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The UK's spring butterflies are being welcomed by enthusiasts, but weeks later than they usually arrive. The second-coldest March on record contributed to the delayed emergence of many rare species, according to the charity Butterfly Conservation. "First sightings" recorded by the public showed the insects typically appeared a fortnight later than normal. One rare species - the grizzled skipper - emerged a month later than last year.
German researchers have discovered the biological keys to the success of an invasive species, wreaking havoc across Europe and the US, The Asian ladybird was originally brought in to control aphids in greenhouses. But it has escaped and is increasing uncontrollably across Europe, wiping out native species. The alien is winning, say scientists, because its body fluid contains a parasite toxic to other insects. The research is published in the Journal, Science.
A stunning new species of pit-viper has been discovered in the cloud forest of Honduras. The venomous snake is described in the journal ZooKeys. ...
The newly described species lives in Texiguat Wildlife Refuge, a protected area that was established in 1987 to safeguard endangered wildlife like jaguars and tapirs. The snake, which is highly toxic, was collected during two expeditions in 2010. Initially it was confused with a more widely distributed Honduran palm pit-viper, but genetic analysis revealed it to be a distinct species, a status that warrants its protection, according to the scientists who discovered it.
A Layered Approach ... Build a better vegetable patch with this no-dig method, borrowed from organic farmsin rural Australia. The no-dig piles are fairly stable, but some gardeners prefer to build boxes to contain them. The materials on the next slide are enough to build a 4-by-8-foot raised bed.
Now I get that may not sound like the most gripping blog theme in the history of Grow Your Own, but stick with it, because Soil Matters – big time. In every gardening handbook – whether it’s by tried and trusted gardening stalwarts like Adam the Gardener (now there’s a cartoon character who knows his onions!) to today’s celebrity veggie gardeners like Bob Flowerdew – the thing they tell you to do first is to test your soil. There are lots of websites that can tell you how to do this without forking out for a pricey soil type and pH test kit, but here’s a quick overview:
It looks like the Giant African Snail that was discovered in Houston, Texas, was actually a Rosy Wolf Snail, which is native to North-America.
The UK's first national collection of tree seeds has been established, which scientists say is crucial as a growing array of pests threaten native species. Co-ordinated by Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, it aims to safeguard the genetic diversity of the UK's tree flora. The scheme will initially target 50 native species, including the common ash, which is under threat across Europe from ash dieback.
Lions are becoming a threatened species. Trophy hunters and the loss of savannah grasslands have drastically reduced the number of prides. ... Across the entire continent, the large African predator, a symbol of strength and majesty, is threatened with decline. Outside fenced enclosures, there is hardly any room left for Panthera leo. Scientists and conservationists warn that the king of the steppes has lost much of his habitat in the last 50 years. The main reason is the gradual disappearance of the savannah. With shrinking African grasslands, lion populations have declined dramatically. Of about 100,000 lions that roamed the continent's dry grassy plains in the 1960s, there are no more than 35,000 left today, says Stuart Pimm, a professor of conservation ecology at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "That's a real collapse in populations."
From the great yellow bumblebee in Scotland to the potter flower bee clinging on in a few sites on England's south coast, many of Britain's rarest wild bees are in deep trouble, according to a report published on Thursday. The study blames intensive farming and urban sprawl which have decimated the flowery meadows that bees feed in as the key factors. "The way we farm and use land across the UK has pushed many rare bees into serious decline," said bee expert Prof Simon Potts, at the University of Reading, who led the study commissioned by Friends of the Earth. "I'm calling on the government to act swiftly to save these iconic creatures which are essential to a thriving environment and our food supply". The report focused on12 key species across Britain. It found the great yellow bumblebee has disappeared from 80% of its historic UK range and now relies on the unique machair habitat in western Scotland, a flower-rich grassland. On the south coast of England, the range of the solitary potter flower bee, which digs burrows to lay eggs in, has also shrunk dramatically. Britain's rarest solitary bee, the large mason bee, is on the brink of extinction in Wales, the report found.
An invasive species of Giant African Snails has been popping up all over the map recently, from Australia to Florida, and now Houston, Texas. You might think that snails can't be that big a deal, but here's how the Smithsoniandescribes them:
The giant African snail is a true nightmare. These snails grow to the size of a baseball, can lay 1,200 eggs every year, survive all sorts of extreme temperatures, have no natural predators, and eat 500 crops, plus the sides of houses. Also, they carry meningitis that can infect and kill humans.
... the turtle dove is declining so rapidly that it may be gone from Britain, the latest analysis suggests, by 2021. Eight years left: very little time to glimpse one of the best-loved and most beautiful of all our birds, with its rose-pink breast and back of sandy orange, scalloped with black spots. Breathtaking to look at, 40 years ago it was as visible over much of Britain as the ubiquitous wood pigeons are today. Yet the turtle dove’s decline has been so remorseless that it has dropped in numbers, since 1970, by 93 per cent, and in most places where once it was familiar it is now but a memory.
A helicopter will be used to spray woodland in West Berkshire in a bid to rid the area of toxic caterpillars that can cause health problems. Aerial spraying is to be used for the first time to target caterpillars of the oak processionary moth. They feed on oak trees and their hairs contain a toxin that can cause itchy rashes, eye and throat irritations. Experts will spray Herridge's and Broom copses near Pangbourne and a privately-owned block of trees nearby . They will use a bacterial agent that occurs naturally in soil and is authorised for the operation by Natural England, the government's advisor on the natural environment.
Cold War nuclear bunkers are the latest attempt to safeguard US bat populations under attack from white-nose syndrome. Scientists have converted two of the 43 bunkers at the former Loring Air Force Base, Maine, which has been a wildlife reserve since the mid-1990s. The artificial hibernacula are designed to safeguard bats from the disease that was first recorded in the US in 2006. White-nose syndrome (WNS) has killed up to an estimated 6.7 million bats so far and is continuing to spread.
