ecosystem disruption – Page 19

Ohio statewide butterfly population trends of nine resident species with annual variation. Plotted are model predictions for each year based on the fixed effects of year (solid line) and annual random effects (dots) to show annual variation about the trend line. Shading shows 95 percent confidence intervals based on bootstrapped model fits in the poptrend package for the temporal trend and for the annual random effects. The first year’s estimate is set to a value of 1 as a baseline for relative population changes. Graphic: Wepprich, et al., 2019 / PLOS ONE

July 13, 2019

Decades-long butterfly study shows 33 percent population loss – “These declines in abundance are happening in common species”

By Steve Lundeberg 2 July 2019 CORVALLIS, Oregon (Oregon State University) – The most extensive and systematic insect monitoring program ever undertaken in North America shows that butterfly abundance in Ohio declined yearly by 2%, resulting in an overall 33% drop for the 21 years of the program. Though the study was limited to one […]

Total U.S. managed honey bee colonies loss estimates 2006-2019. For the entire survey period (1 April 2018 – 1 April 2019), beekeepers in the U.S. lost an estimated 40.7 percent of their managed honey bee colonies. This is similar to last year’s annual loss estimate of 40.1 percent, but slightly higher (2.9 percentage points) than the average annual rate of loss reported by beekeepers since 2010-11 (37.8 percent). Graphic: Bee Informed

July 10, 2019

Nearly 40 percent decline in honey bee population last winter “unsustainable” – Trump administration cuts funding for bee research

By Julia Jacobo 9 July 2019 (ABC News) – Scientists are researching the potential consequences of the rapid decline of the honey bee population in the U.S. and how to mitigate its effects before it causes dire problems for crop management and production. Honey bees are essential for the pollination of flowers, fruits and vegetables, and support about $20 […]

Satellite view of the proliferation of small dams in the Amazon rainforest, visible as “water mirrors”. Photo: Imazon / Sentinel 2

July 7, 2019

The silent proliferation of small dams in the Amazon rainforest

By Francy Nava 6 July 2019 (Imazon) – Recent land cover mapping in Amazonia has identified a considerable number of water mirrors in rural properties, indicating the presence of small dams supporting agricultural activities. In Sorriso-MT, for example, Arvor, et al., (2018) identified a five-fold increase in the number of dams (86 to 522) in […]

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) play in the trees, along the Yasuni river. Photo: Kimberley Brown / Mongabay

July 7, 2019

Heart of Ecuador’s Yasuni, home to uncontacted tribes, opens for oil drilling – “Their intentions are deceitful. What’s the real commitment the government is making to conserve this area?”

By Kimberley Brown 5 July 2019 QUITO, Ecuador (Mongabay) – Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park sits in a unique position on the equator, between the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, which has allowed a rich and distinct biodiversity to flourish. The region is surrounded by towering ceibo and mahogany trees, emblematic of the area, […]

Hurtigruten’s cruise ship MS Roald Amundsen is seen in the sea near Ulsteinvik, Norway, on 1 July 2019. The Roald Amundsen is the world’s first cruise ship propelled partially by battery power and is set to head out from northern Norway on its maiden voyage, cruise operator Hurtigruten said on Monday. The hybrid expedition cruise ship can take 500 passengers and is designed to sail in harsh climate waters. Named after the Norwegian explorer who navigated the Northwest Passage in 1903-1906 and was first to reach the South Pole in 1911, the ship heads for the Arctic from Tromsø this week and will sail the Northwest Passage to Alaska before heading south, reaching Antarctica in October 2019. Photo: Hurtigruten / Reuters

July 6, 2019

First hybrid electric cruise ship sails for the Arctic

By Victoria Klesty 1 July 2019 OSLO (Reuters) – The world’s first cruise ship propelled partially by battery power is set to head out from northern Norway on its maiden voyage, cruise operator Hurtigruten said on Monday. The hybrid expedition cruise ship, the Roald Amundsen, can take 500 passengers and is designed to sail in […]

Four major drivers of insect decline for each of the studied taxa according to reports in the literature. Graphic: Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys, 2019 / Biological Conservation

July 5, 2019

Insect apocalypse: German bug watchers sound alarm – “Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades”

By Daphne Rousseau 1 July 2019 (AFP) – For almost 30 years they passed as quirky eccentrics, diligently setting up their insect traps in the Rhine countryside to collect tens of millions of bugs and creepy crawlers. Now the group of German entomology enthusiasts can boast a world-class scientific treasure: evidence of what is described […]

Residents get water from a community well in Chennai after reservoirs for the city ran dry in June 2019. The bustling capital of Tamil Nadu state usually receives 825 million litres of water a day, but authorities are currently only able to supply 60 percent of that. With temperatures regularly hitting 40 degrees Celsius, reservoirs have run dry and other water sources are dwindling each day. Photo: Arun Sankar / AFP

July 1, 2019

Why India’s Chennai has run out of water

By Nityanand Jayaraman 1 July 2019 (BBC News) – As I write this, it has rained in Chennai – the first real welcome shower, but one that lasted only 30 minutes. But, still, that has been enough to flood the streets and stall traffic. The irony is that Chennai’s vulnerability to floods and its water […]

Deltoid spurge, shown here in 2005, is one of the endangered plants found only on pine rockland. The pine rockland found near Zoo Miami is the largest intact tract outside Everglades National Park. A 2015 study found 55 plant species in the tract, far more than botanists found in rockland in the park. Photo: Donna E. Natale Planas / Miami Herald

June 29, 2019

Activists lose last legal battle to protect rare Miami forest from Walmart development

By Adriana Brasileiro 19 June 2019 MIAMI (Miami Herald) – Activists fighting to preserve a slice of one of the world’s rarest forests lost what was likely the last legal battle to stop the imperiled ecosystem from turning into a Walmart-anchored development. One of the last remnants in Miami-Dade of pine rockland, a forest that […]

Free air CO2 enrichment experiments using native Australian forests. Elevated CO2 levels are used to examine the effects on native forests, animals, soils and grasses. Photo: Western Sydney University

June 24, 2019

Leaving microbes out of climate change conversation has major consequences, experts warn – “Climate change is literally starving ocean life”

By Ivy Shih 19 June 2019 (UNSW) – An international group of leading microbiologists have issued a warning, saying that not including microbes – the support system of the biosphere – in the climate change equation will have major negative flow-on effects. More than 30 microbiologists from 9 countries have issued a warning to humanity […]

Spatial patterns of projected biomass changes. Shown are global ensemble projections at a 1 × 1 degree resolution for (A, C, and E) RCP2.6 and (B, D, and F) RCP8.5. (A and B) Multimodel mean change (percent, n = 10) in total marine animal biomass in 2090–2099 relative to 1990–1999 without fishing. (C and D) Variability among different ecosystem model and ESM combinations expressed as 1 SD. (E and F) Model agreement (percent) on the direction of change. Graphic: Lotze, et al., 2019 / PNAS

June 13, 2019

Study projects substantial declines in large fish and marine species with warming oceans – “There are substantial consequences for marine ecosystems on a global scale”

By Alison Auld 11 June 2019 (Dal News) – Populations of large fish and other marine species will decline steadily if little is done to stem the effects of climate change, according to a study led by Dalhousie University researchers that shows how greenhouse gas emissions could cause widespread global stock losses and habitat shifts. […]

Desdemona Despair

Category: ecosystem disruption