Tag: extinction

New species at the bottom of the ocean

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Gummy Squirrel

Scientists have found more than 30 potentially new species living at the bottom of the sea.

Researchers from the UK’s Natural History Museum used a remotely operated vehicle to collect specimens from the abyssal plains of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone in the central Pacific. Previously, creatures from this area had been studied only from photographs…

The animals found include segmented worms, invertebrates from the same family as centipedes, marine animals from the same family as jellyfish, and different types of coral…

The findings have potentially important implications for deep-sea mining, as humans become more interested in exploiting minerals from the seabed, because it seems the activity has the potential to disturb many creatures…

While the authors are concerned with questions of diversity and size, I hope investigations broaden to elemental questions. Like, “are these species present in sufficient numbers, distribution, to negate concerns about extinction” from the mining ventures that prompted this research.

Only one Republican from New England may be left in Congress after the November elections

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“I will not be voting for Donald Trump for president” – Senator Susan Collins

New England’s shrinking Republican delegation in Congress is moving toward the brink of political extinction in November with Donald Trump at the top of the party’s ticket…Only four Republicans remain in New England’s 33-member congressional delegation, and three are in competitive races this fall. The other, four-term Senator Susan Collins of Maine, doesn’t face re-election this year.

Republican moderates who once represented the region became a dying breed in the past few decades as the party moved to the right. Trump, with his controversies and bombastic demeanor, has complicated what was already a difficult task of getting re-elected for the region’s party members.

Losses by Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte and Representative Frank Guinta, both of New Hampshire, and Representative Bruce Poliquin of Maine could leave Collins as the only member of her party in Congress from the six New England states: Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Maine and Massachusetts…

Democrats, even before Trump was nominated, were banking on Clinton’s coattails to help them win the Senate and make gains in House seats. Trump’s antics and cratering poll numbers have some Republicans increasingly worried about a rout in November.

Princeton’s Julian Zelizer said there’s a “cushion” of Republican congressional seats in the South to guarantee continued strong presence, even with a loss of some members. But there’s no such cushion in New England for Republican lawmakers.

The Pew Research Center says the combined House delegation of six New England states went from 15 Democrats and 10 Republicans in 1973-74 to 20 Democrats and two Republicans in 2011-2012.

The cradle of the American Revolution was also an important center for every generation’s fight against bigotry, for civil rights. Whether you were an Abolitionist, fighting for Women’s Suffrage, involved with the LGBT struggle for equal opportunity, New England could be counted on for national support.

As one of the centers for education in the nation, contempt for populism and Trump makes rote Republican politics a liability.

Feds agree to consider Western Bumblebees an endangered species

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❝ Federal wildlife biologists said…they will consider protecting the native western bumblebee as an endangered species.

Once widespread, bumblebees have declined across western North America and, for at least one type, it may be too late.

❝ A Defenders of Wildlife petition drove the decision by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials to launch a scientific review to determine whether bumblebees need federal protection to survive.

The petition declares western bumblebees at risk of extinction — hammered by habitat loss in the face of development and population growth, disease, pesticides and climate change…

❝ Bees, including native bumblebees, play key roles as pollinators of flowering plants and agricultural crops from the Dakotas to California and Alaska to Mexico.

Wildlife advocates in recent years have urged the U.S. Department of Agriculture to do more to try to stop the spread of disease to wild bees. They asked federal regulators to control commercial bumblebees and, in particular, prohibit transport of bumblebees beyond their native ranges. They contend commercial bumblebees should move between states only when certified as disease-free.

Sensible. I suppose it’s asking too much of government since the Age of Reagan to consider scientific caution sufficient reason to regulate any sort of interstate commerce. It’s not like we’re considering the productivity of American foodstuffs as mission-critical, eh?

Mass extinction may replace big fish with little fish — again

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When big fish that dominate the seas suddenly disappear, small fish take over—and stay on top for hundreds of millions of years. At least, that’s what happened after a mass extinction some 359 million years ago. Thanks to overfishing, scientists worry it could be happening again.

