|
White-tailed kite/ Photo by Brian Hansen (USFWS) |
Birds and birding
Nature blogging
Environment and biodiversity
- Climate change is getting harder to deny, but that does not stop opponents of action to reduce and mitigate it. Meanwhile, the American West is getting hotter and drier, which will mean more and larger fires. Lakes will likely have more algal blooms, depending on their fish and zooplankton populations. Despite this, climate change was almost entirely absent from Wednesday night's presidential debate on domestic policy, although green energy was mentioned.
- One of the major climate-related uncertainties is what will happen to the water supply on the Indian subcontinent, which depends on the glaciers and snowpack in the Himalayas.
- One upside of a dry summer is that autumn foliage may be more brilliant than usual, especially in the Northeast.
- A pocket of cloud forest in Peru may contain several mammal species that are new to science, as well as other rare species.
- The border wall along the US-Mexican border is changing the movement patterns of many mammals that formerly could cross between the two countries. The changes are due both to the presence of the wall itself and the cleared areas and patrols around it.
- While experimenting with control methods for boll weevils, scientists found a pheromone that attracts milkweed stem weevils. The scientists think the unexpected result may help with conservation of rare milkweeds and Monarch butterflies.
- Conservation of the ajolote, a type of Mexican salamander, may depend on cleaning up the waterways it depends on, which are fouled by fertilizers and other contaminants from farming.