Category: <span>Scientific Papers</span>

Sticky stingless bees: tree resin collection and flower foraging

Social bees are important pollinators worldwide, including honeybees, bumblebees and stingless bees, the latter being particularly important in the tropics. Stingless bees do not only depend on pollen and nectar, but also intensively collect the sticky and potentially toxic resin from tree wounds. Obviously not for nutrition, but for nest …

Herpetological discoveries from understory to tree crowns

The diversity of life histories among amphibians and reptiles is astonishing. While some thrive and feed on fish in streams, others choose to conceal themselves in the hollows of tree canopies. In 2023, Reassembly’s herpetological team undertook several side projects. During their visit to Canandé, a team from MO Rödel’s lab …

Rapid species composition assessment by soundscapes

Sound recorders can successfully capture the remarkable diversity of vocalizing birds, frogs and mammals – much more effectively than other sampling techniques or classical observational methods. Jörg Müller and his team implemented sound recorders in 43 of our plots, then asked skilled experts to identify hundreds of species from selected …

The recovery of mutualistic interaction: opportunistic species as pioneers

The recovery of forest ecosystems relies on mutualistic interactions, particularly pollinators and seed-dispersers, or plant defenses by ants. A new modelling study on the succession and assembly of these interactions revealed an important role of non-obligate animal mutualists. Timo Metz performed computer simulations based on trait matching between mutualists, now …

Functional trait dynamics of ant communities

Theory predicts that environmental filtering determines species assemblages – and their reassembly dynamics in a changing habitat such as a recovering rainforest. This prediction can be tested by studying trajectories of functional trait and phylogenetic composition. Phil Hoenle and coauthors examined 13 morphological traits from a total of 284 ant …

Variation in a dung beetle: from forest to grassland

Species differ in their shape, morphology and function. But individuals within a species can be highly variable, too. Such variation likely results from responses to different environmetal conditions. Diego Marín-Armijos, Adolfo Chamba-Carrillo and Karen Pedersen (SP6) studied variation between individuals within a species, an Ecuadorian dung beetle. They compared individuals …

Bloody snakes: new observations on a puzzling behavior

Do you know what “autohaemorrhaging” means? It is a deliberate release or ejection of blood (also termed reflex bleeding), reported from some lizards and snakes as well as some insects. It is often interpreted as defensive behavior against predator attacks. But whether reflex bleeding as a defense really works, and …

Large, hairy & dirty: seed traits and burial by dung beetles

Dung beetles are important secondary seed dispersers of mammal-dispersed plants in tropical forests – in our study site and worldwide. Beetles often bury the seeds that are included inside dung piles into the ground – if they are not too large in relation to the beetle. Beetles clean large seeds …