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A spider species eat their siblings as soon as they die but tolerate each other when they are alive, suggesting a mysterious signal helps them to determine when to dine on a nest mate

Wishing a happy International Bat Appreciation Day to all who celebrate.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20816028

Umphang (Thailand) (AFP) – Scientist Inna Birchenko began to cry as she described the smouldering protected forest in Thailand where she was collecting samples from local trees shrouded in wildfire smoke.

"This beautiful, diverse community of trees and animals is being destroyed as you see it, as you watch it," she said.

Birchenko, a geneticist at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, was collecting seeds and leaves in Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary with colleagues from Britain and Thailand.

They will study how temperature and moisture affect germination and whether genetics dictate those responses.

That may one day help ensure that reforestation is done with trees that can withstand the hotter temperatures and drier conditions caused by climate change.

But in Umphang, a remote region in Thailand's northwest, the scientists confronted the toll that human activity and climate change are already having on forests that are supposed to be pristine and protected.

Birchenko and her colleagues hiked kilometre after kilometre through burned or still-smouldering forest, each footstep stirring up columns of black and grey ash.

They passed thick fallen trees that were smoking or even being licked by dancing flames, and traversed stretches of farmland littered with corn husks, all within the sanctuary's boundaries.

The wildlife for which the sanctuary is famous -- hornbills, deer, elephants and even tigers -- was nowhere to be seen.

Instead, there were traces of the fire's effect: a palm-sized cicada, its front neon yellow, its back end charred black; and the nest of a wild fowl, harbouring five scorched eggs.

"My heart is broken," said Nattanit Yiamthaisong, a PhD student at Chiang Mai University's Forest Restoration and Research Unit (FORRU) who is working with Birchenko and her Kew colleague Jan Sala.

"I expected a wildlife sanctuary or national park is a protected area. I'm not expecting a lot of agricultural land like this, a lot of fire along the way."

The burning in Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary is hardly an outlier.

Wildfires are common in Thailand during the country's spring burning season, when farmers set fields alight to prepare for new crops.

Some communities have permission to live and farm plots inside protected areas because of their long-standing presence on the land.

Traditionally, burning has helped farmers enrich soil, and fire can be a natural part of a forest's ecosystem. Some seeds rely on fire to germinate.

But agricultural burning can quickly spread to adjacent forest -- intentionally or by accident.

The risks are heightened by the drier conditions of climate change and growing economic pressure on farmers, who are keen to plant more frequently and across larger areas.

Experts warn that forests subjected to repeated, high-intensity fires have no chance to regenerate naturally, and may never recover.

Fire data based on satellite images compiled by US space agency NASA shows hotspots and active fires burning across many protected areas in Thailand over recent weeks.

Around tourist hotspot Chiang Mai, firefighting helicopters drop water on local wildfires, at a cost of thousands of dollars per mission.

But remote Umphang is far from the public eye.

Park rangers protect the area, but they are frequently underpaid, poorly resourced and overstretched, local environmentalists say.

It's a long-standing problem in Thailand, whose Department of National Parks has sometimes closed protected areas in a bid to prevent fires from spreading. The department did not respond to AFP requests for comment.

And the challenge is hardly unique to Thailand. Devastating blazes have ravaged wealthy California, Japan and South Korea in recent months.

Still, it was a sobering sight for Sala, a seed germination expert at Kew.

"The pristine rainforest that we were expecting to see, it's actually not here any more, it's gone," he said.

"It really shows the importance of conservation, of preserving biodiversity. Everything is being deforested at a very, very high speed."

Sala and Birchenko work with Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, which holds nearly 2.5 million seeds from over 40,000 wild plant species.

They want to "unlock" knowledge from the seed bank and help partners like FORRU, which has spent decades working out how to rebuild healthy forests in Thailand.

The partnership will map the genetic structure and diversity of three tree species, predict their resilience to climate change, and eventually delineate seed zones in Thailand.

"We hope that some of the population will be more resilient to climate change. And then... we can make better use of which populations to use for reforestation," said Sala.

Back in Britain, seeds will be germinated at varying temperatures and moisture levels to find their upper limits.

Genetic analysis will show how populations are related and which mutations may produce more climate-resilient trees.

But first the team needs samples.

The scientists are focusing on three species: albizia odoratissima, phyllanthus emblica -- also known as Indian gooseberry -- and sapindus rarak, a kind of soapberry tree.

The three grow across different climates in Thailand, are not endangered and have traditionally been used by local communities, who can help locate them.

Still, much of the search unfolds something like an Easter egg hunt, with the team traipsing through forest, scanning their surroundings for the leaf patterns of their target trees.

"Ma Sak?" shouts Sala, using the local name for sapindus rarak, whose fruits were once used as a natural detergent.

It's up to FORRU nursery and field technician Thongyod Chiangkanta, a former park ranger and plant identification expert, to confirm.

Ideally seeds are collected from fruit on the tree, but the branches may be dozens of feet in the air.

