The Ocean Census identified 1,121 likely new marine species in a single year

Amazing stuff!

What little we still know about our oceans!

"The Ocean Census, an international research project dedicated to accelerating the discovery of marine life, claims to have identified 1,121 likely new marine species in a single year, well above the usual pace of discovery. Much of the acceleration seems to have come from better coordination;

728 of the species were identified by researchers analyzing existing collections, and the Ocean Census also credits a new database that centralizes records of potential new species while they await formal scientific description, a process that typically takes over a decade."

"

• Scientists have found 1,121 previously unknown species, fast-tracking discovery and marking a 54% jump in annual identification.
• Discoveries from depths of up to 6,575m include a new species of deep-sea ghost shark, a symbiotic bristle worm living within a ‘glass castle’, as well as corals, crabs, shrimps, sea urchins, and anemones.
• Led by The Nippon Foundation-Nekton Ocean Census, this global effort included 13 expeditions and 9 species discovery workshops with leading scientists across the world.

...

With up to 90% of ocean species still undiscovered, the findings highlight both the sheer scale of life yet to be documented and the importance of building scientific data that policymakers and marine managers need to protect the ocean. ..."

Doomslayer: Progress Roundup - by Malcolm Cochran

Photos Reveal Strange Unknown Sea Creatures

PRESS RELEASE: Scientists discover over 1,100 new marine species in landmark Ocean Census (original news release)

The ‘Ghost Shark’ Chimaera

Plant samples preserved in museums may hold key to advancing biodiversity

Amazing stuff!

"A single dried flower pressed flat on a page of white cardboard is a plant sample made using very old technology. People have been collecting these types of samples since the 1600s.

Armed with very new technology, such as artificial intelligence and genomic sequencing ... sees tremendous opportunity in studying these collections that span centuries.

Researchers could potentially harvest a wealth of information from the millions of samples housed in the world’s 3,000 herbaria ...

A lot can be learned about herbivores from the bite marks on a leaf, for example. Half-moon shapes or a skeletonized leaf can indicate what type of plant-eating insects were present. Insects make up the greatest number of herbivores, but larger herbivores like deer and elk leave marks that can also be identified.

In addition, crystalized nectar can provide clues about past pollinators. ... a project ... to rehydrate old nectar from herbarium specimens and then use mass spectrometry to analyze the molecules and identify the types of sugars present. The sugars can indicate what types of pollinators – such as bees, hummingbirds, and butterflies – might have interacted with the plants 50 or even 100 years ago. ..."

Plant samples preserved in museums may hold key to advancing biodiversity | Stanford Report "Herbaria, or “museums for plants,” house millions of samples collected over centuries. Stanford biologist Barnabas Daru shares how modern technology can unlock this treasure trove, providing scientists with vital insights into plants and the ecosystems they support."

Rewilding successes in urban areas

Amazing stuff! Bewildering! Reintroduction of natural fauna and flora into city life!

"A beaver glides through a restored wetland in London. Falcons raise chicks atop Chicago skyscrapers. Platypuses paddle through creeks on Sydney’s fringe. Leopard frogs soak up the sun in Las Vegas. Behind these scenes is a rising ecological movement: urban rewilding, where cities become havens for once displaced wildlife.

A new [survey] study ... reveals how cities across the globe are fighting back against biodiversity loss by restoring wildlife to the places it once called home. ...

team analysed 2,800 scientific papers on species reintroduction. Strikingly, fewer than 1% of rewilding programs focus on terrestrial animals in urban areas. Most efforts—about two-thirds—are still limited to vegetation. ..."

From the abstract:

"Rapid urbanization is contributing to unprecedented biodiversity decline worldwide. Despite biodiversity loss being more pronounced in cities, traditional conservation efforts such as establishing large, protected areas and restoring native vegetation are largely undertaken far from urban landscapes. More proactive approaches, such as rewilding, have garnered momentum as a conservation process but remain underused in cities.

In the present article, focusing on active faunal reintroductions, we explore urban rewilding as a process to restore ecological functions and enhance ecosystem resilience.

