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Archive for October, 2007
Oct
31
2007
The 1983 mass die-off of sea urchins Diadema antillarum in the Caribbean was just one in a series of events that left its coral reefs stricken. According to research published this week in Nature, things will stay that way until we do something about it. University of Exeter marine biologist Peter Mumby and colleagues have characterized the reef’s ecology in a mathematical model, finding that the combination of hurricane damage -- Allen in 1980 and Gilbert in 1988 -- and urchin mortality have thrown the reef into an alternative ecologically stable state: one dominated by algae. Coral reefs depend on grazing animals to clear algae and provide new colonization sites, and with the urchins gone the parrotfish simply couldn’t cope. Once the grazing level dropped below a certain threshold, the reef was bound to convert to an algae-dominated state. Controlling the exploitation of parrotfish might help recovery, as will the resurgence of the urchins, but until the right management practices are established the reef will remain devoid of coral. Source: Mumby PJ, Hastings A & Edwards HJ (2007) Thresholds and the resilience of Caribbean coral reefs. Nature DOI: 10.1038/nature06252
Related stories in Conservation magazine: 10 Solutions to Save the Ocean
Image © Tammy Peluso
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Oct
30
2007
Visitation rates are crucial to understanding complex conservation issues, such as predator attacks on livestock. Such information can be all but impossible to directly observe, so researchers often resort to grubbier methods: rather than filming filming bears attacking sheep they instead find themselves rummaging around in the undergrowth for evidence – you know, the usual kind – of activity. Bernd Gruber, an ecologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, and colleagues have devised a more accurate way of using this, er, evidence. Traditional methods rely on simple counts of scats or other sign near to the area of interest, but Gruber’s team present a maximum likelihood statistical approach to glean additional detail. They field-tested their new technique by collecting fresh and not-so-fresh otter Lutra lutra spraints near a pond in Germany, where the pesky mustelids had been wreaking havoc on the fish population. Their findings, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, gave a more accurate picture of how many visits otters were making. If you feel like giving the new method a go, download the computer spreadsheet from Gruber’s webpage, pull on your rubber gloves, and head for the countryside. Source: Gruber B, Reineking B, Calabrese JM, Kranz A, Poledníková K, Poledník L, Klenke R, Valentin A & Henle K (2007) A new method for estimating visitation rates of cryptic animals via repeated surveys of indirect signs. Journal of Applied Ecology DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2007.01406.x
Image © Darren Hunt
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Oct
26
2007
Find a drifting log floating around the western Indian Ocean, attach GPS, sonar, echosounding and bird-detecting radar devices, slap on a radio transmitter and voila! The best way to catch tuna. The pelagic predators are attracted to floating objects, knowledge that master fishers have used to locate their quarry: at least 2100 so-called drifting fish aggregating devices (DFADs) are currently bleeping away in the area. However, little is known about how DFADs are “colonized”, the diversity of species present, or the factors that influence fine-scale tuna behaviors around them. These questions are hard and expensive to tackle experimentally, so Gala Moreno, a marine biologist at the AZTI Tecnalia, Spain, and colleagues took a different approach to the problem: they asked the experts what they knew. A series of interviews with members of the devastatingly effective European purse-seine tuna-fishing fleet uncovered much-needed information about how DFADs attract marine species. Reporting their findings in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, the master fishers’ hard-won knowledge has obvious value in future management planning. Bringing researchers and fishers closer together could also ease past conflicts and misunderstandings. It could even ultimately benefit tuna, though the individual fish in your sandwich might disagree. Source: Moreno G, Dagorn L, Sancho G & Itano D (2007) Fish behaviour from fishers’ knowledge: the case study of tropical tuna around drifting fish aggregating devices (DFADs). Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences DOI: 10.1139/F07-113
Related story in Conservation magazine: 10 Solutions to Save the Ocean
Image © gprentice
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Oct
24
2007
Wolves Canis lupus lycaon were almost completely eradicated from the Great Lakes states of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan, but a healthy population of 3000-plus individuals now prowls the region following protection under the US Endangered Species Act. Shame they’re not from the same genetic stock. This week, Jennifer Leonard, now at Uppsala University, Sweden and co-author Robert Wayne describe in Biology Letters how the current population is most likely a motley mix of plain ol' grey wolf C. lupus and coyote C. latrans hybrids. There’s nothing wrong with hybrids -- they’re an evolutionary shuffling of the pack -- but we’ve got to be clear about whether the old world has been restored or we’ve just pressed the reset button. Source: Leonard JA & Wayne RK (2007) Native Great Lakes wolves were not restored. Biology Letters DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0354
Image © John Pitcher
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Oct
22
2007
All the talk about reducing carbon emissions is just hot air. A study published today in PNAS describes how the recent boom in the world’s economy – notably China and India – has combined with an increasing dependence on a carbon-intense lifestyle. Emissions increased faster in the period 2000-2006 (at 3.3% per year) than they did in the 1990s (1.3% per year) and are now higher than at any other time since continuous monitoring began in 1959. But there’s another devastating twist, according to Global Carbon Project lead author Pep Canadell and colleagues. There’s strong evidence that terrestrial and oceanic carbon sinks aren’t working as efficiently now as they were 50 years ago. A series of droughts on land and changes in ocean currents – both largely down to us – mean that less atmospheric carbon has been taken out of the system. Things are getting worse faster than we thought. Source: Canadell JG, Le Quéré C, Raupach MR, Field CB, Buitehuis ET, Ciais P, Conway TJ, Gillett NP, Houghton RA & Marland G (2007) Contributions to accelerating atmospheric CO2 growth from economic activity, carbon intensity, and efficiency of natural sinks. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0702737104
