food plants. Closely related plants respond differently to squirrel feeding: Some are injured, others helped by the relationship.
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Animal Ecdysiasts
When insects, spiders, crabs, and snakes grow too large, they must shed their outer covering and make a new one to grow into.
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Spider Mating
When spiders mate, the male puts himself in a precarious position: His partner may decide to accept his love offering or kill and eat him.
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Cryogenic Bugsicles
Some insects spend the winter in a stage of frozen animation. To survive, they developed methods to prevent frost injury.
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The Orb Weavers
Orb weavers produce the webs that most people recognize as being made by spiders. All purpose webs are used for resting, mating, and capturing, eating, and storing food.
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The Northern Jacana In Costa Rica
Non-migratory tropical jacanas and migrant arctic shorebirds practice polyandry, a form of polygamy. Seasonal abundance of insects appears to drive this mating style.
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Monarch Migration
Monarch butterflies travel from Canada to Mexico for the winter. There are many dangers along migration routes, but enough survive to maintain the species.
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Defense Strategies Of The Black Swallowtail
Butterflies are eaten by many kinds of predators. The black swallowtail has defenses against several at different life stages, but these defenses are not perfect.
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Life Stages Of Butterflies
Butterflies have four life stages. These stages have entirely different functions: caterpillars feed and grow, chrysalids metamorphose, adults reproduce.
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Where To Find A Good Lyme Disease Doctor
Many people are improperly treated for Lyme disease and need to find a knowledgeable doctor. This is the place to start.
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Lyme Disease Treatment Based on Faulty Logic
One faulty study is the primary "scientific basis" of the Infectious Diseases Society of America's treatment guidelines for Lyme disease because it fits IDSA's thinking.
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Why Lyme DiseaseTreatment is Sometimes Refused
Treatment for chronic Lyme disease is often terminated because the physician has an incorrect understanding of the need for treatment.
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Incorrect Treatment For Lyme Disease
Once Lyme disease has passed its early stages, treatment becomes complex, but patients often receive minimal treatment and are told they are cured.
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Incorrect Diagnosis of Lyme Disease
The complexities of Lyme disease symptoms cause many misdiagnoses. Borrelia burgdorferi, escapes detection because the tests are not 100% reliabile.
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Lyme Disease and Humans
Borrelia burgdorferi exhibits complex activity when infecting people. If allowed to occur, these changes make it difficult to cure the disease.
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Lyme Disease Ticks and Spirochetes
The relationship between ticks and spirochetes is complex, and sometimes overwhelms the host's immune defenses.
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Lyme Disease and Ticks
There are difficulties diagnosing Lyme disease because early symptoms are confusing. The causative bacterium, and the tick that transmits it are well known.
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Lyme Disease Transmission
Ticks transmit Lyme disease bacteria. Here are some guidelines on removing ticks and preventing bites.
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The Wild Turkey
Turkeys were once rare in the Northeast. Hunting and habitat loss killed them, but they returned with reintroductions, restored forests, and high survival of offspring.
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