Archive for the ‘climate change’ Tag

A disappearing act

I spent the last few days at a conference in New Orleans about the changing Gulf Coast that brought together researchers, engineers, long-time residents, and a wide variety of other people. The point was to share information and viewpoints about what is happening along the coast over the short- and long-term. Sea-level rise and climate […]

Crowded eels

In my last post, I mentioned some of the big issues facing eel populations around the world: habitat fragmentation, overexploitation, climate change. We’re constantly gaining information on how these problems impact eels, and we’re also getting a better sense of how to mitigate some of the challenges. Once again, I’m largely looking at those eel […]

Slipping through the cracks

This past week has been really informative for me- so many things that I didn’t know about eels, and it turns out that I’m not the only one. Although there are a large number of scientists looking into eel conservation, there are still so many unknowns about eel ecology that it can be hard to […]

Dwindling fungi?

A brief search through the literature resulted in quite a few studies and even a few books about fungi conservation, so I feel pretty confident in saying that people are paying attention to this issue. At the same time, a lot of that effort seems to be coming from the last 20 years, so it […]

Removing obstacles for colonial seabirds

In my post last week I talked about three of the big challenges facing colonial seabirds: habitat loss, invasive species, and changing food resources. I spent the last few days reading about ways to combat these problems, plus gaining insight on other issues related to seabird survival. The good news is that we are continually […]

Drama on the seas and islands and beaches

Over the last week I’ve gotten something of an around-the-world tour of seabird conservation- some of the papers have been reviews, which means that they combine information from as many studies as they can and provide a broad view of trends, while others were targeted at specific species. No matter which way you look at […]

There goes the neighborhood?

When I started looking into rodent conservation, what I had expected to find was a tail of two species groups: 1) invasive, introduced rodent species dominating the natives, and 2) disappearing native species and simplified ecosystems as a result of habitat loss to human activities. It would appear, however, that the global situation is a […]

Giving crabs a leg up

In my reading about hermit crabs over the last few weeks, I’ve certainly gotten the sense that most hermit crab species aren’t in particularly precarious positions with regard to survival. While king crabs and coconut crabs are an exception, most species seem to be doing pretty well at the moment. That trend is likely to […]

Catching their breath

As I mentioned in my last post, ocean acidification is likely to cause problems for hermit crabs both because the calcium carbonate used by snails to construct shells which are, in turn, used by hermits will be less available and because hermits exhibit less movement and environmental awareness as pH drops. A variety of aquatic […]

Not upwardly-mobile?

When I chose hermit crabs as my topic for this month, I wasn’t exactly sure what I would find. It turns out that hermit populations are generally in good shape at this moment [although the popularity of hermit crabs in the aquarium industry does warrant a little concern- because of the effort and expense needed […]