topic: Climate Change And Extinction

topic: Climate Change And Extinction

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Ahead of COP28, pope spurs policymakers, faith leaders to push climate action
- In his October 4 papal declaration, Pope Francis called unequivocally for climate action in the face of a disastrously warming world.
- The pope’s message comes at a decisive time, as world leaders prepare to meet for the COP28 summit, in a United Nations climate process that many critics say is broken and has largely stalled since the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement.
- The pope’s call for action also comes at a time when the world’s faith-based climate movement — which was greatly energized by Paris, and which has had some notable successes since then — is struggling.
- Mongabay spoke with faith leaders, theologians and policymakers to assess the challenges that Francis’ message presents, and whether it can reinvigorate global religious leaders and spur the grassroots faithful to political and social action on the environment. Reportedly, Francis may travel to COP28 to press his message in person.

Pope Francis condemns world leaders for deeply flawed UN climate process
- In the leadup to the 2015 Paris summit, Pope Francis issued Laudato Si, “On Care for Our Common Home,” a landmark climate and faith document that ultimately saw much of the pope’s language of human responsibility and hope enshrined in the breakthrough climate agreement.
- But this week Pope Francis issued Laudate Deum, a follow up document which condemns world leaders for eight years of climate inaction and of making hollow unfulfilled pledges as they repeatedly fail to respond effectively to the severely escalating global climate crisis.
- The pope notes in the new document that it is the world’s poorest who suffer most from the battering of record heatwaves, storms, floods, droughts, melting glaciers, and rising seas. He also asserts that it is the obligation of the world’s wealthiest nations to decisively lead humanity out of the crisis, before Earth reaches “the point of no return.”
- It seems clear from the timing of Pope Francis’ declaration that he hopes it will positively influence COP28, the climate conference to be held in early December in the United Arab Emirates, where an oil company executive will preside as chair.

Frogs in the pot: Two in five amphibian species at risk amid climate crisis
- The extinction risk for more than 8,000 amphibian species has significantly increased in the past 18 years, primarily due to climate change impacts, with two in five amphibians now threatened, a new study shows.
- Amphibians are particularly vulnerable because of their permeable skin and specific habitat needs; diseases like the chytrid fungus further threaten their survival.
- Salamanders are the most at risk, with a lethal fungus in Europe posing a significant threat, especially to the diverse salamander population in North America.
- The study emphasizes the importance of global conservation efforts, with habitat protection showing positive results for some species, and highlights the broader context of the ongoing global biodiversity crisis.

Barely making it: A conversation with ‘Eight Bears’ author Gloria Dickie
- Gloria Dickie is an award-winning journalist who has documented the state of the world’s eight remaining bear species in a compelling new book, “Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future.”
- Despite the conservation gains made by iconic bear species like the giant panda and the brown bear, most bear species remain at risk.
- In this podcast conversation, the author shares the context behind why some bear species, such as the Andean bear and the polar bear, which face climate-related threats, are much harder to protect.
- “It’s quite tricky for bears threatened by climate change and not just habitat loss,” she says on this episode.

‘Catastrophic breeding failure’ for penguins as Antarctic sea ice vanishes
- Researchers found that a lack of sea ice around Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea led to “unprecedented” breeding failure in four of five emperor penguin colonies.
- Sea ice cover in Antarctica has been experiencing record lows, which could spell disaster for the future of this iconic Antarctic species.
- Previous estimates have suggested that if current rates of global warming persist, more than 90% of emperor penguin colonies would be “quasi-extinct by the end of the century.”

‘What we need to protect and why’: 20-year Amazon research hints at fate of tropics
- In its bold outlines, many informed people understand that climate change is reducing tropical biodiversity and thereby degrading the functionality and ecoservices of tropical forests. But what are the specific mechanisms by which these forests are being diminished over long time frames?
- One project on the slopes of the Peruvian Amazon has tried to make exactly that type of assessment, via a 20-year ongoing research project that meticulously observes a narrow transect of rainforest stretching from the Amazon lowlands near sea level to the Andean highlands above 3,352 meters (11,000 feet).
- The international team conducting this work, the Andes Biodiversity and Ecosystem Research Group (ABERG), is painstakingly observing changes in more than 1,000 tree species, birds, frogs, snakes and more to determine not only how much climate change is affecting them, but untangling how the change process works.
- This type of in-depth research is vital to conserving tropical rainforest diversity, the carbon storage capacity it offers, and its assistance in maintaining long-persisting regional and global precipitation patterns vital to agriculture and other water needs. Mongabay contributor Justin Catanoso traveled to Peru to observe ABERG at work.

Bangladesh’s new red list of plants shows country has already lost seven species
- Bangladesh’s first-ever red list of plant species shows the country has lost seven species in the last century and now risks losing at least another five.
- Researchers involved in the assessments of the conservation status of 1,000 species cited climate change, pollution, deforestation, and poor management of protected areas as major drivers behind the ecological damage.
- The Bangladesh Forest Department is working to protect native plant species through large-scale planting efforts across the country.

Podcast: Goodbye to blue skies? The trouble with engineered solutions
- Humanity has created a lot of ecological problems, and many of the proposed solutions come with giant price tags — or the things lost can even be priceless, like the sight of a blue sky — with no guarantee of solving the situation in the long term.
- Many such solutions — like Australia’s deliberate introduction of the toxic cane toad, which has wreaked havoc on the country’s wildlife — create new problems.
- Solar geoengineering to slow climate change would have the most visible effect to all, likely making the sky appear white: No more blue skies—but how would this affect the global plant community’s ability to photosynthesize, would it harm agriculture?
- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk about her latest book, “Under a White Sky,” which examines these interventions, the problems they come with and humanity’s seeming inability to stop turning to them.

Temperature extremes, plus ecological marginalization, raise species risk: Studies
- In a business-as-usual carbon emissions scenario — humanity’s current trajectory — two in five land vertebrates could be exposed to temperatures equal to, or exceeding, the hottest temperatures of the past decades across at least half of their range by 2099. If warming could be kept well below 2°C (3.6°F), that number drops to 6%, according to a new study.
- More than one in eight mammal species have already lost part of their former geographical range. In many cases, this means those species no longer have access to some (or sometimes any) of their core habitat, making it much more difficult to survive in a warming world.
- When animal populations continue to decline in an area even after it has been protected, one possible explanation may be that the conserved habitat is marginal compared to that found in the species’ historical range.
- In the light of recent pledges to protect 30% of the planet’s surface, it is important to prioritize the right areas. The focus should be on conserving core habitat — which is often highly productive and already intensively used by humans — while respecting the rights and needs of Indigenous people, many of whom have also been pushed to the margins.

Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Five species within the Canidae family are considered endangered. These species, while found far apart in North and South America, Asia and Africa, often share similar threats, including habitat loss, persecution, disease and climate change.
- For some at-risk canid species, loss of prey, particularly due to snaring, is a significant concern that can also exacerbate human-wildlife conflict. Ecosystem-level conservation that protects prey species populations is required to protect canids and other carnivore species, experts say.
- Conservationists and researchers emphasize that canids play important roles in maintaining the habitats in which they live. That makes protecting these predators key to restoring and maintaining functional ecosystems.
- In the face of widespread global biodiversity loss, some canid reintroductions are taking place and proving successful. These rewilding efforts are offering evidence of the importance of canids to healthy ecosystems and to reducing various ecosystem-wide threats, even potentially helping curb climate change.

Extinct sea cow’s underwater engineering legacy lives on today, study finds
- In a new study, scientists said that the extinct Steller’s sea cow impacted kelp forests in the North Pacific by browsing at the surface, which would have encouraged the growth and strengthening of the algal understory.
- Not only would sea cows have positively impacted kelp forests in the past, but they may have also enhanced their resilience into modern times, according to the authors.
- Globally, kelp forests face many threats, including ocean warming, which can lead to an overabundance of predatory urchins.
- The authors suggest that it might be possible for humans to reproduce the species’ impact on the canopy of kelp forests to enhance kelp forest resilience.

Climate change is hammering insects — in the tropics and everywhere else: Scientists
- A new review paper finds that climate change is pounding insects in a wide variety of ways all over the world.
- Because insects are so sensitive to temperature change, climate change is impacting them directly, including potentially decreasing their ability to breed.
- But climate change is also causing insects to change their behavior as it shifts seasonal beginnings and ends, risking that insects will act out of sync with the rest of the environment on which they depend. Climate change-intensified drought, extreme precipitation, lengthening heat waves, and fires are also harming insects.
- The best way to protect insects? Combat climate change and safeguard micro-habitats.

Humans are decimating wildlife, report warns ahead of U.N. biodiversity talks
- Wildlife populations tracked by scientists shrank by nearly 70%, on average, between 1970 and 2018, a recent assessment has found.
- The “Living Planet Report 2022” doesn’t monitor species loss but how much the size of 31,000 distinct populations have changed over time.
- The steepest declines occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, where wildlife abundance declined by 94%, with freshwater fish, reptiles and amphibians being the worst affected.
- High-level talks under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be held in Canada this December, with representatives from 196 members gathering to decide how to halt biodiversity loss by 2030.

