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Sparse data often make it difficult to track how climate change is affecting populations of insect species. A new study by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) has now evaluated an extensive species mapping database (Artenschutzkartierung, ASK) organized by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment (LfU) and assessed the population trends of butterflies, dragonflies and grasshoppers in Bavaria since 1980. The main finding: heat-loving species have been increasing.
Climate change has long since been happening in central Europe, and it is no secret that it affects the populations and distribution of animals and plants. Especially insect trends are a growing cause for concern, as multiple studies have shown their declines. How populations of our insect species are changing over past decades is a question explored by the BioChange Lab at TUM. "It is not only the climate that is changing, but also the type and intensity of land use. This includes agriculture, forestry, urban areas, and transport infrastructure" says Dr. Christian Hof, head of the BioChange research group at TUM.
While changes in flora and fauna may be well-documented in certain areas or for specific species, data for insects and most importantly over prolonged time periods is very sparse. This makes it difficult to draw general conclusions about the changes in populations of insect species and the factors driving biodiversity change. Yet it is precisely findings on species population changes over time, together with factors such as land use and the climate, that informs conservation plans for protecting species, biotopes and the climate.
A rich seam of data
Thanks to the tireless efforts of volunteer and professional nature observers, we have data sets on the occurrence of various different species in Germany. One especially useful resource is the species mapping database (ASK) of the Bavarian State Office for the Environment. The ASK is the state-wide register of animal and plant species in Bavaria and currently has around 3.1 million records of species. It forms a central data resource for the everyday work of the nature conservation authorities and for compilation by the LfU of Red Lists of threatened species.
Using complex statistical methods, researchers at the TUM Chair of Terrestrial Ecology evaluated the valuable ASK data and analyzed the population trends of more than 200 species of insects in Bavaria -- around 120 butterflies, 50 Orthoptera, and 60 dragonflies. In collaboration with many other experts, they showed in that across all these insect groups, there was an increase in the populations of warmth-loving species and a decline of species adapted to cooler temperatures.
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Species like the heat-loving scarlet dragonfly are benefiting from climate change
Insects were divided into those that prefer warm temperatures and those that prefer cold temperatures on the basis of empirical data. "We determined the temperature preferences of each species using data on their distribution within Europe and the mean temperature in that area. In other words, species with a primarily northern distribution are cold-adapted species, and species with a primarily southern European distribution are warm-adapted species," says Eva Katharina Engelhardt, a doctoral student at the TUM BioChange Lab.
Warm-adapted species include the baton blue (butterfly), the European tree cricket, and the scarlet dragonfly. "The scarlet dragonfly is one of the best-known beneficiaries of global warming. The dragonfly, most commonly occurring in the Mediterranean region, first appeared in Bavaria in the early 1990s and is now widespread," Hof tells us.
Among the cold-adapted species are Thor's fritillary, the green mountain grasshopper, and the white-faced darter.
Populations of butterflies, Orthoptera and dragonflies affected by climate change
"Our comparisons of the various groups of insects revealed significant differences," Engelhardt says. "Whilst there was more decline than increase in butterfly and Orthoptera species, the trends for dragonflies were largely positive." One possible reason for this is improvements in water quality over recent decades, a change that particularly benefits dragonflies, which depend on aquatic habitats. Habitat specialists, in other words species adapted to very specific ecosystems, experienced a decline. Butterflies such as the large heath or the cranberry blue are example specialists since they are dependent on very specific habitats.
"Our study highlights the complex effect of climate change on our insect fauna. Our work is also an example of how modern approaches to data analysis can be used to obtain fascinating results from existing data sets. Volunteer and agency conservation work often does generate the data, but they are rarely evaluated systematically. This should happen much more often through collaborations like ours," says Dr. Diana Bowler of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv).
Johannes Voith, an entomologist within the Bayerisches Artenschutzzentrum (Bavarian species conservation center) at LfU, adds that "as part of collaboration with TUM in particular, we are benefiting from the knowledge gained. Next, we plan to create dynamic distribution maps for individual species."
A few years ago, the nation vowed to rid itself of most imported predators. But now some people are asking if that goal is feasible, or worth what it will cost.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The volunteer clambered down the cliffs, progressing along a series of knots on a thin rope as he made his perilous way about 100 feet down a steep rock face to the small box that he needed to refill with poison.
It is one of thousands of such boxes, many in equally inaccessible spots, that have been distributed in the past month across Miramar Peninsula, south of New Zealand’s capital, Wellington.
