Where are Singapore's Nature Areas?
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Join the WildLife & Flora Survey at Woodlands Town Garden
on the Brandon Photography blog
Banded Phintella: a jumping spider
on the Creatures Big & Small blog
Of nesting shift duties and Coppersmith Barbets (Part 3)
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Record 453 container ships left sitting idle
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Straits Times 6 Mar 09;
I REFER to the online letter on Monday, 'Protect our shores from erosion'. We share Mr Sukhdev S. Gill's concern on the need to protect our coastlines from the combination of high tides and strong waves, especially during monsoon seasons.
We are currently doing a detailed study on long-term coastal protection measures.
In the meantime, we have already implemented some interim measures, for example, stabilising the coastline with bakau piling. We previously tested sandbags, as suggested by Mr Gill, but the strong waves washed them away.
As for providing ashtrays in the park, it is not a practical or hygienic solution, since such receptacles invariably become water traps. We urge park users to be considerate and not stub out their cigarettes on the sides of rubbish bins.
Ang Chiean Hong (Ms)
Head, Parks Division
National Parks Board
Dead cats dug up along Seletar Road
SHE was simply dressed and brought two injured kittens to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 6 Mar 09;
SHE was simply dressed and brought two injured kittens to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
But what she had to say that afternoon, on 16Feb, took Mr Ng Wee Kwang by surprise.
She told the SPCA's animal handling officer: 'I am the woman who buried most of the cats in Seletar.'
She was referring to The New Paper front page report on 2 Feb about the mystery burial of 45 cats along Seletar Road.
Investigations by both the police and the National Environment Agency (NEA) have been inconclusive.
But now, things may be clearer.
Said Mr Ng, 38: 'When I heard her, I thought she was very good-hearted. Two of the cats had died from sterilisation operations and she bothered to bury them.
'Not many people would bother themselves with dead animals.'
The Mandarin-speaking woman in her 50s, dressed in a simple blouse and pants, gave a detailed breakdown of 28 cats she said she had buried.
According to her, besides the two who died on the operating table, nine were accident victims, another eight died of food poisoning and nine had died of general sickness.
However, it's not known how she came to that conclusion. The cats were picked up from all over the island.
The woman claimed that some of the other carcasses which were found could have been buried by her son, who is currently doing National Service.
They have been doing this for the past eight years.
Only recently when she suffered back problems did she ask her maid to help bury the carcasses, she claimed.
Too heavy
Mr Ng said: 'She said the doctor told her to stop carrying heavy things so she got her maid to carry the carcasses instead. They can be quite heavy.'
She told Mr Ng that the maid didn't do a good job because she didn't dig deep enough.
This could be the reason why the bags started to smell, and the police were alerted to the buried bodies.
The woman said she had made a report to the police and the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).
The police said they have completed their investigations and submitted the findings to the Attorney-General's Chambers.
A spokesman for AVA said: 'The lady had informed our officer that she had buried the dead cats over some period of time.
'As and when she found the cats had died of natural causes such as sickness or accidents, she had buried them or got her maid to bury them at the site.'
The woman claimed she goes around Singapore to feed stray cats and will pick up any dead cat she comes across, even as far as Jurong.
She would bury them at the spots where she found them, but recently because of her back problem, she started burying them closer to home, said Mr Ng.
When asked, the woman could not confirm whether any of the rest of the 45 carcasses were cruelty cases.
What she could say was that she had packed the black bags herself and buried them.
Taped up
They were taped tightly to prevent the smell from escaping, said Mr Ng.
The two kittens which she took to the SPCA were later examined by the SPCA consultant vet, who did not find sufficient evidence to suggest abuse.
Mr Ng added that the woman would sometimes get emotional and angry when talking about the burial.
'I think it's because she feels so much for cats. Cats are often the victims of accidents and abuse,' he said.
SPCA executive officer Deirdre Moss said: 'This is the first case we know of someone going out of their way to pick up dead cats and bury them while going around feeding and caring for strays.
'Obviously she's a compassionate person who may be wants to give them a proper burial.'
