knowledge of the location and, in particular, theland ownership, will guide the choice of conser-vation strateg
I'm curious if there are any nations that have refused to implement conservation strategies. A lot of land in underdeveloped countries isn't owned by the government but instead by private investors so I'm curious what kind of influence the IUCN has when it comes to privately owned land, or when it comes to corrupt governments.
Third, individuals vary significantly in theircapacity to metabolize these compounds andresist their effects
I'm curious to know if there are species that are able to resist the effects of endocrine disruptors. I've tried searching but all I've been able to come up with are species that are significantly affected by them.
There are ways toattain needed population reductions otherthan culling, including relocation andcontraception
This makes me think of the feral horse population in Nevada. Habitats are being destroyed and resources are being depleted which is going to decrease the biodiversity and endanger a lot of species, and once resources are gone the horse population is going to starve or die of desiccation. The BLM is having a hard time managing these populations and culling has been talked about but there is so much public opposition to it, which I don't entirely disagree with. I know there is currently research being done on a contraceptive for feral horses that is showing some promising results but these types of trials take a lot of time.
applying the science effectively re-quires the efforts of conservation biologists com-bined with a diversity of other actors, most ofwhom are non-biologists and include local andindigenous communities, civil servants at all le-vels of government, environmental consultants,park managers, environmental lobbyists, privateindustry, and even the military
It's so important to stress that change doesn't just come from scientists or people with a scientific background, it takes a village. The WWF was founded by a group of people from a variety of different backgrounds, all with the common goal of protecting endangered species and critical areas from human development.
biodiversity itself is alsodistributed unevenly
Biodiversity hotspots! Only 2.4% of the earths surface but contain almost 43% of bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian species and more than half the world's plant species.
Some specieshave been eliminated across much of their rangesand later restored.
This makes me think of the Somali sengi! There were only 39 individuals collected 100 years ago and they were thought to be extinct but a team rediscovered them just last year in the country Djibouti in Africa. What's interesting about their rediscovery is that they didn't only find one or two individuals, they found twelve! 
Indonesianfires of 1997–1998, which burntaround 8 million hectares of forest
This is a tropical peatland forest. Peatlands, which are a type of wetland, are one of the largest terrestrial carbon sinks. They naturally support prolific growth of overlapping peat deposits that could be up to 20 meters thick, but land use changes such as drainage and forest clearing can make them more susceptible to wildfires. This, in combination with an El Niño event led to widespread fires that were 90% peatland and released an estimated 0.81-2.57 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere which was 13-40% of global carbon emissions and contributed to the largest increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide at the time. You can read more about this event here
Atlantic circulation changes triggered thegreatest drought in recorded history in the Ama-zon.
This drought killed off some of the oldest and tallest trees, decreasing canopy height by an average of 35 inches and releasing 5 billion tonnes of carbon back into the atmosphere. For reference, the US alone emitted 5.1 billion tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere in 2019.
Here is an article about a second drought that occurred in the Amazon just 5 years later in 2010, after the 2005 drought was thought to be a 1 in 100 year event.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110203141820.htm
A boom in the use of homeopathic remediessustained by over-collecting therapeutic and aro-matic plants is threatening at least 150 species ofEuropean wildflowers and plants and drivingmany populations to extinction
This makes me think of essential oils. It takes 10k pounds of rose petals to produce 1lb of rose oil. A lot of plants like sandalwood, rosewood, and cedarwood are listed on the IUCN red list of threatened species. Companies usually outsource material from corporate farms so not only does the production of this resource intensive product negatively impact our environment, but the oil itself is toxic to aquatic life and can have long-term negative effects on marine habitats. Essential oils are actually supposed to come with a Material Safety Data Sheet but the majority of big companies in the US require you to contact them directly for MSDS information.
The greatest impact on frag-ments occurs at their boundaries; small remnantsand those with complex shapes experience thestrongest“edge effects”.
