Bird migration
Bird migration is the regular seasonal movement, often north and south along a flyway, between breeding and wintering grounds. Migration carries high costs in predation and mortality, including from hunting by humans and it occurs mainly in the northern hemisphere, where birds are funnelled on to specific routes by natural barriers such as the Mediterranean Sea or the Caribbean Sea. More recently, Johannes Leche began recording dates of arrivals of spring migrants in Finland in 1749, threats to migratory birds have grown with habitat destruction especially of stopover and wintering sites, as well as structures such as power lines and wind farms. The Arctic tern holds the long-distance migration record for birds, travelling between Arctic breeding grounds and the Antarctic each year, shorter migrations are common, including altitudinal migrations on mountains such as the Andes and Himalayas. The timing of migration seems to be controlled primarily by changes in day length, migrating birds navigate using celestial cues from the sun and stars, the earths magnetic field, and probably mental maps.
Records of bird migration were made as much as 3,000 years ago by the Ancient Greek writers Hesiod, Homer and Aristotle. The Bible notes migrations, as in the Book of Job, the author of Jeremiah wrote, Even the stork in the heavens knows its seasons, and the turtle dove, the swift and the crane keep the time of their arrival. Aristotle noted that cranes traveled from the steppes of Scythia to marshes at the headwaters of the Nile, pliny the Elder, in his Historia Naturalis, repeats Aristotles observations. Aristotle however suggested that swallows and other birds hibernated and this belief persisted as late as 1878, when Elliott Coues listed the titles of no less than 182 papers dealing with the hibernation of swallows. It was not until the end of the century that migration as an explanation for the winter disappearance of birds from northern climes was accepted. Bewick describes an experiment which succeeded in keeping alive in Britain for several years. He concludes, These experiments have since been confirmed by.
Migration is the seasonal movement, often north and south. Bird movements include those made in response to changes in food availability, sometimes, journeys are not termed true migration because they are irregular or in only one direction. Migration is marked by its annual seasonality, non-migratory birds are said to be resident or sedentary. Approximately 1800 of the worlds 10,000 bird species are long-distance migrants, many bird populations migrate long distances along a flyway. The most common pattern involves flying north in the spring to breed in the temperate or Arctic summer, of course, in the southern hemisphere the directions are reversed, but there is less land area in the far south to support long-distance migration. The primary motivation for migration appears to be food, for example, the longer days of the northern summer provide extended time for breeding birds to feed their young
Hepatic tanager
The hepatic tanager is a medium-sized American songbird. Formerly placed in the family, it and other members of its genus are now classified in the cardinal family. The speciess plumage and vocalizations are similar to members of the cardinal family. The common name hepatic means liver-coloured, brownish-red, the specific name flāva is Latin for yellow or golden. The habits of the hepatic tanager are similar to those of the western tanager and it ranges from the southwestern United States to northern Argentina. Its brightest color is always on its forehead and throat, in all plumages, it has gray flanks, dusky cheeks, and a dark eye streak. The female is yellow, and the male is red and its average weight is 38 g. Its average wingspan is 31.8 cm and length is 20.3 cm and its call is a low, dry chup like the hermit thrush. Its song is clearer than Thraupidae tanagers and far more similar to the song of the black-headed grosbeak, the flight call is a husky and rising weet. It looks for food in the foliage of trees, moving slowly and methodically, in summer, the northern form largely eats insects and some fruit.
In Mexico, it has observed to eat nectar. From Oaxaca south, it follows swarms of army ants, even the northern populations behavior and life history are remarkably little known. Hepatic tanager Species Account – Cornell Lab of Ornithology Hepatic tanager Stamps from Paraguay at bird-stamps. org Hepatic tanager photo gallery at VIREO Lowland hepatic tanager media. Hepatic tanager species account at NeotropicalBirds Interactive range map of Piranga flava at IUCN Red List maps Audio recordings of Red tanager on Xeno-canto
International Union for Conservation of Nature
The International Union for Conservation of Nature is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. It is involved in gathering and analysis, field projects, lobbying. IUCNs mission is to influence and assist societies throughout the world to conserve nature and to ensure that any use of resources is equitable. Over the past decades, IUCN has widened its focus beyond conservation ecology and now incorporates issues related to equality, poverty alleviation. Unlike other international NGOs, IUCN does not itself aim to mobilize the public in support of nature conservation and it tries to influence the actions of governments and other stakeholders by providing information and advice, and through lobbying and partnerships. The organization is best known to the public for compiling and publishing the IUCN Red List. IUCN has a membership of over 1200 governmental and non-governmental organizations, some 11,000 scientists and experts participate in the work of IUCN commissions on a voluntary basis.