Trouble in the tropics: The terrestrial insects of Brazil are in decline
- New research from Brazil shows terrestrial insects there are declining both in abundance and diversity, while aquatic insects are largely staying steady.
- Given a dearth of long-term data on tropical insects, the scientists took creative means to collect data, including contacting 150 experts for their unpublished data.
- Scientists believe the usual global suspects are behind Brazil’s insect decline: habitat destruction, pesticide use, and climate change.
- Experts say tropical countries need more resources, including long-term funding, to discover with greater certainty what’s happening to insects there. Large-scale insect loss threatens many of Earth’s ecological services, including waste recycling, helping to build fertile soils, pollinating plants, and providing prey for numerous other species.

Study paints ‘bleak picture’ for nearly all marine life without emissions cuts
- New research published in Nature Climate Change has found that nearly 90% of assessed marine life would be at high or critical risk by 2100 if the world continues upon a high-emissions pathway.
- It found that the risks would be more concentrated in the tropics, and that top predators would be more at risk than species lower down the food chain.
- However, if countries drastically reduce their emissions, the study found that climate risk would decrease for more than 98% of these species.

Video: Biodiversity underpins all, as California is finding out the hard way
- A new episode of “Mongabay Explains” delves into the biodiversity crisis in California, which is known to be one of the most biodiverse states in the U.S., hosting about 6,500 animal species, subspecies and plants.
- California has been bearing the brunt of climate change in recent years as wildfires and drought transform the land.
- The film focuses on three species that are being negatively affected by the climate crisis: California tiger salamanders, acorn woodpeckers, and monarch butterflies.
- The filmmaker says California is the “poster child of what’s happening to our ecosystems around the world.”

Habitat loss, climate change send hyacinth macaw reeling back into endangered status
- The hyacinth macaw, the world’s largest flying parrot, is closer to return to Brazil’s endangered species list, less than a decade after intensive conservation efforts succeeded in getting it off the list.
- The latest assessment still needs to be made official by the Ministry of the Environment, which is likely to publish the updated endangered species list next year.
- Conservation experts attribute the bird’s decline to the loss of its habitat due to fires in the Pantanal wetlands and ongoing deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes.
- Climate change also poses a serious threat, subjecting the birds to temperature swings that can kill eggs and hatchlings, and driving heavy rainfall that floods their preferred nesting sites.

As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.

Global biodiversity is in crisis, but how bad is it? It’s complicated
- Biodiversity has been defined as one of nine planetary boundaries that help regulate the planet’s operating system. But humanity is crossing those boundaries, threatening life on Earth. The big question: Where precisely is the threshold of environmental change that biodiversity can withstand before it is destabilized and collapses planetwide?
- The planetary boundary for biodiversity loss was initially measured by extinction rates, but this, as well as other measurements, have proved to be insufficient in determining a global threshold for biodiversity loss. At present, a worldwide threshold for biodiversity loss — or biosphere integrity, as it is known now — remains undetermined.
- However, thresholds for biodiversity loss can be clearly defined at local or regional levels when an ecosystem goes through a regime shift, abruptly changing from one stable state to another, resulting in drastic changes to biodiversity in the changed ecosystem.
- While the planetary boundary framework provides one way of understanding biodiversity or biosphere integrity loss, there are many other measures of biodiversity loss — and all point toward the fact that we are continuing to dangerously destabilize life on Earth.

‘There’s not much hope’: Mediterranean corals collapse under relentless heat
- In 2003, a marine heat wave devastated coral reef communities in the Mediterranean Sea, including the reefs in the Scandola Marine Reserve, a protected region off the coast of Corsica.
- More than 15 years later, the coral reef communities in Scandola still have not recovered.
- Researchers determined that persistent marine heat waves, which are now happening every year in the Mediterranean, are preventing Scandola’s slow-growing coral reefs from recuperating.
- Human-induced climate change is the culprit; persistent rising temperatures in the ocean have normalized marine heat waves, not only in the Mediterranean, but in the global oceans.

Scientists on a quest to map worldwide web of fungi beneath our feet
- Interconnected bodies of fungi form vast underground networks through the Earth’s soils, transporting nutrients and water across ecosystems and sequestering vast amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
- Experts agree that protecting fungi and focusing conservation efforts belowground could help to mitigate global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change and pollution.
- A new initiative is embarking on the first global effort to document and map the world’s network-forming fungi, using eDNA and machine learning to identify and protect global hotspots of fungal biodiversity.
- Fungi are increasingly viewed as a nature-based solution to manage global carbon budgets, restore degraded ecosystems, remediate contaminated soils and speed the transition toward sustainable agriculture.

Cats, charisma and climate change (commentary)
- Delegates are meeting later this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference to the debate the future of life on Earth as we know it, through the lens of how to take action on climate change.
- Jonathan Ayers, Chair of the Board of Directors for wild cat conversation organization Panthera, makes a case for expanding efforts beyond combatting climate change: Addressing the global extinction crisis.
- “For far too long, the crisis of biodiversity loss has been largely overlooked and deprioritized,” Ayers writes. “If we are to earnestly protect the planet, environmental dialogue and focus must shift to one in which the climate change and biodiversity conservation crises are regarded and funded as two sides of the same coin.” Ayers says that cats are a great place to start when it comes to conserving ecosystems and staving off extinction.
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Manatee deaths in Florida point to a global decline in seagrass ecosystems
- This year the U.S. state of Florida saw a record number of manatee deaths, and though investigations are still ongoing, experts attribute most of the deaths to the dieback of seagrass, a primary food source.
- The manatee deaths are part of a larger trend: around the world, seagrasses are on the decline, mainly because of increasingly clouded waters due to coastal development.
- Other drivers of this die-off include algal blooms, destructive fishing and boating practices, and the warmer, more acidic waters of climate change.
- There are spots of hope, yet seagrass scientists warn that we are on the brink of losing many of these important wildlife habitats and global carbon sinks.

Hotter and drier: Deforestation and wildfires take a toll on the Amazon
- Drought and high temperatures amplify the destructive effects of deforestation and wildfires.
- Across the Amazon Basin, tree species adapted to drier conditions are becoming more prevalent, and in the Central Amazon, savannas have replaced floodplain forests in just a few decades.
- While deforestation remains a main concern, the impacts of forest degradation are becoming increasingly important.

For Africa’s great apes, even ‘best-case’ climate change will decimate habitat
- Africa’s great apes stand to lose up to 94% of their current suitable habitat by 2050 if humanity makes no effort to slow greenhouse gas emissions, a new study warns.
- Even under the “best-case” scenario, in which global warming can be slowed, gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos would still lose 85% of their range.
- The apes’ habitat is under pressure from human encroachment, clearing of wild areas, and climate change impacts that are rendering existing habitats no longer suitable.
- Researchers say there’s a possibility of “range gain,” where climate change makes currently unsuitable areas habitable for the apes, but warn it could take the slow-adapting animals thousands of years to make the move — much slower than the rate at which their current habitat is being lost.

Scientists call for solving climate and biodiversity crises together
- A new report from United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights the importance of confronting climate change and biodiversity loss together.
- Global climate change and the unprecedented loss of species currently underway result from a similar suite of human-driven causes, the report’s authors write.
- As a result, solutions that take both issues into account have the best chance of success, they conclude.

New paper urges shift to ‘nature positivity’ to restore Earth
- A new paper, published by leading conservationists and the heads of various global institutions, argues for adopting a “nature-positive” goal.
- This would require restoring the Earth from 2020, placing the world on a nature positive path by 2030 to mount a full recovery by 2050.
- According to the authors, nature positivity would provide an overarching goal for nature that would coincide with the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) mission and streamline agreements for climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development into one common vision.
- The paper was released a few days before the start of the meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), where parties will provide advice on the CBD’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework.

Reversing warming quickly could prevent worst climate change effects: Study
- Irreversible and catastrophic environmental tipping points could still be avoided, even if we exceed global emission reduction targets — provided the world is able to reverse overshoot quickly, according to researchers.
- Simple mathematical models of four earth system tipping elements reveal a lag between overshooting the threshold and irreversible change. “Slow-onset” elements like icecap melt operate on century-long timescales, while Amazon dieback could pass a point of no return in just decades.
- However, experts warn that the models fail to take interactions between different tipping elements into account, which could shorten the amount of time a threshold can be overshot. Many of these interactions are poorly understood, making them difficult to include in climate models.
- Researchers say these results show there is still good reason to take action to mitigate global warming, even if we do overshoot the Paris Agreement target of 1.5°C. Some warn the study results could be used as an excuse to tolerate further delays on global climate action.