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The beautiful blue haze and sweet scent of the UK's native bluebells make it one of the most spectacular annual floral displays in Europe. But is it late this year? Fred Rumsey, a botanist from the Natural History Museum, London, UK believes so: "Our initial impression being that flowering is between four and five weeks behind what it was last year." He told BBC Nature that flowering times of both native and non-native bluebell species can be useful in demonstrating and quantifying the effects of climate change.
Britain is pretty poorly off for butterflies, all things considered, with a measly 58 breeding species: cross the Channel and you’ll find nearly five times as many. So something that sets your average British butterfly-lover’s heart a-thumping is the occasional chance meeting with a rare migrant from elsewhere. The Camberwell beauty, from the Nordic countries, with its maroon wings bordered with cream, is a quite stunning one, while very handsome, too, is the Queen of Spain fritillary from France; but the greatest prize is almost certainly the monarch, for anyone who sees one in Britain is witnessing something extraordinary: an insect which has just flown the Atlantic.
Scientists have developed the first map of the world's most unique and most endangered mammals and amphibians. The map highlights the fact that only a fraction of the areas identified as critical for the conservation of these species are protected. Among the species highlighted by the map are the Mexican salamander, the Sunda pangolin and the black and white ruffed Lemur. The research is published in the journal Plos One.
Understanding the importance of organic matter is crucial to success with organic gardening. Organic matter is a term that encompasses a wide variety of living or dead plant and animal material, ranging from kitchen wastes andshredded leaves to well-rotted manure and compost. Here's what adding organic matter to your soil can do: Supply nutrients for plants by providing surfaces where nutrients can be held in reserve in the soilFacilitate better drainage by loosening soil structure Store water in the soil Help increase air drainage Increase the activity and numbers of soil microorganisms Encourage earthworms
“All over Europe the stork is a migratory bird, but since the mid-1980s increasing numbers of White Stork have chosen to stay in Iberia all year rather than migrate to Africa in winter. There are now over 10,000 storks that no longer migrate but stay resident here in Portugal, including some from elsewhere in Europe that stop here rather than continuing on to Africa”, explains Nathalie Gilbert, a student at the University of East Anglia, Norwich (UK).
Ms. Gilbert is studying the winter and breeding season habitat selection of the white storks in Portugal for her PhD.
“Storks are highly opportunistic and adaptable so this change in behaviour is probably due to the year-round abundant food supply from landfill sites and also milder European winter temperatures”, she elaborates, adding: “Storks live for 20-30 years in the wild so all these changes are within the lifetime of some storks, which makes it very interesting.”
All creatures great and small in our ever popular animal gallery.
Three species of migratory duck have shifted their wintering grounds northward in response to increasing temperatures, say scientists. The birds - the tufted duck, goosander and goldeneye - are common in Britain and Ireland during northern Europe's winter. But their numbers in these countries have shrunk in the last 30 years. According to the findings, published in the journal Global Change Biology, many now stop short on their annual journey. Gathering and analysing data from the three-decade-long International Waterbird Census, the researchers found many birds were staying closer to their summer breeding grounds all year round. At the northern end of their migratory flyway, in Sweden and Finland, there were approximately 130,000 more of the ducks in 2010 than in 1980. On the southern end - in Britain, France, Ireland and Switzerland - numbers have dropped by about the same amount.
A 90-second daily show highlighting the songs of British birds has started on BBC Radio 4 this week. But birdsong isn't just beautiful to listen to, it is increasingly being used in surprising ways. Can a nightingale's song help you pass an exam or a blackbird's twittering encourage you to open a bank account? Sound experts are using it to do both. They argue the positive results speak for themselves even though researchers say there is little hard scientific evidence to show people respond positively to birds singing. Most support for the theory is anecdotal. So what are the innovative ways it is being used?
The Living with Environmental Change Partnership, led by Natural England and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, made the finding after conducted a detailed assessment of how climate change is affecting wildlife and plant life in Britain. It found that while some animals and plants have suffered as a result of changes in the seasonal temperatures and rainfall, resident bird species have enjoyed a boom. Although the cold winters of the past two years have taken their toll, mild winter conditions have allowed resident bird species such as robins, wrens, goldcrests and long tailed tits to flourish over the past two decades.
Ants aren't just passive foragers visiting flowers to feed on nectar, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Botany. They carry sugar-metabolizing yeasts, which actually change the sugar chemistry of the flower nectar. Flower nectar consists of sugar in three forms - sucrose, fructose, and glucose - and amino acids (which are proteins). The ratio of sugars varies by plant species. A flower's sugar composition is thought to influence the types of pollinators it will attract.
It was meant to be journey’s end; the culmination of the cuckoo’s 4,000-mile quest to hunt African caterpillars before returning to England to become the sound of the spring. But for one bird the weather in Somerset proved too cold upon arrival – so he decided to take a break in France until things warm-up. David was one of five cuckoos fitted with satellite tags in May last year by the British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) to monitor their migration paths. Today, details of the latest stages of their return journey from Ceredigion to the Democratic Republic of Congo were revealed for the first time.
Scientists say that foxes in Arctic regions who feed on ocean prey are being exposed to dangerous levels of mercury. On one Russian island where the population of foxes has crashed, the researchers believe the toxin has played a key role in the decline. They say the findings could have important implications for conservation. The data is published in the Journal, PLOS ONE. Mercury levels in the world's oceans have doubled over the past 100 years, according to the UN, with more mercury deposited in the Arctic than on any other part of the planet. The Arctic Council says there has been a ten-fold increase in the levels of mercury found in top predators in the region over the past 150 years.
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