travel-observe-conserve-blog

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and life goes on...

500px: - Tadpoles by Bert Willaert

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the world is beautiful and life is wonderful

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Bad News For Caecilians: Fatal Fungus Found in 3rd Amphibian Group

by NHM staff

It is known as the amphibian chytrid fungus and can cause a deadly disease that is decimating some of the world’s frogs, toads, newts and salamanders. However, the fungus had not been detected in the other lesser-known major group of amphibians, the caecilians, until now.

An international team led by scientists at the Natural History Museum and Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have found the first cases of chytrid fungus infections in caecilians. They report their findings today in the journal EcoHealth.

More than 200 caecilians caught from the wild had DNA tests carried out on swabs of their skin to check for the amphibian chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. The study included 29 caecilian species from 5 countries in Africa and South America, which is the largest genetic survey of this fungus in caecilians to date…

(read more: Natural History Museum - London)

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Rising Numbers May Not Be Enough to Save Tigers and Kiwis

by Traci Watson

The little spotted kiwi is a shy worm-eater so small it can be cradled in a child’s arms. The Bengal tiger is a 220-kilogram predator that shouldn’t be cradled in anyone’s arms. But new research shows the cuddly bird and the powerful feline share an unfortunate fate: Though their numbers have stabilized or are even rising, some populations are suffering from profound genetic isolation or loss of genetic diversity—enough in some cases to leave them deeply vulnerable to new diseases and other threats.

Taken together, the findings demonstrate that “just because population sizes of threatened species have recovered doesn’t mean that they are okay,” writes Richard Frankham, a professor emeritus at Macquarie University in Australia and an author of several conservation-genetics textbooks who was not involved with the work, in an e-mail. “Genetic management of fragmented animal and plant populations is one of the most important, largely ignored issues in conservation biology.”…

(read more: Science/AAAS)     

(photos: (left) Aditya Joshi; (right) Andrew Digby)

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The Brain Scoop: Episode 26 - Mammalian Diversification

via thebrainscoop:

As part of a collaboration with the AllTime10s channel, we created this episode about one ‘unanswered’ question from science!  If we don’t have a fossil record, how can we know that we share a common placental ancestor?  This has been a hot topic in the science world, and you can read more about the hypothetical placental mammal. 

Check out the other videos in the collaboration here! 

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“Tiny bat, in Borneo” by stephanie borcard & nicolas metraux

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Accessible drinking water is only around 0.007% of the total fresh water on the planet. Fresh water itself only makes up 2.5% of water where as the remaining 97.5% is salt water. 

Lake Baikal, Siberia. Immensely old and deep, it holds one-fifth of all the Earth’s fresh water.

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Conservation of National Parks and Reserves throughout New South Wales is under threat by weakening environmental protection, escalated by a recent decision by a new government to log over 1 million hectares of protected forest just over the border in SE QLD.

The above pictures (picture 1 & 2) are of Nightcap and Chaelundi National Parks, areas which have already been targeted by the NSW government and are hastily reviewing protocols in relation to regulations for forest, threatened species and their associated habitat. 

NIghtcap National Park not only supports a diverse range of species, but provides habitat for numerous threatened plant species, including the Nightcap Oak (picture 3) which was only discovered seven years ago!! The national park has also ben listed as an IBA (Important Bird Area) supporting the largest population of Alberts Lyrebirds (picture 4). The degradation and fragmentation of these natural habitats would heavily impact fragile niches within the forest system like streams and hollow trees for nesting species.  

The timber industry must not be allowed to strip our natural heritage, disrupt ecosystems and choke out our plants and wildlife for the sake of an easy cash bonus!!

It is obvious, even to me, a mere child compared to the wasted years on some of these "decision makers" that it is just not sustainable to move from one source of wood to another, it will run out, destroy systems, degrade nutrients, release carbon and kill biodiversity!!

Read more HERE!!!!!

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‘Angry Summer’ made worse by climate change

Everyone’s been talking about the australian summer of 2012/13 being the wildest one yet. And in a country of flooding rains and burning plains, it takes extremely wild weather for people to sit up and take notice.

"All extreme weather events are now occurring in a climate system that is warmer and moister than it was 50 years ago.”

  For more information on the ridiculousness of the weather all over Australia click here

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Genetic testing on corals

which species should we save now that may be able to deal with climatic changes later?? 

Experts are detecting corals which have better adaptations to survive in a warmer world, and hope to use these corals to recolonise damaged reefs.

Until recently, there has been little evidence that any corals will be able to adapt rapidly enough to match even the lower projected rates of temperature rise.

Sometimes it is just easier to state the economic value of coral reefs, regardless of the vital ecosystem services they provide. Experts suggest that the $ AU 5.8 billion tourist Great Barrier Reef industry will be functionally extinct by 2050.

  Read More on the techniques and research here 

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How to make a 2 litre Sub-irrigated Planter

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The HighLine is a new 1.5-mile long public park built on an abandoned elevated railroadstretching from the Meatpacking District to the Hudson Rail Yards in Manhattan. Inspired bythe melancholic, unruly beauty of this postindustrial ruin, where nature hasreclaimed a once vital piece of urban infrastructure, the new park interpretsits inheritance. It translates the biodiversity that took root after it fellinto ruin in a string of site-specific urban microclimates along the stretch ofrailway that include sunny, shady, wet, dry, windy, and sheltered spaces. Through astrategy of agri-tecture—part agriculture, part architecture—the High Linesurface is digitized into discrete units of paving and planting which areassembled along the 1.5 miles into a variety of gradients from 100% paving to100% soft, richly vegetated biotopes. The paving system consists of individualpre-cast concrete planks with open joints to encourage emergent growth likewild grass through cracks in the sidewalk. The long paving units have taperedends that comb into planting beds creating a textured, “pathless” landscapewhere the public can meander in unscripted ways. The parkaccommodates the wild, the cultivated, the intimate, and the social. Accesspoints are durational experiences designed to prolong the transition from thefrenetic pace of city streets to the slow otherworldly landscape above. The High Line was designed in collaboration with James Corner Field Operations and Piet Oudolf.

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perfect