That grim prediction comes from a new study in Science analyzing the effects of something called the Hangenberg Event—the closing chapter of the fourth of those five mass extinctions you’re always hearing about—which blotted out 97% of vertebrate species.

Up until that point, a diverse cast of gigantic fishes — many the size of school buses — ruled the seas, gobbling up small fish. After the mass die-off, though some big fish lingered, nearly all eventually died out. The creatures that repopulated the seas instead were much tinier than before, many of them shorter than a ballpoint pen. For another 40 million years, these little guys overran the oceans…

…Analyzing more than 1,200 fossils from before and after the Hangenberg Event…researchers concluded that natural selection was solely responsible — a finding that has ominous implications for how humans are warping ecosystems today…

Humans are now doing something unsettlingly similar…Many of the 80 million tonnes of wild-caught fish…we eat each year are the big ones—cod, tuna, halibut, to name a few. Others that don’t show up on your sushi menu — sharks and rays, for instance — often die tangled in nets meant for other species.

“The point is that losses of this magnitude take millions of years to recover from and alter ecosystems long-term no matter how the deaths occurred,” says Professor Lauren Sallan.

Growing up subsistence fishing along the sluthern New England coast, I find overfishing, malfishing, contemptible and stupid. One of those illnesses only capable of solution by international compact and regulation. Abhorrent, of course, to the anarchy of what passes for Congress, lately.

Yes, I can survive on anchovies instead of sea bass steaks. But, why should the choices made by greedy corporate fishmongers govern the choices remaining to consumers like me?

Threat of the sixth mass extinction is real – and it is here, now!

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That is the bad news at the center of a new study by a group of scientists including Paul Ehrlich, the Bing Professor of Population Studies in biology and a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Ehrlich and his co-authors call for fast action to conserve threatened species, populations and habitat, but warn that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing…

Although most well known for his positions on human population, Ehrlich has done extensive work on extinctions going back to his 1981 book, Extinction: The Causes and Consequences of the Disappearance of Species. He has long tied his work on coevolution, on racial, gender and economic justice, and on nuclear winter with the issue of wildlife populations and species loss…

The new study, published in the journal Science Advances, shows that even with extremely conservative estimates, species are disappearing up to about 100 times faster than the normal rate between mass extinctions, known as the background rate.

“If it is allowed to continue, life would take many millions of years to recover, and our species itself would likely disappear early on,” said lead author Gerardo Ceballos of the Universidad Autónoma de México…

Focusing on vertebrates, the group for which the most reliable modern and fossil data exist, the researchers asked whether even the lowest estimates of the difference between background and contemporary extinction rates still justify the conclusion that people are precipitating “a global spasm of biodiversity loss.” The answer: a definitive yes.

“We emphasize that our calculations very likely underestimate the severity of the extinction crisis, because our aim was to place a realistic lower bound on humanity’s impact on biodiversity,” the researchers write.

To history’s steady drumbeat, a human population growing in numbers, per capita consumption and economic inequity has altered or destroyed natural habitats. The long list of impacts includes:

Land clearing for farming, logging and settlement

Introduction of invasive species

Carbon emissions that drive climate change and ocean acidification

Toxins that alter and poison ecosystems

Now, the specter of extinction hangs over about 41 percent of all amphibian species and 26 percent of all mammals, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which maintains an authoritative list of threatened and extinct species.

“There are examples of species all over the world that are essentially the walking dead,” Ehrlich said.

Look around you, folks. Most of us are urban if not urbane. We struggle each day back-and-forth through invisible vapors, still detectible with our olfactory sense. Friends in Midland, Texas, call the petrochemicals in the air “the smell of money”. I call it the smell of death because most birds are already gone, dead or dying, fleeing the chemistry of an Earth’s crust riddled by as many holes as the battlefield remains of a Mafia shootout.

Do you wonder why only the rich and super-rich afford themselves menus of fish and fowl comparatively as expensive as Ferraris. Taste guided not only by wealth; but, scarcity, assumes the death of species as an opportunity for increased profit. When vendors of toys and bling achieve greater wealth themselves – we know the prophets of doom have every right to stand and ring their little bell outsides the doors of our homes, before the grand entrances of government halls.