‘Profound ignorance’: Microbes, a missing piece in the biodiversity puzzle
- Researchers are certain that human activity has resulted in a decline in plant and animal species. But a huge unknown remains: what impacts have human actions —ranging from climate change, to ocean acidification, deforestation and land use change, nitrogen pollution, and more — had on the Earth’s microbes?
- A new paper poses this significant question, and offers a troubling answer: Science suffers from “profound ignorance” about the ways in which microbial biodiversity is being influenced by rapid environmental changes now happening on our planet.
- Researchers are supremely challenged by the microbial biodiversity question, finding it difficult to even define what a microbe species is, and uncertain how to effectively identify, analyze and track the behaviors of microbes on Earth —microorganisms estimated to be more numerous than stars in the known universe.
- We do know microbes play crucial roles — helping grow our food, aiding in the sequestering and release of soil carbon, curing and causing disease, and more. One thing researchers do agree on: knowing how human activities are influencing the microbial world could be very important to the future of humanity and our planet.

Island species and endemics will bear brunt if warming exceeds 3°C: Study
- Endemic species on islands, especially plant species, are at the greatest risk of disappearing because of climate change, a study has found.
- In general, species found exclusively in one region face a greater threat from a changing climate than native and introduced species, with the latter likely to face almost no negative effects at all.
- Places like the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean islands, including Madagascar and Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and biomes like India’s Western Ghats could be bereft of all their endemic plant life in three decades, according to the analysis.
- Introduced species could outcompete and replace endemic species in the world’s biodiversity hotspots if warming continues unchecked.

New map shows where the 80% of species we don’t know about may be hiding
- A new study maps out the regions of the world most likely to hold the highest number of species unknown to science.
- The study found that tropical forests in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and Colombia had the highest potential for undescribed species, mostly reptiles and amphibians.
- According to the lead researcher, the main reason for species going undescribed is a lack of funding and taxonomic experts in some parts of the world.
- He added that it’s essential to learn about as many species as possible to protect them, but that undescribed species are currently not taken into account by governing bodies like the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The nine boundaries humanity must respect to keep the planet habitable
- All life on Earth, and human civilization, are sustained by vital biogeochemical systems, which are in delicate balance. However, our species — due largely to rapid population growth and explosive consumption — is destabilizing these Earth processes, endangering the stability of the “safe operating space for humanity.”
- Scientists note nine planetary boundaries beyond which we can’t push Earth Systems without putting our societies at risk: climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol pollution, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land-system change, and release of novel chemicals.
- Humanity is already existing outside the safe operating space for at least four of the nine boundaries: climate change, biodiversity, land-system change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus imbalance). The best way to prevent overshoot, researchers say, is to revamp our energy and food systems.
- In 2021, three meetings offer chances to avoid planetary boundary overshoot: the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Kunming, China; the U.N. Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, U.K.; and the U.N. Food Systems Summit in Rome. Agreements with measurable, implementable, verifiable, timely and binding targets are vital, say advocates.

Why did the woolly rhino go extinct?
- Genetic analysis of the remnants of 14 woolly rhinos shows that a warming climate, not hunting, probably killed them off 14,000 years ago.
- The numbers of woolly rhinos remained constant until close to their extinction, and far after humans had migrated to their territory in Siberia.
- Genetic mutations suggest that the rhinos were so adapted to living in cold conditions that they could not survive when the climate rapidly warmed.

The riddle of Madagascar’s megafauna extinction just got trickier
- Madagascar saw a relatively recent mass extinction event about 1,000 years ago, when gorilla-sized lemurs, towering elephant birds, and grand tortoises were all wiped out from the island.
- A recently published paper complicates the widely-held understanding that humans were to blame for the crash, by drawing attention to a megadrought that the authors say also played a role.
- The new study uses geological evidence from Madagascar and Rodrigues, an island now part of Mauritius about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) east of Madagascar, to construct a climatic record.
- Some scientists have questioned whether the geological record from Madagascar paints an accurate picture of past climate, or whether the data from Rodrigues can shed light on conditions in Madagascar.

World’s plants and fungi a frontier of discovery, if we can protect them: Report
- The “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi 2020” report, released this week, was born of the collaborative effort of 200 scientists from 42 different countries and delves into a global assessment of plants and fungi as food, fuel, medicine, tools for urban resilience, and more.
- In 2019 alone, 1,942 plants and 1,886 fungi were newly described by scientists, some closely related to known medicinal species and potentially new sources of medicine.
- More than 7,000 edible plants hold potential as future crops, according to the report, meeting the criteria of being nutritious, robust and historically used as food.
- Nearly 40% of plant species are estimated to be threatened with extinction.

World’s protected areas lack connections, recent study finds
- A recent study, published in the journal Nature Communications, has found that 9.7% of the world’s protected areas are connected by land that’s considered intact.
- The study used the human footprint database, which maps out human impacts, such as roads and farmland, across the planet.
- The research showed that, while some countries have protected 17% of their land — a goal set forth in the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi targets — others, including repositories of biodiversity such as Vietnam and Madagascar, are lagging with little to no connectivity in their networks of reserves.
- The authors suggest that the research could help guide decisions on which areas of land to protect and how to connect them in a way that gives species the best shot at survival.

Climate change could put tropical plant germination at risk: Study
- Under a worst-case climate change scenario, more than 20% of plant species in the tropics may experience temperatures too high for their seeds to germinate by 2070, according to an analysis of seed germination data compiled by the UK’s Royal Botanic Gardens Kew.
- Under that same worst-case scenario, over half of tropical species may see reduced rates of germination by 2070 as well, the study reports, while many temperate species at high latitudes will move closer to their optimum temperature and may experience increased germination success as a result.
- The analysis shows that 26% of tropical species and 10% of temperate species are already experiencing temperatures above their optimum. Some plants are found living at sites where temperatures are already above their maximum, suggesting that their lineage in that location may be effectively extinct.
- Plants that find themselves outside of optimum or tolerable temperature ranges may be able to migrate to higher latitudes or altitudes, and existing diversity can offer a reservoir of genetic variation for species to adapt, but physiological limits and long generation times may mean even diverse species struggle.

New study quantifies impact of hunting on migratory shorebird populations
- Hunting might be a major threat for thousands of migratory shorebirds in the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), one of the major corridors for migratory birds in the world.
- A new study shows that hunting has contributed to the demise of at least a third of migratory shorebirds in the flyway since the 1970s.
- The flyway, which spans 22 countries from the Arctic to Australia, is the most threatened flyway among the nine migratory bird corridors in the world, with habitat loss and climate change the main drivers of the plummeting population.
- Around 50 million waterbirds pass through the flyway on an annual basis, but recent data shows a 61% decline in migrating waterbird species.

Communities on Brazil’s ‘River of Unity’ tested by dams, climate change
- The Pixaim Quilombo is one of many traditional communities made up mostly of Afro-Brazilian descendants of runaway slaves. It sits at the mouth of the São Francisco River, one of Brazil’s most important waterways.
- Once a thriving community, it has been struggling for decades due to the impacts of upriver dams which reduce the river’s flow and alter aquatic migrations. As a result, one of the community’s two chief livelihoods has been sharply curtailed — the river’s fishery is in steep decline.
- Now, climate change threatens to make those struggles even greater, further changing fish populations, reducing river flow even more, and dangerously elevating the salinity of the stream as seawater intrudes. Rice, which once provided Paixim’s second major livelihood, can no longer be grown in the delta’s saltier marshes.
- Pixaim is seeing a major outmigration as subsistence livelihoods becomes more difficult. Residents there count among 18 million people residing in the São Francisco River watershed, impacted by a steadily dwindling water resource.

Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects
- In a new paper, a group of 30 scientists offers suggestions for industry, land managers, governments and individuals to protect insects in the face of a global decline.
- Noting that invertebrates lack the “charisma” of larger species like pandas and elephants, the scientists call for spreading “the message that appreciation and conservation of insects is now essential for our future survival.”
- They suggest a list of actions that individuals can take to help, including planting native plants, going organic and avoiding pesticides, and reducing carbon footprint.
- “As insects are braided into ecosystems, their plight is essentially integrated with more expansive movements such as global biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and in an alliance with them,” the scientists say.

Climate tipping point ecosystem collapses may come faster than thought: Studies
- Two recent studies shine a light on a relatively new field of study: the means by which climate tipping points can lead to ecosystem collapse, and how quickly such crashes might occur.
- The first study modeled a database of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and found that large ecosystems, while seeming more stable, can collapse disproportionately faster than small ones due to a domino effect by which interrelated habitats and species within a system can impact each other, causing a rapid cascading collapse.
- Some scientists praised the study for being pathfinding, while others faulted it for looking at too few ecosystems, and then making overlarge generalizations about the crashing of large systems, like the Amazon rainforest, a biome which was not included in the study database.
- A second study found that even small changes in an ecosystem can, via evolution, ripple outward, creating bigger and bigger alterations leading eventually to a system collapse. Scientists agree that much more research will be needed to refine collapse forecasts.