Conservation workers and volunteers, like the cliff-clinging Dan Henry, have been baiting traps with fresh rabbit meat, scattering poison daubed with aromatic lure and scouring footage from cameras across the headland, all in an effort to address the area’s stoat problem.
A problem that appears to consist of a single stoat.
That people are willing to go to such lengths in pursuit of one predatory mammal is a testament to the gravity of the biodiversity crisis in New Zealand. Its native birds, lizards and bats evolved in the absence of mammalian predators, which arrived only in recent centuries.
Many of its most iconic native creatures are flightless. As a result, they are defenseless against predators like stoats — weasel-like creatures with jagged teeth and remarkable agility — which were introduced to New Zealand in the 19th century to control rabbits.Approximately 4,000 of the country’s native species are classified as “at risk” or “threatened” — the highest proportion of threatened native species in the world.
Conservation workers have been baiting traps with fresh rabbit meat, scattering poison daubed with aromatic lure and scouring footage from cameras across the headland, all in an effort to address the area’s stoat problem.
In Miramar, 5,878 traps and 6,607 poison stations have been laid across the peninsula’s three square miles. Each must be regularly checked, requiring dozens of paid staff members and local volunteers.
A rat detection dog named Rapu, which means “to search” in Maori, at work on the Miramar Peninsula.
Activists on Miramar Peninsula have committed themselves to ridding the peninsula — which until the 2010s was rife with unwanted mammals — of almost all predators. (Domesticated cats, which remain politically untouchable despite their capacity to kill, are an exception.) Their goal may seem unrealistically ambitious, but it has become normal in New Zealand, where the government committed in 2016 to eliminating most nonnative predators by 2050.
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“Many of our species give our country its sense of identity,” said Kiri Allan, New Zealand’s conservation minister. “At risk is our very sense of nationhood.”
Six years in, the campaign has achieved significant successes. New Zealand’s Department of Conservation has placed a thousand square miles of land under sustained predator control, eradicated predators from 117 of its roughly 600 islands and created multiple fenced predator-free reserves around the country.
Now, though, the nation’s conservation community is tussling over whether it can achieve that goal — and at what cost.
In Miramar — which is connected to the rest of Wellington by a large, unfenced isthmus and is home to tens of thousands of people — the department has worked with local volunteers to eliminate possums, weasels and brown rats. Stoats are on their way out, and black rats are at their lowest numbers since measurements began.
Mr. Henry, who co-founded the Predator Free Miramar volunteer group, is not satisfied. “I don’t think the wins are coming fast enough,” he said.
Nicola Toki, the chief executive of the conservation advocacy group Forest & Bird, agreed. “At the current pace and scale, the risk is that we won’t get there.”
Volunteers at a trap-building workshop at the Predator Free Wellington offices.
Checking traps in a more urban part of the Miramar Peninsula. Predator Free Wellington workers seek permission to have traps set up on residents’ properties.
Keaton Stevens,with Predator Free Wellington, registering a rat caught by a trap in an urban area near an airport in Wellington.
But some in the conservation community doubt whether getting there is even viable, in view of how resource-intensive predator elimination has proved to be.
In Miramar, for example, 5,878 traps and 6,607 poison stations have been laid across the peninsula’s three square miles. Each must be regularly checked, requiring dozens of paid staff members and local volunteers.
Another approach would be to focus on creating more places like Zealandia, also near Wellington, which is a fenced reserve of nearly one square mile where native wildlife can thrive. New Zealand has a network of such predator-free spots, some on offshore islands.
The sanctuaries are expensive to build and maintain, and can safeguard only relatively small areas. But while New Zealand’s predator-free campaign aspires to eliminate predators in the long term, fenced reserves offer immediate safety.
Conservation advocates want the government to pursue both. But with limited conservation spending, prioritizing one might prevent full adoption of the other.
Ms. Allan characterized the predator-free goal as “aspirational.” In a written statement, she said that the government has made substantial progress, but that going forward it would focus on “innovation and learning” with the aim of discovering “more effective and efficient ways of protecting our biodiversity at a much larger scale.”
Ms. Toki, by contrast, insists full elimination is achievable, but requires much more funding and focus by the government. Referring to the approximately $250 million that New Zealand spent hosting the America’s Cup sailing competition in 2021, she said, “Do America’s Cup for Predator Free.”
Local activists agree. “Predator Free 2050 is absolutely achievable, if that’s what we decide to do,” Mr. Henry said. “I guess I thought when we started that we’d start with old tools and a silver bullet would appear and we’d all breathe a sigh of relief.” But that hadn’t happened, he said. “It just takes boot leather, traps and poison, and putting that everywhere we can.”