Illegal to bury animals in public places
DEAD pets should be put in a strong opaque plastic bag and tied up securely. They should be taken to and put into the bins at a nearby bin centre.
Alternatively, pet owners can look up the Yellow Pages and approach private animal crematoria thatoffer disposal services, according tothe NationalEnvironment Agency website. (Learn more athttp://app2.nea.gov.sg/topics_waste_dispose.aspx)
A spokesman for NEA said that it is an offence under regulation 19(2) of Environmental Public Health (Public Cleansing) Regulations to bury the animal in a public place.
Those who do so may be asked to take action to remedy what they have done.
Grown in gravel and soil mix, they thrive and are harder to uproot
Esther Ng, Today Online 6 Mar 09;
Using gravel to plant trees is not usually an accepted practice.
But 20 raintrees were planted on a vacant piece of land in Jurong — with some having as much as 50 or 80 per cent of gravel thrown in with topsoil.
The purpose? To see if trees could be grown healthily in small urban spaces, even on narrow roadside verges.
For the past four years, the National Parks Board’s Centre of Urban Greenery and Ecology (CUGE) and Nanyang Technological University, have been experimenting with structural soil — a mix of coarse gravel and topsoil. So far, the results look promising.
“The trees are about the same size as trees grown in top soil,” said CUGE’s assistant director for research Tan Puay Yok.
“This is a positive result as structural soil is shown to be able to provide adequate water and nutrients for tree growth, as compared to normal topsoil,” he added.
Rain trees were used as they are the most commonly planted roadside trees in Singapore and they also grow fast.
The use of such soil mix also offers many benefits.
“Root space is increased, but also, the roots are forced to grow in between the gravel — in a more convoluted manner — this seems to make the tree stronger and harder to uproot, especially since Singapore gets a lot of heavy tropical rain,” said NParks streetscape director,Mr Simon Longman.
To ascertain this, the trees have been pulled down to determine the force required to uproot them. To date, all20 trees have been pulled down and a detailed study into their root systems will be carried out, said Dr Tan.
Other research projects in the works include planting “movable trees” in containers, and minimising the incidence of tree branches falling during strong winds or rain.
Straits Times 6 Mar 09;
THE Land Transport Authority (LTA) has saved almost $8.6 million since 2007 through 'green' practices.
During its three-year partnership with IT giant IBM, the agency has made the effort to use energy more efficiently through moves like buying only energy-saving computer equipment.
Under the programme called Green IT, old energy-guzzling machines have been replaced, saving $150,000 a year.
LTA has also tied up with Temasek Polytechnic and IBM to develop a system to track and manage the energy consumption of all its computing devices.
When this is up and running, it will slash energy costs by at least $100,000 every year.
Green IT follows LTA's efforts to cut down on the use of paper, for example, by encouraging motorists and its business partners to carry out transactions online.
Looking ahead, it plans to recycle incinerated ash as material to pave roads.
NICHOLAS YONG
Rocks to some, islands to others
Michael Richardson, Straits Times 6 Mar 09;
WHEN is a piece of land, surrounded by sea, not an island? The answer to the question is of critical importance to Japan, China, South Korea and South-east Asian countries that assert sovereign rights over oil, natural gas, mineral and fishery resources over huge areas of ocean extending from their 'islands'.
East Asia is home to some of the world's biggest island-nations, among them Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines. The island character of Indonesia and the Philippines is so pronounced that they have been recognised as archipelagic states under international law.
If China's claims to ownership of disputed islands and atolls in the South China Sea are acknowledged or enforced, it will become a continental country with extensive island territory stretching deep into the maritime heart of South-east Asia.
Both China and Vietnam protested last month after the Philippines passed legislation spelling out its claims to some of the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. China, Vietnam and Taiwan assert sovereignty over the whole of the Spratly chain, while the Philippines and Malaysia claim areas closest to their shores.
Across the region, governments are showing increasing concern over the status of outlying islands, many of them remote and uninhabited. Not only do they mark the outer edges of national territory, but they also form starting points for control of offshore resources. This underlies the longstanding dispute between China and Japan over the uninhabited Senkaku islands controlled by Japan in the East China Sea.
