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IMAGE: Laña, the last surviving Pyrenean Ibex, returned as a mounted animal to Torla-Ordesa on the 6th November 2012 after its controversial cloning attempt. Her skin is now exhibited in the. view more
Credit: Manolo Grasa
Likely the first extinction event of the 2000s in Europe, the sad history of the Pyrenean Ibex (Capra pyrenaica pyrenaica) is a powerful example of the ever-increasing species loss worldwide due to causes related to human activity. It can, however, give us valuable information on what should be done (or avoided) to halt this extinction vortex.
The distribution of this subspecies of Iberian Ibex was limited to the French and Spanish Pyrenees. Its first mention in an official written document, dating back to 1767, already refers to it as extremely rare. Like many other mountain goats, it was almost hunted to extinction before its killing became prohibited in 1913. Neither the institution of a national park (Ordesa & Monte Perdido), nor a cons
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IMAGE: Two banded piping plover adults stand near a nest with a small video camera pointed at it on a sandbar on the Garrison Reach of the Missouri River, North Dakota.. view more
Credit: USGS
Piping plover breeding groups in the Northern Great Plains are notably connected through movements between habitats and show lower reproductive rates than previously thought, according to a new U.S. Geological Survey study. These new findings point to a need for further studies and suggest the species may show a higher extinction risk than currently presumed.
Piping plovers are small-bodied, short-distance migratory shorebirds. The Northern Great Plains population has been listed as a threatened species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since 1985. Previously, wildlife managers had assumed four separate breeding groups within the Northern Great Plains and that individuals from these groups moved infrequently between habitats. Earlier studies based on this assumption
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A new study by Stanford University biologists finds an explanation for the idea that physical characteristics such as skin pigmentation are only skin deep. Using genetic modeling, the team has found that when two populations with distinct traits combine over generations, traits of individuals within the resulting admixed population come to reveal very little about individuals ancestry. Their findings were published March 27 in a special edition of the
American Journal of Physical Anthropology on race and racism. When two founding groups first come together, a visible physical trait that differed between those founders initially carries information about the genetic ancestry of admixed individuals, says Jaehee Kim, a postdoctoral research fellow in biology at Stanford and first author of the study. But this study shows that after enough time has passed, that s no longer true, and you can no longer identify a person s genetic ancestry based only on such traits.
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(Santa Barbara, Calif.) Despite the fact that our planet is mostly ocean and human maritime activity is more intense than it has ever been, we know remarkably little about the state of the ocean s biodiversity the variety and balance of species that support healthy and productive ecosystems. And it s no surprise marine biodiversity is complex, human impacts are uneven, and species respond differently to different stressors. It is really hard to know how a species is doing by just looking out from your local coast, or dipping underwater on SCUBA, said Ben Halpern, a marine ecologist at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management at UC Santa Barbara and Director of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. You only see a small patch of where a species lives and what it is experiencing, and only the few species you happen to see on that day. Though valuable, these snapshots are only part of a much larger picture of cumulative human impacts
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Tucson, Ariz. (March 16, 2021) - This week, a new, peer-reviewed scientific study finds that there is far more potential jaguar habitat in the U.S. than was previously thought. Scientists identified an area of more than 20 million acres that could support jaguars in the U.S., 27 times the size of designated critical habitat.
The results, published in the journal
Oryx, are based on a review of 12 habitat models for jaguars within Arizona and New Mexico, conclusively identifying areas suitable for the recovery of these wild cats. Based on the expanded habitat area, the authors conclude that findings uncover new opportunities for jaguar conservation in North America that could address threats from habitat loss, climate change, and border infrastructure.