Through a systematic literature review, we assess the varied aims, challenges, and definitions of success in rewilding efforts in urban contexts. Moreover, we define the unique opportunities and benefits urban rewilding presents for reconnecting people with nature, fostering community engagement, and enhancing cultural connections.

Finally, we identify future research areas, including the need for long-term studies on ecological impacts, developing species selection frameworks, and exploring sociocultural dimensions of urban rewilding."

Rewilding successes in the urban jungles

Urban rewilding combats global biodiversity decline (press release) "Animals around the world are taking to city life."

Urban rewilding to combat global biodiversity decline (open access)

Figure 1.Classification of the major rewilding types based on the method of animal reintroduction (active versus passive) and the landscape into which the animals are reintroduced.

Environmental DNA is in the outdoor air

Amazing stuff! As usual, the ethical concerns raised in this context are overblown and a case of virtue signalling!

"During a single week in April 2023, the area around Florida’s Washington Oaks Gardens State Park was abuzz. A bobcat passed by, perhaps stalking the eastern gray squirrels. An eastern diamondback rattlesnake slithered through the undergrowth. The spaces among the grand oaks hummed with wildlife—a big brown bat, mosquitoes, and an osprey—and people with African, European, and Asian ancestry.

Scientists didn’t directly see any of these creatures. But they used cutting-edge DNA technology to find evidence of them in tiny specks of organic material floating in the air.

A similar analysis of air from the streets of Dublin revealed a far different, but equally rich, tableau of life. Together the work shows the potential of airborne DNA-detection tools to surveil biodiversity, disease-causing microbes, and invasive species. “ ..."

From the abstract:

"Biodiversity and its associated genetic diversity are being lost at an unprecedented rate. Simultaneously, the distributions of flora, fauna, fungi, microbes and pathogens are rapidly changing. Novel technology can help to capture and record genetic diversity before it is lost and to measure population shifts and pathogen distributions.

Here we report the rapid application of shotgun long-read environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis for non-invasive biodiversity, genetic diversity and pathogen assessments from air. We also compared air eDNA with water and soil eDNA. Coupling long-read sequencing with established cloud-based biodiversity pipelines enabled a 2-day turnaround from airborne sample collection to completed analysis by a single investigator.

To determine the full utility of airborne eDNA, we also conducted a local bioinformatic analysis and deep short-read shotgun sequencing. From outdoor air eDNA alone, comprehensive genetic analysis was performed, including population genetics (phylogenetic placement) of a charismatic mammal (bobcat, Lynx rufus) and a venomous spider (golden silk orb weaver, Trichonephila clavipes), and haplotyping humans (Homo sapiens) from natural complex community settings, such as subtropical forests and temperate locations.

The rich datasets also enabled deeper analysis of specific species and genomic regions of interest, including viral variant calling, human variant analysis and antimicrobial resistance gene surveillance from airborne DNA.

Our results highlight the speed, versatility and specificity of pan-biodiversity monitoring via non-invasive eDNA sampling using current benchtop/portable and cloud-based approaches. Furthermore, they reveal the future feasibility of scaling down (equipment and temporally) these approaches for near real-time analysis. Together these approaches can enable rapid simultaneous detection of all life and its genetic diversity from air, water and sediment samples for unbiased non-targeted information-rich genomics-empowered

(1) biodiversity monitoring,

(2) population genetics,

(3) pathogen and disease-vector genomic surveillance,

(4) allergen and narcotic surveillance,

(5) antimicrobial resistance surveillance and

(6) bioprospecting."

ScienceAdviser

DNA captured from the air could track wildlife, invasive species—and humans "Technology could be a boon for science, but raises ethical concerns"

Shotgun sequencing of airborne eDNA achieves rapid assessment of whole biomes, population genetics and genomic variation (open access)

Study overview

Chemical-free farming brings life back to rural France

Food for thought!

Nature: 27 New Species Showcase Amazon Rainforest's Rich Biodiversity in Peru

Amazing stuff!

Noisy soil: how sound recordings track soil health

Amazing stuff!