It employs approximately 1000 full-time staff in more than 60 countries and its headquarters are in Gland, Switzerland. IUCN has observer and consultative status at the United Nations, and plays a role in the implementation of several conventions on nature conservation. It was involved in establishing the World Wide Fund for Nature, in the past, IUCN has been criticized for placing the interests of nature over those of indigenous peoples. In recent years, its relations with the business sector have caused controversy. It was previously called the International Union for Protection of Nature, establishment In 1947, the Swiss League for the Protection of Nature organised an international conference on the protection of nature in Brunnen. It is considered to be the first government-organized non-governmental organization, the initiative to set up the new organisation came from UNESCO and especially from its first Director General, the British biologist Julian Huxley. At the time of its founding IUPN was the international organisation focusing on the entire spectrum of nature conservation Early years.
Its secretariat was located in Brussels and its first work program focused on saving species and habitats and applying knowledge, advancing education, promoting international agreements and promoting conservation. Providing a solid base for conservation action was the heart of all activities. IUPN and UNESCO were closely associated and they jointly organized the 1949 Conference on Protection of Nature. In preparation for this conference a list of endangered species was drawn up for the first time
Central America
Central America is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. Central America is bordered by Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east, Central America consists of seven countries, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. The combined population of Central America is between 41,739,000 and 42,688,190, Central America is a part of the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from northern Guatemala through to central Panama. Due to the presence of several active faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc. Volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur frequently, these disasters have resulted in the loss of many lives. In the Pre-Columbian era, Central America was inhabited by the peoples of Mesoamerica to the north and west. Soon after Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish began to colonize the Americas, the seven states finally became independent autonomous states, beginning with Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, followed by El Salvador and finally Belize.
Middle America is usually thought to comprise Mexico to the north of the 7 states of Central America as well as Colombia, usually the whole of the Caribbean to the north-east and sometimes the Guyanas are included. According to one source, the term Central America was used as a synonym for Middle America as recently as 1962, in Brazil, Central America comprises all countries between Mexico and Colombia, including those in the Caribbean. Mexico, in whole or in part, is included by British people. For the people living in the 5 countries formerly part of the Federal Republic of Central America there is a distinction between the Spanish language terms América Central and Centroamérica, in the Pre-Columbian era, the northern areas of Central America were inhabited by the indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica. Most notable among these were the Mayans, who had built numerous cities throughout the region, and the Aztecs, following Christopher Columbuss voyages to the Americas, the Spanish sent many expeditions to the region, and they began their conquest of Maya territory in 1523.
Soon after the conquest of the Aztec Empire, Spanish conquistador Pedro de Alvarado commenced the conquest of northern Central America for the Spanish Empire. Beginning with his arrival in Soconusco in 1523, Alvarados forces systematically conquered and subjugated most of the major Maya kingdoms, including the Kiche, Tzutujil and the Kaqchikel. By 1528, the conquest of Guatemala was nearly complete, with only the Petén Basin remaining outside the Spanish sphere of influence, the last independent Maya kingdoms – the Kowoj and the Itza people – were finally defeated in 1697, as part of the Spanish conquest of Petén. In 1538, Spain established the Real Audiencia of Panama, which had jurisdiction over all land from the Strait of Magellan to the Gulf of Fonseca. This entity was dissolved in 1543, and most of the territory within Central America fell under the jurisdiction of the Audiencia Real de Guatemala. This area included the current territories of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras and the Mexican state of Chiapas, the president of the Audiencia, which had its seat in Antigua Guatemala, was the governor of the entire area
Annonaceae
The Annonaceae are a family, the custard apple family, of flowering plants consisting of trees, shrubs, or rarely lianas. With 108 accepted genera and about 2400 known species, it is the largest family in the Magnoliales, several genera produce edible fruit, most notably Annona, Asimina and Uvaria. The family is concentrated in the tropics, with few species found in temperate regions, about 900 species are Neotropical,450 are Afrotropical, and the other species Indomalayan. The species are tropical, some are mid-latitude, deciduous or evergreen trees and shrubs, with some lianas, with aromatic bark, leaves. Stems and leaves Bark is fibrous and aromatic, leaves are alternate, two-ranked, pinnately veined, and have leaf stalks. Flowers Flower stalks are axillary to leaf scars on old wood, the flowers are usually trimerous, borne singly or in compound inflorescences and rarely unisexual. The receptacle might become enlarged, elevated or flat, the outer whorls are inserted below the ovaries, and have valvate or imbricate segments.
