damn or damn, choose your future!
This is asking for reflection!
damn or damn, choose your future!
By a domino effect, the extinction of one species can lead to others. Researchers show that there is more risk of cascading extinctions when no one species closes the hole left by the disappearance of another.
Human activities continue to cause the extinction of species to the point of causing the sixth mass extinction of the planet's history. However, this loss of biodiversity could have dramatic consequences. Researchers at the University of Exeter (UK) made predictions by working on plant and insect communities, including the parasitoid wasp Aphidius megourae. If they removed a species of wasps from the ecosystem, other indirectly related species could disappear.
For Dirk Sanders, from the University of Exeter, "interactions between species are important for ecosystem stability". He adds, "And because species are interconnected by multiple interactions, an impact on one species can also affect others." It all depends on the importance of the food chain network in which the disappearing species is found.
The loss of biodiversity increases the vulnerability of the ecosystem
When a food web is complex, with significant biodiversity, one species can more easily replace another: there is less risk of cascading extinctions. On the other hand, if species disappear and the ecosystem becomes simpler, the remaining species are more vulnerable and the risk of further extinctions is greater.
The release of the university also takes the example of predators: if the wolf disappears in a mountain range, large herbivores such as deer will be more numerous and will eat more plants. The vegetation will then be lacking to feed other species, such as rabbits or insects, which will then be threatened.
The floor of the central valley collapses, and there is arsenic in the tap water. Now, it seems that both problems are connected
Isabel Solorio can see the water treatment plant in her garden across the street. Built to filter arsenic in drinking water, it has not been active since 2007 - it closed six months after it opened, when the Californian city of Lanare went into debt trying to cope with the costs maintenance.
"It's cruel to live in such a powerful, rich state, but we can't rely on clean water," Solorio said. https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... griculture
Japan Kills 134 Boreal Whales, Endangered
Published 23 / 08 / 2018 lemarin.fr
After the Antarctic campaign, which led to the death of 333 cetaceans last winter, Japanese whalers have just returned from a new hunting operation in the Pacific. They have, this time, killed 177 animals, announced Wednesday, August 22, the Japan Fisheries Agency: 43 whales of Mincke and 134 boreal whales.
Japan is one of the last three countries in the world to hunt cetaceans, hiding behind scientific motives. (Photo: Whale and dolphin conservation)
The symptoms of the crisis are numerous and cumulative: "In addition to rapid climate change, loss of biodiversity and other environmental risks, societies are facing an increase in inequality and unemployment. slowed, rising levels of debt and the powerlessness of policies. But, precisely, economic paradigms have been designed according to a context that is now obsolete.
Half of the world's killer whales may disappear due to ocean pollution
28/09/2018
More than half of the killer whales in the world are threatened with extinction, a new study published in the journal Science and relayed by The Guardian reveals. The main responsible: PCBs, also called polychlorinated biphenyls, toxic substances long used in oil, plastic or paint.
In 2001, 152 countries have signed an agreement to stop using these PCBs, becoming aware of the adverse effects on the environment. However, these are still present especially in the oceans. And the orcs are the first victims. Because, as great predators, they eat other fish that have a high concentration of PCBs in their bodies.
This causes malformations of their reproductive organs and undermines their immune system. According to the study, in the industrialized regions, the orcs could thus completely disappear from here 30 to 50 years.
While orcas were initially present in almost all oceans, they have already disappeared from the North Sea and Spanish waters. We have also not seen baby orcas in the most polluted areas for several years. "Orca populations in Japan, Brazil, the North East Pacific, the Strait of Gibraltar and the United Kingdom are tending to disappear," he concluded. At present, killer whales are mainly found in the north, near Norway, Iceland and Canada, ie far from the areas most polluted with PCBs.
"Our failure to control the pollutants that end up in our oceans has caused mass murder," said Lucy Babey, director of the Orca group. "Our only hope is that indeed, we lose all the populations of killer whales in industrialized areas, but that the populations of the Arctic subsist and prevent the species from disappearing completely," concludes Paul Jepson.
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