Wind farmers take note: You can’t count on common forecasting methods to figure out whether the turbines will kill birds. A new study from Spain concludes that pre-construction studies are pretty bad at predicting which turbines will lead to deadly bird collisions.
“The prevention of bird collisions in newly built wind farms is a critical […] Read More »
Conservation strategies that have worked well in temperate regions and in the developed world appear to be struggling in the tropics. Part of the failure, three researchers conclude in a new commentary, “is due to top–down conservation planning that has been conducted without taking local socioeconomic considerations into adequate account.” A bottom-up approach that stresses […] Read More »
Drawing on tissues stored in an unusual “frozen zoo,” researchers have created the first stem cells from endangered species. In humans, researchers are excited about stem cells – which can become any tissue in the body – because of their potential to treat disease. Now, it is possible endangered organisms could see some benefit too. […] Read More »
Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World’s Greatest Wildlife Rescue By William Stolzenburg Bloomsbury, 2011
William Stolzenburg’s compelling tale, Rat Island: Predators in Paradise and the World’s Greatest Wildlife Rescue, is the story of impassioned conservationists attempting to save vulnerable island fauna (mostly birds) from the ravages of accidentally introduced predators (mostly rats). […] Read More »
A provocative essay calling on conservation biologists to stop bad-mouthing nonnative species has sparked a testy showdown in the pages of the prestigious journal Nature.
“Over the past few decades, ‘nonnative’ species have been vilified for driving beloved ‘native’ species to extinction and generally polluting ‘natural’ environments,” a team of 19 researchers wrote in […] Read More »
By Joe Roman
The Florida panther was in a desperate state. Its habitat was shrinking, and highway deaths were commonplace. After a recovery plan was drawn up in 1981, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission began to capture cats for radio telemetry. They found fewer than 25. Of these, only about a dozen […] Read More »
Anybody enjoying the porch at night has probably watched moths bouncing off a lamp. The moths may be a mere annoyance for people, but biologists worry that this “flight to light” behavior has dire consequences for moths and their predators. Now, new research looks into how variations in light spectra produced by different bulbs […] Read More »
Parasites are the pariahs of the biological world—they get no respect. Everybody knows that at best, they are freeloaders. At worst, they can kill or maim the creatures they latch onto. But hardly anybody knows that they also help keep ecosystems healthy. Elizabeth Nichols, an ecologist at the American Museum of Natural History in […] Read More »
Bearded dragon or Burmese python? Goldfinch or cockatiel? At www.petwatch.net, potential pet owners can comb through profiles of five dozen wild species, each of which is ranked as a “good,” “fair,” or “poor” choice for a pet. They can also read about how each species stacks up according to criteria such as sustainability of […] Read More »
Engineering, it has been said, is that art of taking ideas out of thin air and expressing them in steel and concrete. Now, some engineers are demonstrating how to incorporate ecological concepts into heavy-duty coastal building projects, using items as simple as concrete flower pots to create more habitat for algae, shellfish and starfish.
Thick […] Read More »
One of the world’s oldest civilizations has now produced one of the longest-term looks at how climate influences insect populations. Drawing on more than 8,000 historical documents, researchers have assembled a 1,910-year-long history of the links between temperature, rainfall and outbreaks of locust swarms.
“Outbreak of Oriental migratory locusts (Locusta migratoria manilensis) was, together with […] Read More »
Male sea turtles can’t take the heat. Warmer temperatures cause turtle eggs to produce females – leading to concerns that global warming could wipe out mates. A new study from Central America, however, suggests that a few sheets of plastic could help one highly endangered species produce some pretty cool guys.
Among “marine turtles, sex […] Read More »
It’s a pattern seen throughout the developing world: Poor communities clustered around the edges of national parks. To some scholars, it’s a sign that parks are “poverty traps” that help keep people poor. A new long-term study from Uganda, however, disputes that idea.
“There is a lot of research looking at poverty in parks, but […] Read More »
Cities are creeping into some of the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems, concludes a new analysis that takes a first crack at estimating how fast the world’s urban areas have grown over the last few decades – and how much they might grow in the future.
“The conversion of Earth’s land surface to urban uses […] Read More »
It’s not easy eating green. Despite extensive and often successful efforts to accurately label “sustainable” fish, a new genetics study suggests that some seafood traders are duping consumers into buying fraudulent flesh. Nearly one-quarter of a sample of supposedly certified “Chilean sea bass” were “actually other species” or not definitively taken from an approved fishery, […] Read More »
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Changing the BatteryFlamingos stand precariously on top of one of the world’s largest deposits of lithium—the very stuff that powers our mobile world
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Shrink to FitHumanity appears to be ushering in new age of minifauna, a kind of Lilliputian world full of runts and dwarves |
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Chasing RainbowsLured by a utopian visions, agencies dropped billions of trout into thousands of lakes. Now, they’re determined to undo the damage they caused. |