Rapid deforestation of Brazilian Amazon could bring next pandemic: Experts
- Nearly 25,000 COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in Brazil, with 1,378 deaths as of April 15, though some experts say this is an underestimate. Those figures continue growing, even as President Jair Bolsonaro downplays the crisis, calling it “no worse than a mild flu,” and places the economy above public health.
- Scientists warn that the next emergent pandemic could originate in the Brazilian Amazon if Bolsonaro’s policies continue to drive Amazon deforestation rates ever higher. Researchers have long known that new diseases typically arise at the nexus between forest and agribusiness, mining, and other human development.
- One way deforestation leads to new disease emergence is through fire, like the Amazon blazes seen in 2019. In the aftermath of wildfires, altered habitat often offers less food, changing animal behavior, bringing foraging wildlife into contact with neighboring human communities, creating vectors for zoonotic bacteria, viruses and parasites.
- Now, Bolsonaro is pushing to open indigenous lands and conservation units to mining and agribusiness — policies which greatly benefit land grabbers. Escalating deforestation, worsened by climate change, growing drought and fire, heighten the risk of the emergence of new diseases, along with epidemics of existing ones, such as malaria.

Unsung Species: One of Earth’s rarest land mammals clings to a hopeful future (commentary)
- South America’s huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is the Western Hemisphere’s most endangered large land mammal, a fleet-footed Patagonian deer. The species once enjoyed broad distribution, but its numbers have been fractured into roughly 100 small disconnected populations, with huemul totals likely less than 1500 individuals.
- Historically, the huemul was diminished by habitat destruction, poachers, livestock competition and alien predators (especially dogs). More recently climate change may be playing a role, hammering Patagonian coastal fisheries, so possibly causing local villagers to increase hunting pressure on the Andean mountain deer.
- The huemul also suffers from being an unsung species. Unlike the polar bear or rhino, it lacks a broad constituency. If it is to be saved, the species requires broad recognition and support beyond the scientific community. This story is the first in a series by biologist Joel Berger in an effort to make such animals far better known.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

Severe drought and other climate impacts are driving the platypus towards extinction
- According to a new study published in the journal Biological Conservation this month, severe drought conditions and heat, combined with habitat loss and other impacts of human activities, are pushing one of Australia’s most enigmatic and iconic endemic species, the duck-billed platypus, toward extinction.
- The study, led by researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney, examines the potential impacts on platypus populations from the range of threats the animals are facing, including water resource development, fragmentation of river habitats by dams, land clearing for agriculture, invasive species, global climate change, and increasingly severe periods of drought.
- According to the research, current climatic conditions together with the impacts of human activities and other threats could lead to platypus abundance declining anywhere from 47% to 66% over the next 50 years and cause the extinction of local platypus populations across about 40% of the species’ range.

As we act on climate, we mustn’t neglect nature (commentary)
- The discussion of the environment has been unbalanced. While all the talk is about carbon and climate, that is actually only half the story when it comes to our environmental crisis. The other catastrophe is of course the destruction of the natural world, the ecological crisis which threatens a million species with extinction over the coming decades.
- These twin evils are as important and serious as each other, but you wouldn’t think it from a glance at the papers – media coverage of the ecological crisis is being completely eclipsed by the climate, which received eight times more press attention in recent years.
- This imbalance needs to be rectified, and we must start treating our twin crises equally, because we cannot address them in isolation. Natural ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, and seagrass beds, store huge amounts of carbon, and protecting and restoring them is the cheapest and most effective action we can take to lessen the climate crisis. The trouble is, our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change can seriously undermine these key natural ecosystems.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Rare plant species are especially vulnerable to climate change, and rarity is more common than previously understood
- Researchers from around the world spent 10 years compiling a database that now includes 20 million observational records of plant species occurrence, which they say is the largest dataset on botanical biodiversity ever created.
- They found that there are about 435,000 unique land plant species on planet Earth, and that a large fraction of them, 36.5% or some 158,535 species, can be considered “exceedingly rare,” meaning that they have only been observed and recorded anywhere in the world up to five times. In fact, 28.3% of the world’s plants, or 123,149 species, have been observed just three times or less, per the study.
- The research team found that rare species are clustered in a handful of rarity hotspots, and that global warming and the impacts of human land use are already disproportionately impacting the regions that harbor most of these rare plant species.

World is fast losing its cool: Polar regions in deep trouble, say scientists
- As representatives of the world’s nations gather in Madrid at COP 25 this week to discuss global warming policy, a comprehensive new report shows how climate change is disproportionately affecting the Arctic and Antarctic — the Arctic especially is warming tremendously faster than the rest of the world.
- If the planet sees a rise in average temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius, the polar regions will be the hardest hit ecosystems on earth, according to researchers, bringing drastic changes to the region. By the time the lower latitudes hit that mark, it’s projected the Arctic will see temperature increases of 4 degrees Celsius.
- In fact, polar regions are already seeing quickening sea ice melt, permafrost thaws, record wildfires, ice shelves calving, and impacts on cold-adapted species — ranging from Arctic polar bears to Antarctic penguins. What starts in cold areas doesn’t stay there: sea level rise and temperate extreme weather are both linked to polar events.
- The only way out of the trends escalating toward a climate catastrophe at the poles, say scientists, is for nations to begin aggressively reducing greenhouse gas emissions now and embracing sustainable green energy technologies and policies. It remains to be seen whether the negotiators at COP 25 will embrace such solutions.

Shrinking sea ice in the Arctic opens new pathways for animal disease
- Scientists have discovered that periods of minimal sea ice in the Arctic between 2001 and 2016 were followed by spikes in a deadly disease that affects seals, sea lions and sea otters.
- The team used satellite imagery showing decreases in sea ice combined with GPS collar data tracking animal movements over the 15-year study period.
- After periods of sea ice contraction, the odds that a sampled animal would be affected by the disease were more than nine times higher than typical years.

Heat stress is causing desert bird populations to collapse
- Sites in the Mojave Desert in the western U.S. surveyed by ecologists a century ago have lost an average of 43 percent of their breeding bird species.
- New research suggests higher temperatures have increased the daily water needs of birds, which could decimate their populations if climate change worsens.
- The most vulnerable birds are larger, carnivorous species such as turkey vultures and prairie falcons that get most of their water from prey.

Why you should care about the current wave of mass extinctions (commentary)
- The extinction crisis we are witnessing is only the beginning of a wave of mass ecocide of non-human life on Earth, a process that could wipe out a million species of plants and ani-mals from our planet in the short term (read: decades). About 15 thousand scientific studies (!) support this terrifying conclusion, as it can be read in the assessment report produced by the independent UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosy-stem Services (IPBES).
- Certainly this is not what I dreamed of as a child in love with nature and wildlife. But how could I have ever imagined back then, in the 1970s, that during my first 50 years of life the global human population would literally double? That the global economy would increase four-fold, and that in parallel — and not by coincidence — wildlife populations would drop by a staggering 60 percent globally? How could I have ever imagined back then that I would personally witness and document, as a field conservationist, actual extinctions on the ground?
- In order to create a critical mass of awareness globally, there is still an important question to answer: Why should we care to conserve what is left of wild ecosystems and species of our planet? This is a question we should be ready to answer clearly, especially considering that most of the world population currently lives in urban centers, remains quite unaware of eco-logical matters, and is disconnected from nature — and therefore can’t fully appreciate how much our survival as a species is still deeply dependent on ecosystems and nature.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Youth climate strikes sweep Asia ahead of UN Climate Action Summit
- When Super-Hurricane Haiyan descended on the Philippines in 2013, it not only left behind more than 7,400 casualties and nearly $5 billion in destruction. It also helped birth a strong youth climate justice movement.
- That movement is now surging across Southeast Asia, with major climate strikes by students in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia on September 20.
- Such acts of defiance are not easy in Asia, where deference and obedience to parents and elders is deeply ingrained. But with the whole world at risk, Asia’s young people are in the streets and determined to save the future for their nations and themselves.

Interest in protecting environment up since Pope’s 2015 encyclical
- New research into the usage of environmentally related search terms on Google suggests that interest in the environment has risen since Pope Francis released Laudato Si’ in 2015.
- Laudato Si’, a papal encyclical, argues that it is a moral imperative for humans to look after the environment.
- Researchers and scholars believe that the pope’s support for protecting the environment could ripple well beyond the 16 percent of the world’s population that is Catholic.

Climate change spurs deadly virus in frogs in the U.K.
- As temperatures climb, ranaviruses cause more frog deaths over a longer part of the year, according to a new study.
- The researchers combined data from outbreaks of disease caused by ranaviruses in common frogs (Rana temporaria) with laboratory investigations.
- They say that shaded areas and deeper ponds could provide refuges for afflicted animals that might slow the spread of the virus, but they also caution that this “short-term solution” is only a stopgap as the warming climate continues to make life difficult for amphibians.

’Unprecedented’ loss of biodiversity threatens humanity, report finds
- The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a summary of far-reaching research on the threats to biodiversity on May 6.
- The findings are dire, indicating that around 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- The full 1,500-page report, to be released later this year, raises concerns about the impacts of collapsing biodiversity on human well-being.

