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The idea of food chains and food webs in the animal kingdom is simple: Remove a link or thread, and the system is broken. But nature is complex, and it’s not always clear how the absence of one species may impact others. Other times, the connection is devastatingly clear. [Lea este comunicado de prensa en Español.]
YSE students are researching myriad ways these animals are impacting the landscape to fully understand their conservation value and the importance of their survival.
(Image credit: Shutterstock) That's the implication of a new study on same-sex behavior in animals. Instead of asking why animals engage in same-sex behavior (SSB), researchers should be asking, "Why not?" the authors said. If they're right, same-sex sex may not have evolved independently in different animals for adpative reasons. Instead, same-sex sex may have emerged very early in time and could persist simply because engaging in it doesn't cost animals much, evolutionarily speaking. "Usually, when evolutionary biologists see a trait that's really widespread across evolutionary lineages,...