A low-tech solution is at hand -- a red string with a weight attached to one end is hurled towards the canopy and looped over some branches.

Shaking it sends down a hail of fruit, along with leaves for Birchenko to analyse. Separate leaf and branch samples are carefully pressed to join the more than seven million specimens at Kew's herbarium.

The teams will collect thousands of seeds in all, carefully cutting open samples at each stop to ensure they are not rotten or infested.

They take no more than a quarter of what is available, leaving enough for natural growth from the "soil seed bank" that surrounds each tree.

Each successful collection is a relief after months of preparation, but the harsh reality of the forest's precarious future hangs over the team.

"It's this excitement of finding the trees... and at the same time really sad because you know that five metres (16 feet) next to the tree there's a wildfire, there's degraded area, and I assume that in the next years these trees are going to be gone," said Sala.

The team is collecting at seven locations across Thailand, gathering specimens that are "a capsule of genetic diversity that we have preserved for the future", said Birchenko.

"We are doing something, but we are doing so little and potentially also so late."

A novel paper led by Dr. Ulrich Brose of the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena is widening the understanding of how species interact within ecosystems via the so-called "Internet of Nature."

same Wikipedia article in spanish

This is a forest ecosystem that people don't seem to talk about very much, but it's home to a huge diversity of animals, and many species are endemic. I just want to share this for those who are interested in learning about the natural world and forests in particular. Below are some excerpts from other articles online.

From this article:

This ecoregion is home to some of the largest dry forest remnants in western South America. These forests consist of species adapted to the extremely arid conditions of the dry season, including species of Ceiba tree, papellio and yellow cordia shrub species, and cacti. Other dominant species in the dry forest zone include hualtaco, guayacán, palo santo, ébano, charán, sapote, pasallo, angolo, almendro. It is considered to host one of the highest abundancies of mesquite.

The Tumbes-Piura Dry Forests ecoregion has a significant level of endemism within its flora community attributed to many species adapting to the arid conditions. The Carob tree species is noted for their ability yo capture and fix nitrogen into the soil with its roots, thereby improving nutrient conditions not only for themselves but also for other vegetation species nearby. Characteristic species of fauna in the ecoregion include southern tamandua, Guayaquil squirrel, common green iguana, and various species of birds such as parrots, parakeets, magpies, and some furnarids.

For decades, this ecoregion has been subjected to selective extraction of largely flora and some fauna. However, the habitats and wildlife have seen recovery relatively recently. This is attributed to the establishment of Cerros de Amotape National Park, and the positive effects of El Niño weather pattern that led to an increased water availability the ecosystem. El Niño is an irregular cyclic weather event stemming from warm Pacific Ocean waters causing changes in global climate, chiefly increased precipitation in this area. This increased rainfall helps thousands of plants germinate in the Tumbes-Piura Dry Forests ecoregion, facilitating the recovery of floral species as well as providing food, among other services, for faunal species.

From this article:

The Tumbes-Piura dry forests ecoregion is nestled along the Pacific coast of northwestern Peru and southwestern Ecuador. This unique and remarkable ecosystem is part of the larger Tumbes-Chocó-Magdalena biodiversity hotspot. This ecoregion, often overshadowed by the more well-known tropical rainforests of the Amazon basin, is a biodiversity hotspot in its own right, harboring an exceptional concentration of endemic species and facing significant conservation challenges.

The Tumbes-Piura dry forests are renowned for their exceptional biodiversity and high levels of endemism. This ecoregion is home to numerous plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth, making it a critical conservation priority. Notable endemic species include the Tumbes Hummingbird (Phaethornis baroni), the Tumbesian Antshrike (Thamnophilus tenuepunctatus), and the Tumbes Swallow (Tachycineta stolzmanni).

Despite its ecological significance, the Tumbes-Piura dry forests face various threats, including habitat loss and degradation due to agricultural expansion, urban development, and unsustainable resource extraction. Additionally, the region is vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which can further exacerbate the effects of drought and alter the delicate balance of the ecosystem.

The Tumbes-Piura dry forests are a remarkable and often overlooked biodiversity hotspot, a testament to the incredible natural heritage of the Tumbesian region. As we work to safeguard the future of this unique ecosystem, we must recognize its ecological significance and commit to its protection for the benefit of the countless species that call it home and the generations to come.

While the Peruvian portion of the Tumbes-Piura forest has multiple protected areas (bordered in green in image below), Ecuador's portion remains unprotected. Over 90% of the unprotected forest has been cut down, and the ecoregion is considered critically endangered. Climate change is leading to more rainfall in the region, which has prevented desertification despite the massive deforestation. Extraction of wood for construction and charcoal production were major causes of deforestation in the past, but now, expansion of cow/goat pasture is probably the biggest threat, as it not only involves deforestation, but the grazing animals also kill seedlings and prevent natural regeneration.

