Madeline Logan
Hi everyone,
This is Madeline again with the July News Digest. This month I will be focusing on news related to new discoveries and anthropogenic environmental threats.
Wildlife monitors in Nepal implemented camera traps to track the wild cat population and have recently caught the asiatic wildcat, which had not previously been thought to occur in the area. This brings the count of wildcat species in Nepal from 12 to 13. To learn more about the process of making this discovery and the work to get the cat recognized as endemic to the area click here.
Herberia are another way humans catalog the planet’s biodiversity. The effect of colonization continues today with the majority of herbaria, which are collections of dried plant specimens for scientific research, being in countries with colonial pasts. Even with specimens from around the world, the data has been skewed by a colonial perspective. To learn more about herbaria and the effects of the colonial perspective click here.
Elsewhere in the world of botany, scientists are making advancements in understanding the genetics of hybrid plants. Hybrids have chromosomes from at least two different parent species. Recently two scientists have outlined a method of understanding hybrid ancestry through analyzing the hybrid’s genetics rather than the genetics of the parents. For more information on hybrids and this new method of understanding read here.
Monitoring the diversity and ecology of plants, such as trees, is essential for understanding human impact on the environment, and especially the carbon dynamics of the planet. It has previously been true that more carbon was being sequestered in the old growth forests of the Amazon than was being lost from deforestation. However, the increasing death rate of trees could cause the balance to shift and the Amazon to have net carbon emissions instead of sequestration. To read more about the importance of forests in the planet’s carbon cycle click here.
Trees also play an important role as habitats for a variety of animals, including birds, many of which make their nests in the treetops out of scavenged materials. In recent years anthropogenic materials like plastic and cigarette butts have been increasingly found in bird’s nests. While some anthropogenic materials such as cloth can be helpful to birds in nest building, significant concerns have been raised about other materials. To read more about the effects of plastic pollution on nests click here.
Birds are not the only group threatened by anthropogenic environmental changes, as 90% of fisheries and aquaculture are vulnerable to human-caused environmental damage. This affects marine ecosystems, which humans depend on for food. A threat to marine ecosystems is a threat to all of us. To read more click here.
Thank you for tuning into this month’s digest and stay tuned for next month.
Madeline