France’s bird population collapses due to pesticides – “The situation is catastrophic. Our countryside is in the process of becoming a veritable desert.”

20 March 2018 (AFP) –  Bird populations across the French countryside have fallen by a third over the last decade and a half, researchers have said. Dozens of species have seen their numbers decline, in some cases by two-thirds, the scientists said in a pair of studies – one national in scope and the other […]

Arctic spring starts 16 days earlier than a decade ago and arrives sooner than lower latitudes

By Kat Kerlin 2 March 2018 (UC Davis) – Spring is arriving earlier, but how much earlier? The answer depends on where on Earth you find yourself, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis.The study, published in Nature’s online journal Scientific Reports, found that for every 10 degrees north from the […]

How human coping mechanisms for global warming are impacting endangered animals

By Jennifer Fabiano 21 February 2018 (AccuWeather) – While most are familiar with the impact of climate change and rising temperatures on animals such as polar bears, few are aware of one of the biggest threats to endangered animals: the climate change coping mechanisms initiated by humans. A serious, mostly unknown impact of climate change […]

Everything must go: our relentless consumption is trashing the planet

By George Monbiot 22 November 2017(The Guardian) – Everyone wants everything – how is that going to work? The promise of economic growth is that the poor can live like the rich and the rich can live like the oligarchs. But already we are bursting through the physical limits of the planet that sustains us. […]

“Decimated”: Germany’s birds disappear as insect abundance plummets 76 percent

By Morgan Erickson-Davis 27 October 2017 (Mongabay) – A new study in PLOS ONE reveals a 76 percent reduction in Germany’s flying insect biomass over the past 27 years while another reports the country’s bird abundance has declined 15 percent in just over a decade. While the causes behind the insect decline haven’t yet been […]

Temporal distribution of insect biomass at selected locations in nature protection areas in Germany, 1989-2016. (A) Daily biomass (mean ±1 se) across 26 locations sampled in multiple years (see S4 Fig for seasonal distributions). (B) Distribution of mean annual rate of decline as estimated based on plot specific log-linear models (annual trend coefficient = −0.053, sd = 0.002, i.e. 5.2% annual decline). Graphic: Hallmann, et al., 2017 / PLOS ONE

Three-quarters of the total insect population lost in protected nature reserves – “Whatever the causal factors responsible for the decline, they have a far more devastating effect on total insect biomass than has been appreciated previously”

18 October 2017 (IWWR) – Since 1989, in 63 nature reserves in Germany the total biomass of flying insects has decreased by more than 75 percent. This decrease has long been suspected but has turned out to be more severe than previously thought. Ecologists from Radboud University together with German and English colleagues published these […]

Much of the world’s honey now contains bee-harming pesticides – “On the global scale, the contamination is really striking … traces of the chemicals showed up even in honey from remote islands with very little agriculture”

By Laurel Hamers 5 October 2017(Science News) – Neonicotinoid pesticides are turning up in honey on every continent with honeybees.The first global honey survey testing for these controversial nicotine-derived pesticides shows just how widely honeybees are exposed to the chemicals, which have been shown to affect the health of bees and other insects. Three out […]

The world’s parasites are going extinct – Here’s why that’s a bad thing

By Ben Panko 7 September 2017 (Smithsonian) – What if the world’s parasites suddenly went extinct? Given how much work we’ve put into combating malaria-carrying mosquitoes and horrifying Guinea worms, it sounds like a reason for celebration. But think twice: Actually, losing these much-despised mooches, bloodsuckers and freeloaders could have disastrous consequences for the environment […]

The great nutrient collapse – “We are witnessing the greatest injection of carbohydrates into the biosphere in human history – an injection that dilutes other nutrients in our food supply”

By Helena Bottemiller Evich 13 September 2017 (Politico) – Irakli Loladze is a mathematician by training, but he was in a biology lab when he encountered the puzzle that would change his life. It was in 1998, and Loladze was studying for his Ph.D. at Arizona State University. Against a backdrop of glass containers glowing […]

National Butterfly Center issues plea for help against imminent destruction for Trump border fence

20 July 2017 (National Butterfly Center) – The surveyor’s stakes marking the 150 ft “clearing zone” for Trump’s Border Fence appeared at the National Butterfly Center in Mission, TX, on Thursday, 20 July 2017, along with a work crew with chainsaws and heavy equipment.  When Marianna Trevino Wright, executive director of the nonprofit center confronted […]

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