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The image of tropical forests as harsh environments devoid of large human populations has held sway in Western minds for centuries. Since the 1980s, researchers began to learn how these landscapes have been transformed by Indigenous peoples, who developed diverse forest-based food production systems. How did these apparently natural forests come to be dominated by plant species so closely associated with humans? Perhaps ancient societies decided to settle where forests were already abundant in food and medicine, or maybe they were the ones who enriched their homes ([ 1 ][1]–[ 5 ][2]) but it is probably a bit of both.
These intriguing questions have given rise to a “chicken or egg” dilemma: Which came first in tropical forests abundant food resources or domestication? Plant domestication is the process by which people of different cultures select, accumulate, care for, and disperse plant individuals, causing changes in the traits under selection ([ 6 ][3]). When applied to landsc
Screenshots and collages by Harvard Magazine
And now the pandemic has forced another tradition, nearly sacrosanct, to yield, at least slightly. Harvard has always insisted that honorary-degree recipients be present on campus to receive their accolades (none were conferred last year). But given this second consecutive online ceremony, those recognitions and conferrals will proceed remotely too.
During the May 27 proceedings, “Honoring the Harvard Class of 2021” (as the graduation is being called, since the classes of 2020 and 2021 have been promised a future in-person
Commencement), scheduled to begin at 10:30 a.m., Harvard plans to confer honorary degrees on four women and three men. Ordinarily, the principal speaker of the day would receive an honorary degree as well, but this year’s guest, Ruth J. Simmons, Ph.D. ’73, LL.D. ’02 president emerita of Smith College and Brown University, now president of Prairie View A&M already has one (“Opening minds, opening door
Frogs are one of the most remarkable examples of metamorphosis in the animal kingdom, transferring from little wriggly (sometimes carnivorous) tadpoles into four-legged hopping adults of all shapes and sizes. Identifying which tadpoles belong to which frog species from appearances alone can therefore be difficult – but by monitoring sites where known frog species are depositing their eggs, we can fill in this gap. For a research project in Brazil studying the Paranapiacaba Treefrog, however, this method proved tricky, as it became apparent that the tadpoles were disappearing from their birth pools (so to speak) before completing their development. So, where do they go?
Credit: Leo R. Malagoli
Paranapiacaba Treefrogs (
Bokermannohyla astartea) mate and lay spawn in small pools of water inside the tanks of bromeliad plants, Leo Ramos Malagoli from the Universidade Estadual Paulista in Brazil and colleagues report in the open-access journal
PLOS ONE. The 3cm-long tadpoles must then make their way to a stream to complete development. The study, publishing February 17, is the first to report this unusual reproductive strategy in frogs.
The researchers spent 11 years collecting data on the courtship behaviours, mating, spawning, and tadpole development in this little-known species, which is endemic to the Atlantic Forests of Brazil. They observed Paranapiacaba Treefrog males calling from bromeliad ponds (known as leaf-tanks ) located on the banks of streams. Females mated with males inside the leaf-tanks and laid their spawn there, but the researchers found that the tadpoles did not complete their entire development in the tanks. Tadpoles at or bey