The ABC’s Landline program published an article last week on the rise of Plague Locusts in Australia. This forecast the possibility of the worst plagues since the 1970s. There was …
Nature-based Solutions
For obvious reasons, there is a lot of talk at the moment about the risk of getting diseases from animals. We degrade habitatsWhat is habitat for animals and people? Habitat, …
Inference or absolution? The case for protecting Blue Whales now!
If we wait for proof to make environmental decisions, we’ll fail to reverse the sixth mass extinctionAnimal life hasn’t existed for very long on planet Earth. In the last 500 …
Humans and mass extinction: who is the real victim?
It’s inevitable that at some stage, someone will say to me “why are you making animal conservationWhy is animal conservation important? Animal conservation is important, because animals are the only …
Using species’ potential range as an indicator of conservation importance
A new paper published in the journal Ecological Indicators proposes that we use indices of species’ potential range to inform conservation status (Mason et al, 2021). Findings like these should …
Biodiversity Conservation and the Earth System
A recent paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution sets out the increasing evidence that loss of large vertebrates in particular, is having massive impacts on ecosystem processes. The …
New research shows the impact of climate change on forests is to “scramble the biological clock of the forest floor“. The study shows how the change in timing of various …
Addressing the rapid decline of insects means having more insect-eating birds
The life-histories of insects and vertebrates are coupled. Predator and prey cannot exist without one-another. Species richnessThe number of species within a given area. Note, this is often confused with …
Climate models routinely overlook biodiversityWhat is the definition of biodiversity? When we ask, what is the definition of biodiversity? It depends on what we want to do with it. The …
Animals and ocean deoxygenation
A paper just published A 2021 Horizon Scan of Emerging Global Biological Conservation Issues (Sutherland et al 2020) identifies “Deoxygenation” impacts on Coral Reef Health and “Increases in Dissolved Iron …