The first thing that you'll notice about kākāpō — a type of large, flightless parrot found only in New Zealand — is how rotund they are.

They have endearingly round heads and bodies, owl-like faces and sturdy legs, and they are the biggest of all modern parrots; males measure up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) long and can weigh nearly 9 pounds (4 kilograms). Kākāpō are also one of the longest-lived birds in the world, estimated to reach 90 years.

The name "kākāpō" means "night parrot" in the Māori language, a reference to the birds' nocturnal habits. Though kākāpō cannot fly, they can walk for long distances and are agile climbers, clambering and leaping from trees using their shortened wings for balance.

The American prairie was so vast, so alien, it shattered comprehension.

Newcomers to the seemingly endless grasslands that once spanned approximately a quarter of North America often hit a psychic wall, descending into fits of mania. Prairie madness, as the phenomenon came to be known, was recorded by the journalist E.V. Smalley in 1893 after a decade of observing life on the frontier: “An alarming amount of insanity occurs in the new Prairie States among farmers and their wives.”

America’s treeless, isolated expanse put early European settlers to the test. Drought, loneliness, and debt drove many to failure, forcing the homesteaders to retreat East.

But those who stayed unwittingly launched one of history’s largest terraforming projects, rewiring the land, the climate, and the future of the continent.

In Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie, longtime Minnesota journalists Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty trace this staggering transformation.“ The Europeans who colonized North America in the 19th century transformed the continent’s hydrology as thoroughly as the glaciers,” they write. “But, remarkably, they did it in less than 100 years instead of tens of thousands.”

In putting hundreds of millions of acres of prairie to the plow, settlers not only forcibly displaced Indigenous nations, but completely altered the region’s ancient carbon and nitrogen cycles. They also turned the region into an agricultural powerhouse. The deep black soil once prevalent in the Midwest — the result of thousands of years of animal and plant decomposition depositing untold carbon stores into the ground — became the foundation of the modern food system. But the undoing of the American prairie also dismantled one of the Earth’s most effective climate defenses.

Lorries thunder over the A14 bridge north of Cambridge, above steep roadside embankments covered in plastic shrouds containing the desiccated remains of trees.

The new 21-mile road between Cambridge and Huntingdon cost £1.5bn and was opened in 2020 to fulfil a familiar political desire: growth. National Highways, the government-owned company that builds and maintains England’s A roads, promised that the biodiversity net gain from the construction project would be 11.5%; in other words, they pledged the natural environment would be left in a considerably better state after the road was built than before.

But five years on from the opening of the A14, the evidence is otherwise, and National Highways has admitted biodiversity and the environment have been left in a worse state as a result of the road project.

Empty plastic tree guards stretch for mile after mile along the new road, testament to the mass die-off of most of the 860,000 trees planted in mitigation for the impact of the road. Culverts dug as a safe route for animals such as newts and water voles are dried up and litter-strewn, while ponds designed to collect rainwater and provide a wildlife habitat are choked with mud and silt.

Edna Murphy and her colleague Ros Hathorn believe the failure of the environmental improvements created in mitigation for the A14 are a shocking example of how powerful developers make environmental pledges in order to gain planning permission, which are then not upheld. A slide presentation in 2022 to Murphy and Hathorn indicated 70% of the 860,000 trees originally planted had died.

From 2026, biodiversity net gain will be mandatory for big infrastructure such as the A14 road. But Becky Pullinger, head of land management for the Wildlife Trusts, said developers had to be held to account once the mandate came in, so that recreated habitats had a fighting chance of survival. A recent report showed that only a third of ecological enhancements promised by housebuilders were fulfilled.

Pullinger said the example of the A14 showed how important it was that harm to wildlife was avoided in the first place, reducing the need for compensation planting.

https://archive.ph/JgfLK

A good write-up of an amazing (and cautionary) story that should be more widely known.

While individual trees can’t cross rivers and climb mountains, entire forests can. And climate change is making their journeys treacherous.

“Trees have been migrating forever,” says Leslie Brandt, an ecologist formerly with the U.S. Forest Service in St. Paul, Minn. During the last ice age, when an ice sheet covered most of Canada and the northern United States, many tree species took refuge in warmer, southern climates. As northern habitats got colder, seeds thrived in the warmer south. More new trees grew on the southern edges of forests, while older trees up north died out. Slowly, forests migrated, moving around 100 to 500 meters a year, Brandt says.

But now, human-caused climate change is altering habitats faster than forests can move. Rising oceans are threatening coastal mangrove forests worldwide. Higher temperatures in Canada are making it difficult for white spruce to grow. And drier conditions in the American Southwest are harming pinyon pines.

Native to Indonesia, the corpse flower is known locally as bunga bangkai. It is endemic to the rainforests of western Sumatra.

The flower, also known by its scientific name amorphophallus titanum or titan arum, is known for its distinctively pungent smell, which has been likened in the past to dead animals, rotten meat, eggs, sweaty socks, sewage and rubbish.

Sharing the news on social media, the botanical garden, which is in the city's Golden Gate Park, encouraged people to come and see the phenomenon.

The blooming process only lasts for a couple of days and will not occur again for another three to five years, according to the garden's website.