Bird flu in Namibia’s penguins wanes, after killing nearly 500
- More than 450 African penguins, an IUCN-listed endangered animal, have died in an outbreak of bird flu on three islands off the coast of Namibia.
- The virus, H5N8, is thought to have been introduced to the colonies, which hold 96 percent of Namibia’s penguins, by another bird traveling from South Africa, where a similar outbreak occurred in 2018.
- The disease appears to be abating, and researchers are hopeful that the country’s penguins will recover.
- However, they continue to face threats from food shortages caused by overfishing and climate change.

New ancient, giant carnivore described from bones in museum drawer
- From fossils kept in a drawer at Nairobi National Museum for several decades, researchers have described a new species of a giant carnivore that walked the Earth some 22 million years ago.
- The extinct carnivore was larger than any big cat that lives today, with a skull the size of a rhinoceros’s and massive canine teeth, the researchers say.
- The meat-eating mammal has been dubbed Simbakubwa kutokaafrika, or “big lion from Africa” in Swahili.
- Despite the name, the animal wasn’t a big cat or related to one. Instead, it belonged to a now-extinct group of carnivores called hyaenodonts that were once the top predators across Africa.

What’s in a name? The role of defining ‘wilderness’ in conservation
- In a recent opinion piece published in the journal Nature, several ecologists question recent efforts to delineate areas of wilderness and intactness around the world to define conservation targets.
- They argue that it would be better to build broadly supported consensus that includes the perspectives of local and indigenous communities.
- But the leader of a team that recently mapped out the remaining wilderness on land and in the ocean said that identifying these areas and developing new targets that incorporate their conservation is critical because current international agreements do not prioritize their protection.

Worst mass extinction event in Earth’s history was caused by global warming analogous to current climate crisis
- The Permian period ended about 250 million years ago with the largest recorded mass extinction in Earth’s history, when a series of massive volcanic eruptions is believed to have triggered global climate change that ultimately wiped out 96 percent of marine species in an event known as the “Great Dying.”
- According to Justin Penn, a doctoral student at the University of Washington (UW), the Permian extinction can help us understand the impacts of climate change in our own current era.
- Penn led a team of researchers that combined models of ocean conditions and animal metabolism with paleoceanographic records to show that the Permian mass extinction was caused by rising ocean temperatures, which in turn forced the metabolism of marine animals to speed up. Increased metabolism meant increased need for oxygen, but the warmer waters could not hold enough oxygen to meet those needs, and ocean life was left gasping for breath.

Deforested, degraded land restoration a top priority for African leaders
- African leaders met at a summit to discuss land restoration across the continent on Nov. 13, ahead of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt.
- Representatives from several African countries shared their countries’ pledges to restore hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of degraded and deforested land in the coming decades.
- The summit’s leaders said they hoped the deliberations during the day-long summit would help African countries in both their contributions to international targets and to the improvement of their natural ecosystems for the benefit of their citizens.

Tsetse fly numbers dwindle in the warming Zambezi Valley
- Tsetse flies carry the microorganism that causes sleeping sickness in humans and livestock, but a recent study reveals that their numbers have dropped at a site in the Zambezi Valley as temperatures have climbed.
- Sleeping sickness, known also as trypanosomiasis, is a debilitating and potentially deadly disease to humans that also kills perhaps 1 million cattle each year.
- The study’s authors say that the decline of the tsetse in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley might be accompanied by a rise in their numbers in cooler locales where they once weren’t as prevalent.

Dress like a polar bear: learning to love muskoxen at 15 below zero
- Enduring subzero temperatures that make your face freeze, dressing as a bear, and getting chased by an angry male muskox, are all in a day’s work for biologist Joel Berger. His experiences and scientific insights are featured in a new book that focuses on the lives and survival strategies of muskoxen and other cold-adapted animals.
- The autobiographical book, “Extreme Conservation: Life at the Edge of the World,” profiles Berger’s studies of inhospitable ecosystems, ranging from the high latitudes above the Arctic Circle, to the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau.
- Mongabay contributor Gloria Dickie interviews Berger to see what makes a human want to live and work in some of the Earth’s most brutal environments. The quick answer: to see how barely studied Northern and alpine large mammals — especially muskoxen — are adapting, or not adapting, to a rapidly warming world.
- Berger’s findings regarding instinctual and learned behavior, evolution and survival in a globally warmed world turn out to be revelatory not only to cold-adapted animals, but also relevant to wildlife species around the globe — and to the scientists who want to conserve them.

Red flags abound as a warming Arctic opens up to shipping
- Ship traffic through the Arctic is expected to increase dramatically as global warming renders a growing proportion of the region ice-free.
- Conservationists warn that the higher number of vessels raises the risks of pollution, oil spills, and disturbances to marine mammals from propeller noise.
- They propose a slate of regulatory measures that could help mitigate the anticipated impacts, which could then be extended to other vulnerable maritime regions.

Ice-free passage for ships through the Arctic could cause problems for marine mammals
- A new study suggests that increased ship traffic in the Arctic, as ice there melts due to climate change, could disturb marine mammal species.
- In their assessment of 80 subpopulations living along the Northwest Passage and Russia’s Northern Sea Route, 42 are likely to be affected by a greater number of commercial ships, researchers found.
- The team suggests that mitigation measures, such as those employed in other parts of the world to protect North Atlantic right whales, could be effective.

Rwandan people and mountain gorillas face changing climate together
- The Critically Endangered mountain gorilla (Gorilla beringei beringei), has been brought back from extinction’s brink in Rwanda, with numbers in the Virunga Mountains around Volcanoes National Park estimated at 604 individuals in 2016, up from 480 in 2010. But long-time observers say climate change is bringing new survival challenges to the area.
- Longer and deeper droughts in recent years have caused serious water shortages, which impact both local farmers and the mountain gorillas. People now must often go deep into the park to find clean water, which increases the likelihood of contact with the great apes, which increases the likelihood for the transfer of human diseases to the animals.
- Hotter temps and dryer conditions could also pressure farmers to move into gorilla habitat in future, as they seek more productive cropland at higher altitudes. Also, as the climate changes, bamboo availability may be decreasing, depriving gorillas of a favorite food. This could force troops to forage outside the park in croplands, possibly leading to conflict.
- Forced changes in diet could impact gorilla nutrition, making the great apes more susceptible to disease. A major disease outbreak could be disastrous due to low population numbers. Scientists urge more research to understand how climate change affects human behavior, which then affects gorillas, and how the fate of the two primates intertwines.

Global warming may poison monarch butterflies, study finds
- Monarch numbers have plummeted in recent decades and scientists think it’s due in large part to the reduction of milkweed in the U.S. and Canada from increased herbicide use, as well as deforestation of monarch overwintering grounds in Mexico.
- A recently published study finds a new threat: warming temperatures may be making milkweed, the only plant monarch caterpillars can eat, too toxic for the butterflies.
- The researchers estimate that at current warming rates in the southern U.S., tropical milkweed will be too toxic for monarchs within 40 years.
- Monarchs prefer tropical milkweed to native species and the plant is now widespread throughout the southern U.S.

46% of Albertine Rift species may be threatened by 2080, study finds
- East Africa’s Albertine Rift region hosts many animal and plant species that evolved in isolation and are endemic – meaning they’re found nowhere else in the world.
- But a recent study estimates nearly half of the Albertine Rift’s endemic species may become threatened with extinction by 2080 as climate change shrinks their habitat.
- The study also finds certain species have already lost as much as 90 percent of their habitat to agriculture.
- The researchers say that their findings could be used to predict how the ranges of wildlife populations will shift in response to a changing climate so that conservation workers can focus their efforts on the areas most likely to retain important habitat.

Beyond polar bears: Arctic animals share in vulnerable climate future
- The media has long focused on the impacts of climate change on polar bears. But with Arctic temperatures rising fast (this winter saw the warmest October to February temperatures ever recorded), a wide range of Arctic fauna appears to be at risk, though more studies are needed to determine precise causes, current effects on population, and future projections.
- Diminishing Arctic snow, especially in the spring, may leave wolverines without ideal places to den. Caribou and reindeer populations have been in serious decline due to natural population fluctuation, but scientists don’t know if their numbers will recover under changed climate conditions.
- Lemmings are also being impacted by diminishing snow, often leaving the rodents without cover in spring and autumn. Their decline could impact the predators that prey on them, including Arctic foxes, red foxes, weasels, wolverines, and snowy and short-eared owls.
- Snowy owls have raised concerns because the seabirds they hunt in winter, which congregate around small holes in the Arctic ice, could become more widely dispersed in broader stretches of open water and therefore be harder to prey on. Scientists say more study of Arctic wildlife is urgently needed, but funding and media attention remains sparse.

