Local people protect nature in Tanzania’s biodiversity hotspot
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Local people protect nature in Tanzania’s biodiversity hotspot
In 2001, German biologist Viola Clausnitzer was working in the Amani-SigiForest in Tanzania’s East Usambara Mountains when she spotted something special.
Amani flatwing (Amanipodagrion gilliesi)/credit. german biologist viola clausnitzer.
At a small, boulder-strewn stream in the dense forest, she had found a kind of dragonfly that had not been seen since 1962, when it was first described for science. “It was exciting,” says Clausnitzer. “Virtually nothing was known about its ecology, behaviour and habitat.”
The dragonfly was anAmaniflatwing (
Amanipodagriongilliesi). It is today known from just one location and is considered to be critically-endangered. But it is just one of many rare and threatened species that are found nowhere else on Earth than in the East Usambara Mountains. They include birds and snakes and frogs and plants. With
Credit: Monte Neate-Clegg
The mountain forests of Tanzania are more than 9,300 miles away from Salt Lake City, Utah. But, as in eastern Africa, the wild places of Utah depend on a diversity of birds to spread seeds, eat pests and clean up carrion. Birds keep ecosystems healthy. So if birds in Tanzania are in trouble in a warming climate, as found in a recent study by University of Utah researchers, people in Utah as well as in the African tropics should pay attention.
In a new study published in
Global Change Biology, doctoral student Monte Neate-Clegg and colleagues tracked the demographics of 21 bird species over 30 years of observations from a mountain forest in Tanzania. For at least six of the species, their population declined over 30 years could be most attributable to rising temperatures an effect of a warming world. Smaller birds, as well as those that live at the lower part of their elevation range, were at higher risk for slowed population growth.
Warming climate slows tropical birds population growth rates miragenews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from miragenews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.