Pollinators spend a lot of time in ecotones and are heavily impacted by edge effects. I actually found a cool article where bees demonstrate the theory of island biogeography in northern Queensland, Australia which is a diversity hotspot. Various fragment sizes were looked at in an Australian wet tropical landscape and they found lower bee species richness and abundance in the small fragments compared to the larger. Here is a link to the article:
Under these conditions,large‐scale agriculture—crops, livestock, andtree plantations—by corporations and wealthylandowners is increasingly emerging as thebiggest direct cause of tropical deforestation
I'm curious how corporations get ahold of this land. Do the people of these communities own it or is it owned by the government and sold off to corporations for large sums of money?
This cycle takes place between the four mainreservoirs of carbon: carbon dioxide (CO2)intheatmosphere; organic carbon compounds withinorganisms; dissolved carbon in water bodies; andcarbon compounds inside the earth as part of soil,limestone (calcium carbonate), and buried organicmatter like coal, natural gas, peat, and petroleum(Alexanderet al.1997
This is part of the reason it is so important to conserve our wetlands! Wetland soil sequesters a high amount of carbon, especially freshwater. Here is an article exploring how wetland carbon stocks are affected by human impact.
Although most peoplemay not know what an ecosystem is, the properfunctioning of the world’s ecosystems is critical tohuman survival, and understanding the basics ofecosystem services is essential
I think this is the main reason we are having such an issue with people believing climate change. I don't think the majority of people understand how important the ecosystem is to us maintaining life. Climate change forces people to think about the big picture instead of what is right in front of them. Because they cannot see it happening at a specific moment in time or see how it effects them directly, they are not interested in understanding it. I think it's important to play to peoples separate beliefs and identities in order to bridge the gap between climate change facts and personal values held by our society.
whilst it is helpful to be able to labeldifferent habitat types, it is not always obviousprecisely where one should end and anotherbegin, because no such beginnings and endingsreally exist.
I'm curious how this effects management. Are there areas of conservation that are being overlooked because of the difficulty in distinguishing between different habitat types, or is this not a big enough issue to have an effect on management?
The objective of formal protected areasis biodiversity conservation, whereastraditional conservation is often practicedfor livelihood and cultural reasons
This is an important distinction to make, especially when it comes to policy makers. You assume that when someone says conservation they have the idea of conserving biodiversity but that is not always the case. When I think if conserving for livelihood and cultural reasons, I think of conserving for recreational use, meaning the benefit would only be to us instead of all species in the area.
different microbiomes produce different dominant metabolites,
I've heard that children who are birthed naturally are less prone to allergies and infections than children who are birthed through c-sections. I wonder if this is true, and if it could have to do with what the mother passes along to them through a natural birth.
Variations in the human genome have been correlated strongly with variations in susceptibility to infectious diseases
Do we hinder our genes ability to evolve by creating vaccines? What would happen to our species if we stopped creating vaccines? Would we all just die off or would more variations in the human genome be created?
enhanced T- and B-cell function,16 possibly enabling humans to live in higher-density social groups
I never thought there would be a genetic component behind sociability. it makes sense, being social increases chances of reproduction therefore increasing fitness.
The World Health Organization (WHO) lists about 12 000 diseases in its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems, 10th revision (ICD-10). More than 6000 drugs are used in treatment, along with 2500 surgeries and 1500 other medical interventions.
How many of these diseases are untreatable? I'm sure there is a list of patients who only receive treatments or medical interventions to relieve larger symptoms that cannot be cured. I'm curious how many of these diseases are being researched for cures.
more questions than answers.
This is science. Answering one question and developing 5 more.
“It suggests a sort of co-evolution between an agricultural crop and human beings.”
You see this a lot in animal species and their prey, never thought about it from the point of view of humans and what they eat.
acquired the ability to digest potatoes, a domesticated crop derived from wild tubers.
This reminds me of something I read recently about a particular enzyme that is only found in red algae and the digestive tract of the Japanese. Because red algae is a staple in the Japanese diet, it has adopted itself into their gut flora to assist in digestion of raw seafood.
Spreads of particular subgroups during these events may be why we detect this ancestry afterward.
I wonder what made these subgroups disperse. Was this a harsh climate at the time?
The Tribe has had a lot of experience with members of the scientific community, mostly negative.
