FOR KIDS: Surprise visitor1

The orchid and this type of cricket seem made for each other. The orchid gives off its sweet smell at night, when the crickets are out — and can snack on the orchid’s delicious nectar. This cricket is particularly good at finding its way around every night, so it could easily find the orchids in the dark and remember where to find them later. “It was the right orchid and the right cricket,” Armbruster told Science News.

Armbruster notes that the word biodiversity usually refers to a list of all the different kinds, or species, of organisms that exist in a place — so the biodiversity of Réunion would include both the orchids and the crickets. He says that should change: “We tend to think of biodiversity in terms of lists of species, but it is actually lists of interactions”—meaning the relationships between different species like the orchid and the cricket.

The French word reunion means “meeting” — which seems fitting for this pair. The meeting of the cricket and the orchid may be a surprise, but it’s no surprise to scientists that different species are so strongly connected and depend on each other for survival.

NSF Director Arden Bement, Jr. says the 2011 budget “is designed very deliberately to keep the agency’s place at the forefront of science and engineering.”

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, an agency within the Department of Commerce, would see a 7.3 percent increase in funding, bringing it to a total funding level of $918.9 million.

Half of NIST’s laboratory budget increase is going into competitive manufacturing and construction for a clean energy economy. The focus on green manufacturing is in part because of its enormous job creation potential, says NIST Director Patrick Gallagher.

The budget also proposes $5.6 billion for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also part of the Department of Commerce. This would include $54 million for a national catch share program that aims to develop well-managed fisheries and $12.7 million for aquaculture. NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco noted that 84 percent of U.S. seafood is imported and about half of that comes from aquaculture. The budget designates $7.1 million for the Chesapeake Bay monitoring and restoration program.

The 2011 fiscal year starts October 1, 2010. Before then, Congress will have to decide which parts of the budget it will approve.

“The administration’s taken a pretty positive approach towards science and technology,” notes Teich. “We have to hope that Congress does the same thing.”