#nonnative species

[kettlechip-krispy-kreme]

i will know peace when ppl stop releasing nonnative insects in their gardens as "pest control"

[aidankellymurphy]

Snag, Dublin

[pigeon-feet]

its very amusing to me when skilled horticulturists know fuckall about native plants

[narelleart]

Oh also there's potential for the work I'm doing to reveal a massive conservation bluder being actively made by government fish and wildfe management agencies here in the US. 😬 More to come on that if I can confirm my suspicions.

But its got me wondering about the biggest modern conservation blunders? Anyone know any they can share?

I'm talking about actions taken as a positive step towards conservation (especially if trying to conserve imperiled species) that turned out to have the opposite effect. Not so much the dumb stuff humans did back in the day for other motives, like hunting species to extinction or introducing invasives because we wanted them around for food.

[willowcrowned]

gonna be honest nothing has fucked with my head more than learning that the UK only has three species of snake. like what do you mean three? three species with twelve subspecies? three native species but a ton of other nonnative ones? three species technically but it's an accident of ancient taxonomy?

nope. just three

[floridensis]

i know most of you picking sawflies have seen sawfly larvae and thought "aww! what a cute caterpillar!" there was a video going around of one just recently but no one knew what it actually was. think before u speak

Ultimately this has nothing to do whatsoever with this bracket, but I have a fun cool extra series of polls I want to exploit my tournament blog clout to get votes on while we wait for the final results of the qualifying polls to be determined

So, that being said...

[bogleech]

Simple lifeform facts I take for granted that I've now seen blowing people's minds on here:

That sea urchins walk around and have mouths with teeth on their undersides

That corals are related to jellyfish

Barnacles being related to crabs and shrimp

Ants being an offshoot of wasps

Termites being totally unrelated to ants and all similarities just being convergent evolution (they're actually a group of cockroaches, but even science didn't know that part until a few years ago)

Starfish having an eye at the end of each arm

That the bodies of ticks and mites are also their heads, essentially big heads with legs (they even frequently have eyes way up on "the body")

Sperm whales have no upper teeth, and also their bodies are flat from the front

Goats also having no upper (front) teeth

Tapeworms having no mouth at all and just absorbing nutrients over their entire body surface

That flies are bigger pollinators than bees

That moths are bigger pollinators than bees

That wasps are just as important pollinators as bees (more important to many groups of plants) and when we say they're "less efficient" at it we just mean individually they get a little less pollen stuck to them.

That honeybees are nonnative to most of the world and not good for the local ecosystem, just good for human agriculture

That earthworms are also nonnative and destructive to more habitats than the reverse

There being no hard biological line between slugs and snails; all slugs aren't necessarily related to each other and there are gastropod groups where some have shells and some don't

That ALL octopuses (not just the blue ring) have a venomous bite

Most jellyfish and sea anemones being predators that eat fish

"Krill" being shrimp up to a few inches long and not some kind of microbe

Blue whales therefore being the deadliest predators to ever evolve as they eat up to several million individual animals per day

That krill are still "plankton" because plankton refers to whatever animals, algae and other organisms are carried around by the sea's currents, not to any particular group of life or a size category

Fungi being no more related to plants than we are, and in fact more like a sibling to the animal kingdom if anything

Venus fly traps being native to only one small area of North America in all the world

Parasites being essential to all ecosystems

Leeches not having a circular ring of teeth anywhere

That algae is not a type of plant

That most seaweed is just very big algae

That enough wood ends up in the ocean that plenty of sea life evolved to eat only wood

Speaking of which the fact that the "ship worms" that make tunnels in wood are just long noodly clams

Butterflies technically just being a small weird group of moths we gave a different name to

That insects only get wings once they reach maximum size and therefore there can never be a younger smaller bee or fly that's not a larva

Spiders not being any more likely to kill their own mates/young than just a cat or dog might, for most species maybe a lot less often?

[reasonsforhope]

"Two wild kiwi chicks were born near Wellington, New Zealand, about a year after a reintroduction program began in the city, the Capital Kiwi Project announced last week. The fluffy, brown babies are the first to be born near the country’s capital in at least 150 years. 

“This is very special for the team, which has been working hard for the last few years,” project founder Paul Ward tells the Agence France-Presse. The chicks are a “massive milestone for our goal of building a wild population of kiwi on Wellington’s back doorstep.”

These flightless, chicken-sized birds were once abundant across New Zealand, with the nation’s five species numbering an estimated 12 million individuals in total. But nonnative predators and habitat loss caused their populations to plummet. Today, approximately 68,000 kiwis remain....

Conservation and reintroduction programs, including the Capital Kiwi Project, have been working to restore a large-scale wild kiwi population for years. In 2022, the organization released 11 kiwis into the wild in Makara, a suburb about seven miles west of Wellington. Between February and May of 2023, another 52 birds were released, and 200 more are slated to be released over the next five years, reports Eva Corlett for the Guardian.