Paleoindians in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico

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El Fin del Mundo
El Fin del Mundo — Henry Wallace

Paleoindian research encompasses a number of broad questions of far-reaching significance. Who were the first peoples to reach the Americas? When did they arrive? What was the relationship between the makers of Clovis spear points and the extinction of megafauna, such as the horse, mammoth, dire wolf, and other animals? Although these issues have long been debated, no consensus has been achieved. Big questions can persist because of in- sufficient evidence or because re- searchers have not adequately or fully interpreted the available infor- mation. A few researchers have pro- posed dramatically new ideas— such as the possibility of a comet col- liding with the earth (page 18)— and others, like Joe Cramer, have decided that these questions will be resolved only by supporting many more researchers who will generate new data. Both approaches are ex- amined in this issue of Archaeology Southwest…

“The end of the last Ice Age in North America was a time of enormous change: mile-thick glaciers were retreating rapidly, the sea level was rising, and large mammals, such as mammoths, ground sloths, camels and dire wolves would soon disappear.” Although a convergence of climate change and Paleo-Indian hunters may be a cause of the great extinction, “researchers still do not know exactly what happened.”

My own vulgate opinion is not much better informed than the average American science buff – excepting the portion of that opinion formed during the comparatively brief time I lived in the Navajo Nation plus day-to-day experience working construction trades in northern New Mexico, sometimes within one or another Rio Grande or Northern Pueblo.

I agree with that school of thought that presumes Paleoindian hunters to be the primary cause of the great extinction of large mammals from North America. Not unusual when and where human beings are part of the equation. Regardless – RTFA. It is a lovely, in-depth examination of many of the questions of the Paleoindian period in North American history.

Microbes may have been responsible for the largest mass extinction of species in history

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MIT professor of geophysics Daniel Rothman stands next to part of the Xiakou formation in China

A team of researchers from MIT may have found new evidence to shed light on the cause of the most devastating mass extinction in the history of our planet. The event, estimated to have taken place around 252 million years ago, was responsible for the extinction of roughly 90 percent of all life on Earth.

The team’s research indicates that the catastrophic event was in fact triggered by the tiniest of organisms, a methane-releasing microbe called Methanosarcina. New evidence suggests that at the time of the extinction, the microbes appeared in massive numbers across the world’s oceans, spreading vast clouds of the carbon-heavy gas methane into the atmosphere. This had the effect of altering the planet’s climate in a way that made it inhospitable to most other forms of life inhabiting Earth at that time.

It was previously believed that the mass extinction, known as the end-Permian extinction, was due to either vast amounts of volcanic activity, a devastating asteroid strike or prolific all-consuming coal fires. Any of these events could have caused the mass deaths, however there are inconsistencies in the evidence that point away from the traditional theories and towards the new findings presented by the researchers from MIT…

Although the team does not believe that…heightened levels of volcanism were responsible for the extinction itself, they do believe that it could have been the catalyst. The sudden and devastating increase in carbon-containing gases present during the end-Permian extinction is put down to a massive bloom of Methanosarcina. However, for this bloom to take place, the microbes would require an abundant source of carbon and nickel, both of which were discovered in a new analysis of sediments in China, and could have been distributed widely through a volcanic eruption.

The case for Methanosarcina being responsible for the extinction is further strengthened by the team’s findings that, at the time of the end-Permian extinction, the microbes had undergone a genetic transfer from another microbe. This is what gave the Methanosarcina the ability to produce methane at such a prolific rate.

With the catalyst of volcanic activity, the Methanosarcina were able to spread across our planet’s oceans unchecked. This allowed the microbes to produce vast quantities of carbon-containing methane, by harvesting the now carbon- and nickel-rich water. The release of said methane would have had the effect of raising the carbon dioxide levels in the waters, causing ocean acidification, irrevocably altering the ecosystem.

Let us hope no natural occurrence allows us to experiment firsthand with the hypothesis.

Of course, if such a cataclysm initiated, we can count on the usual assembly of know-nothings to stand around – doing their best to interfere with any attempt to save the species of Earth – while the rest of us die trying.

