Posts tagged animals
50,000 Endangered Species Condoms to Be Handed Out at Year-end Events
Dec 23rd
TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity is distributing 50,000 free Endangered Species Condoms for holiday and New Year’s Eve celebrations around the country. More than 600 volunteer distributors will hand out the condoms at events in all 50 states. The condoms are part of the Center’s 7 Billion and Counting campaign focusing on the effects of rapid human population growth on rare plants and animals. “There are more than 3 billion people on the planet under the age of 25. The choices this generation makes will determine whether our planet and its wildlife and natural resource base are burdened with 8 billion or 15 billion people. The difference between these paths can be measured by how many other species are left to roam alongside us,” said Jerry Karnas, population campaign director with the Center. “Our Endangered Species Condoms are a great way to get a conversation started about how the growing human population is affecting the wild world around us, especially animals already teetering on the edge of extinction.” As part of its full-time population campaign launched in 2009, the Center has given out 450,000 free Endangered Species Condoms, featuring polar bears, panthers and other species threatened by population growth, loss of habitat and consumption of natural resources. This year, the Center is providing condoms to college health centers, nightclub owners, environmental activists, women’s reproductive-health groups and other activists around the United States. The world’s human population has doubled since 1970, reaching 7 billion in October 2011. According to the latest research, it could exceed 9 billion by 2050. In recent weeks, several federal reports have noted the impact that population is having on the natural world. A recent decision to propose Endangered Species Act protection for 66 coral species said that “the common root or driver of most, possibly all” of the threats that corals face — like climate change and changing ocean conditions — is the world’s growing human population. Another report, by the Department of the Interior, raised serious questions about the ability of the Colorado River to meet demands of a growing population in the western United States. “The evidence is mounting, and the solutions are at hand if only we’re just willing to start talking about them,” Karnas said. “Universal access to birth control, a rapid transition to clean energy, robust land-acquisition programs and much smarter growth policies can combine to forge a future for wildlife and a high quality of life for people. There’s no better time to start than in the new year of 2013.” The Center is the only environmental group with a full-time campaign highlighting the connection between unsustainable human population growth and the ongoing extinction crisis for plants and animals around the world. In 2011 the Center released a report on the top 10 U.S. species threatened by population growth. The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 450,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. [includeme src=”http://c1n.tv/boulder/media/bouldersponsors.html” frameborder=”0″ width=”670″ height=”300″]
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CU study: Nitrogen damage to RMNP could become irreversible
Jul 10th
The emissions of nitrogen compounds to the atmosphere are being carried to remote areas of the park, altering sensitive ecosystems, said CU-Boulder Professor William Bowman, who directs CU-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station west of Boulder and who led the study. “The changes are subtle, but important,” he said. “They represent a first step in a series of changes which may be relatively irreversible.”
A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder indicates air pollution in the form of nitrogen compounds emanating from power plants, automobiles and agriculture is changing the alpine vegetation in Rocky Mountain National Park.
The emissions of nitrogen compounds to the atmosphere are being carried to remote areas of the park, altering sensitive ecosystems, said CU-Boulder Professor William Bowman, who directs CU-Boulder’s Mountain Research Station west of Boulder and who led the study. “The changes are subtle, but important,” he said. “They represent a first step in a series of changes which may be relatively irreversible.”
In other regions of the world, higher amounts of nitrogen pollutants correlate with decreased biodiversity, acidified soils and dead stream organisms like trout, said Bowman. “There is evidence that indicates once these changes occur, they can be difficult if not impossible to reverse. It is best to recognize these early stages before the more harmful later stages happen.”
The study site was an alpine meadow roughly one mile east of Chapin Pass in the Mummy Range of Rocky Mountain National Park. Bowman and his team analyzed the plant communities and soils under ambient levels of nitrogen deposition and compared them to plots with added nitrogen to simulate the increasing atmospheric nitrogen pollution expected in the coming decades. The results indicated changes in plant abundances already were occurring under ambient conditions, but to date no changes in soils were detected.
During the course of the three-year study, rising levels of nitrogen in the soils correlated with large increases in a common species of sedge shown to flourish in other nitrogen addition studies. Bowman said the team anticipates that the diversity of vascular plant species will rise with increasing nitrogen deposition, then decrease with more rare species being excluded by competition from other plant species. “While the changes are relatively modest, they portend that other more environmentally adverse impacts may be on the horizon in Colorado’s alpine areas,” said Bowman.
A paper on the subject was published in the June issue of the Journal of Environmental Management. Co-authors on the study included John Murgel, a former CU-Boulder undergraduate student now completing graduate work at Colorado State University, and Tamara Blett and Ellen Porter of the Air Resources Division of the National Park Service in Lakewood, Colo. The study was funded by the National Park Service.