This is a huge bummer. A community's appetite for knowledge should never be more important than a tribes right to put their dead to rest. When did our wants and needs become more important than theirs, and what gives us the right to something that belongs to them?
He reached this conclusion by analyzing the shape of the ancient skulls.
We've seen in other species that morphological shape is not always an indicator of phylogenetic similarities or differences.
The situation changed two years ago when the tribe allowed Willerslev to conduct a DNA analysis on the specimen.
What made them change their minds?
rapid migratory speed through North and South America.
What exactly constitutes "rapid migratory speed"? How fast were these populations moving, and was it normal for them to move this quickly during this time period?
Given the speedand scale of ongoing urbanization around theworld (55), new urban populations of a wide rangeof organisms are likely to become established incoming decades.
And our nonurban habitats will disappear at the same rate.
estab-lishment of resilient and sustainable urbanecosystems.
I'm curious if there are cities in the US that have already dedicated time & $ to sustainable urban ecosystems like this.
For a complete picture, lifetime fitness should be conceptualized in terms of selection episodes so that effects of sexual selection can be separated from natural selection and stochastic effects.
How is this possible in wild populations, is this something that can realistically be achieved? It seems as though all studies have taken place in captive populations.
provide some immediate benefit to the chooser, such as parental care, a nuptial gift, or territory defense
I'm curious if convenience is ever considered to be a benefit.
Nevertheless, when we see many males pursuing the same female, we can hardly believe that the pairing is left to blind chance—that the female exerts no choice, and is not influenced by the gorgeous colours or other ornaments with which the male alone is decorated.
I'm very curious about how this applies to modern humans. Males and females both have a choice, plus our intelligence has evolved aka our frontal lobes. For example, although Mary may have better reproductive success with Jim, she is going to choose Joe instead, because that is what she wants.
Here,wetestwhethermaleredcarotenoid-basedornamentsactassignalsoffitnessinthered-leggedpartridge,Alectorisrufa
Purpose
Wepredictedthattheintensityofthecarotenoid-basedcolorationincontrolsshouldbepositivelycorrelatedwithlongevityandfecundity,thusrevealingindividualquality[11–13].Wealsopredictedthatlifetimetestosteroneactionshoulddisruptthatrelationship.Basedonpreviousevidencefromthisandothergalliformsdisplayingcarotenoid-basedtraits(e.g.[46,58,69,70]),wepredictedthatif sustaininghightestosteronelevelsimplieshighercostsforpoorquality(paler)males[6,7,71],thiscorrelationshouldincreaseintestosterone-treatedmalesand,consequently,decreaseinthosereceivinganti-androgens.
Predictions
The beak of a shoveller-duck (Spatula clypeata) is a more beautiful and complex structure than the mouth of a whale. The upper mandible is furnished on each side (in the specimen examined by me) with a row or comb formed of 188 thin, elastic lamellae, obliquely bevelled so as to be pointed, and placed transversely to the longer axis of the mouth. They arise from the palate, and are attached by flexible membrane to the sides of the mandible. Those standing towards the middle are the longest, being about one-third of an inch in length, and they project fourteen one- hundredths of an inch beneath the edge. At their bases there is a short subsidiary row of obliquely transverse lamellae. In these several respects they resemble the plates of baleen in the mouth of a whale. But towards the extremity of the beak they differ much, as they project inward, instead of straight downward. The entire head of the shoveller, though incomparably less bulky, is about one-eighteenth of the length of the head of a moderately large Balaenoptera rostrata, in which species the baleen is only nine inches long; so that if we were to make the head of the shoveller as long as that of the Balaenoptera, the lamellae would be six inches in length, that is, two-thirds of the length of the baleen in this species of whale. The lower mandible of the shoveller-duck is furnished with lamellae of equal length with these above, but finer; and in being thus furnished it differs conspicuously from the lower jaw of a whale, which is destitute of baleen. On the other hand, the extremities of these lower lamellae are frayed into fine bristly points, so that they thus curiously resemble the plates of baleen. In the genus Prion, a member of the distinct family of the Petrels, the upper mandible alone is furnished with lamellae, which are well developed and project beneath the margin; so that the beak of this bird resembles in this respect the mouth of a whale.
