The cause of colony collapse disorder remains unknown, although some possible explanations for the loss of honey bee colonies can be ruled out.

In the past 25 years, a major revolution in agricultural practice and crop production has occurred. Genetically engineered crops with improved agronomic traits have made the transition from laboratory benches and greenhouses to fields all over the world, where they are being grown commercially. Genetic engineering technologies have evolved as a science and continue to provide the tools for making the crops of tomorrow. Armed with genomic information and nanotechnology, plant molecular biologists are redesigning molecular tool kits to engineer plants with more precision. This article describes the current major transformation methods, discusses their strengths and limitations, and focuses on a number of research areas that are likely to be used for producing the new generation of transgenic crops.

We present a new map depicting the first global biogeographic regionalization of Earth's freshwater systems. This map of freshwater ecoregions is based on the distributions and compositions of freshwater fish species and incorporates major ecological and evolutionary patterns. Covering virtually all freshwater habitats on Earth, this ecoregion map, together with associated species data, is a useful tool for underpinning global and regional conservation planning efforts (particularly to identify outstanding and imperiled freshwater systems); for serving as a logical framework for large-scale conservation strategies; and for providing a global-scale knowledge base for increasing freshwater biogeographic literacy. Preliminary data for fish species compiled by ecoregion reveal some previously unrecognized areas of high biodiversity, highlighting the benefit of looking at the world's freshwaters through a new framework.

Electric fish produce weak electric fields to image their world in darkness and to communicate with potential mates and rivals. Eavesdropping by electroreceptive predators exerts selective pressure on electric fish to shift their signals into less-detectable high-frequency spectral ranges. Hypopomid electric fish evolved a signal-cloaking strategy that reduces their detectability by predators in the lab (and thus presumably their risk of predation in the field). These fish produce broad-frequency electric fields close to the body, but the heterogeneous local fields merge over space to cancel the low-frequency spectrum at a distance. Mature males dynamically regulate this cloaking mechanism to enhance or suppress low-frequency energy. The mechanism underlying electric-field cloaking involves electrogenic cells that produce two independent action potentials. In a unique twist, these cells orient sodium and potassium currents in the same direction, potentially boosting their capabilities for current generation. Exploration of such evolutionary inventions could aid the design of biogenerators to power implantable medical devices, an ambition that would benefit from the complete genome sequence of a gymnotiform fish.

Garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) is a nonnative, shade-tolerant forb that was introduced into North America in the mid-1800s. Currently, garlic mustard is spreading across the landscape at a rate of 6400 square kilometers per year. In this article, we synthesize the current state of knowledge on the mechanisms underlying garlic mustard's widespread success and the ecological impacts of its invasion. Although no single mechanism appears to explain the success of garlic mustard, a combination of plant traits—all slightly different from those of native plants—seems to confer garlic mustard with tremendous success in the new habitats it invades. The domination of this new species in eastern forests is clearly changing the ecology of these systems. The consequences of garlic mustard invasion include the loss of biological diversity, ripple effects through higher trophic levels, and changes in the function of soil microbial communities.

Developing and transitional countries undergoing rapid economic development will face growing problems with biological invasions because international commerce will bring new invaders. We assessed the potential for plant invasions in China by comparing the country's current invasive flora with that of the United States, a nation of similar size and latitudinal span but with a different history of plant introductions. Invasive plant species richness in the United States is about twice as high as it is in China. The remarkably lower fraction of invasive woody plants in China suggests that more alien trees and shrubs could invade Chinese habitats. Road density correlated with invasive plant species density among geographical units, with numbers for China lower than those for the United States. The data suggest that China has been invaded less than the United States has, and that the potential for new plant invasions in China is high. Measures toward preventing biological invasions are needed and timely—steps taken now can prevent adverse impacts from future invasions.

Wavelet transforms (WTs) are finding increasing use in the discovery of the scale-specific properties of complex biological data. Although many efforts have been made to explain the main concepts of WT without advanced mathematics, the implicit reliance on digital signal processing terminology is widespread in many popular articles. This may cause some confusion for many biologists who do not have a clear understanding of the computational mechanisms and computer graphics of WTs. In this article we provide a tutorial on WTs for biologists by walking through two carefully selected examples step-by-step, using freely available software as well as a self-developed computer program. Both discrete WT and continuous WT are discussed, and detailed computational instructions, along with thorough interpretations of the computer outputs (or hand-calculated steps), are provided throughout. We conclude by offering a few directions for further study and several ideas on possible new developments in biological sciences using wavelets.

Behavioral research is increasingly a part of species conservation, yet the debate over its relevance to conservation continues. We use New Zealand—a world leader in conservation management—as a case study to illustrate the integration of behavior and conservation. Advanced through adaptive management, conceptual behavioral research has been critical to the recovery of many threatened New Zealand species, and the percentage of published research addressing behavioral questions while being applied to conservation has grown considerably in the last 16 years. Much of this research has been incorporated directly into recovery plans for threatened species. Examples range from the cross-fostering of endangered native birds to behavioral plasticity of native fauna in the face of invasive rodents, to mating systems and potential control measures for invasive species. Our case studies not only address major themes in behavior but also provide reason for optimism about the future of the fledgling field of conservation behavior.