Biodiversity: measuring up to the loss
Species are disappearing faster than biologists can identify and document them. Mindful of this crisis, nearly 200 countries (under the Convention on Biological Diversity) agreed to staunch the loss of biodiversity by 2010. However, to meet this goal, biologists need reliabl...Global warming's impact on US plants, animals determined from review of dozens of studies
...nditions now exist. Some of these species are also disappearing from southern, or lower elevation, portions of their ranges. These shifts sometimes have had no overall negative impact. But in other cases, they have made survival tougher as the large-scale movements bring new species into contact with each other,...New study links low fish supply to increased bushmeat hunting
...ces are not sustainable, and species are literally disappearing from the reserves." Conservation groups, fisheries researchers and African leaders have blamed subsidized foreign fleets for helping to accelerate the downturn in the fish supply. The study notes that the European Union (EU) maintains the largest...From Mars to Maryland: 2005 AAAS Annual Meeting spotlights
...ductive systems and other traits. News on rapidly disappearing fish species, and how best to protect various forms of marine life, from fish to endangered whales, before it's too late. Information from genomics researchers that may someday help improve health-care, or speed the development of new "personalized"...... big step forward in understanding exactly how the disappearing wetlands have impacted local species. "We'll have a good sense after that, I hope, of what kinds of birds are there, what kinds of new birds have come back into the reflooded areas." Dr. Warner says that a group of Iraqi scientists and students will ...Winners of Tyler Environmental prize announced
...nted the rapid pace at which tropical glaciers are disappearing around the world, demonstrating the ongoing effects of global warming. "For many scientists, [Thompson's] ice cores and the global climate histories contained within them provide the first convincing demonstration that global warming exists," wrote ...Introduced foxes transformed vegetation on Aleutian Islands from lush grasslands to tundra
...omed to nesting on islands free of predators began disappearing when fur traders started introducing foxes onto islands in the Aleutian archipelago in the 18th century. The ground-nesting birds made easy meals for the foxes. A study published this week in the journal Science now shows that the effects of the in......angutan, still number in the low thousands but are disappearing at a faster rate than other primates. The December tsunamis that devastated coastal Sumatra have triggered a possible new threat to orangutan habitat from resettlement of area residents. Changes to the list from 2002 reflect a desire to draw atte......pressure after recent reports of tigers completely disappearing from some of their core tiger reserves. Yuri Darman, Director of the WWF Russian Far East Office, declared, "these results are a tribute to the hard work and dedication of conservation organizations and government officials here in Russia. Despite ...Jet skis and quad bikes help scientists predict and monitor storm damage
...id: "Areas of the South East are at severe risk of disappearing and we need to understand what is happening and why. Houses and even entire towns could be lost forever if measures are not taken now to ensure their survival. We have been investigating the impact of the large breakwaters that lie just offshore alon...Invasive parasite destroying fish species
... for decades, about why sunbleak minnows have been disappearing from Europe, where they were once quite common," said Michael Kent, a professor of microbiology and director of the Center for Salmon Disease Research at OSU. "And to find a parasite that can have such a devastating effect on spawning success is a li......given that the experts claim that many species are disappearing even before we know about them....Valuing biodiversity services, including its insurance against disease
... to irrevocable environmental change. The result: disappearing natural ecosystems, biodiversity loss, and the decline of beneficial ecological functions." Biodiversity and the dynamics of infectious disease In the case of disease regulation, the costs of ecological service degradation are the costs of the dise...Sustainable agriculture: Canadian institute offers definition, recommends path
...ty environment. Just as small hardware stores are disappearing in the shadow of big-box retail outlets, small farms are being crowded out economically by the intensification of agriculture. Just 2% of farms now produce 35% of food in Canada and the trend towards larger farms continues. "Coupled with that trend,...With species around the world disappearing faster than biologists can identify them, many scientists pinned their hopes on DNA barcoding, a recently proposed strategy that treats a short fragment of DNA as a sort of universal product code to identify species. But this approach generated contr...UF study first to quantify validity of DNA I.D. tool using marine snails
...mbers on it." Because species around the world are disappearing faster than biologists can identify them, the need for a quick and accurate method of classifying life has never been more pressing, Meyer said. With millions of animal species on Earth, DNA barcoding can be a helpful identification tool for ecologis...Climate change drives widespread amphibian extinctions
...ounds and colleagues show that harlequin frogs are disappearing in near lockstep with changing climate. According to the scientists, the Earth's rising temperatures enhance cloud cover on tropical mountains, leading to cooler days and warmer nights, both of which favor the chytrid fungus. The organism grows and r...Shopping list gets longer not less choosy in some of world's largest fisheries
...s found that high-trophic-level fish were, indeed, disappearing and forcing fishermen to turn to fish lower on the food web. The most spectacular example is the ecosystem in the North Atlantic where fishery collapses are common....Alaska seal pup diet may hold key to decline of population
... out why harbor seals and other marine mammals are disappearing from the chilly waters off the Alaskan coast. The population decline, which has become a focus of research in the past 10-15 years, is potentially due to a variety of factors, Polasek said, including: changes in availability of prey warming ocean ......ge, the destruction of tropical forests--currently disappearing at a rate of fifty football fields a minute--accounts for up to a quarter of all human greenhouse-gas emissions. The new initiative, which is being forwarded by an alliance of developing countries led by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica ( www.rainfo...