Dan Henry, co-founder of the Predator Free Miramar volunteer group, descending a steep slope with the help of a knotted rope during a trapping session on Miramar Peninsula.
Sue Hope, a volunteer with Predator Free Miramar, next to a pink ribbon to indicate a trap is nearby.
A pīwakawaka, a bird species native to New Zealand.
As he leaned over a trap with a stick to demonstrate what happens when the mechanism is sprung, there was a sudden flutter and cheep by his shoulder. A pīwakawaka — whose tail feathers resemble an expanded accordion — settled on a nearby branch. The number of native birds on the peninsula has soared since the predator free campaign began.
Mr. Henry acknowledges that total elimination isn’t the only measure of victory. Nonetheless, he and other members of Predator Free Miramar are determined to achieve their goal in order to demonstrate that it’s possible at a national level.
“People see the success that we’ve achieved here,” Mr. Henry said. “They want to replicate it. We’re a real demonstration of what you can achieve if you work at it and the community swings behind.”
That includes tracking down that last stoat. Sue Hope, a local volunteer, is optimistic it has already been poisoned or snared. Still, she spends every Sunday morning tramping across hillsides to reset traps and refill poison stations, just to be safe.
“Stoats are horrible,” she said. “They kill things for no reason, not even to eat them.” Then she dives off the track and burrows under a thorn bush in search of the next trap to check.
An overview of the Miramar Peninsula, which is south of New Zealand’s capital, Wellington.
Prof. WANG Zhe, Assistant Professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST)'s Division of Environment and Sustainability, has collaborated with international scientists and revealed the significant roles of anthropogenic low-volatility organic vapors on the secondary organic aerosols (SOA) formation in four megacities in China, providing new insights for effectively mitigating the urban air pollution issues.
Air pollution kills around 7 million people worldwide each year, and is the largest environmental health risk. Air pollutants could be directely emitted from various emission sources, or formed via complex atmospheric reactions of precusors both from natural (e.g. plants) and anthropogenic sources (e.g. traffic, coal combustion, etc). The pollution measures are effective in controlling primary pollutants, but it has been very challenging to mitigate the secondary pollutants, because of the large knowledge gaps in the underlying formation mechanisms.
SOA contributes a significant fraction to the particulate haze pollution in many urbanized regions, with profound impacts on climate and human health. The knowledge gaps in the sources and relevant chemical processes of SOA formation are the bottleneck for implementing effective measures to mitigate haze pollution. This joint research confirmed the dominant roles of anthropogenic low-volatility organic vapors as critical intermediates connecting the oxidation of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to SOA and haze pollution in urban environments.
The HKUST researchers conducted a comprehensive field study in Hong Kong, and duirng the same period, coordinated studies were concurrently carried out in three other Chinese megacities by mainland and international researchers in Beijing, Nanjing, and Shanghai. For the first time, the joint research characterized plenty of highly reactive oxygenated organic molecules (OOMs) in different urban environments, and developed a novel classification framework to trace the measured OOMs and formed SOA to different precursors.
The results showed that oxidation of anthropogenic VOCs dominates OOMs formation in the urban atmosphere, with approximately 40% contribution from aromatics and another 40% contribution from aliphatic hydrocarbons, a previously under-accounted class of VOCs. The study unveiled that multi-step oxidation and auto-oxidation processes play key roles in OOMs formation, and nitrogen oxides (NOx) significantly affect the VOCs oxidation process, producing a considerable fraction of nitrogen-containing organic compounds. The irreversible condensation of these anthropogenic OOMs is a dominant source of SOA, even under severe haze conditions.
The study showed a strong homogeneity in the distribution and formation pathways of OOMs across China's three most urbanized regions, where more than 800 million people live and suffer from air pollution. It implies a possibility of solving air pollution issues with a uniform and effective mitigation strategy across these highly populated city clusters.
The study findings were recently published in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience. Prof. WANG Zhe from ENVR of HKUST is one of the co-first authors of the work. The other co-first authors include Prof. NIE Wei and Prof. YAN Chao from Nanjing University and Prof. HUANG Dandan from Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences (a former Ph.D. graduate from HKUST). Other contributing authors included scientists from the US, Finland, Switzerland, Macau, Hong Kong, and mainland China. The study received funding support from the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.
The Environmental Performance Index, published every two years by researchers at Yale and Columbia, found only Denmark and Britain on sustainable paths to net-zero emissions by 2050.
