Smallest waterlily in the world saved from extinction – by Kew Gardens
(guardian.co.uk, May 19, 2010)
The thermal waterlily, extinct in the wild since it disappeared from Rwanda in 2008, has been granted a new lease of life.
Plant experts at Kew Gardens have rescued the smallest waterlily in the world from the brink of extinction.
The thermal waterlily has not grown in the wild since the last specimens vanished two years ago from its only known habitat, a hot spring in southwest Rwanda.
After a year-long struggle, a Kew Gardens biologist worked out a way to grow the plants at the botanic gardens, paving the way for their reintroduction in the wild.
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Ancient mass extinction of fish may have paved way for modern species
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
May 17, 2010 | 3:56 p.m.
A report looks at a 360-million-year-old gap in the fossil record and finds that marine vertebrates were recovering from an extinction event on par with the one that killed the dinosaurs. What happened is unclear.
Modern-day lizards, snakes, frogs and mammals — including us — may owe their existence to a mass extinction of ancient fish 360 million years ago that left the oceans relatively barren, providing room for marginal species that were our ancestors to thrive and diversify, paleontologists said Monday.
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Species extinctions happening before our eyes
http://www.skepticalscience.com/Species-extinctions-happening-before-our-eyes.html
In the past, research has predicted that global warming could lead to the extinction of more than one-fifth of animal and plant species. This research has largely been based on theoretical models. However, now observations can confirm whether reality matches theory. The paper Erosion of Lizard Diversity by Climate Change and Altered Thermal Niches (Sinervo 2010) compares global observations of lizard populations from 1975 to present day. The result? Rapidly warming temperatures are causing lizard species to go extinct before our eyes.
How does climate change affect lizard populations? While lizards bask in the morning sun to warm up, they retreat to the shade when temperatures get too hot to avoid heat stress. As it gets hotter, they have less time to forage for food. Warmer springs are particularly devastating as this is when lizards reproduce and need extra food.
(Skeptical Science, May 15, 2010)
Warming Imperils Lizards, Scientists Warn
Global warming is driving lizards in Mexico and across the globe toward extinction, according to a new study being published in the journal Science.
In an editorial accompanying the report, the scientists warn that climate-related “extinctions are not only in the future, but are happening now.”
Comparing populations of 48 Mexican lizard species at 200 sites with numbers collected in 1975, the scientists found that they had declined 12 percent.
(New York times: Green, May 14, 2010)
The Burgess Shale fauna was around a lot longer than we thought
We all know the Burgess Shale fauna from Steve Gould’s book Wonderful Life, which described it as a group of fantastic animals lacking any affinity with modern-day animals. Gould suggested that they went extinct without issue in the Cambrian, about 505 million years ago, but could easily have given rise to modern animals if the “tape of life” had been rewound.
Later work by Simon Conway Morris and others, of course, showed that the Burgess Shale fauna, although weird, did have affinities with modern groups like arthropods, lobopods (Onychophora) and annelids. Indeed, some of the fauna could have been ancestors of modern groups, although there still seem to be bizarre forms—called the “problematica”—without affinities to modern animals.
(Why Evolution Is True, May 13, 2010)
UN report says planet falling short on goals to preserve more species
http://www.peavler.org/arguendo/wp-admin/post-new.php
Far too many of the world’s plants and animals — and the wild places that support them — are at risk of collapse, a U.N. report finds, despite a global goal set in 2002 for major improvement by this year.
Frogs and other amphibians are most at risk of extinction, coral reefs are the species deteriorating most rapidly and the survival of nearly a quarter of all plant species is threatened, the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity said Monday in a report issued every four years.
(LA Times, May 10, 2010)
Cracking the Genetic Code of a Frog
Unless your father was a prince with a shady past, you probably haven’t thought much about how related you are to a frog lately. But it turns out that about 80 percent of the genes known to cause diseases in humans have counterparts in the genome of Xenopus tropicalis—the western clawed frog native to sub-Saharan Africa.
Scientists at the Joint Genome Institute in California revealed the Xenopus genome in the April 30 issue of Science. It’s the first frog to have its genetic code cracked and the first amphibian.
(Scientific American, May 4, 2010)
Rare dolphins endangered in Taiwan, Australia and Peru
at 8:47 am on Friday, 7 May 2010
Dolphin species on four continents are in danger, warn various reports.
In Asia, the Taiwan Matsu’s Fish Conservation Union says that only 60 to 90 Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins (Sousa chinensis chinensis) remain off the Taiwanese coast, fewer than half that existed just four years ago. The Union says the species could become extinct in that region in 10 years. Industrial development and pollution near the estuary of Taiwan’s longest river, the Jhuoshuei River, is blamed for the decline.
Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins exist throughout Asia, Africa and Australia, but this particular population is isolated…
(Scientific American, May 4, 2010)