Usually two to four persistent sepals that are distinct or connate at the base, each flower can have from one to many pistils, distinct to connate, with stigmas distinct. Marginal placentation, each bearing one locule, with one to many ovules. Style short and thick, with terminal stigma and seeds Fruits are single berries or coalesce from several pistils. Seeds are one to many per pistil, have a fleshy and inter-familial systematics have been well supported for Annonaceae by a combination of morphological and molecular evidence. The APG II system places Annonaceae as most closely related to the small Magnoliid family Eupomatiaceae, in a phylogeny-based reclassification of the family four subfamilies are recognised, Ambavioideae and Malmeoideae. A number of the genera, including Guatteria, with its 177 species, Annona. Together and Malmeoideae comprise the majority of the species, keys for the identification of Annonaceae genera are presented in. For a concise overview of the taxonomic literature see.
Both plastid DNA markers and morphological characters provide evidence that Anaxagorea is the clade to the rest of the family. The names of many of those fruits are used interchangeably. Recently, consumption of the neotropical annonaceous plant Annona muricata has been associated as a causal agent in atypical Parkinsonism
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 600 extant species of oaks, the common name oak appears in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus, as well as in those of unrelated species such as Grevillea robusta and the Casuarinaceae. North America contains the largest number of oak species, with approximately 90 occurring in the United States, the second greatest center of oak diversity is China, which contains approximately 100 species. Oaks have spirally arranged leaves, with lobate margins in many species, the acorns contain tannic acid, as do the leaves, which helps to guard from fungi and insects. Many deciduous species are marcescent, not dropping dead leaves until spring, in spring, a single oak tree produces both male flowers and small female flowers. The fruit is a nut called an acorn, borne in a structure known as a cupule, each acorn contains one seed and takes 6–18 months to mature. The live oaks are distinguished for being evergreen, but are not actually a distinct group, the oak tree is a flowering plant.
Oaks may be divided into two genera and a number of sections, The genus Quercus is divided into the following sections, the white oaks of Europe and North America. Styles are short, acorns mature in 6 months and taste sweet or slightly bitter, the leaves mostly lack a bristle on their lobe tips, which are usually rounded. The type species is Quercus robur, Hungarian oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia. Styles long, acorns mature in about 6 months and taste bitter, the section Mesobalanus is closely related to section Quercus and sometimes included in it. Cerris, the Turkey oak and its relatives of Europe and Asia, styles long, acorn mature in 18 months and taste very bitter. The inside of the shell is hairless. Its leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip. Protobalanus, the live oak and its relatives, in southwest United States. Styles short, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter, the inside of the acorn shell appears woolly. Leaves typically have sharp tips, with bristles at the lobe tip.
Lobatae, the red oaks of North America, Central America, styles long, acorns mature in 18 months and taste very bitter
10th edition of Systema Naturae
The 10th edition of Systema Naturae is a book written by Carl Linnaeus and published in two volumes in 1758 and 1759, which marks the starting point of zoological nomenclature. In it, Linnaeus introduced binomial nomenclature for animals, something he had already done for plants in his 1753 publication of Species Plantarum, before 1758, most biological catalogues had used polynomial names for the taxa included, including earlier editions of Systema Naturae. The first work to consistently apply binomial nomenclature across the kingdom was the 10th edition of Systema Naturae. Names published before that date are unavailable, even if they would otherwise satisfy the rules, during Linnaeus lifetime, Systema Naturae was under continuous revision. The Animal Kingdom, Animals enjoy sensation by means of an organization, animated by a medullary substance, perception by nerves. They have members for the different purposes of life, organs for their different senses and they all originate from an egg.
Their external and internal structure, their anatomy, instincts. The list has been broken down into the six classes Linnaeus described for animals, Aves, Pisces, Insecta. These classes were created by studying the internal anatomy, as seen in his key. Warm, red blood Viviparous, Mammalia Oviparous, Aves Heart with 1 auricle,1 ventricle, red blood Lungs voluntary, Amphibia External gills, Pisces Heart with 1 auricle,0 ventricles. Linnaeus described mammals as, Animals that suckle their young by means of lactiferous teats, in external and internal structure they resemble man, most of them are quadrupeds, and with man, their natural enemy, inhabit the surface of the Earth. The largest, though fewest in number, inhabit the ocean and they are areal, vocal and light, and destitute of external ears, teeth, womb, epiglottis, corpus callosum and its arch, and diaphragm. They breathe by means of gills, which are united by a bony arch, swim by means of radiate fins. Many of them are without a head, and most of them without feet.
