BioBriefs

Ancient hatchling reveals secrets of bird evolution

An international team of paleontologists has unearthed a bird fossil in the Spanish Pyrenees that
has proved to be the earliest known avian hatchling, dating back 135 million years. Luis Chiappe,
one of the team members and a paleornithologist with the American Museum of Natural History
in New York City, says that the hatchling, no more than four inches long, is probably a new species.
The hatchling is particularly important because its skull and neck are "so well preserved that even
tiny details can be observed," says Ghiappe, who with his colleagues reported on the fossil in the
6 June 1997 Science. Although the creature's wings are modern in their proportions, its skull is
almost fully reptilian. The brain is small for an avian species, and the skull bones, like those of
reptiles, are thicker than those typical of birds. The jaws bore at least nine reptile-like teeth. The
contrast in the primitive nature of the skull and the modern aspect of the wings reinforces a
paleontological hypothesis that the development of flight took precendence over other evolution-
ary changes in early birds. For a discussion of current ideas on bird origins, see "In quest of the
origin of birds" on page 481 of this issue of BioScience.

Silicon and plants: the lost connection

For more than 130 years, plant physiologists conducting experiments on plant growth and nutrition
have grown test specimens in various standardized liquid media. But, according to Emanuel
Epstein, a University of California-Davis plant physiologist, those media may lack an important
element and, as a result, yield skewed experimental results in some cases. The element is silicon, the
second-most abundant element in soil. Studies including those at Davis by Epstein, M. M. Rafi, and
R. H, Ealk indicate that silicon makes up to 10% of the dry matter in some plants, a figure equal
to or higher than those for such macronutrients as phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, and magnesium,
Silicon absorbed by plants is deposited in and strengthens cell walls, says Epstein, making plants
more resistant to insect attack, diseases, and lodging (leaning or falling of stems). Moreover, some
plants, such as rice and sugarcane, are often more productive when silicon is added to their
substrate. In an upcoming article in the Journai of Plant Physiology, Epstein and his colleagues
suggest that the "130-year-old practice of growing experimental plants in [silicon-free] solution
culture should be reconsidered," particularly in work involving plants such as rice and other cereals.

The student technique at Monterey Bay

A long-term research project at California's Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary has shown
how human activity is affecting biodiversity along a portion of the Pacific Coast and, at the same
time, has demonstrated how the wise application of student time and energy can lead to good
science. John Pearse and William Doyle, both professors emeritus at the University of California-
Santa Cruz, carried out a two-year research project in the 1970s in which they trained individual
graduate and undergraduate students to become expert in the identification of 20 to 30 species that
live at selected study sites along the rocky coast of Santa Gruz and San Mateo counties, part of the
marine sanctuary. Now, 25 years later, Pearse has repeated the study over another two-year
period. The surveys have identified more than 700 species at the study sites, although not all of
the species occur at all of the sites. Only approximately half of the species catalogued in the 1970s
still occur at the sites, but nevertheless the number of species found is the same now as it was in
the 1970s. This increase may represent an influx of species or better survey techniques, Pearse says.
The important trend of the past 25 years is a persistence in biodiversity despite increased human
recreational use of the study-site shores. "These communities are quite resilient to human use and
trampling," says Pearse, who attributes the the study's success to the students' willingness to learn
how to identify species.

552 BioScience Vol 47 No. 8