Want a better harvest or a nicer looking garden? Play some soil sounds!

Sounds of a happy soil!

"The team ... has found that soundscapes recorded from soil differ depending on its level of restoration. ...

So what do soils sound like?

“It’s basically clicks and crackles and pops, and little clicky sounds that these contact microphones can pick up,” ...

“It’s a reflection of all the little worms and the beetles and the ants and spiders, et cetera, moving around in the soil.” ...

These plots were at varying levels of degradation: 2 had recently been cleared, 2 had been cleared and revegetated 15 years ago, and 2 were remnant vegetation.

“Both the revegetated and reference state sites had a much more diverse soundscape than the degraded soil ...

The researchers are also trialling playing sounds to soil, with early evidence suggesting it helps to encourage better microbe growth. ..."

"Special recordings ... show this chaotic mixture of soundscapes can be a measure of the diversity of tiny living animals in the soil, which create sounds as they move and interact with their environment. ..."

From the abstract:

"Restoring and monitoring soil biodiversity has never been more important. Ecoacoustics is emerging as a promising tool to detect and monitor soil biodiversity and was recently effective in a temperate forest context. However, there is a need to investigate the efficacy of soil ecoacoustics in other ecosystems and bioregions.

Here, we applied ecoacoustics tools and indices (Acoustic Complexity Index, Bioacoustic Index, Normalised Difference Soundscape Index) to measure soil biodiversity in an Australian grassy woodland restoration chronosequence, spanning three age classes. We collected n = 240 soil acoustic samples from two cleared plots (continuously cleared through active management), two woodland plots undergoing restoration (revegetated 14–15 years ago) and two plots of remnant vegetation over 5 days in Mount Bold, South Australia. We used a below-ground sampling device and sound attenuation chamber to record soil invertebrate communities, which were also manually counted.

We found that acoustic complexity and diversity were significantly higher in revegetated and remnant plots than in cleared plots, both in-situ and in sound attenuation chambers. The acoustic complexity and diversity also significantly associated with soil invertebrate abundance and richness.

Synthesis and applications.

Our results provide new support that ecoacoustics can help monitor soil biodiversity in different forest restoration contexts, including in UK temperate and Australian grassy woodlands. This technology holds promise in addressing the global need for effective soil biodiversity monitoring methods and protecting our planet's most diverse ecosystems."

Soil’s noisy: how sound recordings track soil health

Underground ‘rave’ a sign soil is happy

Sounds of the underground reflect soil biodiversity dynamics across a grassy woodland restoration chronosequence (open access)

Fig. 1 Study sites and location (Mount Bold, South Australia).

Chile: 19,000-year-old biosphere with links to Mars discovered beneath desert floor

Amazing stuff!

"...

Gene sequencing revealed an abundance of diverse microbial communities across the different layers.

Most of the sequences were assigned to bacteria; 0.5% were archaea, single-celled microorganisms similar in structure to bacteria but evolutionarily distinct. Archaea are thought to constitute an ancient group between bacteria and eukaryotes or organisms whose DNA-containing cells contain a distinct nucleus. Three bacterial groups (phyla) dominated, accounting for over 90% of genetic sequences: Actinobacteria, Firmicutes, and Proteobacteria. ...
Ecologically speaking, the playa deposits are relatively young; sedimentation started about 19,000 years ago. However, the alluvial deposits are much older, with depths of 4.2 m dating back up to 3.8 million years. ..."

"Summary For a long time, the extremely dry soils of the Chilean Atacama Desert were considered completely lifeless. In one of its driest regions, a team of scientists ... from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, together with colleagues from the TU Berlin and the University of Antofagasta, Chile, has now uncovered a previously unexplored underground habitat. This was based on newly developed methods of molecular DNA analysis, which allow the focussed extraction and analysis of intracellular DNA. This comes from intact cells of living or dormant organisms, making it possible to detect viable and potentially active microbial communities which inhabit hyperarid soils down to a depth of 4.20 metres. The study, published in the journal PNAS Nexus, thus expands our understanding of biodiversity of a region where extreme conditions of drought, salinity and nutrient deficiency are close to the limits of life. The results also have implications for the search for life on other planets."

