Friday, June 09, 2017

Loose Feathers #599

Brewer's Sparrow / Photo by Tom Koerner/USFWS
Birds and birding news
Science and nature blogging
Environment and biodiversity
  • The Whitebark Pine is likely to go extinct because of a combination of threats (including invasive species, climate change, and fire suppression), but so far it has not been listed as endangered because of politics and funding. 
  • Another tree species threatened by climate change is the Atlantic White Cedar, which struggling to survive in coastal wetlands made more brackish by sea level rise.
  • Genetic analysis shows that the extinct Palaeoloxodon antiquus is more closely related to the African Forest Elephant than the latter is to the African Savanna Elephant. This should help conservation efforts since it provides additional evidence that the forest and savanna elephants are separate species.
  • Beavers have been documented on the tundra as woody plants advance northward.
  • NJ DEP has revised its rules for development near wetlands in ways that will probably result in the loss of more wetlands.