The animals who depend on the Tumbes-Piura dry forests need protection just as much as those in other regions. Supporting reforestation of pastures and degraded lands in the region is one way to help them.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20763989

What will the world look like in 2075 when temperatures could be 3-5° Celsius (4.5 to 9° Fahrenheit) higher than the pre-industrial average? And what should conservationists be doing now to better prepare nature for the changes to come? Mongabay interviewed eight conservationists to better understand how we can aid the natural world to build greater climate resilience.

Whitworth further describes conservation today as a three-legged stool. One leg is protected areas like national parks, the second is species-focused programs, but the third — and the least focused-on — is building climate resilience.

So, how do we do it? How do we build climate resilience into natural systems that are already under attack by deforestation, habitat destruction, over-exploitation and invasive species among other impacts?

Jean Labuschagne, director of conservation development at the NGO African Parks, spells it out with three components: “Large, connected, well-managed ecological systems.”

“Large intact ecosystems are naturally more resilient,” agrees James Deutsch, CEO of Rainforest Trust. “I think focusing on the most intact remaining large ecosystems, and especially large tropical forests, becomes really important … the very size provides adaptive ability.”

“Large intact ecosystems are naturally more resilient,” agrees James Deutsch, CEO of Rainforest Trust. “I think focusing on the most intact remaining large ecosystems, and especially large tropical forests, becomes really important … the very size provides adaptive ability.”

As an example of an optimal protected area for a hotter world, Andrew Whitworth points to Manu National Park in the Peruvian Amazon. Manu covers a vast area of 17,162 square kilometers (6,626 square miles), an area larger than the U.S. state of Connecticut. But just as important to Whitworth: Manu has an advantage many parks lack — it has both highlands and lowlands. Manu protects land all the way from just 150 meters (492 feet) above sea level to 4,200 m (13,779 ft.).

“It’s these elevational changes where you get this incredible biodiversity,” says Whitworth, who discovered a frog species new to science in Manu’s foothills.

A park with this much altitudinal difference will allow species to migrate upslope as Amazonian lowlands heat up and dry out, Whitworth explains. As climate change pummels our planet, species in temperate areas will move poleward — that is, northward in the northern hemisphere and southward in the southern. But in the tropics, they will move upslope — as far as possible.

While protecting lands that allow for temperate species to move will be vital, Whitworth says the most “bang for your buck” will be in preserving “tropical elevation gradients.” In lay terms, Whitworth is saying we need to connect lowland rainforests to highland rainforests and cloud forests, as high as possible, to provide refuges for tropical species to escape to, just like Manu does.

Currently, most corridors are built with specific species in mind — usually, large mammals, particularly predators. But Deutsch wonders whether it might be better to focus on building corridors for plants. Meanwhile, Christopher Jordan, Latin America director at Re:wild, says he’d like to see more corridors designed for seed-dispersers, such as herbivores or birds.

“Nature is the best technology we have. It’s running for millions of years,” says Schepers, adding that “restoring nature at scale … will also help us to mitigate a lot of the [climate] impacts.”

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The spotted salamander has long been a unique part of Homewood’s history. Since at least the 1960s, and likely much longer, experts say, the amphibians have spent much of their time burrowing on the slopes of Shades Mountain, making their homes beneath the fallen leaves and limbs of the forest.

Once a year, as temperatures in Alabama begin to climb, the amphibians migrate from the mountain’s slopes across South Lakeshore Drive, a two-lane road, to the springtime, “vernal” pools located in a narrow patch of woods adjacent to existing sports fields that line Shades Creek.

By 2003, city officials officially designated a nearly half-mile stretch of South Lakeshore Drive as a salamander crossing—painted crosswalks and street signs included. By the next year, the city hosted the first Salamander Festival, a tradition that’s continued to this day. In 2024, more than 900 attendees flocked to Homewood for the event, according to organizers.

Now, though, residents of Homewood fear the worst—that the desire for development will outweigh the need for environmental stewardship of the amphibians’ habitat. That’s why residents like Ellen McLaughlin say they will speak for the salamander.

https://archive.ph/4H4RT

Researchers found Thismia aliasii, a rare forest plant in Malaysia that glows and feeds on fungi instead of sunlight.

Our desire to preserve is strongly linked to a narrative of loss, both for biodiversity writ large and for rare heirloom seeds. But we recognize the need for biodiversity and destroy it in the same breath. What if we protected the Amazon instead of just the genetics within it? What if we supported small-scale diversified agriculture instead of industrialized monoculture?

Seed preservation has a place, but it’s not the thing that will save us. Heirloom seed keepers attempt to preserve the past, while plant breeders control genetic resources to commodify the seed. Neither camp is particularly focused on how to expand biodiversity into the future, as if biodiversity and seed varieties are fixed and finite things.

Compounding this problem is the climate crisis, which is dramatically affecting our ability to grow food. Diversity is a core component of resilience, so we need rapid, ongoing and diverse adaptation of our regional food systems – everywhere, all the time. If we’ve been preserving all these seeds for some imagined future need, then the need is now. Arguably, it’s already too late.

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/20534437

Thorn forest once blanketed the Rio Grande Valley. Restoring even a little of it could help the region cope with the impacts of climate change