Previous studies by Bowman and others have shown vegetation changes and soil acidification has been occurring due to increasing nitrogen deposition at other alpine sites in Colorado, including Niwot Ridge. Niwot Ridge is a National Science Foundation-funded Long-Term Ecological Research site administered by CU-Boulder and located adjacent to the university’s Mountain Research Station located some 30 miles west of the city.
Given the projected population growth in Front Range cities in the greater Denver area and increasing agricultural development, nitrogen deposition is expected to increase steadily in Rocky Mountain National Park over the next several decades, said Bowman, a professor in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department.
The high-elevation ecosystems of the park are a magnet for thousands of visitors each year who have opportunities to see plants and animals well adapted to the severe climate above treeline, said Bowman, but such ecosystems are the most sensitive to adverse impacts from air pollutants. Previous studies by other researchers have documented ongoing changes in the algae found in several of the Rocky Mountain National Park’s high elevation lakes due to nitrogen pollution, he said.
While the park is also a haven for fishermen hoping to catch trout in pristine waters, continued inputs of nitrogen pollutants are a hazard to the health of both trout and their food sources, said Bowman, also a fellow of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. It starts when the ability of the land plants and soils to take up the nitrogen is exceeded, causing soils to become acidified, he said.
Other parts of the Colorado Front Range have exhibited signs of acidification at the highest elevations, Bowman said. “Once this happens, soluble aluminum leaches from soils and begins to show up in streams and lakes. This aluminum is quite toxic to many aquatic animals,” he said.
“The take-home message is that the amount of nitrogen deposition reaching the tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park has already passed an important threshold and may lead to more serious environmental impacts,” said Bowman. “It’s not inconceivable that continued negative ecological impacts in the park due to nitrogen pollution could eventually impact tourism in Colorado.”
Officials from Environmental Defense and Trout Unlimited petitioned the State of Colorado and the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions of nitrogen pollution in 2004. This effort resulted in a 2007 plan to lower nitrogen emissions on a voluntary basis to reduce impacts to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Excel Energy’s recent switch to natural gas in some of its power plants is one of many steps toward limiting nitrogen emissions, said Bowman. Ongoing efforts by air quality managers and representatives from the Colorado agricultural industry are also working on management practices that would lower nitrogen emissions.
In other regions of the world, higher amounts of nitrogen pollutants correlate with decreased biodiversity, acidified soils and dead stream organisms like trout, said Bowman. “There is evidence that indicates once these changes occur, they can be difficult if not impossible to reverse. It is best to recognize these early stages before the more harmful later stages happen.”
The study site was an alpine meadow roughly one mile east of Chapin Pass in the Mummy Range of Rocky Mountain National Park. Bowman and his team analyzed the plant communities and soils under ambient levels of nitrogen deposition and compared them to plots with added nitrogen to simulate the increasing atmospheric nitrogen pollution expected in the coming decades. The results indicated changes in plant abundances already were occurring under ambient conditions, but to date no changes in soils were detected.
During the course of the three-year study, rising levels of nitrogen in the soils correlated with large increases in a common species of sedge shown to flourish in other nitrogen addition studies. Bowman said the team anticipates that the diversity of vascular plant species will rise with increasing nitrogen deposition, then decrease with more rare species being excluded by competition from other plant species. “While the changes are relatively modest, they portend that other more environmentally adverse impacts may be on the horizon in Colorado’s alpine areas,” said Bowman.
A paper on the subject was published in the June issue of the Journal of Environmental Management. Co-authors on the study included John Murgel, a former CU-Boulder undergraduate student now completing graduate work at Colorado State University, and Tamara Blett and Ellen Porter of the Air Resources Division of the National Park Service in Lakewood, Colo. The study was funded by the National Park Service.
Previous studies by Bowman and others have shown vegetation changes and soil acidification has been occurring due to increasing nitrogen deposition at other alpine sites in Colorado, including Niwot Ridge. Niwot Ridge is a National Science Foundation-funded Long-Term Ecological Research site administered by CU-Boulder and located adjacent to the university’s Mountain Research Station located some 30 miles west of the city.
Given the projected population growth in Front Range cities in the greater Denver area and increasing agricultural development, nitrogen deposition is expected to increase steadily in Rocky Mountain National Park over the next several decades, said Bowman, a professor in CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department.
The high-elevation ecosystems of the park are a magnet for thousands of visitors each year who have opportunities to see plants and animals well adapted to the severe climate above treeline, said Bowman, but such ecosystems are the most sensitive to adverse impacts from air pollutants. Previous studies by other researchers have documented ongoing changes in the algae found in several of the Rocky Mountain National Park’s high elevation lakes due to nitrogen pollution, he said.
