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Archive for May, 2011
Preserving Plants and Animals Caught Between Forest ‘Fragments’
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
ScienceDaily: Preserving Plants and Animals Caught Between Forest 'Fragments'
Maintaining the world's threatened animal and plant species may rest with something as simple as knowing how far a bird can fly before it must answer nature's call.
Birds disperse seeds as they travel, but deforestation can mean those seeds might land where they can't sprout and grow, according to a University of Florida researcher who co-wrote a study in last month's issue of Ecology that looks at how tropical birds disperse plant...
Posted in Water Conservation 
Comments Off on Preserving Plants and Animals Caught Between Forest ‘Fragments’Species loss far less severe than feared: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
AFP: The pace at which humans are driving animal and plant species toward extinction through habitat destruction is at least twice as slow as previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday.
Earth's biodiversity continues to dwindle due to deforestation, climate change, over-exploitation and chemical runoff into rivers and oceans, said the study, published in Nature.
"The evidence is in -- humans really are causing extreme extinction rates," said co-author Stephen Hubbell, a professor...
3,000 amphibians, 160 land mammals remain undiscovered—that is if they don’t go extinct first
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
Mongabay: 3,000 amphibians, 160 land mammals remain undiscovered--that is if they don't go extinct first
This fruit bat was first discovered in a remote tropical forest in Papua New Guinea. Although scientists have yet to name the species, the popular media has already dubbed it the 'Yoda bat' given its resemblance to the Jedi master character from the Star Wars series. Fruit bats are vital to rainforests as they disperse seeds. Photo © Piotr Naskrecki/iLCP.
Remote little-explored rainforests probably...
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on 3,000 amphibians, 160 land mammals remain undiscovered—that is if they don’t go extinct firstEscaped nanoparticles hazardous to crops, says study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
SciDev.Net: Nanoparticles could reduce wheat yield Nanoparticles that escape during the manufacture and use of consumer products would substantially reduce the growth of wheat were they to end up in soil, according to Chinese scientists.
The production, use and disposal of nanomaterials from sectors such as cosmetics and electronics can lead to their release into air, water and soil. Their presence in wastewater, and their direct use in agricultural technologies, can bring them into contact with crops.
Once...
Plant, animal extinctions often exaggerated: study
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
Reuters: A projected spate of extinctions of animals and plants this century may be less drastic than feared because the most widely used scientific method can exaggerate losses by more than 160 percent, a study said on Wednesday.
"Extinctions caused by habitat loss require greater loss of habitat than previously thought," two experts, based in China and the United States, wrote in the journal Nature.
Despite that good news, the report also endorsed past findings that human activities are wrecking habitats...
Once-rare Mississippi River flooding now ‘more frequent and more severe.’
Posted by Green Wire: Paul Quinlan on May 18th, 2011
Green Wire: When the Mississippi River spilled over its banks late last month in Mark Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Mo., it was the sort of flood the Army Corps of Engineers expects to occur once every 10 or 25 years.
If Hannibal could only be so lucky.
The town saw similar floods in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2001. Worse still was the 200-year flood in 2008. But none of those compared to the devastation in 1993, when river gauges at Hannibal measured floodwaters at levels expected only once in five centuries....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Once-rare Mississippi River flooding now ‘more frequent and more severe.’Canada lynx threatened by rising temperatures in Maine
Posted by Reuters: Zach Howard on May 18th, 2011
Reuters: The rare Canada lynx, whose range has shrunk considerably in recent decades, faces a grave threat from rising temperatures in Maine, federal wildlife experts said on Tuesday.
The shaggy wild feline whose principal eastern U.S. habitat is Maine, preys on snowshoe hare but may lose out to competing hunters if snowfall decreases in coming years as predicted, according to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Lynx, bobcats and fishers stalk the same primary food source.
The historic range of the...
Rural Louisiana has mixed feelings over flooding plan
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
Voice of America: A member of the Louisiana National Guard talks to a resident who did not want to be identified, as they reinforce the town in preparation for expected flooding from the opening of the Morganza Spillway, in Krotz Springs, Louisiana, May 17, 2011
As diverted water from the swollen Mississippi River flows through Louisiana's Morganza spillway and into the Achafalaya basin on its way to the Gulf of Mexico, thousands of people in the southern state are losing their homes, businesses and crops.
The...
China’s wetlands crisis: Dongting Lake
Posted by Washington Post: Juliet Eilperin on May 18th, 2011
Guardian: China's wetlands are relied on to store floodwaters, protect shorelines and improve water quality. As lakes, swamps, mangroves and floodplains disappear at an alarming rate, the photographer and videographer Sean Gallagher reports on the changes in Dongting Lake in central China on behalf of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting
Once-Rare Mississippi River Flooding Now ‘More Frequent and More Severe’
Posted by Green Wire: None Given on May 17th, 2011
Green Wire: When the Mississippi River spilled over its banks late last month in Mark Twain's boyhood home of Hannibal, Mo., it was the sort of flood the Army Corps of Engineers expects to occur once every 10 or 25 years.
If Hannibal could only be so lucky.
The town saw similar floods in 1995, 1996, 1998 and 2001. Worse still was the 200-year flood in 2008. But none of those compared to the devastation in 1993, when river gauges at Hannibal measured floodwaters at levels expected only once in five centuries....
Posted in Water Conservation Comments Off on Once-Rare Mississippi River Flooding Now ‘More Frequent and More Severe’