Each gradation serves a purpose
It is so necessary to appreciate the important effects of the laws of growth,
Even when selection is directed towards one characteristic, there is evidence of slight modifications to other characteristics in same species. Could be due to laws of growth, energy/nutrient flow is being redirected, or so-called spontaneous variation.
Objections of the same nature as the foregoing have been advanced by many writers. In each case various causes, besides the general ones just indicated, have probably interfered with the acquisition through natural selection of structures, which it is thought would be beneficial to certain species. One writer asks, why has not the ostrich acquired the power of flight?
It seems like a lot of these objections were not carefully thought out. Apart from the questions where probability cannot be analyzed, a lot of these questions have answers that I would assume most naturalists should be able to answer when it is something as logical as energy expenditure.
Bronn also insists that distinct species never differ from each other in single characters, but in many parts; and he asks, how it always comes that many parts of the organisation should have been modified at the same time through variation and natural selection? But there is no necessity for supposing that all the parts of any being have been simultaneously modified
Variation of multiple characteristics does not happen at once, but consecutively over a period of time.
when we look to the special parts of allied species, instead of to distinct species, that numerous and wonderfully fine gradations can be traced, connecting together widely different structures.
Allied species can have variations that descend from a common trait that may adapt small changes over time due to the individuals circumstance and life conditions.
Mr. Mivart is further inclined to believe, and some naturalists agree with him, that new species manifest themselves "with suddenness and by modifications appearing at once." For instance, he supposes that the differences between the extinct three-toed Hipparion and the horse arose suddenly. He thinks it difficult to believe that the wing of a bird "was developed in any other way than by a comparatively sudden modification of a marked and important kind;" and apparently he would extend the same view to the wings of bats and pterodactyles. This conclusion, which implies great breaks or discontinuity in the series, appears to me improbable in the highest degree.
Main point: Structures or characters develop through a series of gradations over long periods of time. Each gradation serves a purpose whether it is the same as a developed variation or related in some way. Although an original structure can seem insufficient compared to its developed form, it may have been utilized to serve other purposes related to its variation. If a structure ceases to be of service to a species, it will not be regulated by the same power of selection.
"As, according to Mr. Darwin's theory, there is a constant tendency to indefinite variation, and as the minute incipient variations will be in ALL DIRECTIONS, they must tend to neutralize each other, and at first to form such unstable modifications that it is difficult, if not impossible, to see how such indefinite oscillations of infinitesimal beginnings can ever build up a sufficiently appreciable resemblance to a leaf, bamboo, or other object, for natural selection to seize upon and perpetuate."
I'm a little confused by this. Is Mivart questioning how infinite variations wouldn't cancel each other out, and how they would lead a species to resemble something as undesirable as a leaf or bamboo?
Thus, as I am inclined to believe, morphological differences, which we consider as important--such as the arrangement of the leaves, the divisions of the flower or of the ovarium, the position of the ovules, etc., first appeared in many cases as fluctuating variations, which sooner or later became constant through the nature of the organism and of the surrounding conditions, as well as through the intercrossing of distinct individuals, but not through natural selection; for as these morphological characters do not affect the welfare of the species, any slight deviations in them could not have been governed or accumulated through this latter agency.
This is confusing. Variations descending through intercrossing and influenced by surrounding conditions, but not through natural selection.
Because most of our science is supported by limited public funds, evolutionary biologists and ecologists should support and participate in efforts to help the public understand the issues and the value of scientific understanding.
Apart from funds, I think it's difficult for the scientific community to be effective when there are larger societal issues standing in the way, such as economic inequality and the political divide. Hopefully the steady increase in scientific education and science based employment will be enough to alter future generations effectiveness.
can be detected in response to climatic disturbances such as El Niño events and to manmade environmental changes such as oil spills
Which begs the question, how much more is out there that we haven't discovered yet because we haven't experienced a certain natural disaster or triggered a certain environmental catastrophe?
Indeed, the enormous quantity of genome data poses serious statistical challenges even for fields that already possess strong theoretical foundations, such as evolutionary genetics.
Is it possible to have too much data? Is there a point where the amount of data that we have or receive in the future is going to work against us?