Related stories in Conservation magazine: Raising The Bar On Kyoto
Image © CSIRO
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Oct
19
2007
Industrial-scale fisheries hauling miles of nets strewn with accidentally snagged sharks, dolphins and turtles are a tragically iconic image, but a study published this week in PLoS ONE claims we need to look closer to home to save those endangered mariners. University of Santa Cruz researcher Hoyt Peckham and colleagues found that small-scale coastal fisheries, which employ 99% of the world’s 51 million fishers, could be a much greater threat to species such as loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta. Following just two small fisheries off the Baja California Sur turtle “hotspot”, Peckham’s investigation uncovered alarming levels of juvenile loggerhead bycatch, estimated to number at least 1000 individuals per year. Multiply that by the number of fisheries involved and it’s easy to see where the marine megafauna is going. Source: Peckham SH, Diaz DM, Walli A, Ruiz G, Crowder LB & Nichols WJ (2007) Small-scale fisheries bycatch jeopardizes endangered Pacific loggerhead turtles. PLoS ONE DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001041
Related stories in Conservation magazine: Smart Gear Competition | 10 Solutions to Save the Ocean | Tour de Turtle
Image © NOAA
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Oct
16
2007
Thought cane toads Chaunus [Bufo] marinus were invincible? Think again -- they’ve got bad backs, according to findings published this week in PNAS. Since their introduction to Australia they’ve chomped through, and hopped across, more than a million square kilometers of native wildlife. Along the way they’ve evolved longer legs and larger bodies, helping those at the invasion front to cover more territory than their already-settled counterparts. But those evolutionary tweaks have come at a price: the largest, leggiest toads are also prone to spinal arthritis. University of Sydney biologist Rick Shine and colleagues found that living on the edge is tough for cane toads, with the trade-off between growth and immunity balanced on a knife’e edge. Investing energy in being big -- and mobile -- leaves the door open to artritis-inducing infectious bacteria. As one successful invasive species could have told another, nothing in life comes easy. Source: Brown GP, Shilton C, Phillips BL & Shine R (2007) Invader under stress: spinal arthritis in invasive cane toads. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0705057104
Related stories in Conservation magazine: Evolutionary Tinkering
Image © Eric Delmar
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Oct
10
2007
Humans, brown bears and moose are engaged in a curious, triangular relationship at Grand Teton National Park, Yellowstone, according to the recently published findings of a ten-year study. Bears Ursus arctos avoid roads (= HUMANS + CARS), and so escape a mangled road-kill fate. Moose Alces alces have worked out the logic: ROADS = NOT(BEARS). So when it comes to their exquisitely synchronized birthing season, most moose calves take their first faltering steps in the vicinity of the nearest metalled thoroughfare. Over the period of the study, the average distance from birth site to road fell by 122 metres per year. But the use of human infrastructure as a shield against predators is only likely to offer a temporary reprieve, writes Wildlife Conservation Society biologist Joel Berger in Biology Letters. As the grizzly population continues to swell, those ursine appetites will soon outweigh their fear of SUVs. Nevertheless, the message for conservation schemes is clear: everything we do has an impact on the wildlife we’re trying to protect. Source: Berger J (2007) Fear, human shields and the redistribution of prey and predators in protected areas. Biology Letters DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2007.0415
Related stories in Conservation magazine: The Fallacy of Passive Management | More than Meets the Eye: Behavior and Conservation
Image © Sean Coburn
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Oct
8
2007
A refreshingly low-tech solution to the problem of crop-raiding elephants Loxodonta africana has been found, scientists report in Current Biology. You and I know it’s not a good idea to hang around a nest of disturbed African bees Apis mellifera scutellata -- so do elephants. Even the sound of an angry hive is enough to convince them to move on: there are one or two places where even the most thick-skinned pachyderm doesn’t want to get stung. Lucy King and colleagues at Nairobi’s Save The Elephants played piped recordings of unhappy swarms through tree-mounted loudspeakers. Family groups, including the “Spice Girls” (the connection between the erstwhile, nay reformed princesses of pop and a group of elephants escapes us, of course), vacated the area as fast as their silently padding feet could carry them. As a way to control elephants the method certainly has merit: replacing the loudspeakers with real bee hives also raises the potential of an extra source of revenue -- honey. Source: King LE, Douglas-Hamilton I & Vollrath F (2007) African elephants run from the sound of disturbed bees. Current Biology DOI: tba
Image © Peter Miller
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Oct
8
2007
In a rare win--win situation, chemists in India have come up with a cheaper way to tan hides that releases fewer harmful chemicals into the environment. Leather production is a messy business that releases vast quantities of hazardous nasties: now, Raghava Rao and colleagues at the Central Leather Research Institute, Chennai, India, claim to have found a more efficient, cleaner method. Writing in the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology, they describe how reversing the order of steps in the tanning process saves water, energy and materials. Crucially, it leads to major reductions in the amount of organic pollutants, salts and heavy metals being released in wastewaters. If only all manufacturing processes were so easy to clean up. Source: Saravanabhavan S, Rao JR, Nair BU & Ramasami T (2007) An eco-efficient rationalized leather process. Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology DOI: 10.1002/jctb.1727
Image © Dainis Derics
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