Tension over the islands flared again on the eve of a visit by Japan's Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone to Beijing last weekend, after Tokyo said the United States backed Japan's claim and would come to its assistance if the islands were invaded. Both China and Taiwan say the Senkaku islands are part of their territory. All three parties use the islands to assert rights to ocean and seabed resources out to 200 nautical miles - an area known as an Exclusive Economic Zone, or EEZ.
Japan has a similar dispute with Seoul over Dokdo, known to the Japanese as Takeshima, which is controlled by South Korea. Meanwhile, Indonesia is pressing ahead with development projects on 92 outlying islands, fearing that some of them are prone to foreign incursions.
Singapore, too, is asserting its island rights. Last July, it claimed an EEZ around Pedra Branca. This drew a protest from Malaysia.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos) allows pieces of land at sea to be defined as islands on two conditions. First, if they are 'a naturally formed area of land...which is above water at high tide'. And second, if they are capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life.
Of all the Asian island claimants, Japan has been stretching these definitions furthest and hardest. It is doing so because under Unclos, only natural islands can generate an EEZ. Artificial islands, man-made installations or structures, although above water at high tide, cannot be treated as islands and have an EEZ.
Japan, which consists of over 6,800 islands, claims the world's fifth largest EEZ, totalling nearly 4.5 million sq km. But over half of this area comes from outlying islands that are either sparsely populated or uninhabited. Some of Japan's EEZ claims are disputed by China, South Korea, Russia and Taiwan.
Perhaps the most extreme case is Okinotorishima, a coral atoll at the southern-most tip of Japan. The EEZ surrounding Okinotorishima alone covers about 400,000 sq km. But only two small bits of the atoll remain above water at high tide and they have had to be protected with elaborate concrete embankments.
One is now a helicopter landing pad while the other is covered with a US$50 million (S$77 million) titanium net to shield it from debris thrown up by ocean waves in storms. Between them is an elevated platform to support buildings for accommodation and storage.
Japan is in the midst of grafting tens of thousands of fast-growing coral fragments onto the submerged sections of the reef to strengthen it and raise more areas above sea level. More than US$250 million is estimated to have been spent on the project to sustain Japan's EEZ claim.
China disputes the claim, arguing that Okinotorishima has only a couple of rocks above sea level and that they are not islands. Yet in the South China Sea, Beijing appears to take a different view by treating rocks as islands. Its statecraft dictates that rocks are rocks in some places, but islands in others.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
ScienceDaily 5 Mar 09;
Scientists identified seven new species of bamboo coral discovered on a NOAA-funded mission in the deep waters of the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Six of these species may represent entirely new genera, a remarkable feat given the broad classification a genus represents.*
Scientists expect to identify more new species as analysis of samples continues.
This orange bamboo coral is a new species and new genus found in the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. It is between four and five feet tall, and was found 5,745 feet below the surface. (Credit: Hawaii Deep-Sea Coral Expedition 2007/NOAA)
“These discoveries are important, because deep-sea corals support diverse seafloor ecosystems and also because these corals may be among the first marine organisms to be affected by ocean acidification,” said Richard Spinrad, Ph.D., NOAA’s assistant administrator for Oceanic and Atmospheric Research.
Ocean acidification is a change in ocean chemistry due to excess carbon dioxide. Researchers have seen adverse changes in marine life with calcium-carbonate shells, such as corals, because of acidified ocean water.
“Deep-sea bamboo corals also produce growth rings much as trees do, and can provide a much-needed view of how deep ocean conditions change through time,” said Spinrad.
Rob Dunbar, a Stanford University scientist, was studying long-term climate data by examining long-lived corals. “We found live, 4,000-year-old corals in the Monument – meaning 4,000 years worth of information about what has been going on in the deep ocean interior.”
“Studying these corals can help us understand how they survive for such long periods of time, as well as how they may respond to climate change in the future,” said Dunbar.