East Africa’s Albertine Rift needs protection now, scientists say
- The Albertine Rift in East Africa is home to more than 500 species of plants and animals found nowhere else on the planet.
- Created by the stretching apart of tectonic plates, the unique ecosystems of the Albertine Rift are also under threat from encroaching human population and climate change.
- A new report details a plan to protect the landscapes that make up the Rift at a cost of around $21 million per year — a bargain rate, scientists argue, given the number of threatened species that could be saved.

The ozone layer is still getting thinner, new study finds
- A team of scientists measured the total amount of ozone in the atmosphere and found that the overall concentration is about the same as it’s been, despite a measured boost in the upper layer.
- That discovery led the team to surmise that the lower level of the ozone layer is still getting thinner.
- It could be that climate change is forcing ozone in the atmosphere to spread out more quickly toward the poles.
- Another hypothesis is that some of the compounds that have replaced CFCs in the past three decades may similarly be stripping the atmosphere of ozone, just as CFCs did.

Muskox and other Arctic mammals are feeling the heat of climate change
- Past studies have looked at Arctic climate change impacts on wildlife primarily among marine animals and with polar bears, but there is little data on most terrestrial mammals.
- Now, As part of a broader attempt to develop an ecological baseline for Arctic wildlife, researchers have focused on muskoxen, the least studied mammal in North America.
- According to a new study, increasingly common extreme weather events – such as rain-on-snow and extremely dry winter conditions occurring in Russia and Alaska during muskox gestation – result in smaller head size among muskox young. Smaller animals generally have poor survivorship rates.
- Scientists say that, with the Arctic warming twice as fast as the world average, new studies are urgently needed on cold climate mammals including muskoxen, reindeer and caribou, to determine how rapidly escalating climate change up North is impacting wildlife, habitats and ecosystems.

DNA analysis shows Sumatran rhinos peaked during last Ice Age, never recovered
- Genome analysis shows that the Sumatran rhino has been on the path toward extinction for almost 12,000 years, as the end of the last Ice Age cut off much of its former territory, a new report says.
- Habitat loss from deforestation and overhunting further devastated the species’ population, and it has never recovered.
- Scientists continue to make the case for captive breeding as the best effort to boost the rhino population and stave off extinction.

As 2017 hurricane season ends, scientists assess tropical forest harm
- This year’s Atlantic hurricane season – one for the record books – ended on 30 November, seeing six Category 3 to 5 storms wreaking massive destruction across the Caribbean, in the U.S. and Mexico. While damage to the built environment is fairly easy to assess, harm to conserved areas and species is more difficult to determine.
- Satellite images show extensive damage to the 28,400-acre El Yunque National Forest in Puerto Rico, the United States’ only national tropical rainforest. However, observers on the ground say the forest is showing signs of a quick recovery.
- More serious is harm to already stressed, endangered species with small populations. El Yunque’s Critically Endangered Puerto Rican parrot was hard hit: out of 50 endemic wild parrots, 16 are known dead. Likewise, the Endangered imperial parrot endemic to Dominica, spotted just three times since Hurricane Maria.
- Ecosystems and species need time to recover between storms. If the intensity of hurricanes continues to increase due to escalating global warming as predicted, tropical ecosystem and species resilience may be seriously tested.

Carbon sequestration role of savanna soils key to climate goals
- Savannas and grasslands cover a vast area, some 20 percent of the earth’s land surface — from sub-Saharan Africa, to the Cerrado in Brazil, to North America’s heartland. They also offer an enormous and underappreciated capacity for carbon sequestration.
- However, the role of forests in storing carbon has long been emphasized over the role of savannas (and savanna soils) by international climate negotiators, resulting in policies such as REDD+ for preserving and restoring forests, with no such incentives for protecting grasslands.
- Scientists warn that the planting of trees, such as nonnative eucalyptus in Africa and Brazil, could be counterproductive in the long term, potentially contributing to climate change emissions while harming grassland biodiversity and altering ecosystems.
- As participants prepare to meet for the COP23 climate summit in Bonn, Germany next week, grassland scientists are urging that policymakers turn an eye toward savannas, and begin to develop incentives for preserving them and their carbon storing soils. More research is also needed to fully understand the role savannas can play in carbon sequestration.

Lemur species losing favorite food to climate change, new study says
- The greater bamboo lemur tends to feed on nutritious bamboo shoots, switching to the woody trunk of the plant only during the dry season.
- A longer dry season due to climate change could force them to subsist on this less-than-optimal food source for more of the year, potentially pushing this critically endangered species closer to extinction, according to a new study.
- This discovery could have implications for other threatened species, like the giant panda, that depend on one type of food.

Conserving habitat not enough to help species cope with climate change
- New research finds that habitat-based conservation strategies don’t adequately compensate for the range that species in three groups stand to lose due to climate change.
- The team of scientists based in Austria looked at the effects of climate change on 51 species of grasshoppers, butterflies and vascular plants living in central Europe.
- Habitat-based conservation can provide a lifeline, but their model predicts that it won’t be enough to prevent some species from regional extinction.

Canary in the Arctic coal mine: warming harms migrating red knot
- The Arctic is warming faster than any other part of the world, and its ecosystems are changing quickly, with shifts in the timing of insect hatches, plant growth and more.
- Those changes are impacting migratory species that move between the Arctic, the tropics and temperate zones. One such species is the red knot, a shorebird whose Arctic food supply and stored energy have been reduced due to climate change.
- A recent study found that young red knots (Calidris canutus) have shrunk by about 15 percent since 1985. This shrinkage includes a smaller beak which jeopardizes the juvenile birds’ survival as they dig for bivalves.
- Researchers have detected a variety of global warming risks to species as they move from tropical wintering and Arctic summering grounds, and along migratory routes, including shrinking tundra; rising seas; increasingly extreme weather; ocean acidification; and changes to specialized environments, such as temperate stopover havens.

Climate change is increasing the mortality rate of African wild dog pups
- The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), a native of sub-Saharan Africa, is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, which reports that there are only an estimated 6,600 adults in 39 subpopulations left in the wild — and that their numbers continue to decline due to ongoing habitat fragmentation, conflict with humans, and infectious disease.
- Compounding these threats to the species’ survival, according to a paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology yesterday, climate change appears to be increasing the mortality rate for African wild dog pups.
- Researchers discovered that the packs spend less time hunting in hot weather. They also found that more pups died as the days got hotter, which they theorize is because, simply put, decreased hunting time means less food to feed the young.

Ongoing mass extinction causing ‘biological annihilation,’ new study says
- Building on research in which they showed that two species have gone extinct per year over the past century, a team of biologists analyzed the population trends for 27,600 vertebrates around the world.
- They found that nearly a third of the animals they looked at were on the decline.
- In a closer look at 177 well-studied mammals, the team found that all had lost 30 percent or more of their home ranges, and 40 percent had lost at least 80 percent of their habitat.

Extinction in the wild looms for two California fish (commentary)
- The delta smelt is a three-to-four-inch long, silvery-blue fish that has long been at the center of California’s contentious water wars.
- The species lives only in the San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and its numbers have been declining for decades as enormous quantities of freshwater are diverted through the state’s vast network of aqueducts and canals.
- The freshwater river flow also replenished Chinook salmon spawning grounds and freshened habitats (reducing salinity) in San Francisco Bay for waterfowl, Dungeness crab, and countless other aquatic flora and fauna in an immense system of sloughs, mudflats, and marshes. Now, however, most of that water is diverted to California’s thirsty farms and clamoring, growing cities.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Study finds hundreds of thousands of tropical species at risk of extinction due to deforestation
- Scientists have long believed that the rate at which we are destroying tropical forests, and the habitat those forests represent, could drive a global mass extinction event, but the extent of the potential losses has never been fully understood.
- John Alroy, a professor of biological sciences at Australia’s Macquarie University, examined local-scale ecological data in order to forecast potential global extinction rates and found that hundreds of thousands of species are at risk if humans disturb all pristine forests remaining in the tropics.
- Mass extinction will occur primarily in tropical forests because Earth’s terrestrial biodiversity is so heavily concentrated in those ecosystems, Alroy notes in the study.

Over the bridge: The battle for the future of the Kinabatangan
- Proponents of the project contend that a bridge and associated paved road to Sukau would have helped the town grow and improve the standard of living for its residents.
- Environmental groups argue that the region’s unrealized potential for high-end nature tourism could bring similar economic benefits without disturbing local populations of elephants, orangutans and other struggling wildlife.
- The mid-April cancellation of the bridge was heralded as a success for rainforest conservation, but bigger questions loom about the future of local communities, the sanctuary and its wildlife.

Extinct mammoths and rhinos portend a grim future in a warming climate
- The new analysis shows that, while hunting caused problems for cold-dwelling rhinos and mammoths, and in some cases drove them from certain areas completely, the changing climate ultimately led to their extinction.
- Hunting pressure also eradicated some species of horses, but others, such as wild horses (E. przewalskii) and donkeys (E. asinus), were able to survive.
- Along with deer, these mammals probably survived because of their smaller sizes, increased mobility and higher reproductive rates than either mammoths or rhinos.
- With just a 1-degree Celsius rise in Earth’s temperature per century, we could see the same rise in temperatures over the next 500-1,000 years that took 10,000-15,000 years at the end of the last ice age.

