Tag: ecology

currentsinbiology:

With limited funds for conservation, researchers spar over which species to save—and which to let go 

Faced with a gulf between the species in need and the available resources, some scientists are pushing an approach that combines the cold-blooded eye of an accountant with the ruthless decisiveness of a battlefield surgeon. To do the greatest good, they argue, governments need to consider shifting resources from endangered species and populations that are getting too much attention to those not getting enough. That could mean resolving not to spend money on some species for which the chance of success appears low, such as the vaquita, an adorable small porpoise now down to fewer than 30 animals in Mexico’s Gulf of California.

drownedduck:

youcantseebutimmakingaface:

glumshoe:

wetlands are important

They filter runoff, preserve vital habitat, and help to prevent erosion and flooding. There’s more but I am not a scientist BUT YOU SHOULD KNOW

But I am!

Wetlands are important for all those things and more! First off they’re a unique ecosystem that harbors certain types of life that can’t survive elsewhere. They are a major link in the chain that is the whole ecosystem, in that without them then things would break down or drastically change.

Estuary wetlands are pivital not only to both fresh water and salt water species, but to humans on the coasts as well. Estuaries can help absorb the impact of a flood from hurricane or tsunami, prevent contamination from crossing either way, and be nurseries for thousands of species that grow up/live far from the wetland. When you have rain runoff, if there wasn’t wetlands then all the dirt and excess nutrients would go directly into the next water source downstream, causing pollution and algae blooms, which further disrupts the systems on that body of water. It means less food for fish, which means less food for predatory animals and human fishers, which means you start paying more for said food. The fisherman loses his job, the ospreys and eagles start thinning out, eventually the impacts add up to change that affects you personally.

When there is a flood or tsunami, wetlands can literally absorb some of that excess water, keeping it out of your house. Wetlands act as a buffer for wave action, protecting coasts and shores from erosion. The trees within act as wind breaks.

Wetlands are carbon traps like peat bogs, only not as efficient. Things rot there, some of the material stays under layers of silt and mud, some still gets released as gas but not as much or as fast as out in the open. Wetland mud isn’t as nutrient packed as peat, but it’s okay, if not freshly coated in precipitated toxins (still, that could be sloughed off).

Remember Katrina? Even the army corp engineers commented that the levies wouldn’t have broken and been over powered so easily and New Orleans wouldn’t have flooded as bad if the wetlands were still really there. Same story for many hurricanes before and since.