Among the other findings were a five-foot tall yellow bamboo coral tree that had never been described before, new beds of living deepwater coral and sponges, and a giant sponge scientists dubbed the “cauldron sponge,” approximately three feet tall and three feet across. Scientists collected two other sponges which have not yet been analyzed, but may represent new species or genera as well.
The mission also discovered a “coral graveyard” covering about 10,000 square feet on a seamount’s summit, more than 2,000 feet deep. Scientists estimated the death of the community occurred several thousand to potentially more than a million years ago, but did not know why the community died. The species of coral had never been recorded in Hawaii before, according a Smithsonian Institution coral expert they consulted.
Finding new species was not an express purpose of the research mission, but Dunbar and Christopher Kelley, a scientist with the University of Hawaii, both collected specimens that looked unusual. Kelley’s objective was to locate and predict locations of high density deep-sea coral beds in the Monument. NOAA scientist Frank Parrish also led a portion of the mission, focusing on growth rates of deep-sea corals.
The three-week research mission ended in November 2007, but analysis of specimens is ongoing. “The potential for more discoveries is high, but these deep-sea corals are not protected everywhere as they are here, and can easily be destroyed,” said Kelley.
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument has more deep water than any other U.S. protected area, with more than 98 percent below SCUBA-diving depths and only accessible to submersibles. The Hawaii Undersea Research Laboratory, sponsored by NOAA and the University of Hawaii, piloted the Pisces V submersible from a research vessel to the discovery sites, between 3,300 and 4,200 feet deep.
Funding for the mission was provided by NOAA through the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument and NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research. Identification of the corals was provided by Les Watling at the University of Hawaii.
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument is administered jointly by the Department of Commerce, Department of the Interior, and the State of Hawaii and represents a cooperative conservation approach to protecting the entire ecosystem.
*A genus is a major category in the classification of organisms, ranking above a species and below a family.
New species of bamboo coral identified off Hawaii
Yahoo News 6 Mar 09;
HONOLULU – Scientists have identified seven new species of bamboo coral discovered thousands of feet below the ocean's surface, officials said Thursday. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the six of the seven species found off Hawaii may represent entirely new genera, calling it a "remarkable feat" given the broad classification a genus represents.
A genus is a major category in the classification of organisms, ranking above a species and below a family.
University of Hawaii scientist Christopher Kelley, one of two scientists who found the coral, said the "potential for more discoveries is high."
Scientists expect to identify more new species as analysis of samples continues.
Richard Spinrad, NOAA's assistant administrator for oceanic and atmospheric research, said the discoveries are important because deep-sea corals support diverse sea floor ecosystems and their growth rings, like ones from trees, can provide views of how deep-ocean conditions change.
He said the corals "may be among the first marine organisms to be affected by ocean acidification," which is a change in ocean chemistry due to excess carbon dioxide.
The coral was discovered among the islands of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument using a submersible research vessel in 2007. The three-week research mission was to locate and predict locations of high density deep-sea coral beds in the national monument.
The same mission also found a large coral graveyard. Scientists estimate the death occurred several thousand years to potentially more than 1 million years ago. The species of coral had never been recorded in Hawaii before.
Scientists do not know why the coral died.
Papahanaumokuakea, nearly 100 times larger than Yosemite National Park, was created by President George W. Bush in 2006. It is in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, which stretch 1,000 miles from the main Hawaiian Islands.
Michael Hill, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Mar 09;
ALBANY, N.Y. – Bats afflicted with a mysterious and deadly disorder might be able to make it through winter with the help of heated boxes placed in hibernation caves, a pair of researchers say.
The biologists stress that the boxes being tested this winter are not intended to cure "white-nose syndrome," which has killed upward of a half million bats in three winters from New England to West Virginia.
But, in an article published online Thursday in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, they suggest the little heated havens could help stricken bats preserve enough precious energy to survive hibernation season.
White-nose syndrome, named for the white smudges of fungus on the noses and wings of hibernating bats, has alarmed scientists by spreading from a few caves in upstate New York two winters ago to at least 55 caves in seven states. White-nose bats appear to starve to death, running through their winter fat stores before spring.