For four years under President Donald J. Trump, the United States all but stopped trying to combat climate change at the federal level. Mr. Trump is no longer in office, but his presidency left the country far behind in a race that was already difficult to win.
A new report from researchers at Yale and Columbia Universities shows that the United States’ environmental performance has tumbled in relation to other countries — a reflection of the fact that, while the United States squandered nearly half a decade, many of its peers moved deliberately.
But, underscoring the profound obstacles to cutting greenhouse gas emissions rapidly enough to prevent the worst effects of climate change, even that movement was insufficient. The report’s sobering bottom line is that, while almost every country has pledged by 2050 to reach net-zero emissions (the point where their activities no longer add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere), almost none are on track to do it.
The report, called the Environmental Performance Index, or E.P.I., found that, based on their trajectories from 2010 through 2019, only Denmark and Britain were on a sustainable path to eliminate emissions by midcentury.
Namibia and Botswana appeared to be on track with caveats: They had stronger records than their peers in sub-Saharan Africa, but their emissions were minimal to begin with, and the researchers did not characterize their progress as sustainable because it was not clear that current policies would suffice as their economies develop.
The 176 other nations in the report were poised to fall short of net-zero goals, some by large margins. China, India, the United States and Russia were on track to account for more than half of global emissions in 2050. But even countries like Germany that have enacted more comprehensive climate policies are not doing enough.
“We think this report’s going to be a wake-up call to a wide range of countries, a number of whom might have imagined themselves to be doing what they needed to do and not many of whom really are,” said Daniel C. Esty, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, which produces the E.P.I. every two years.
President Donald J. Trump in 2017, before announcing that the United States was withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.Doug Mills/The New York Times
A United Nations report this year found that there is still time, but not much, for countries to change course and meet their targets. The case of the United States shows how gravely a few years of inaction can fling a country off course, steepening the slope of emissions reductions required to get back on.
The 2022 edition of the index, provided to The New York Times before its release on Wednesday, scored 180 countries on 40 indicators related to climate, environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The individual metrics were wide-ranging, including tree-cover loss, wastewater treatment, fine-particulate-matter pollution and lead exposure.
The United States ranked 43rd overall, with a score of 51.1 out of 100, compared with 24th place and a score of 69.3 in the 2020 edition. Its decline is largely attributable to the bottom falling out of its climate policy: On climate metrics, it plummeted to 101st place from 15th and trailed every wealthy Western democracy except Canada, which was 142nd.
The climate analysis is based on data through 2019, and the previous report was based on data through 2017, meaning the change stems from Trump-era policies and does not reflect President Biden’s reinstatement or expansion of regulations.
American emissions did fall substantially over the full 10-year period examined, which also included most of the Obama administration and its efforts to regulate emissions, and the nation continues to outperform other major polluters.
But the pace of reduction has been insufficient given the United States’ extremely high starting point. The U.S. is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases, behind China. If current trajectories held, it would be the third largest in 2050, behind China and India, the lowest-ranked country in the overall index.
At the other end of the spectrum is Denmark, ranked No. 1 on climate and overall, whose Parliament has made a binding commitment to reduce emissions 70 percent below 1990 levels by 2030. The country gets about two-thirds of its electricity from clean sources, and its largest city, Copenhagen, aims to reach carbon neutrality in the next three years.
Cyclists in Copenhagen. Denmark has hugely expanded wind energy and will end oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, among other measures.Charlotte de la Fuente for The New York Times
Denmark has hugely expanded wind energy, set a date to end oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, taxed carbon dioxide emissions and negotiated agreements with leaders in transportation, agriculture and other sectors. Its economy has grown as emissions have fallen.
“This is such a comprehensive transformation of our entire society that there’s not one tool that you can use, one policy you can use overall, and then that will just solve the problem,” said Dan Jorgensen, the Danish climate minister. Denmark showed “it is possible to make this transformation in a way that doesn’t hurt your societies,” he said.
Warming oceans. A new study found that if fossil fuel emissions continue apace, warming waters could trigger ocean species loss by the year 2300 that is on par with the five mass extinctions in Earth’s past. But reining in emissions now could drastically reduce those extinction risks, researchers found.
“It’s not something that makes you less competitive,” Mr. Jorgensen said. “Actually, it’s the opposite.”
The report’s methodology distinguishes between countries like Denmark that are intentionally transitioning to renewable energy and countries like Venezuela whose emissions are dropping only as a side effect of economic collapse.