From the abstract:

"Desert environments constitute one of the largest and yet most fragile ecosystems on Earth. Under the absence of regular precipitation, microorganisms are the main ecological component mediating nutrient fluxes by using soil components, like minerals and salts, and atmospheric gases as a source for energy and water. While most of the previous studies on microbial ecology of desert environments have focused on surface environments, little is known about microbial life in deeper sediment layers. Our study is extending the limited knowledge about microbial communities within the deeper subsurface of the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert. By employing intracellular DNA extraction and subsequent 16S rRNA sequencing of samples collected from a soil pit in the Yungay region of the Atacama Desert, we unveiled a potentially viable microbial subsurface community residing at depths down to 4.20 m. In the upper 80 cm of the playa sediments, microbial communities were dominated by Firmicutes taxa showing a depth-related decrease in biomass correlating with increasing amounts of soluble salts. High salt concentrations are possibly causing microbial colonization to cease in the lower part of the playa sediments between 80 and 200 cm depth. In the underlying alluvial fan deposits, microbial communities reemerge, possibly due to gypsum providing an alternative water source. The discovery of this deeper subsurface community is reshaping our understanding of desert soils, emphasizing the need to consider subsurface environments in future explorations of arid ecosystems."

19,000-year-old biosphere with links to Mars discovered beneath desert Abundant, diverse bacterial communities have been found deep beneath the almost uninhabitable surface of the Atacama Desert in Chile. The researchers who discovered them say they're likely 19,000 years old and could be linked to microbial life on Mars.

Newly discovered microbial communities beneath the Atacama Desert (original news release)

Hidden biosphere beneath world’s driest hot desert

Persistent microbial communities in hyperarid subsurface habitats of the Atacama Desert: Insights from intracellular DNA analysis (open access)

Abundant, diverse microbial communities live deep under the surface of the hyper-arid Atacama Desert

The microbial composition of different subsurface depths

City-dwelling wildlife demonstrate ‘urban trait syndrome’

Amazing stuff! How evolution adopts to and how biodiversity evolves in urban environments!

Unfortunately, there is probably a tendency of overpopulation of birds in urban areas for e.g. lack of natural predators.

"City life favors species that are adaptable and, among other things, not too fussy about what they eat. A worldwide consortium of scientists calls the resulting collection of characteristics “urban trait syndrome.”

Their study includes data from 379 cities on six continents, with the largest data set coming from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s eBird program. The research was published Aug. 8 in Nature Communications.

“The most pronounced changes among city-dwelling organisms are in reproduction and foraging,” said co-author Frank La Sorte, a senior researcher associate at the Cornell Lab. “For example, city birds tend to be smaller, eat a wider variety of foods and produce smaller clutches than their rural counterparts. Smaller clutch sizes in urban birds have been associated with higher survival rates and increased growth.”

But not all groups of species share the same urban trait syndrome. Beetles, birds and reptiles tend to be smaller in the most urbanized areas compared to their country counterparts. The mobility of ground beetles was higher in more urbanized areas, while that of reptiles and birds was lower. ..."

From the abstract:

"Cities can host significant biological diversity. Yet, urbanisation leads to the loss of habitats, species, and functional groups. Understanding how multiple taxa respond to urbanisation globally is essential to promote and conserve biodiversity in cities. Using a dataset encompassing six terrestrial faunal taxa (amphibians, bats, bees, birds, carabid beetles and reptiles) across 379 cities on 6 continents, we show that urbanisation produces taxon-specific changes in trait composition, with traits related to reproductive strategy showing the strongest response. Our findings suggest that urbanisation results in four trait syndromes (mobile generalists, site specialists, central place foragers, and mobile specialists), with resources associated with reproduction and diet likely driving patterns in traits associated with mobility and body size. Functional diversity measures showed varied responses, leading to shifts in trait space likely driven by critical resource distribution and abundance, and taxon-specific trait syndromes. Maximising opportunities to support taxa with different urban trait syndromes should be pivotal in conservation and management programmes within and among cities. This will reduce the likelihood of biotic homogenisation and helps ensure that urban environments have the capacity to respond to future challenges. These actions are critical to reframe the role of cities in global biodiversity loss."