Researchers worry about the fate of bats, which play an important role in controlling the populations of insects that can damage wheat, apples and dozens of other crops.
As scientists try to definitively establish whether the fungus is the cause, as suspected, or a symptom of white nose, researchers Justin Boyles and Craig Willis considered a way to manage it based on computer modeling of the energy expended by bats.
Based on the theory that afflicted bats rouse from hibernation more often than normal bats and thus burn more fat to stay warm, they suggest that small bat boxes with battery-powered heating coils could create warm refuges for the creatures.
"It would be sort of a stopgap measure," said Willis, a biology professor at the University of Winnipeg. Boyles, the lead author, is a graduate student in biology at Indiana State University.
Hibernating bats will seek warmer parts of caves during bouts of activity. The pair will test whether healthy bats will use heated boxes instead during a test in the coming months in a cave in Manitoba, Canada. The pilot study is funded with a $28,000 grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
There are potential problems with a mass deployment of heaters that go beyond the logistics and cost. Willis concedes that such an intervention could backfire if white nose is spread from bat to bat in the summer, since it would prolong the survival of infected bats.
But David Blehert, who identified the white-nose fungus as head of microbiology at the U.S. Geological Survey's Wildlife Health Center, said summer spreading is not a concern with this fungus, which needs cold to thrive. Blehert and other researchers said that given the magnitude of the problem, it makes sense to at least test the hypothesis.
"It's not a magic silver bullet," Blehert said, "but it might provide some percentage of bats with a fighting chance to survive hibernation."
___
On the Net:
White Nose Syndrome Page: http://www.caves.org/WNS/WNS%20Info.htm
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: http://www.frontiersinecology.org
"Bat Box" Heaters Could Save Animals' Lives
Ker Than, National Geographic News 5 Mar 09;
Solar-powered heaters could help save the lives of bats infected with a deadly fungus, a new computer model suggests.
The fungus, a member of the Geomyces genus, has caused deaths upward of 80 percent in several bat populations in the northeastern United States and Canada. Scientists haven't figured out a way to stop it from spreading.
One hypothesis is that the fungus rouses bats from their winter hibernation more often than usual.
Like many mammals, the body temperatures of bats drop dramatically during hibernation. When roused, the animals have to use precious calories to raise their body temperatures again.
"We think they're starving to death, and there's a couple ways that can happen," said lead study author Justin Boyles of Indiana State University.
"Arousing more often is one of those ways."
To test this idea, Boyles and his colleagues simulated the hibernation patterns of about a thousand little brown bats.
The model showed that more frequent rousing could indeed cause the kinds of high bat mortality rates being observed in the wild.
The research also suggests that many affected bats could survive the winter if small areas in their caves were warmed with artificial heaters. By raising the surrounding air temperature, the bats would need to burn fewer calories to warm back up.
When bats rouse from hibernation, they naturally fly to warm spots. When the animals are ready to hibernate again, they leave those regions.
Craig Willis of the University of Winnipeg, who worked with Boyle on the study, built a prototype "bat box" that can serve as a warm haven for roused bats.
"They're basically like bird houses. We're insulating them really well and putting heaters in them," Boyles said.
The bat boxes run on car batteries charged via solar panels. The team plans to test their contraption soon in a small bat population in Canada.
Findings detailed in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Reuters 5 Mar 09;
TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan is considering reducing the number of whales it catches each year, the Asahi newspaper reported on Thursday, as an international body fights to bridge a divide between nations for and against whaling.
Japan, which carries out what it calls research whaling despite an international ban on commercial hunting, currently aims to catch about 900 of the creatures a year Antarctic waters.
The International Whaling Commission (IWC) meets on March 9 in Rome and is set to discuss a compromise proposal put forward last month.
An IWC panel suggested allowing Japanese coastal whaling in return for limiting or ending the Antarctic program, but the proposal has come under fire from conservation organization WWF, which says it is biased toward Japan.
Japan's fisheries minister said last month that while he could not accept a proposal to end research whaling, the government would give a detailed response to the idea.