Climate change driving widespread local extinctions; tropics most at risk
- Climate change forces three fates on species: adapt, flee or die. A new meta-analysis compiled data from 27 studies to see how species distributions have changed over timescales of 10-159 years, and included 976 species. Almost half (47 percent) had seen some local populations disappear along the warming edge of their ranges.
- The tropics were especially vulnerable to climate change-driven local extinctions. The data showed that 55 percent of tropical and subtropical species experienced local extinctions, whereas the figure was only 39 percent for temperate species. Though the tropical data set was not large, this higher tropical risk concurs with past studies.
- Tropical species are at greater risk due to climate change because they live in some of the world’s hottest environments, so are already at the upper limit of known temperature adaptation, are restricted to small areas, particular rare habitats, and narrow temperature ranges, or have poor dispersal ability and slow reproductive rates.
- Scientists see multiple solutions to the problem: beyond the curbing of greenhouse gas emissions, they recommend conserving large core areas of habitat, and preserving strong connectivity between those core areas, so plants and animals can move more freely between them as required as the world warms.

Ecological trap ensnares endangered African penguins
- Juveniles of the Western Cape population of African penguins, an IUCN-listed endangered species, still frequent a subpar hunting ground, even though other options are within reach.
- This population of penguins has declined by 80 percent in recent decades.
- The current research projects that Western Cape penguin numbers are half of what they would be without this ecological trap.

‘Revolutionary’ new biodiversity maps reveal big gaps in conservation
- The research uses the chemical signals of tree communities to reveal their different survival strategies and identify priority areas for protection.
- Currently, the Carnegie Airborne Observatory’s airplane provides the only way to create these biodiversity maps. But the team is working to install the technology in an Earth-orbiting satellite.
- Once launched, the $200 million satellite would provide worldwide biodiversity mapping updated every month.

‘Running out of time’: 60 percent of primates sliding toward extinction
- The assessment of 504 primate species found that 60 percent are on track toward extinction, and the numbers of 75 percent are going down.
- Agricultural expansion led to the clearing of primate habitat nearly three times the size of France between 1990 and 2010, impinging on the range of 76 percent of apes and monkeys.
- By region, Madagascar and Southeast Asia have the most species in trouble. Nearly 90 percent of Madagascar’s more than 100 primates are moving toward extinction.
- Primates also face serious threats from hunting, logging and ranching.

Trump vows Paris Agreement pull out; world unites behind green economy
- Climate delegates and NGOs meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco, responded to threats this week by Donald Trump to quickly renege on the US commitment to uphold the Paris Climate Agreement. While the US under Pres. Obama led the way to the accord, COP22 summit attendees say that China is now likely to fill the leadership vacuum created by Trump.
- COP22 participants also say that the world’s nations are now united in moving toward decarbonizing their economies with 21st century technologies to slow the rate of global warming, while creating millions of new green-energy jobs. Meanwhile, a US under Trump is on the path to re-embracing coal, a 19th century technology in rapid decline.
- Summit attendees have discussed repercussions for a US withdrawal from the accord reached in December 2015 by nearly 200 nations. Beyond the loss of US standing on the world stage, backlash could come in the form of faltering trade agreements, failed military cooperation, economic sanctions, or a carbon tax levied on the US for failing its carbon-reduction pledges.
- “Even though we are in a time of uncertainty because of the US election, there is no way to turn away from what [climate] scientists have shown us. Failure to act now will lead to catastrophic consequences,” said Peru’s Manuel Pulgar-Vidal, a key organizer of the Lima and Paris climate summits.

Record of ancient atmospheric carbon levels can tell us about climate change impacts to come
- An international team of scientists led by researchers at the University of California, Davis used fossilized leaves and soil-formed minerals to construct a high-resolution record of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels for 16 million years of the late Palaeozoic Era (about 330 to 260 million years ago).
- Climate change not only impacts plants, but plants’ responses to the climate can in turn impact climate change, as well, amplifying its impacts and in many cases making those impacts more unpredictable, according to Isabel Montañez, the lead author of the Nature Geoscience study and a professor at UC Davis’ Department of Earth and Planetary Science.
- The authors say their study is one of the first to show that when plants change the way they function as CO2 rises or falls, it can have major impacts, even causing the extinction of some species.

Climate change pledges not nearly enough to save tropical ecosystems
- Last December, 178 nations pledged to cut their carbon emissions enough to keep global temperatures from rising by more than 2 degrees Celsius — with an aspirational goal of 1.5 degrees. A study in the journal Nature has found that pledges so far are insufficient to keep the world from blasting past the 2 degree mark, even as scientists meet this week in Geneva to consider plans to reach the goal.
- While scientists have long known that extreme temperature rises in the Arctic presaged ecosystem devastation there, they believed that less extreme temperature rises in the tropics might have smaller, less serious impacts on biodiversity.
- Recent findings, however, show that major tropical ecosystems, ranging from coral reefs and mangroves to cloud forests and rainforests are already seriously threatened by climate change with likely dangerous repercussions for wildlife.
- While nations work to commit to, and achieve, their Paris commitments, scientists say it is vital that tropical countries continue to protect large core tracts of wild land linked by wild corridors in order to conserve maximum biodiversity — allowing for free, unhampered movement of species as climate change unfolds.

Warming seas causing massive die-off of Australia’s reef forests
- Before 2011, kelp forests covered more than 70 percent of the rocky southern reefs.
- In just two years, the 2011 heatwave killed around 43 percent of kelp forests on the west coast.
- The worst hit, according to the study, are the kelp forests in the reef’s north-western tip that have still not shown any signs of recovery.

Scientists declare first mammal extinction due to climate change
- According to a new study by scientists with the University of Queensland and the Threatened Species Unit at the Queensland Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, the Bramble Cay melomys (Melomys rubicola) is known only from a very small island with a total area of approximately 4 hectare (10 acres) called Bramble Cay in the northeast Torres Strait, between Australia and the Melanesian island of New Guinea.
- A limited survey in March 2014 failed to find any of the rodents on the island, so the scientists returned later that year with the explicit goal of determining whether or not the Bramble Cay melomys still existed and enacting emergency measures to conserve any remaining individuals that might have been found
- The researchers were ultimately unsuccessful in finding any of the rodents, however. They attributed the species’ extinction to sea level rise and extreme weather events driven by rising global temperatures.

Climate change to kill off many of Australia’s cloud forest species
- The Wet Tropics of Queensland is home to at least 65 vertebrates found nowhere else in the world.
- New research finds that a large number of Australia’s cloud forest species may be doomed due to human-caused climate change.
- Australia’s cloud forests likely won’t be the only ones affected – for years, scientists have been raising warnings about climate change impacts across the world’s cloud forests.

Curb climate change or lose bumblebees, blueberries, tomatoes

According to a comprehensive new study published in the journal Science, bumblebees are particularly vulnerable to climate change disruptions. Historical bumblebee ranges have shrunk on their extreme southern edge, while species to the north fail to adapt with any significant migration into cooler regions. “Climate change appears to contribute, distinctively, and consistently, to… range compression […]
World on course to lose 1 in 6 species to climate change – South America, Australia, New Zealand face even more extinctions

Renowned biologist E.O Wilson, assessing Earth’s sixth great extinction now underway, described the future as a shrinking keyhole through which all species must pass as humanity responds to, and hopefully averts catastrophe. A new study published in the journal Science shows that this keyhole could drastically narrow with each degree increase in global temperature due […]
The only solution for polar bears: ‘stop the rise in CO2 and other greenhouse gases’

Steven Amstrup will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 11th, 2014. In 1773, an expedition headed by Constantine John Phipps, the Second Baron Mulgrave, embarked on a dangerous journey North—to see how far they could go before having to turn back. In his report at the end of […]
Animals bark, screech, and howl for action on global warming (PHOTOS)

The destruction of rainforests in Malaysia and Indonesia for palm oil, paper, and timber has put the world’s orangutans at risk of extinction, it also compounds global warming and mass extinction. Photo by: Singapore Zoo. On May 22nd, zoos and aquariums around the world creatively called for action on global warming. Dubbed “Show the Wild […]
Apocalypse now? Climate change already damaging agriculture, acidifying seas, and worsening extreme weather

It’s not just melting glaciers and bizarrely-early Springs anymore; climate change is impacting every facet of human civilization from our ability to grow enough crops to our ability to get along with each other, according to a new 2,300-page report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The massive report, from the Nobel Prize-winning […]
Can penguins cope with climate change? Scientists find different types of ice elicit different responses

Human-caused climate change is altering the habitat of Adélie penguins (Pygoscelis adeliae). In an article recently published in PLOS ONE, a team of researchers led by Amélie Lescroël from the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS) in France, found that changes in sea-ice content and newly formed icebergs significantly impacted Adélie penguin communities in the […]
Microhabitats could buffer some rainforest animals against climate change

