More snippets
Vital ecosystem functions, such as sequestering carbon dioxide and purifying water, depend on a larger number of species than previously thought. From a Nature article this month. Read the article here and a news summary here.The rainforest fragmentation experiment I described in lecture, the one with 1, 10 and 100 hectare plots, is now in danger of destruction itself. The experiment has been going on since 1979 and has produced an invaluable long term data set. The nearby town of Manaus has grown rapidly since being declared a free-trade zone in the 1970s, with a population of 1.7 million people. Settlers are now moving onto the land around the project and raided a research camp last year. A fire lit by the new arrivals also destroyed several study plots. News report from this week and the experiment's web site.
More species than we thought? It turns out we may not even know how many species there are in the places we thought we did know well. Cryptic species – animals that appear identical but are genetically quite distinct – may be much more widespread than previously thought a paper published this week alleges. The findings could have major implications in areas ranging from biodiversity estimates and wildlife management, to our understanding of infectious diseases and evolution. Read the Research paper published last week here. This also means that what I told you about us knowing how many large species there are may also be up for debate. In 2001 a new species of African elephant was discovered, not by looking under bushes, but by genetic analysis of existing African elephants which suggested two groups distinct enough to warrant species status: The African Bush Elephant and the African Elephant. (Research report on the new elephant species).
People consume a massive 24% of Earth's production capacity, depleting species and habitats - and things could get worse if more land is used for biofuel crops. By comparing carbon consumption through human activity with the amount of carbon consumed overall researchers found that humans use 15.6 trillion kilograms of carbon annually. Read the PNAS paper published this month here.
This time last year: Save the Rhino Maggot!, Specicide, Bird Extinction Rates and Snakes on a Plane.
Labels: Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecology
posted by John Latto @ 11:03 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I really wonder if biofuel crops (especially corn based ethanol) are sustainable in the long run. Is the energy derived from these crops actually more than the energy required to grow and process them? And what are the environmental consequences of "growing" our energy? Should we be allotting more land for satiating our energy needs when we also foresee water and food shortages in the future?
This is quite a hot topic and different studies have argued that biofuels use more energy than they produce (eg through fertilizer addition and farm machinery) others say that there is a net positive energy gain. It partly depends how many costs you include and what level of detail.
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