Japan could cut its annual catch by several hundred whales and is considering submitting such a plan to the IWC meeting after seeing the moves of anti-whaling nations, the Asahi reported.
A Japanese fisheries ministry official declined to comment on the report.
Commercial whaling was banned under a 1986 international treaty, with which Japan has officially complied.
Japan says it operates a scientific whaling program that is not aimed at exploiting whales for their meat, but it has been criticized by anti-whaling nations such as Australia and by some environmental groups.
Whale meat can be found in some supermarkets and restaurants in Japan.
(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
IUCN 5 Mar 09;
Can a balance be found between the environment and development? That was the question discussed at a meeting to work out how the Dhamra Port project in Orissa, India, can go ahead without harming the Olive Ridley turtle population.
The Olive Ridley Turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The coastline south of Dhamra Port is one of the world’s largest mass nesting grounds for the turtles.
“This is an extremely unique and special area, a globally significant monument,” said Roderic Mast, Co-Chair of the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group and Vice President of Conservation International. “It’s not just sea turtles and arribadas; it’s horseshoe crabs and mangroves and birds and more. From what we have heard today, the area is important enough to be declared a World Heritage Site.”
IUCN has been advising the Dhamra Port Company Ltd, a joint venture between TATA Steel and Larsen and Toubro, on how to mitigate the impact of its development on the turtles.
“Orissa is a poor state, but rich in natural resources,” said Upendra Nath Behera, Commissioner-cum-Secretary, Forest & Environment Department, Government of Orissa. “The port and other projects are required for its economic development. We also have rich biodiversity in Orissa, such as Olive Ridley turtles, mangroves, and other flora and fauna. We need issues and suggestions thrown up to find a delicate balance between the environment and development.”
The workshop, held from 24-25 February, brought together a mix of government representatives, the private sector, leading local and international scientists, technical experts, academics and local community representatives.
Participants discussed and debated scientific information and development agendas with the aim to ensure long-term security for Olive Ridley turtles and the ecosystems on which they depend.
“Eventually the port will be handed over to the Government of Orissa,” said Aban Marker Kabraji, Regional Director of IUCN Asia. “Therefore a strong Environmental Management Plan is required. IUCN is using the sea turtle as an indicator species in this ecosystem, but the overall ecology of the area is critical.”
Several major recommendations of IUCN are currently being implemented by the Dhamra Port Company, including use of turtle protective deflectors on dredgers and lighting techniques to reduce sky glow, which can confuse newborn turtles as they make their way from the beach to the sea.
The most serious threat to turtle populations was identified as trawler fishing which often inadvertently traps and kills turtles in nets. This can be dramatically reduced by use of Turtle Excluder Devices on nets, but much more work is needed to introduce the practice in the area.
Further research was recommended to better understand nesting and migration patterns of the Olive Ridley. The recommendations from the workshop will be integrated into a comprehensive Environmental Management Plan for the port.
“Dhamra is just one port in the area,” said B C Choudhary, Wildlife Institute of India and member of the IUCN Marine Turtle Specialist Group. “Dhamra Port Company should enter into dialogue with other ports and other development sectors on how they can come up with a solution for a far-reaching and far greater impact on the coastal habitat and biodiversity and not just turtles.”
ScienceDaily 5 Mar 09;
From geckos and iguanas to Gila monsters and Komodo dragons, lizards are among the most common reptiles on Earth. They are found on every continent except Antarctica. One even pitches car insurance in TV ads. They seemingly can adapt to a variety of conditions, but are most abundant in the tropics.
However, new research that builds on data collected more than three decades ago demonstrates that lizards living in tropical forests in Central and South America and the Caribbean could be in serious peril from rising temperatures associated with climate change.
In fact, those forest lizards appear to tolerate a much narrower range of survivable temperatures than do their relatives at higher latitudes and are actually less tolerant of high temperatures, said Raymond Huey, a University of Washington biology professor.
"The least heat-tolerant lizards in the world are found at the lowest latitudes, in the tropical forests. I find that amazing," said Huey, lead author of a paper outlining climate warming's threat to lizards published in the March 4 Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The Royal Society is Great Britain's national academy of science.
