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2022-08-21 21:20:05
On a leaf lying in a tropical forest in Peru, a dead fly looks like an alien creature, giving viewers a feeling of horror.
This somewhat grim scene was recorded by Roberto García-Roa, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Valencia (Spain), while conducting research at Tambopata National Reserve in southeastern Peru. The photo won this year’s BMC Evolution and Ecology photography competition.
The judges rated the photo as “impressive when portraying the intersection of life and death, strongly showing the evolution of creatures”, specifically here the death of the fly. and the spread of new spores of the “zombie” fungus.
The spores of the “zombie” fungus penetrated the fly long ago and “manipulated” it, forcing it to move to a location more favorable for fungal growth. Mushroom branches will then grow, slowly draining the fly’s life force, causing it to die and then penetrate outside, spreading new spores.
Although it is only the second year of its organization, the BMC Evolution and Ecology photography contest organized by the scientific magazine BMC Ecology and Evolution The organization attracted hundreds of thousands of entries from ecologists and evolutionary biologists around the world. All are eager to use their photographic creativity to highlight the wonders of nature, highlight the challenges facing our planet, and their research work.
With four competing categories: “Relationships in nature”, “Biodiversity at risk”, “Close-ups of life” and “Research work”, the competition produced a collection of Giant images capture the beauty of the natural world and the need to protect nature as human impact on the planet increases.
Take a look at some other impressive photos that won the contest:
Postdoctoral researcher Alwin Hardenbol (University of Eastern Finland) won the category “Relationships in nature”, with this photo of a bird Bombycilla garrulus foraging for berries. Bombycilla garrulus and rowan are closely related. Birds eat berries and disperse tree seeds. This interaction between plants and fruit is so strong that the bird Bombycilla garrulus will migrate wherever rowan is present.
The second prize in the category “Relationships in nature” is a photo by Alexander T. Baugh, a behavioral biologist at Swarthmore University (USA), depicting the relationship between predators and prey. Bats can detect and locate frogs by listening to their very low frequency calls to mates. Bats’ salivary glands can also neutralize toxins in the poison frog’s skin.
Researcher Samantha Kreling from the University of Washington (USA) won the category “Biodiversity under threat”. A herd of African elephants hides from the sun under a large Baobab tree as drought hits Mapungubwe National Park in South Africa. The trunk of the tree has many layers of bark torn off by the elephants who have shed their shells in search of water. Baobab trees can live up to 2,000 years in the arid deserts of southern Africa. They adapt to the harsh environment by storing water in the trunk. But recent studies show that these trees are being victims of climate change.
Lindsey Swierk, research assistant professor at Binghamton University (USA), won second prize in the category “Biodiversity under threat”. Normally, Rana sylvatica frogs will mate and lay eggs in the spring, when the ice has just melted. In recent years, the climate has unreasonably warmed in early spring in the Northeastern United States, causing them to breed earlier. The sad thing is that the ice seems to have melted but will still appear unexpectedly, causing these eggs to get stuck under the ice and unable to hatch into baby frogs.
The winner in the “Close-up to life” category is a photo of Brandon André Güell, a Costa Rican-American PhD student who is studying the developmental ecology and behavior of plants at Boston University, USA. . This photo captures frogs in the early stages of development in their eggs.
This photo by Cornell University biologist Jefferson Ribeiro Amaral won the “Research Activity” category. This photo shows two field researchers from the River and Stream Ecology Laboratory at Rio de State University. They are studying whether the presence of new plant species has any effect on the increase in frog populations and has a positive effect on the recycling of nutrients in the lake.
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