How tech can — and can’t — solve climate change, extinction

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Somewhere around two hundred thousand years ago, a new primate emerges on Earth.

“The members of the species are not particularly swift or strong or fertile,” the New Yorker’s Elizabeth Kolbert writes in her new book, “The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History.” “They are, however, singularly resourceful.”

It is, of course, us — big-brained, small-browed genetic mutants clever enough to outcompete animals ten times our size and gradually fan out across the globe.

Eventually, humankind invents axes, engines, cities and strip malls. We tear down forests and dig up fuel from the ground.

Other times we excavate out of curiosity, traveling backward in time through the records of bones, fossils and rocks that eventually give up clues to mass tragedies in the ancient past. Huge portions of the world’s creatures disappeared in a geologic blink of the eye.

In fact, five blinks — so far. The reasons aren’t always settled in science, but strong possibilities for the various mass extinctions include a dramatic release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, climatic shifts that tipped the globe into prolonged ice ages and a gigantic asteroid strike that kicked up enormous clouds of dust.

The early part of Kolbert’s new book is an exploration of this exploration of the past, telling the stories of scientists who worked to reconstruct this grim timeline of species loss. But mostly it’s scene setting for the real subject of the book, the one telegraphed in the title: The Sixth Extinction.

The salient characteristics of the latest epoch are that we appear to be living through it now — and causing it…

That’s the start. In between the start and finish there’s lots of important science stuff.

It’s not that I have a solution I’m trying to work toward and just haven’t said what it is. I don’t have a solution. It’s possible that massive thinking and massive effort will yield, not a solution, but a much better future than the one we seem to be heading toward.

Sherwood Rowland, one of the scientists who discovered ozone depleting chemicals and who recently died, had a couple of great lines, including one I quoted in the book. “The work is going well, but it looks like it might be the end of the world…”

The politics of the discussion is simple enough:

“What’s the use of having developed a science well enough to make predictions if, in the end, all we’re willing to do is stand around and wait for them to come true?”

The combination of know-nothings, The Party of No, idjits and Cowardly Lions in Congress aren’t even doing that much. RTFA for lots more about the book, what can and can’t be done – you already know who needs to be thrown out of Congress and state legislatures to achieve anything more than political babble.

Putting the dead to work

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Conservation paleobiologists–scientists who use the fossil record to understand the evolutionary and ecological responses of present-day species to changes in their environment–are putting the dead to work.

A new review of the research in this emerging field provides examples of how the fossil record can help assess environmental impacts, predict which species will be most vulnerable to environmental changes, and provide guidelines for restoration.

The literature review by conservation paleobiologists Gregory Dietl…and Karl Flessa…is published in the January, 2011, issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the research.

“Conservation paleobiologists apply the data and tools of paleontology to today’s problems in biodiversity conservation,” says Dietl. The primary sources of data are “geohistorical”: the fossils, geochemistry and sediments of the geologic record.”

“A conservation paleobiology perspective has the unique advantage of being able to identify phenomena beyond time scales of direct observation,” Dietl says.

Such data, says Flessa, “are crucial for documenting the species we have already lost–such as the extinct birds of the Hawaiian islands–and for developing more effective conservation policies in the face of an uncertain future.”

Geohistorical records, the authors write, are critical to identifying where–and how–species survived long-ago periods of climate change.

“Historically, paleontologists have focused their efforts on understanding the deep-time geological record of ancient life on Earth, but these authors turn that focus 180 degrees,” says H. Richard Lane, program director in NSF’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funds Dietl’s and Flessa’s research.

“In putting the dead to work, they identify the significant impact knowledge of fossil life can have on interpreting modern biodiversity and ecological trends…”

An important role of geohistorical data is to provide access to a wider range of past environmental conditions–alternative worlds of every imaginable circumstance.

Tales of the past that may lead to better conservation practices, crucial for life, not death, on Earth.

RTFA. I haven’t yet found free access to the complete paper. Looks interesting. The examples contained in the press release are enough to stimulate thought and discussion.