It has often been assumed that tropical organisms are much better at dealing with high temperatures than those in colder climates because the lowland tropics are always warm. But that assumption is only true to a point, Huey said, because those in the tropical forest experience a much narrower range of temperatures during the year and are rarely, if ever, exposed to extreme high temperatures.
A lizard in Washington, for example, might experience a temperature range of 40 degrees or more between summer and winter, while one in Puerto Rican forests might only experience a range of 20 to 25 degrees.
Forest conditions tend to keep lizards living there at temperatures that allow them to function at or close to their physical peak. A temperature change of just a few degrees can reduce their physical performance greatly.
Lizards are ectotherms, regulating their body temperature by exchanging heat with their surroundings. Huey originally collected data on body temperatures of lizards in a Puerto Rican forest in 1973, and later measured how fast they can sprint at various body temperatures. Sprinting relates directly to survivability because it affects a lizard's ability to hunt or elude predators.
He found that even at the coolest and warmest parts of the day the forest lizards functioned at least at 90 percent of their maximum ability, because the temperatures varied so little and were optimal then for these lizards. Subsequent laboratory work by Huey and others tested the sprinting speeds for more than 70 species of lizards at varying body temperatures.
"In the 1970s a bunch of us were running around the Caribbean with thermometers taking lizard body temperatures for reasons totally unrelated to climate warming. But we can use our data from a third a century ago as a baseline to now predict how lizards at different latitudes would respond to climate change," Huey said.
His co-authors are Curtis Deutsch of the University of California, Los Angeles; Joshua Tewksbury of the UW; Laurie Vitt of the University of Oklahoma; Paul Hertz of Barnard College; Héctor Álvarez Pérez of the University of Puerto Rico; and Theodore Garland Jr. of the University of California, Riverside. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation and the UW Program on Climate Change.
Huey's lizard studies in the early 1970s included a species called Anolis gundlachi that lived in a forest at about 1,000 feet elevation near El Verde, Puerto Rico. The shaded forest was an ideal environment for Anolis gundlachi, but was too cool for another species, A. cristatellus, that favored the warmer conditions found in unforested habitats nearby.
But since the early 1970s, Huey said, the average temperature in the forest has risen from just less than 80 degrees Fahrenheit to nearly 83.5 F, which should be stressfully warm for A. gundlachi and almost warm enough for A. cristatellus. Scientists believe the tropics could warm by another 5 degrees F by the end of this century.
"That may not sound like much, but we think gundlachi is going to get hammered because it will suffer heat stress from the warmer temperatures," Huey said.
To make matters worse, if temperatures become warm enough A. cristatellus could well move into the forest, forcing A. gundlachi to deal with a formidable competitor that it doesn't have now.
The assessment does not look at potential effects of climate change on the forest canopy, Huey said, and that could make matters worse. If warming stresses the trees so that the leafy canopy at the top of the forest becomes more open, then the amount of solar radiation reachng the forest floor will further increase the ambient temperature. This will add to the stress of species such as A. gundlachi.
It also is possible the lizards could adapt evolutionarily to the warmer conditions, Huey said, "but we don't think it's likely because of their long generation times." The scientists also believe the same concerns apply to other ectotherms, such as snakes, insects and spiders, that live on land in tropical forests.
"Because tropical forest lizards aren't very heat tolerant and they live in environments that are already warm, any further warming could push them over the edge," Huey said.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Washington.
Matt McGrath, BBC World Service 5 Mar 09;
Scientists say there is no proof that a mysterious disease blamed for the deaths of billions of bees actually exists.
For five years, increasing numbers of unexplained bee deaths have been reported worldwide, with US commercial beekeepers suffering the most.
The term Colony Collapse Disorder was coined to describe the illness.
But many experts now believe that the term is misleading and there is no single, new ailment killing the bees.
In part of California, the honeybee is of crucial importance to the local economy as 80% of the world's almonds come from there - America's most valuable horticultural export.
But without the bee pollinating the trees, there would be no almonds.