While the park is also a haven for fishermen hoping to catch trout in pristine waters, continued inputs of nitrogen pollutants are a hazard to the health of both trout and their food sources, said Bowman, also a fellow of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. It starts when the ability of the land plants and soils to take up the nitrogen is exceeded, causing soils to become acidified, he said.
Other parts of the Colorado Front Range have exhibited signs of acidification at the highest elevations, Bowman said. “Once this happens, soluble aluminum leaches from soils and begins to show up in streams and lakes. This aluminum is quite toxic to many aquatic animals,” he said.
“The take-home message is that the amount of nitrogen deposition reaching the tundra in Rocky Mountain National Park has already passed an important threshold and may lead to more serious environmental impacts,” said Bowman. “It’s not inconceivable that continued negative ecological impacts in the park due to nitrogen pollution could eventually impact tourism in Colorado.”
Officials from Environmental Defense and Trout Unlimited petitioned the State of Colorado and the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce emissions of nitrogen pollution in 2004. This effort resulted in a 2007 plan to lower nitrogen emissions on a voluntary basis to reduce impacts to Rocky Mountain National Park.
Excel Energy’s recent switch to natural gas in some of its power plants is one of many steps toward limiting nitrogen emissions, said Bowman. Ongoing efforts by air quality managers and representatives from the Colorado agricultural industry are also working on management practices that would lower nitrogen emissions.
CU researchers plotting the "Map of Life
May 22nd
A research team involving Yale University and the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a first public demonstration version of its “Map of Life,” an ambitious Web-based endeavor designed to show the distribution of all living plants and animals on the planet.
The demonstration version allows anyone with an Internet connection to map the known global distribution of almost 25,000 species of terrestrial vertebrate animals, including mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and North American freshwater fish. The database, which continues to expand, already contains hundreds of millions of records on the abundance and distribution of the planet’s diverse flora and fauna.
“We are taking 200 years of different types of knowledge coming from different sources, all documenting the locations of species around the world and compiling them in a way that will greatly enhance our knowledge of biodiversity,” said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Robert Guralnick of the ecology and evolutionary biology department, part of the Map of Life research team. “Such information could be used by any organization that needs to make informed decisions regarding land management, health, conservation and climate change.”
The initial version of the map tool being released today is intended to introduce it to the broader public, according to the researchers. It allows users to see several levels of detail for a given species — at its broadest, the type of environment it lives in, and at its finest, specific locations where the species’ presence has been documented. One function allows users to click a point on the map and generate a list of vertebrate species in the surrounding area. More functions will be added over time, according to the team.
“It is the where and the when of a species,” said Walter Jetz, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Yale and the project lead. “It puts at your fingertips the geographic diversity of life. Ultimately, the hope is for this literally to include hundreds of thousands of animal and plant species and show how much or indeed how little we know of their whereabouts.”
A paper by Jetz, Guralnick and Jana McPherson of the Calgary Zoological Society describing the evolving Map of Life technology tool appeared in a recent issue of the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
By highlighting the known abundance and distribution of species, the researchers hope to identify and fill knowledge gaps and also offer a tool for detecting change over time. They expect the map tool will prove useful for professional scientists, wildlife and land managers, conservation organizations and the general public.
The team is using information gleaned from a wide variety of sources, including field guides, museum collections and wildlife checklists that involved scientists, conservation organizations and “citizen scientists.” The project’s success will depend on participation by other scientists and informed amateurs, and subsequent versions of the mapping tool will offer mechanisms for users to supply new or missing information about the distribution and abundance of particular species.
Jetz called the Map of Life “an infrastructure, something to help us all collaborate, improve, share and understand the still extremely limited geographic knowledge about biodiversity.” The team continues to work on several other tasks and challenges, including who will be contributing data and how information supplied by the contributors will be verified and curated.
“A small but powerful next step is to provide a means for anyone, anywhere on the globe to use their mobile devices to instantly pull up animal and plant distributions and even get a realistic assessment on the odds of encountering a particular species of wildlife,” said Guralnick, who also is the curator of invertebrate zoology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.
Guralnick said the Map of Life project is following in the footsteps of other knowledge repositories like the GenBank project, a National Institutes of Health-funded effort with a public database of more than 135 million gene sequences from more than 300,000 organisms that allows users to explore genes and genomes using bioinformatics tools. In the biodiversity arena, the Global Biodiversity Information Facility in Copenhagen has developed an important resource that provides access to more than 300 million records of plant and animal occurrences, which is one of the distributional databases being used by the Map of Life team.
The National Science Foundation has provided initial support for the Map of Life project. Other supporters are the Encyclopedia of Life; the International Union for the Conservation of Nature; and the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, and the Biodiversity and Climate Research Center, both in Germany.
The public demonstration version of Map of Life can be found at http://www.mappinglife.org/ and more information about the project is available at http://www.mappinglife.org/about.