City-dwelling wildlife demonstrate ‘urban trait syndrome’ | Cornell Chronicle

Urbanisation generates multiple trait syndromes for terrestrial animal taxa worldwide (open access)

Fig. 2: Predicted changes in trait values per taxon along an urbanisation gradient.

Enumerating soil biodiversity. Soil is home to more than half of all life

Recommendable! What a revelation! And it is a literature meta analysis!

The so called scientists, who wrote this article published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy (PNAS) of the Science, appear to be hard core political activists with an agenda!

We know so shockingly little about the sun, our vast oceans, cloud formation and so many other climate influencing factors, but we are to believe the Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion! Add to it now soil biodiversity!

No mentioning how this impacts climate! What an omission! Climate models are largely junk!

"Soil is home to more than half of all life

About 59% of all species on Earth live in soil, estimate researchers who reviewed global biodiversity data. This would make the ground the planet’s single most biodiverse habitat. The figure doubles an earlier estimate and could be even higher because so little is known about soil, the researchers suggest. It is home to 99% of Enchytraeidae worms, 90% of fungi, 86% of plants and more than 50% of bacteria — but only 3% of mammals live in it."

From the significance and abstract:

"Significance

Soil organisms mediate unique functions we rely on for food, fiber, and human and planetary health [???]. Despite the significance of soil life, we lack a quantitative estimate of soil biodiversity, making it challenging to advocate for the importance of protecting, preserving, and restoring soil life. Here, we show that soil is likely home to 59% of life including everything from microbes to mammals, making it the singular most biodiverse habitat on Earth. Our enumeration can enable stakeholders to more quantitatively advocate for soils in the face of the biodiversity crisis [??? propaganda].

Abstract

Soil is an immense habitat for diverse organisms across the tree of life, but just how many organisms live in soil is surprisingly unknown. Previous efforts to enumerate soil biodiversity consider only certain types of organisms (e.g., animals) or report values for diverse groups without partitioning species that live in soil versus other habitats. Here, we reviewed the biodiversity literature to show that soil is likely home to 59 ± 15% of the species on Earth. We therefore estimate an approximately two times greater soil biodiversity than previous estimates, and we include representatives from the simplest (microbial) to most complex (mammals) organisms. Enchytraeidae have the greatest percentage of species in soil (98.6%), followed by fungi (90%), Plantae (85.5%), and Isoptera (84.2%). Our results demonstrate that soil is the most biodiverse singular habitat. By using this estimate of soil biodiversity, we can more accurately and quantitatively advocate for soil organismal conservation and restoration as a central goal of the Anthropocene [is obscene]."

Enumerating soil biodiversity | PNAS (no public access)

Credits: nature briefing

Accidental DNA collection by air quality sensors could revolutionize wildlife tracking and measuring biodiversity on a continental scale

Good news! Sounds promising!

From the abstract:

"One of the biggest planetary challenges is the accelerating loss of biodiversity threatening ecosystem functioning on a global scale. The WWF Living Planet Report (https://livingplanet.panda.org/) estimates a 69% decline in populations since 1970. The Convention on Biological Diversity and related international treaties ask countries to monitor shifts in community composition and assess rates of species decline to quantify extant biodiversity relative to global targets. However, quantifying biodiversity is a challenge, and monitoring continual change is impossible at almost any scale due to a lack of standardized data and indicators. A common problem is that the required infrastructure for such global monitoring does not exist. Here, we challenge this notion by analysing environmental DNA (eDNA) captured along with particulate matter by routine ambient air quality monitoring stations in the UK. In our samples, we identified eDNA from >180 vertebrate, arthropod, plant and fungal taxa representative of local biodiversity. We contend that air monitoring networks are in fact gathering eDNA data reflecting local biodiversity on a continental scale, as a result of their routine function. In some regions, air quality samples are stored for decades, presenting the potential for high resolution biodiversity time series. With minimal modification of current protocols, this material provides the best opportunity to date for detailed monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity using an existing, replicated transnational design and it is already in operation."