In a few frenzied weeks in February and March, billions of honey bees are transported to the state from as far away as Florida to flit innocently among the snowy almond blossoms, and ensure the success of this lucrative crop.
However, since 2004 their numbers have been mysteriously declining, and it was only at the end of 2006 that the severity of the losses began to be fully realised.
Commercial bee keeper Dave Hackenberg, from Pennsylvania, was the first to sound the alarm.
He recalled the moment when he first realised something was wrong:
"I started opening a few hives, and they were completely empty boxes, no bees. I got real frantic and I started looking at lots of beehives. I noticed that there were no dead bees on the ground, there weren't any bodies there."
Even stranger than the absence of the insects was the fact that other bees would not go near these deserted colonies.
Since then around two million colonies of bees have disappeared across the US. And the losses have continued this year, albeit at a lower rate.
The unexplained nature of the affliction, with empty hives and no clearly defined infection, has stumped scientists.
Colony collapse
Since the 1980s, a rising tide of ailments has assaulted the honeybee, including the varroa mite and many deadly viruses.
But the dramatic and rapid losses of the last five years had convinced experts that something new was at work within the hives.
They developed a concept called Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD.
Dr Jeff Pettis, a researcher with the US Department of Agriculture Bee Lab, said CCD applied to colonies which died although there were no high levels of parasites: "The colony was once strong, it reared a lot of young developing bees and then the adult bee population simply disappeared or died.
"With those symptoms it certainly is unique and it doesn't really match up with our expectations for parasitic mite loss and the like."
But to date researchers have found few clues as to the exact cause of the disorder.
And some senior scientists now say the "disorder" does not exist as a separate illness.
Dr Dennis Anderson, principal research scientist on entomology with the Australian research organisation CSIRO, said the term could be distracting scientists from other work: "It's misleading in the fact that the general public and beekeepers and now even researchers are under the impression that we've got some mysterious disorder here in our bees.
"And so researchers around the world are running round trying to find the cause of the disorder - and there's absolutely no proof that there's a disorder there."
Previous declines
His view is shared by some experts in the US.
Conducting experiments at an isolated almond orchard in the Central Valley area of California, Frank Eischen, of the US Department of Agriculture, said it was "probably true" that there was no new single disease.
"We've seen these kinds of symptoms before, during the seventies, during the nineties, and now," he added.
"It's probably not a unique event in beekeeping to have large numbers of colonies die."
Many experts speak about a "perfect storm" of impacts that are the real reason for the decline.
Principal among them are infestations of the varroa mite, which suck the bees' blood and weaken their immune systems.
There are also concerns that bees are being deprived of nutrition as urbanisation removes their natural pastures.
One of the biggest worries is the possible impact of agricultural pesticides.
It is believed these chemicals can have a similar effect in bees as alcohol has in humans - they disorientate the bees, causing them to get lost on the way home.
Busy work
The intensity of agriculture could be the real underlying cause of bee stress, some experts believe.
Commercial beekeeper Dave Hackenberg described the working life of a bee as difficult.
"My bees are in California pollinating almonds," he said. "In the middle of March they are going to be trucked all the way across the United States all the way back to Florida to pollinate oranges then they are trucked another thousand miles north to pollinate apples in Pennsylvania.
"When they go to these places, the only thing that's there is the crop that you pollinate; it's a big monoculture.
"We all like steak and potatoes and we all like corn, but if we eat any of these on their own for a month at a time then your body would not be in the best of shape."
Some critics of the bee industry have called the whole concept of CCD a hoax, a public relations stunt designed to attract public sympathy.
Dr Eischen does not believe it was made up, but says CCD has been helpful to highlight problems in the food supply.
He told the BBC: "We rely on farming, and to have that brought to the fore by the press that there is a problem with something as fundamental as getting fruit to produce, trees to bear, vegetables to yield and it all comes together with the bee coming to a flower and performing a vital service, the imagery is great and it strikes at the heartstrings of a lot of citizens; and from that respect it's been good."
"It highlights the hard work it takes to bring a crop to market."
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