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+4 +1
The loss of insects is an apocalypse worth worrying about
When European colonists first brought cattle and horses to Australia in the late 1700s, they learned a foul-smelling lesson about how useful certain species of beetles could be. As the hoofed animals ate and defecated, manure began piling up across the continent. Without any European dung beetles to break it down, the cow dung in Australia had nowhere to go.
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+19 +1
They live for a century and clean our rivers, but freshwater mussels are dying in droves
Freshwater mussels are dying suddenly and in the thousands, with each mass death event bringing these endangered molluscs closer to extinction. Tragically, these events rarely get noticed. In March last year, for example, seawater was introduced into the lower Vasse River in south-western Australia to control harmful algal blooms. This killed the entire population of Carter's freshwater mussel (Westralunio carteri) in this section of the river.
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+3 +1
Global count estimates Earth has 73,000 tree species – 14% more than reported
There are an estimated 73,300 species of tree on Earth, 9,000 of which have yet to be discovered, according to a global count of tree species by thousands of researchers who used second world war codebreaking techniques created at Bletchley Park to evaluate the number of unknown species.
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+4 +1
Scientists Warn that Sixth Mass Extinction Has ‘Probably Started’
A human-driven mass extinction “has begun on land and in freshwater seems increasingly likely,” according to a new article.
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+14 +1
The Great American Chestnut Tree Revival
More than a century ago, billions of American chestnuts were wiped out by an invasive fungus. Now, scientists are working to restore the tree to its former glory.
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+15 +1
Tropical Fish Shoals Disrupted by Ocean Acidification and Warming
Researchers from the University of Adelaide have found that the way fish interact in groups is being upset by ocean acidification and global warming.
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+18 +1
Rare Sierra Nevada red foxes survive massive Dixie fire that burned habitat
There might be something to the adage “clever as a fox.” When the monstrous Dixie fire scorched a northeastern California expanse that the elusive Sierra Nevada red fox calls home, wildlife officials were worried.
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+13 +1
New method for predicting the response of ecosystems to marine heatwaves
Marine heatwaves, driven by climate change, are becoming more frequent and intense worldwide. Although we know that heatwaves kill marine organisms and have devastating effects on ecosystems, there is currently no way to predict these effects or help ecosystems adapt.
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+17 +1
‘We are going to lose these birds’: the quiet fight to save the golden-shouldered parrot
In 1922, Cyril Jerrard captured the first and only photographs of the paradise parrot, the only Australian bird to be officially declared extinct since European colonisation. Jerrard was well aware he was looking at one of the last of its kind: “The one undisguisable fact [is] that the advent of the white man has spelled destruction to one of the loveliest of the native birds of this country,” he wrote in 1924.
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+4 +1
Invasive Reptiles Are Taking Over Florida—and Devouring Its Birds Along the Way
Birds like Roseate Spoonbills and Burrowing Owls are ending up in the stomachs of hungry pythons and Nile monitors. Is it too late to stop them?
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+13 +1
UN sets out Paris-style plan to cut extinction rate by factor of 10
Eliminating plastic pollution, reducing pesticide use by two-thirds, halving the rate of invasive species introduction and eliminating $500bn (£360bn) of harmful environmental government subsidies a year are among the targets in a new draft of a Paris-style UN agreement on biodiversity loss.
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+3 +1
A billion new trees might not turn Ukraine green
The country's ambitious target to improve the environment could actually harm biodiversity.
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+10 +1
How to protect species and save the planet—at the same time
Humanity is struggling to contain two compounding crises: skyrocketing global temperatures and plummeting biodiversity. But people tend to tackle each problem on its own, for instance by deploying green energies and carbon-eating machines while roping off ecosystems to preserve them. But in a new report, 50 scientists from around the world argue that treating each crisis in isolation means missing out on two-fer solutions that resolve both. Humanity can't solve one without also solving the other.
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+22 +1
Earth's Biodiversity Could Take Millions of Years to Recover from Human Influence
A new study concludes that extinction rates for gastropods during the fifth mass extinction were worse than believed, and the sixth could be even bigger.
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+28 +1
Nobody cares about ugly flowers. Scientists pay more attention to pretty plants
New research found colour played a major role skewing researcher bias — pretty, vibrant flowers get more scientific attention than dull plants, regardless of their ecological significance.
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+20 +1
Just 19% of Earth’s land is still ‘wild,’ analysis suggests
Since the 1960s, conservationists have had a standard solution for saving biodiversity: Protect natural areas from human influence. But a new analysis of Earth’s land use going back 12,000 years suggests that even in the time of mammoths and giant sloths, just one-quarter of the planet was untouched by humans, compared with 19% today.
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+18 +1
Itching to discover a new species? Follow this map
Ecologists involved in mapping all life on Earth have now taken the next step: predicting where the life we don’t know about is waiting to be discovered. As a first pass, they have created an interactive map showing diversity hot spots with the richest potential for new mammal, bird, reptile, and amphibian species. They describe their results today in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
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+10 +1
Australian scientists warn urgent action needed to save 19 'collapsing' ecosystems
Leading scientists working across Australia and Antarctica have described 19 ecosystems that are collapsing due to the impact of humans and warned urgent action is required to prevent their complete loss.
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+19 +1
Monarch butterflies down 26% in Mexico wintering grounds
The number of monarch butterflies that showed up at their winter resting grounds in central Mexico decreased by about 26% this year, and four times as many trees were lost to illegal logging, drought and other causes, making 2020 a bad year for the butterflies.
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+10 +1
World's oldest DNA sequenced from a mammoth that lived more than 1 million years ago
A tooth from a mammoth that roamed the Siberian steppe more than a million years ago has yielded the world's oldest DNA sequence. It's the first time that DNA has been recovered from animal remains more than a million years old. Previously, the most ancient DNA sample was from a horse that lived between 560,000 and 780,000 years ago
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