Accidental DNA collection by air sensors could revolutionize wildlife tracking (no public access) Filters at air-pollution monitoring stations trap DNA from a multitude of flora and fauna, researchers find.

Air-quality networks collect environmental DNA with the potential to measure biodiversity at continental scales (open access)

Figure 1 Biodiversity sampling by pollution monitoring networks

190 nations forge historic global biodiversity agreement to save species. Really! At what price?

Let's recognize there is a method behind this madness! A crisis is manufactured by the elites to gain power and control!

Beware of the Siren songs! Why are we not listening to Cassandra!

This is part of the globalism ideology! This is Big Government at an unprecedented scale to impose central planning on many aspects of our daily lives. It sure will reduce free markets and individual liberty! As if we had learnt nothing from the totalitarian ideologies/dictatorships of the 20th century!

These international agreements are a wonderful instrument for authoritarians to circumvent and violate e.g. the pesky U.S. Constitution and Declaration of Independence! Pacta sunt servanda (Roman law: contracts must be kept), right?

We are still on The Road to Serfdom! Totalitarian dictatorship has become more refined and subtle unlike those of the 20th century!

What is absolutely horrifying here that there is so little resistance! So many go along with this! What a tyranny of the minority over the majority!

The claim of loss of biodiversity (or more dramatic the Sixth Extinction)  crisis follows roughly a similar playbook as the greatest scam of our time, i.e. the Global Warming hoax and Climate Change religion.

Then we have rich countries dictating and bribing poorer countries what to do and so on! Some poorer countries use the opportunity to extort richer countries and so on!

"... countries around the world have cemented a deal to safeguard nature — and, for the first time, the agreement sets quantitative targets for biodiversity. In this sense, they are similar to the one that nations set seven years ago to limit global warming to 1.5–2 ºC above pre-industrial levels. ...
In the early hours of 19 December, more than 190 countries eked out the deal, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework ... A key target that it sets is for nations to protect and restore 30% of the world’s land and seas globally by 2030, while also respecting the rights of Indigenous peoples, who depend on and steward much of Earth’s remaining biodiversity. Another target is for nations to achieve a 90% reduction in the extinction rate for all species by 2050. ..."

Nations forge historic deal to save species: what’s in it and what’s missing At the COP15 summit, many countries celebrate, but some say their voices were not heard.

Footnotes

1) The Wikipedia article on pacta sunt servanda sucks!

The Sixth Extinction nonsense

Appealing to and triggering the fears of humans is always good business! Imagined and exaggerated catastrophes always sell well!

To quote President Franklin D. Roosevelt: "... the only thing we have to fear is...fear itself ..."

Exploiting these fears through propaganda and demagoguery is a task eagerly taken up by ever bigger government! So called non profit organisations profit tremendously from stoking these fears every day! Some billionaires are in the game too! Not to mention the enemies of open societies like China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, North Korea ...

We have now the capacity to store the DNA of every living creature on earth so we can revive it at any time again when needed or desired.

We have already done a lot since the early 20th century to preserve and protect nature and wildlife around the world. The achievements have been gigantic in human history! 

Take, for example, drone technology! We can now extensively monitor nature 24 hours a day up close. Thus, allowing for immediate intervention if necessary.

World population now at about 8 billion has most likely peaked! And world population will most likely decline further as economic prosperity and living standards improve across the world. This still leaves about 63,750 square meters per human. Or in other words, there are still huge largely uninhabited land areas to be found on this planet, where biodiversity is basically not very much threatened.

Loss of biodiversity does not happen equally and uniformly across all species. E.g. large animals are much more in danger than other animals and so forth. Thus, global authoritarian one size fits all measures should be rejected!