Along with reintroduction efforts, the project aimed to reduce threats from European stoats, also known as ermines. The mammals were brought to New Zealand in the 19th century in an attempt to eradicate another introduced creature: rabbits. But these weasel-like stoats are voracious predators and kill many of New Zealand’s native species, including kiwi chicks. Only about 5 percent of kiwi chicks survive to reach breeding age in areas where predators are not controlled, largely thanks to stoats. In areas under management, however, 50 to 60 percent survive. Knowing this, conservationists worked with 100 landowners across the bird’s 60,000-acre habitat to install 4,600 stoat traps.

Of the 63 adult kiwis now roaming the hilly farmlands of Makara, only about a quarter are being monitored—meaning more chicks will likely hatch in the near future. Conservationists will continue monitoring the two new chicks, though Ward tells the Guardian they still have a long way to go before they’re fully grown...

Over the years, the long-beaked birds have become a national symbol of New Zealand, with people who hail from the country often referred to as kiwis. The animals also hold special importance to the Māori people of New Zealand, who have cultural, spiritual and historic associations with the birds. Even the New Zealand dollar is sometimes referred to as the kiwi, and the bird is featured on the country’s dollar coin."

-via Smithsonian Magazine, December 6, 2023

[crevicedwelling]

this little bee, like many solitary bees and wasps, sleeps with his mandibles holding onto a stem & legs tucked up. he’s Coelioxys coturnix, a nonnative cuckoo bee recently introduced to a few spots in the US

Coelioxys are one of several groups known as cuckoo bees; females of this particular species lay eggs in the nests of their close relatives, Megachile leafcutters. Coelioxys larvae kill the host larva with sharp mandibles, then devour the pollen its unwitting benefactor worked to stockpile.

rotated him a bit to show off the pseudopupil effect

[aidankellymurphy]

Trellis, Dublin

[typhlonectes]

Scientists develop groundbreaking method for detecting DNA of invasive snakes in Florida

Scientists at the University of Florida have developed a pioneering tool to bolster Florida's defenses against invasive species: a DNA-based environmental monitoring test that can pinpoint where they've been, aiding eradication efforts.

Once a nonnative species gets into an environment, it is often too late to get rid of it, and the focus shifts to containment or long-term management. Both approaches come with heavy costs concerning native wildlife and funding, explained Melissa Miller, lead author on the study and an invasion ecologist at the UF/IFAS Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center (UF/IFAS FLREC). "We hope this novel eDNA sampling tool we have designed will help increase efficiency in invasive species management, allowing for early detection and rapid removal of nonnative species," she said...

Read more:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2024/11/241122130344.htm

[cognitivejustice]

Indigenous rainforestation

Indigenous communities in the Philippines’ Mt. Kalatungan protected area have since 2021 carried out a tree-planting campaign to restore native vegetation lost to decades of commercial logging and agriculture.

Known as rainforestation, it aims to rejuvenate vital ecosystem services like flood mitigation, which benefits urban areas downstream, while also providing incentives for the communities driving the restoration.

The rainforestation program is led by community groups, making use of their knowledge of native plants, and marks a shift from the government’s decades-long, centrally managed reforestation efforts that relied on planting nonnative species.

Communities are already benefiting from exports of the coffee that they grow in the shade of larger trees, but proponents of the scheme say there needs to be more interest and funding from outside to ensure long-term success.

[iliveinprocrasti-nationn]

guess who fucking called it. if you reblogged that post about how “cute” or “funny” it was that flaco was around new york city, i need you to understand that this is exactly why biologists and professionals were advocating for his recapture

ok. i’m making a more cohesive post about flaco the owl because i’m seeing a lot of people reblogging that post praising him and excited about him venturing further into nyc. as cool as it may be to see him around, i think a lot of people lack the knowledge to understand why it’s not necessarily a good thing.

as someone who’s studying wildlife and who’s been working in wildlife spaces since i was 17, i have a lot of feelings about this, but i think this article i’m going to link is more succinct and explains better the harms flaco poses/risks he faces if he remains out of captivity. i’ve been following this story since he was let out and agree with the biologists i’ve seen supporting flaco’s recapture over birders or others who support him remaining outside captivity.

i also want to clear up a misconception from the post i’ve seen going around: flaco didn’t just “escape” the zoo - it wasn’t a desperate bid for freedom or something. his enclosure was vandalised and someone purposefully let him out. that action very well could have killed him, and, considering there are still many risks, could still lead to his premature death.

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the redside shiner!