They are principally distinguished by their tentacles, by the Ancients they were not improperly called imperfect animals, as being destitute of ears, head and legs, and are therefore totally distinct from Insects. In addition to repeating the species he had listed in his Species Plantarum. The species from Species Plantarum were numbered sequentially, while the new species were labelled with letters, new plant species described in the 10th edition of Systema Naturae include, The original 1758 Systema Naturae Linnaeus 1758 Classification of Animals on the Taxonomicon
Wasp
A wasp is any insect of the order Hymenoptera and suborder Apocrita that is neither a bee nor an ant. The Apocrita have an evolutionary ancestor and form a clade, wasps as a group do not form a clade. The most commonly known wasps, such as jackets and hornets, are in the family Vespidae and are eusocial, living together in a nest with an egg-laying queen. Eusociality is favoured by the unusual system of sex determination in Hymenoptera. However, the majority of species are solitary, with each adult female living and breeding independently. Many of the wasps are parasitoidal, meaning that they raise their young by laying eggs on or in other insects. Unlike true parasites, the larvae eventually kill their hosts. Solitary wasps parasitize almost every pest insect, making wasps valuable in horticulture for biological pest control of such as whitefly in tomatoes. Wasps first appeared in the record in the Jurassic. They are a successful and diverse group of insects with tens of thousands of described species, the largest social wasp is the Asian giant hornet, at up to 5 centimetres in length, among the largest solitary wasps is the giant scoliid of Indonesia, Megascolia procer.
Some are predators, whether to feed themselves or to provision their nests, notably the cuckoo wasps, are kleptoparasites, laying eggs in the nests of other wasps. The name Wasp has been used for warships and other military equipment. The wasps are a paraphyletic grouping of hundreds of thousands of species, consisting of the narrow-waisted Apocrita without the ants. The Hymenoptera contain the somewhat wasplike but unwaisted Symphyta, the sawflies, Hymenoptera in the form of Symphyta first appeared in the fossil record in the Lower Triassic. Apocrita, wasps in the sense, appeared in the Jurassic. Fig wasps with modern features first appeared in the Lower Cretaceous of the Crato Formation in Brazil. The Vespidae include the extinct genus Palaeovespa, seven species of which are known from the Eocene rocks of the Florissant fossil beds of Colorado, found in Baltic amber are crown wasps of the genus Electrostephanus. Wasps are a group, estimated at over a hundred thousand described species around the world
Wikispecies
Wikispecies is a wiki-based online project supported by the Wikimedia Foundation. Its aim is to create a free content catalogue of all species. Jimmy Wales stated that editors are not required to fax in their degrees, Wikispecies is available under the GNU Free Documentation License and CC BY-SA3.0. Benedikt Mandl co-ordinated the efforts of people who are interested in getting involved with the project. Databases were evaluated and the administrators contacted, some of them have agreed on providing their data for Wikispecies, the board of directors of the Wikimedia Foundation voted by 4 to 0 in favor of the establishment of a Wikispecies. The project was launched in August 2004 and is hosted at species. wikimedia. org and it was officially merged to a sister project of Wikimedia Foundation on September 14,2004. On October 10,2006, the project exceeded 75,000 articles, on May 20,2007, the project exceeded 100,000 articles with a total of 5,495 registered users. On September 8,2008, the project exceeded 150,000 articles with a total of 9,224 registered users, on October 23,2011, the project reached 300,000 articles.
On June 16,2014, the project reached 400,000 articles, on January 7,2017, the project reached 500,000 articles. Wikispecies has disabled local upload and asks users to use images from Wikimedia Commons, Wikispecies does not allow the use of content that does not conform to a free license
Wikidata
Wikidata is a collaboratively edited knowledge base operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is intended to provide a source of data which can be used by Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia. This is similar to the way Wikimedia Commons provides storage for files and access to those files for all Wikimedia projects. Wikidata is powered by the software Wikibase, Wikidata is a document-oriented database, focused on items. Each item represents a topic and is identified by a number, prefixed with the letter Q—for example. This enables the basic information required to identify the topic the item covers to be translated without favouring any language, information is added to items by creating statements. Statements take the form of pairs, with each statement consisting of a property. The creation of the project was funded by donations from the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, at this time, only the first phase was available. Historically, a Wikipedia article would include a list of links, being links to articles on the same topic in other editions of Wikipedia.