New research on Monday contradicted the commonly held idea that males dominate females among primates, revealing far more nuanced power dynamics in the relationships of our close relatives.

When carnivores that roam our Earth feast gleefully on the flesh of their prey, the hard, unpalatable bones are usually left behind.

But snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow their meals whole – and, unlike other animals that pass or regurgitate the bones they cannot break down, the skeletons swallowed by snakes do not re-emerge in a recognizable format.

Exactly how snake bodies pull off this astonishing feat of bone digestion has been unclear. Now, scientists have found a previously unknown type of cell in the intestines of Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) that appears to enable them to completely and utterly absorb the skeletons of their prey.

These cells help process large amounts of calcium and phosphorus that would otherwise overload the snake's system.

Since 1970, 73% of global wildlife has been lost, while the world's population has doubled to 8 billion. Research shows this isn't a coincidence but that population growth is causing a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.

Our research demonstrates that biodiversity recovery needs to be actively managed, especially in depopulating areas.

This will surely be controversial but personally I'm convinced.

It's reminiscent of the "garden Earth" theory. This holds that, whether we like it or not, there are basically no truly wild places left. Humans have turned the Earth into a de-facto garden - and they now need to own that fact and behave like better gardeners. I was skeptical (even a bit outraged) at first but I'm coming round to the logic.

Inspiring story. This theme of bridges is going to become ever more important.

Animal communication takes many forms.

Archive link: https://archive.is/Osjfb

Researchers have documented orcas seemingly gifting rays, seals and fish to scientists and divers, which could suggest they have a theory of mind and engage in altruism – even across species

When it rains in Newton, Massachusetts, water rushes off roads, down asphalt gullies, and into Cheesecake Brook – a small stream that was converted many years ago into a narrow channel lined with masonry walls.

During downpours, more water is shunted to the brook than it can hold. Max Rome is with the nonprofit Charles River Watershed Association: “Basically, what we’ve designed is a system that is almost perfectly set up to create flooding.” As climate change causes heavier downpours, the brook is more likely to flood nearby roads and yards. So Rome’s group is working with the city of Newton to restore a section of the brook and reduce those risks.

Instead of sending stormwater to the brook, they’re diverting it into underground tanks. The stormwater will then be able to slowly trickle out of the gravel-lined tanks and into the ground. They’re also planting native vegetation along its banks that will help slow and filter runoff.

Rome: “There’s going to be a lot of really beautiful plants, a lot of flowering, interesting species that are going to be attracting pollinators, attracting birds.”

• Tropical dry forests are critically endangered ecosystems that once covered vast areas of the planet but have been largely destroyed, with less than 8% of the original extent remaining in some regions due to conversion to agriculture and development.
• These forests support hundreds of millions of people who depend on them for essential resources, such as food, medicine and economic opportunities, while also hosting remarkable biodiversity, including jaguars, tapirs and numerous endemic species.
• A 2022 study revealed that more than 71 million hectares of tropical dry forests were lost between 2000-2020 alone — an area twice the size of Germany — with remaining forests under immediate threat in rapidly expanding deforestation frontiers and from climate change, with some areas experiencing two additional months of drought compared to the 1960s.
• Immediate conservation action is crucial as scientists warn that without aggressive intervention, including land restoration, assisted migration and emergency management techniques, these ancient ecosystems face collapse within decades.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Nestled in the eastern edge of Sri Lanka’s Uva province, Nilgala stands out as a landscape of remarkable ecological and cultural importance. Long overlooked in mainstream conservation efforts despite its significance, Nilgala finally received due recognition on June 2 when it was declared a forest reserve covering its full extent of 40,685 hectares (100,543 acres). Located within Sri Lanka’s intermediate climatic zone, Nilgala is primarily covered by dry mixed evergreen forest. However, what truly distinguishes the area is its savanna landscape of open grasslands dotted with trees, which is a rare habitat type in Sri Lanka.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5344173

In Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie, longtime Minnesota journalists Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty trace this staggering transformation.“ The Europeans who colonized North America in the 19th century transformed the continent’s hydrology as thoroughly as the glaciers,” they write. “But, remarkably, they did it in less than 100 years instead of tens of thousands.”

In putting hundreds of millions of acres of prairie to the plow, settlers not only forcibly displaced Indigenous nations, but completely altered the region’s ancient carbon and nitrogen cycles. They also turned the region into an agricultural powerhouse. The deep black soil once prevalent in the Midwest — the result of thousands of years of animal and plant decomposition depositing untold carbon stores into the ground — became the foundation of the modern food system. But the undoing of the American prairie also dismantled one of the Earth’s most effective climate defenses.

Grasses, like all plant life, inhale planet-warming carbon dioxide. As a result, “​​earth’s soils now contain one-third of the planet’s terrestrial carbon — more than the total released by human activity since the start of the Industrial Revolution,” Hage and Marcotty write. A 2020 Nature study found that restoring just 15 percent of the world’s plowed grasslands could absorb nearly a third of the carbon dioxide humans added to the atmosphere since the 1800s.

Today, the tallgrass prairie, which covered most of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and the far eastern edge of the plains states, clings to about 1 percent of its former range. Even the hardier shortgrass prairie of the American West has been reduced by more than half.

Full Article

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23702048

archived (Wayback Machine)