By SANDRA BLAKESLEE24 December 2012 LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico (The New York Times) — Everywhere, trees are dying. The boreal forests of Canada and Russia are being devoured by beetles. Drought-tolerant pines are disappearing in Greece. In North Africa, Atlas cedars are shriveling. Wet and dry tropical forests in Asia are collapsing. Australian eucalyptus […]
ABSTRACT: The world’s coral reefs are being degraded, and the need to reduce local pressures to offset the effects of increasing global pressures is now widely recognized. This study investigates the spatial and temporal dynamics of coral cover, identifies the main drivers of coral mortality, and quantifies the rates of potential recovery of the Great […]
By Miguel Llanos, NBC News1 October 2012 Calling it the most extensive review of how coral on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is faring, scientists on Monday reported some alarming news: The amount of coral covering reefs there has been cut in half since 1985 and will likely continue to decline unless steps are taken to […]
Los Angeles California, 20 August 2012 (SPX) – Coral Reefs, the Journal of the International Society for Reef Studies, has published online a study co-written by Dr. Gordon Hendler of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) about an invasive species of brittle star, Ophiothela mirabilis. The species was previously restricted to Pacific […]
By Mark Strassmann13 August 2012 DULAC, Louisiana – Shrimping season opened Monday off Louisiana and fishermen can’t get over what they’re now finding in their nets. Some say the coastline is under invasion. The giant invaders are valuable, but may be destroying the Gulf ecosystem. From Texas to North Carolina, fishermen have been catching giant […]
Mountain pine beetle (MPB) is an insect native to the forests of western North America and is also known as the Black Hills beetle or the Rocky Mountain pine beetle. MPB primarily develop in pines such as lodgepole, ponderosa, Scotch and limber pines, and less commonly affect bristlecone and piñon pines. Symptoms of Infestation Popcorn-shaped […]
Colorado forest before beetle infestation, September 2005 Colorado forest after beetle infestation, September 2011 Caption by Adam Voiland, with information from Thomas Veblen and Bill Romme28 July 2012 A single pine bark beetle is about the size of a grain of rice. But when the beetle population swells, it can have a major impact […]
25 June 2012 (Insurance Journal) – Lloyd’s has published a roundup of the environmental issues inherent in as the world grows warmer. The recently concluded Rio +20 Conference was an attempt – 20 years after the first conference – “to try to reach agreement on sustainable growth, controlling world emissions and managing the growing impact […]
[It’s been awhile since Desdemona has had an update on this story; here are previous posts on the Asian carp invasion.] By Dan Egan of the Journal Sentinel18 June 2012 While it’s been nearly two years since crews landed the only live Asian carp specimen above an electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship […]
By Sophie Quinton, staff reporter (politics) for National Journal15 June 2012 DILLON, Colorado – Dan Gibbs keeps dead beetles in the back of his beat-up Chevy Silverado. He has a wooden block with beetles impaled on it, each insect about the size of a grain of rice. He’s got vials of embalmed beetles and their […]