As temperatures increase worldwide due to anthropogenic climate change, scientists are scrambling to figure out if species will be able to survive rapidly warming ecosystems. A new study in Global Change Biology offers a little hope. Studying reptiles and amphibians in the Philippines, scientists say some of these species may be able to seek refuge […]
First study of little-known mammal reveals climate change threat

One of the world’s least-known flying foxes could face extinction by rising seas and changing precipitation patterns due to global warming, according to a new study in Zookeys. The research, headed by Donald Buden with the College of Micronesia, is the first in-depth study of the resident bats of the remote Mortlock Islands, a part […]
Climate change pushing tropical trees upslope ‘exactly as predicted’

Tropical tree communities are moving up mountainsides to cooler habitats as temperatures rise, a new study in Global Change Biology has found. By examining the tree species present in ten one-hectare plots at various intervals over a decade, researchers found that the proportion of lowland species increased in the plots at higher elevations. The study, […]
Global warming may ‘flatten’ rainforests

Climate change may push canopy-dwelling plants and animals out of the tree-tops due to rising temperatures and drier conditions, argues a new study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The development may be akin to “flattening” the tiered vegetation structure that characterizes the rainforest ecosystem. The conclusion is based on surveys of frogs […]
Climate change killing harp seal pups

As sea ice levels continue to decline in the northern hemisphere, scientists are observing an unsettling trend in harp seal young mortalities regardless of juvenile fitness. While a recent study found that in harp seal breeding regions ice cover decreased by up to 6% a decade from 1979 on, a follow-up study in PLoS ONE […]
Climate change to halve habitat for over 10,000 common species

Even as concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in human history last week, a new study in Nature Climate Change warns that thousands of the world’s common species will suffer grave habitat loss under climate change. “While there has been much research on the […]
The Hawaiian silversword: another warning on climate change

The Hawaiian silversword (Argyroxyphium sandwicense), a beautiful, spiny plant from the volcanic Hawaiian highlands may not survive the ravages of climate change, according to a new study in Global Change Biology. An unmistakable plant, the silversword has long, sword-shaped leaves covered in silver hair and beautiful flowering stalks that may tower to a height of […]
Leatherback sea turtles suffer 78 percent decline at critical nesting sites in Pacific

Leatherback sea turtle laying eggs on the coast of Suriname. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. The world’s largest sea turtle, the leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea), is vanishing from its most important nesting sites in the western Pacific, according to a new study in Ecosphere. Scientists found that leatherback turtle nests have dropped by 78 percent in less […]
Will Amazon species lose the climate change race?

Insect nymph in Manu National Park, Peru. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Deforestation could increase the risk of biodiversity loss in the Amazon by forcing species to migrate further in order to remain at equilibrium with changing climates, says new research. “As migration models are made more realistic through the inclusion of multiple climatic, biotic, […]
U.S. proposes to list wolverine under Endangered Species Act

Wolverine in the snow. Photo by: Bigstock. Arguably one of the toughest animals on Earth, the wolverine (Gulo gulo) may soon find itself protected under the U.S.’s Endangered Species Act (ESA) as climate change melts away its preferred habitat. Last week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced it was proposing to place the […]
Scientists could name every species on Earth in 50 years

New species of agama lizard discovered in remote rainforest in Vietnam: Calotes bachae. Photo by Peter Geissler. A bold new paper in Science argues that the world’s species could be named and described before they vanish into extinction, though the threat of eventual extinction will remain for many, especially as climate change worsens. The scientists […]
Cute koalas have become ‘urban refugees’

The 3rd Annual New York Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WFCC.org) runs from January 30 – February 2, 2013. Ahead of the event, Mongabay.com is running a series of Q&As with filmmakers and presenters. For more interviews, please see our WCFF feed. Jimmy, an orphan whose mother was rundown by a car, is the star of […]
Global warming – 56 million years ago

View of Bighorn Basin in Wyoming, showing the sediments which scientists drill through. Photo courtesy of Phillip Jardine. Sandy, Irene, Katrina… Hurricanes are fast becoming household names and have many people worried over the connection between extreme weather and the amount of greenhouse gases people are pumping into the atmosphere. No one can predict for […]
Mountain pine beetle threatening high-altitude, endangered trees

Whitebark pine stand. Photo by: Richard Sniezko/U.S. Forest Service. In the western U.S., few trees generally grow in higher altitudes than the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis). Providing shelter and food for bears, squirrels and birds, the whitebark pine ecosystems also help regulate water flow from snowmelt. But, according to a new study in the Proceedings […]
Reduction in snow threatens Arctic seals

Arctic snowfall accumulation plays a critical role in ringed seal breeding, but may be at risk due to climate change, according to a new study in Geophysical Research Letters. Sea ice, which is disappearing at an alarming rate, provides a crucial platform for the deep snow seals need to reproduce. Ringed seals (Phoca hispida) require […]
Climate change threatens population of Earth’s largest sea turtle

A female leatherback surveys the ocean at Playa Grande, Costa Rica. While her hatchlings will be affected by rising beach temperatures, she faces threats at sea. Photo by: The Leatherback Trust. A drier, hotter climate in Central America could wipe out the population of leatherback sea turtles from the eastern Pacific Ocean by the year […]
Bats face new perils from climate change

A change in prey abundance due to climate change could impact the lesser mouse-eared bat (Myotis blythii). Photo by: Christoph F. Robiller. Global climate change could devastate bat populations around the world, threatening to tear yet another thread from the tapestry of biodiversity should current temperature trends persist, according to a new study. “Bats were […]
Penguins face a slippery future

Adelie penguins hunting for food. Photo by: J. Weller. Click to enlarge. Pablo Garcia Borboroglu will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 13th, 2012. Penguins have spent years fooling us. With their image seemingly every where we turn—entertaining us in animated films, awing us in documentaries, and winking […]
Climate change may be worsening impacts of killer frog disease

Climate change, which is spawning more extreme temperatures variations worldwide, may be worsening the effects of a devastating fungal disease on the world’s amphibians, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. Researchers found that frogs infected with the disease, known as chytridiomycosis, perished more rapidly when temperatures swung wildly. However scientists told the […]
Past climate change reduced lemur population in Madagascar

Climate threat to lemurs Daraina region in Madagascar. Background image from Google Earth. Climate change that took place 4,000-10,000 years ago may have contributed to the endangered status of one of Madagascar’s rarest lemurs by reducing the extent of its habitat, argues a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of […]
First snow leopards collared in Afghanistan as species faces rising threat from climate change

The research team conducts a dental exam of a snow leopard prior to its release. Photo by: Anthony Simms/WCS. Scientists have captured and collared two snow leopards (Panthera uncia), arguably one of the world’s most elusive predators, in Afghanistan for the first time. Undertaken by researchers with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Afghani vets, the […]
Just how far can a polar bear swim?

Polar bear swimming in open water. Photo by: USGS. Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are capable of swimming incredible distances, according to a new study published in Zoology, which recorded polar bears regularly swimming over 30 miles (48 kilometers) and, in one case, as far as 220 miles (354 kilometers). The researchers believe the ability of […]
Birders beware: climate change could push 600 tropical birds into extinction

There may be less birds for birders to see in the world as the planet warms. Climate change, in combination with deforestation, could send between 100 and 2,500 tropical birds to extinction before the end of century, according to new research published in Biological Conservation. The wide range depends on the extent of climate and […]
Climate change may make lizards smarter, if they don’t go extinct first

A new study in Biology Letters has found that warmer temperatures may make lizards smarter, even as past studies have linked a global decline in lizards to climate change. Looking at Australia’s Eastern three-lined skink (Bassiana duperreyi), researchers found that warm temperatures during incubation not only resulted in larger individuals (a result confirmed in previous […]
Seals, birds, and alpine plants suffer under climate change

The number of species identified by scientists as vulnerable to climate change continues to rise along with the Earth’s temperature. Recent studies have found that a warmer world is leading to premature deaths of harp seal pups (Pagophilus groenlandicus) in the Arctic, a decline of some duck species in Canada, shrinking alpine meadows in Europe, […]
Featured video: Arctic ice melt creates mass walrus ‘haul-outs’
The disintegration of the Arctic sea ice, which hit the second lowest record this year, is forcing a number of Arctic animals to change their behavior. The footage below is of thousands of walrus hauling out of the water onto shore land to rest. In years past, these walruses would’ve spent this time foraging in […]
‘Heatwave’ in Arctic decimating sea ice

Arctic sea ice could hit a record low by the end of the summer due to temperatures in the North Pole that are an astounding 11 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit (6 to 8 degrees Celsius) above average in the first half of July, reports the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Already the sea […]
The truth about polar bears and climate change

Polar bear beside a whale carcass. Taken with a remote camera. © National Geographic Entertainment. Photo by: Florian Schulz. Although scientists say innumerable species are threatened by climate change, polar bears have been the global symbol of the movement to rein-in greenhouse gas emissions. This is perhaps not surprising, since polar bears are well known […]

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