The redside shiner, scientific name Richardsonius balteatus, is a common minnow fish in the Western North America! Also called the Bonneville redside shiner, red-sided bream, Richardson's minnow, and silver shiner. Found in schools based around species, this fish has two currently named subspecies, those being R. b. hydrophylox and R. b. bealeatus, although recent data implies that this may not be the case, showing there may be three subspecies instead. However there isn't enough current knowledge to say for certain. These fish can be found across the Western North America, in Southern British Columbia, Alberta, and then across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and Western Montana and Wyoming. Primarily found in the Columbia and Colorado river systems, in slow or still moving waters. These fish are native in Washington, Oregon, and Utah, but are invasive species harming salmonid populations in other locations. Common in lakes, mid-small sized rivers, ponds, ditches, and creeks, preferably found over gravel, sand, and vegetation. In the colder nights and winters, this fish is known to temporarily migrate to deeper waters, where they are more protected from the freeze. 

These fish are small, only three inches in length as juveniles, and only up to 5-7inches (18cm) as adults. As fry these fish start a silver color, very similar to spawning salmon and trout, but as they age they can turn silver, brown, olive, and of course, in the breeding seasons red and gold. The fry feed on zooplankton, algae, crustaceans, and, the trait of which makes them a concern in nonnative areas, trout and salmon fry. These fish at all ages are opportunistic, eating anything they can, including their own fish eggs. Adults tend to eat: insects, aquatic or terrestrial, mollusks, plankton, small fish, and eggs. Due to their small size they're predated on by larger fish in their environments, along with loons, and minks.

During spawning season, which runs from May to July, males will turn a brassy color, and gain a red stripe running behind the eye and along the lateral line, signifying that they are of breeding age. Spawning occurs in the afternoon and evening when adults move to spawning streams (or lake fish will move to inlet streams), where females and males will pick one another to thrash side by side, variously releasing eggs and sperm. These eggs then are abandoned to stick to the bottom of the stream on rocks and vegetation. Eggs will then hatch in 14-15 days after fertilization, forming schools with the other various redside shiners hatching. This is the time in which some subspecies prey upon trout fry, and others simply compete with trout for food. These fish will then sexually mature around 2-3 years of age, and will live for around 5 in total.

That's the redside shiner, everybody! Thank you for being lenient well I've been on fish hiatus briefly as I got a feel for my school term. However, fish of the day should return for at least a few days a week, but I will be attempting to get these out all five days, so keep an eye out! Have a wonderful day!

Sources:

McPhail, J. D. (2007). Redside Shiner. Pearson Ecological. https://pearsonecological.com/fish-l2-single/redside-shiner/

Utah Natural Heritage Program. Species database - Utah Natural Heritage Program Field Guide. (2019). https://fieldguide.wildlife.utah.gov/?species=richardsonius+balteatus

Nico, L., & Fuller, P. (2004, August 6). Redside Shiner (Richardsonius Balteatus) - species profile. USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species Database. https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=644

[angelap3]

"Magnifico "scritto"

"Donne stiamo attente, ci stanno levando tutto! Se ci levano anche la vecchiaia siamo fritte. Voglio restauraurare una parola fuori moda, fuori legge: vecchiaia.

La vecchiaia è un'età anche interessante, la vecchiaia è un'età molto anarchica e romantica. Perché ogni giorno può essere l'ultimo, perché sei in fuga dalla morte e ogni giorno in più dici: tié, ti ho fregato. È un età molto fervida, è un'adolescenza senza domani. E sarebbe un'età interessante se non fosse che poi si muore.

Cioè, io la retorica sulla bellezza della vecchiaia la lascio al mercato che ci adula a noi vecchi per venderci i suoi schifosi prodotti. Mi secca essere vecchia, perché è la porta della morte ed è, e resta, una maledizione biblica. Però non è mai stata così brutta da quando si cerca di nasconderla, da quando non si nomina più, cioè, non è una parolaccia è il nome di una stagione, perché esistono le stagioni e c'è una grande durezza, ma anche una grande dolcezza in questo.

Terza età, anziano, mi fa sentire in fin di vita mentre vecchio ha un bel suono di battaglia, vecchio! La vecchiaia femminile è stata abrogata dal mercato e la donna è stata demonizzata: la donna accetta la farsa della giovinezza obbligatoria, la plastica è il nostro burqua.

Ci fosse il filtro di giovinezza ti credo correrei! Farei qualsiasi bassezza, vorrei avere sedici anni in tutto, specie nella mente, ma anche in corpo, nel fegato... E se non mi sono rifatta non è perché non sono vanitosa, ma è perché sono vanitossissima, di una vanità ributtante, e non voglio aggiungere l'oltraggio del bisturi a quello del tempo. Certo, ci vuole un senso dell'umorismo sempre più spiccato per portare in giro la propria faccia, però mica sei vecchio sempre. La persona libera cambia età molte volte al giorno: siate nonne a quindici anni, fidanzate a ottanta, ma non siate mai quelle che gli altri vogliono.

La donna oggi: in una mano la ramazza nell'altra il biberon nell'altra il computer nell'altra la biancheria sexy nell'altra i vecchi da curare. Ma quante mani ha una donna? E adesso bisogna pure essere fighe fino a ottant'anni. Ma perché? Non facevamo già abbastanza?"

BARBARA ALBERTI