One piece of good news it found was that many countries, including the United States, have begun to “decouple” emissions from economic growth, meaning their economies no longer directly depend on the amount of fossil fuels they burn.
Broadly, wealthier countries still emit much more than poorer ones. But two countries with similar G.D.P.s can have very different emissions levels.
“The main take-home right now is that policy does matter, and there are specific pathways toward a more carbon-neutral and climate-friendly future,” said one of the report’s co-authors, Alexander de Sherbinin, associate director and senior research scientist at Columbia’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network. “But it really takes high-level policy agreement.”
Wind and coal power near Jackerath, Germany. Even countries like Germany that have enacted comprehensive climate policies are not doing enough, the report found.Martin Meissner/Associated Press
The report is the first edition of the Environmental Performance Index to estimate future emissions, and its methodology has limitations. Most obviously, because it relies on data through 2019, it does not factor in more recent actions. Nor does it account for the possibility of removing already-emitted carbon from the air; such technology is limited now but could make a significant difference down the line. And it reflects only what would happen if countries continued to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions at the same rate, rather than enacting stronger policies or, conversely, losing steam.
That accounts for a striking disagreement between the E.P.I. researchers, who found Britain on track, and Britain’s independent Climate Change Committee, which advises the British government and has said current policies are insufficient. (There is also a technical distinction: In addition to domestic emissions, the committee considers what other countries emit in producing goods that Britain imports, and the E.P.I. doesn’t.)
Britain’s recent reductions came largely from switching from coal to natural gas, and the Climate Change Committee is “somewhat pessimistic that the trend will continue now that the low-hanging fruit has been picked,” said Martin Wolf, the E.P.I.’s project director. “I see the rapid expansion of renewable energy capacity in the U.K. as a sign that the country is still on track.”
Tanja Srebotnjak, the director of the Zilkha Center for Environmental Initiatives at Williams College and an expert in environmental statistics, said she viewed the projection methodology as “a reasonable first attempt” that could be refined later.
How best to extrapolate current trends is a matter of debate, said Dr. Srebotnjak, who has worked on past E.P.I. editions but was not involved in this year’s report or in developing the new metric. But she added, “I think it will help policymakers have another tool in their toolbox for tracking how they’re doing and for comparing themselves with peers, to maybe learn from each other.”
Bears are extremely intelligent creatures. Not only can they count as well as primates can, but they have also learned how to use tools and are highly sensitive to emotion. As well as happiness, bears can experience grief and have demonstrated trauma responses. Their eyesight is much sharper than ours (and they have night vision), their ears are twice as sensitive as ours and they can smell a meal up to 20 miles away.
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But they're also threatened by habitat loss, human-animal conflict, hunting, the illegal pet trade, road kills and exploitation, such as dancing bears and bear bile farms.
The Remembering Wildlife series was started by photographer Margot Raggett after seeing a poached elephant in 2014 in Kenya. She then spent six months persuading the world’s best wildlife photographers to donate an image for a book, Remembering Elephants, to raise money to fight poaching.
Since then, five more books have been published, and Remembering Bears is the seventh in the series, with 100 per cent of profits from book sales going to conservation. The series has already donated £917,000 to 55 projects across 24 countries since it began in 2016.
Among the stunning photography, Remembering Bears will also feature 10 winning images from a worldwide competition, and we've brought together the winning images here.
Of the eight species of bear (sun bear, Andean bear, sloth bear, giant panda, Asiatic black bear, American black bear, brown bear and polar bear), six are listed as Vulnerable or Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Even those bears of least concern, such as brown bears, are at risk of being lost for good in certain countries.
Margot Raggett said she was inspired to produce Remembering Bears when she saw an image of a starving polar bear, suffering from the effects of reducing sea ice.
She said, “Climate change is having a more immediate visible impact on polar bears than for many other species. Less sea ice means less hunting time, and more bears squeezed together in smaller areas, with the extrapolation that fewer will survive.
“While it’s the case that some bears are not endangered, they do all deserve our help. One expert told me some are ‘doing just fine’ but, as their habitat shrinks, they encroach more into urban areas and are seen as problems and are often killed. I think we should ask ourselves, what sort of ‘fine’ is that? It doesn’t seem to be fine to me.”
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One of the projects to benefit will be Animal Asia, set up by Jill Robinson MBE, which rescues moon, sun and brown bears from being exploited for their gallbladders and bile, and moving them to sanctuaries run by the organisation in China and Vietnam.
Remembering Bears (£44.99, Envisage Books) will be released on 10 October 2022 and is available to pre-order directly from Remembering Wildlife.