Congratulations to Jonathan, the tortoise just celebrated his 190th birthday

Published in 2014

Published in 2014. I am not endorsing following book

On the Vulnerability of avian populations to renewable energy production

There is a great cover up going on about the mass anthropogenic killing machines of birds, bats, and insects a.k.a. renewable energy production facilities (wind and solar. Caution: satire).

And where are these killing machines mostly made: China (Communist Party of China). Why do Western countries by these killing machines and thus become dependent on China?

On a daily basis we reminded by environmentalists etc. of the irrecoverable loss of biodiversity!

From the abstract:

"Renewable energy production can kill individual birds, but little is known about how it affects avian populations. We assessed the vulnerability of populations for 23 priority bird species killed at wind and solar facilities in California, USA. Bayesian hierarchical models suggested that 48% of these species were vulnerable to population-level effects from added fatalities caused by renewables and other sources. Effects of renewables extended far beyond the location of energy production to impact bird populations in distant regions across continental migration networks. Populations of species associated with grasslands where turbines were located were most vulnerable to wind. Populations of nocturnal migrant species were most vulnerable to solar, despite not typically being associated with deserts where the solar facilities we evaluated were located. Our findings indicate that addressing declines of North American bird populations requires consideration of the effects of renewables and other anthropogenic threats on both nearby and distant populations of vulnerable species."

Vulnerability of avian populations to renewable energy production | Royal Society Open Science (open access)

Credits: Neue Studie enthüllt große Ausmaße der Reduzierung von Vogelpopulationen durch „grüne“ Energie (by the way Google Gmail treats this source as dubious, see screenshot below)

Figure 3. Vulnerability (ranges from 0 (low) to 1 (high), as defined in Methods) after increases in simulated deaths for local (○) and non-local (▪) populations of 23 priority bird species found dead at (a) solar and (b) wind energy facilities in California, USA. Species in black were classified as moderately vulnerable (vulnerability greater than 0.2 after simulated fatality of 5000 adult individuals). Those highlighted in red were classified as highly vulnerable (vulnerability greater than 0.2 after 1000 additional deaths) based on effects on populations in local or non-local catchment areas. Vertical lines connect local and non-local populations. The five species with names in bold were found dead at both types of energy facility.

Our globalized diets are hurting agrobiodiversity. Really!

This particular alarmism (processed foods and loss of biodiversity) has been regurgitated for over 50 years on! After more than 50 years you would expect that we already feel the consequences! Do we?

This decades long hysteria is so tiresome and boring!

To make it sound more scary it is not highly processed food anymore, but ultra-processed food! Time to pee in your pants!

And how do we feed 8 billion humans realistically and practically every day if not with highly efficient large scale farming and food production?

"... Over 7,000 edible plant species have been identified and used for human food since the start of human agriculture over 12,000 years ago. However, fewer than 200 species still had significant production in 2014, with just nine crops accounting for more than 66% by weight of all crop production, the researchers wrote. ..."

From the highlights:

"... The contribution of ultra-processed foods to agrobiodiversity loss is significant, but so far has been overlooked in global food systems summits, biodiversity conventions and climate change conferences. Ultra-processed foods need to be given urgent and high priority in the agendas of such meetings, and policies and action agreed. ..."

Our globalized diets are hurting biodiversity and our health We desperately need to be more aware of what we eat -- both for ourselves and the planet.

Ultra-processed foods should be central to global food systems dialogue and action on biodiversity (open access)

Exaggerated global vertebrate decline

Good news! Less alarmism is always welcome! When statistical methods are faulty!

"... Here we show, however, that this estimate [of global vertebrate decline] is driven by less than 3% of vertebrate populations; if these extremely declining populations are excluded, the global trend switches to an increase. The sensitivity of global mean trends to outliers ..."

A glimmer of hope on vertebrate biodiversity - Cosmos Magazine It’s been estimated that half to two-thirds of the world’s vertebrate populations, from birds and marine animals to elephants, frogs and snakes, have declined over the past five decades.

But the true picture is somewhat more hopeful, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. These “catastrophic” numbers are driven by a small fraction of populations in extreme decline.

Here is the respective research paper:

Clustered versus catastrophic global vertebrate declines