A record number of fires tore through Peru over the past few weeks, wreaking havoc across the country’s ecosystems as grasslands, dry forests, coastal areas, and the Amazon were set ablaze. In northern Peru, spectacled bears fled burning dry forests to nearby towns where some were shot by frightened residents. Jaguars in the southern Amazon, with nowhere to flee, were left charred on trees. Grasslands and wetlands that play a key role in storing water were left in ashes. “The rainforest is usually impervious to fire,” said Paul Rosolie, a conservationist and founder of JungleKeepers, an NGO that patrols and preserves the Amazon in Peru, adding that they’ve seen burned turtles, snakes, birds, and jaguars after recent patrols. “The forest is their world, so when you burn it, they die....
Read MoreTag: ecosystem
A bag of Cheetos gets dropped and left on the floor. Seems inconsequential, right? Hardly. Rangers at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in southern New Mexico, US describe it as a “world-changing” event for the tiny microbes and insects that call this specialized subterranean environment home. The bag could have been there a day or two or maybe just hours, but those salty morsels of processed corn made soft by thick humidity triggered the growth of mold on the cavern floor and on nearby cave formations. “To the ecosystem of the cave it had a huge impact,” the park noted in a social media post, explaining that cave crickets, mites, spiders and flies soon organized to eat and disperse the foreign mess, essentially spreading the contamination. The bright orange bag was spotted o...
Read MoreAfter two years of extensive research and studies, Anantara Kihavah Maldives Villas is launching the ‘Wonders of Kihavah,’ - a ground-breaking research-based publication unveiling the breath-taking beauty and rich biodiversity of the island’s renowned house reef. This is the first time a resort in the Maldives has undertaken such an extensive reef assessment and scientific research-based study. The publication, combining a scientific approach, compelling narrative, and stunning visuals, showcases the enchanting underwater world of Anantara Kihavah's pristine marine ecosystem which was recently crowned as the Best House Reef in the Maldives in the 2023 Travel + Leisure Luxury Awards Southeast Asia. The study, led by Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Director, Dr. Selina Wa...
Read MoreWhen you visit Bali, you won't come across a cockatoo, but if you venture to the nearby island of Lombok, you will spot one. A similar situation applies to marsupials: Australia harbors a variety of marsupial species like kangaroos and koalas. However, as you head westward, their presence diminishes. While Sulawesi, an Indonesian island, is home to only two representatives of these distinctively Australian mammals, you'll be disappointed in your search for them on neighboring Borneo. On the other hand, Australia doesn't host mammals that are typically found in Asia, such as bears, tigers, or rhinos. The striking shift in the animal population's composition in this region was noted by the renowned British naturalist Alfred Russell Wallace, who not only co-discovered the theory of evolut...
Read MoreStudy examining habitats across centuries reveals an urgent need for sustainable land-use and conservation strategies to avoid dangers for wildlife and human communities More than 3 million square kilometers of the Asian elephant’s historic habitat range has been lost in just three centuries, a new report from an international scientific team led by a University of California San Diego researcher reveals. This dramatic decline may underlie present-day conflicts between elephants and people, the authors argue. Developing new insights from a unique data set that models land-use change over 13 centuries, a research team led by new UC San Diego faculty member Shermin de Silva found that habitats suitable for Asian elephants have been cut by nearly two-thirds within the past 300 years....
Read MoreMarine scientists’ letter in the journal Science urges preservation of one of the last coral refuges from climate change An international group of marine scientists led by Karine Kleinhaus, of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), has published a letter in Science that is a call to action for policy makers, government agencies and ocean conservation groups to take major steps to preserve Egypt’s 1800 km of coral reefs– a massive section of the Red Sea’s reef system. Egypt’s reefs generate billions of dollars annually from tourism and tourism-related commerce. The reefs of the northern Red Sea are especially valuable as they constitute one of the world’s few marine refuges from climate change. Almost the entire western coastline of this ref...
Read MoreGlobal biodiversity survey finds more species are threatened with extinction than previously thought “Biodiversity loss is one of our biggest environmental challenges in the world, probably more important than climate change. The problem of climate change can be corrected by stopping the emission of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. If you lose a species, it’s gone forever,” says Professor Johannes Knops, a researcher at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University. Professor Knops is one of more than 60 experts who have co-authored a major global study of biodiversity loss, recently published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, one of the highest ranked specialised ecology journals. Golden lion tamarins, also known as Golden marmosets, are an endangered specie...
Read MoreNew research from Northern Arizona University shows rising temperatures are causing Earth’s coldest forests to shift northward, raising concerns about biodiversity, an increased risk of wildfires and mounting impacts of climate change on northern communities. Logan Berner, assistant research professor in the School of Informatics, Computing, and Cyber Systems (SICCS) and Scott Goetz, Regents’ professor and director of the GEODE Lab, authored the article, “Satellite observations document trends consistent with a boreal forest biome shift,” which was published Thursday in Global Change Biology. The boreal forest is a belt of cold-tolerant conifer trees that stretches nearly 9,000 miles across northern North American and Eurasia; it accounts for almost a quarter of the Earth’s forest area...
Read More
You must be logged in to post a comment.