Initially, Wikidata was a repository of interlanguage links. No Wikipedia language editions were able to access Wikidata, so they needed to continue to maintain their own lists of interlanguage links, on 14 January 2013, the Hungarian Wikipedia became the first to enable the provision of interlanguage links via Wikidata. This functionality was extended to the Hebrew and Italian Wikipedias on 30 January, to the English Wikipedia on 13 February, on 23 September 2013, phase 1 went live on Wikimedia Commons. The first aspects of the second phase were deployed on 4 February 2013, the values were initially limited to two data types, with more data types to follow later. The first new type, was deployed on 6 March, the ability of the various language editions of Wikipedia to access data added to Wikidata as part of phase two was rolled out progressively between 27 March and 25 April 2013. On 16 September 2015, Wikidata began allowing so-called arbitrary access, for example, in the past the article about Berlin you could not access data about Germany, but with arbitrary access it could.
On 27 April 2016 arbitrary access was activated on Wikimedia Commons, phase 3 will involve database querying and the creation of lists based on data stored on Wikidata. As of October 2016 two tools for querying Wikidata were available, AutoList and PetScan, additionally to a public SPARQL endpoint, there is concern that the project is being influenced by lobbying companies, PR professionals and search engine optimizers. As of December 2015, according to Wikimedia statistics, half of the information in Wikidata is unsourced, another 30% is labeled as having come from Wikipedia, but with no indication as to which article
Southern United States
The Southern United States, commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South, is a region of the United States of America. The South does not fully match the geographic south of the United States and New Mexico, which are geographically in the southern part of the country, are rarely considered part, while West Virginia, which separated from Virginia in 1863, commonly is. Some scholars have proposed definitions of the South that do not coincide neatly with state boundaries, while the states of Delaware and Maryland, as well as the District of Columbia permitted slavery prior to the start of the Civil War, they remained with the Union. However, the United States Census Bureau puts them in the South, the South is defined as including the southeastern and south-central United States. The region is known for its culture and history, having developed its own customs, musical styles, and cuisines, the Southern ethnic heritage is diverse and includes strong European and some Native American components.
Since the late 1960s, black people have many offices in Southern states, especially in the coastal states of Virginia. Historically, the South relied heavily on agriculture, and was rural until after 1945. It has since become more industrialized and urban and has attracted national and international migrants, the American South is now among the fastest-growing areas in the United States. Houston is the largest city in the Southern United States, sociological research indicates that Southern collective identity stems from political and cultural distinctiveness from the rest of the United States. The region contains almost all of the Bible Belt, an area of high Protestant church attendance and predominantly conservative, studies have shown that Southerners are more conservative than non-Southerners in several areas, including religion, international relations and race relations. Apart from its climate, the experience in the South increasingly resembles the rest of the nation. The arrival of millions of Northerners and millions of Hispanics meant the introduction of cultural values, the process has worked both ways, with aspects of Southern culture spreading throughout a greater portion of the rest of the United States in a process termed Southernization.
The question of how to define the subregions in the South has been the focus of research for nearly a century, as defined by the United States Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes sixteen states. As of 2010, an estimated 114,555,744 people, or thirty-seven percent of all U. S. residents, lived in the South, the nations most populous region. Other terms related to the South include, The Old South, the New South, usually including the South Atlantic States. The Solid South, region largely controlled by the Democratic Party from 1877 to 1964, before that, blacks were elected to national office and many to local office through the 1880s, Populist-Republican coalitions gained victories for Fusionist candidates for governors in the 1890s. Includes at least all the 11 former Confederate States, Southeastern United States, usually including the Carolinas, the Virginias, Kentucky, Alabama and Florida. The Deep South, various definitions, usually including Louisiana, Mississippi, occasionally, parts of adjoining states are included
Cardinal (bird)
Cardinals, in the family Cardinalidae, are passerine birds found in North and South America. They are known as cardinal-grosbeaks and cardinal-buntings, the South American cardinals in the genus Paroaria are placed in another family, the Thraupidae. They are robust, seed-eating birds with strong bills, the family ranges in size from the 12-cm,11. 5-g orange-breasted bunting and up to the 25-cm, 85-g black-headed saltator. They are typically associated with open woodland, the sexes usually have distinctive appearances. The northern cardinal type species was named by colonists for the red crest. The North American buntings are known as such to distinguish them from buntings of the Old World family Emberizidae, the name cardinal-grosbeak can apply to the Cardinalid family as a whole. Most species are rated by the IUCN as being of least concern, a study conducted in 2016 in Atlanta, Georgia on West Nile virus transmission in the United States, found that unlike other species, cardinals biologically suppress the disease upon infection.
Defining a monophyletic Cardinalini, A molecular perspective
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