Citizen Science & African Trees

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Courtesy of Jungle Rhythms. Koen Hufkens and colleagues digitized the tables, but quickly realized the marks were simply too faint (image 1). “The notes are basically small pencil lines that overlay a grid on the paper, and the lack of contrast between the two makes it difficult to separate. It needs the human eye to tease them apart,” he said. Image 2 shows what the grid looked like after it was annotated.

The Harvard Gazette’s story on the citizen science project that will put dormant analog data to new use with digital assistance:

Koen Hufkens is trying to solve a scientific mystery, and he’s asking for the public’s help to do it.

Hufkens, a postdoctoral fellow working in the lab of Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Andrew Richardson, this month launched Jungle Rhythms, a citizen-science project that aims to digitize thousands of pages of detailed observations on the life cycles of African trees. Continue reading →

Frogs At Home

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We are delighted to have Conservation, one of our longstanding go-to sources for environmental science news, back in business:

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A herpetologist holds a Blanchard’s cricket frog (Acris blanchardi). Credit: The Wandering Herpetologist via Flickr.

DEGRADED HABITAT ALTERS FROG MICROBIOMES

Human-caused changes in the environment are linked to differences in the microbiome – the community of bacteria and other microbes that normally inhabit the skin – of a threatened species of frog, according to a new study.

Since the skin microbiome is essentially a major component of a frog’s immune system, the findings suggest that land use change could increase amphibians’ vulnerability to disease. In turn, this could be a clue to why some populations of frogs are more susceptible than others to a chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, that causes a fatal skin infection and has resulted in declines and even extinctions of amphibian species worldwide.

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Saluting The Awesomeness

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We are aware that his work depends on well-protected geological wonders so we are automatically attracted to his activities; we cannot recommend this as a sport, but we cannot help but point out Alex Honnold’s feats as inspiring. From his website:

Alex Honnold is a professional adventure rock climber whose audacious free-solo ascents of America’s biggest cliffs have made him one of the most recognized and followed climbers in the world. A gifted but hard-working athlete, Alex “No Big Deal” Honnold is known as much for his humble, self-effacing attitude as he is for the dizzyingly tall cliffs he has climbed without a rope to protect him if he falls. Honnold has been profiled by 60 Minutes and the Continue reading →

A Gift In Chile

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Atacama 1 concentrated solar power plant being built by Spanish firm Abengoa in Chile. Photograph: Jonathan Watts for the Guardian

Not yet guaranteed, but promising nonetheless, we will consider this one of the best pieces of news on this day of gift-giving:

Desert tower raises Chile’s solar power ambition to new heights

Towering 200 metres above the desert, the Atacama 1 will harvest the sun’s energy from a surrounding field of giant mirrors. But the completion of the $1.1bn project, the first of its kind in Latin America, has been thrown into doubt by the financial difficulties of its Spanish owner

Rising more than 200 metres above the vast, deserted plains of the Atacama desert, the second tallest building in Chile sits in such a remote location that it looks, from a distance, like the sanctuary of a reclusive prophet, a temple to ancient gods or the giant folly of a wealthy eccentric.

Instead, this extraordinary structure is a solar power tower that is being built to harvest the energy of the sun via a growing field of giant mirrors that radiate out for more than a kilometre across the ground below with a geometric precision that is reminiscent of contemporary art or the stone circles of the druids.

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Natural Capital Valuation and Protection of Marine Megafauna – Update on Manta Ray Protection

/ Phil Karp / 2 Comments
Photo by: Ray Van Eden http://www.kuredu.com/maldives-underwater-world-manta-rays-kuredu/

Photo by: Ray Van Eden

In a post last year I pointed to the action by the Indonesian government to make its entire 6 million square kilometer exclusive economic zone a sanctuary for manta rays as an example of growing recognition by governments of the ecosystem service value of natural capital.

The threat to mantas through hunting was highlighted in a haunting new documentary, Racing Extinction, which debuted worldwide on Discovery Channel earlier this month. The film followed the efforts of photojournalist/ marine conservationist Shawn Heinrichs to document the manta hunts in Lamakera, in a remote region of Indonesia. Heinrich learned that the hunts have a long tradition in this area, but until recently the number of mantas taken each year was relatively small. It was only in the last decade that the traditional hunting was transformed into a large-scale commercial fishery, fueled by the demand for manta gill rakers as an ingredient in Chinese medicine.

When the first images of a giant manta lit up the screen, a hush fell over the stunned crowd…Even the most hardened of the manta hunters were transfixed by beauty of a world they had only witnessed from the other end of a harpoon shaft. I noticed a row of small children, their wide eyes soaking up the images on the screen. For these children, a seed was planted and a brilliant transformation was already taking place.  Continue reading →

Splashing Festivities

/ Jocelyn Toll / 1 Comment

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In the past month, a wave of newcomers has joined the Xandari team, and to my delight, it means I´m no longer “the new girl.” This has been my first opportunity to welcome new members and receive them as warmly as I was greeted when I arrived in July. Our new coworkers at the front desk are the ones I’ve had the chance to help with any questions about billing or assisting with guest needs, and this new responsibility is the one I enjoy the most. Even though in certain circumstances I still have to refer to my other, more experienced, coworkers to help resolve the matter, I still get to learn how to take care of obstacles that I have not encountered before. Additionally, questions or doubts that the new employees have are helpful for identifying the details in the front desk duties and training process that could be made clearer.

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An Ingenious Method for Deterring Elephants

/ Seth Inman / 1 Comment
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Hanging beehives create a natural deterrent fence around crops in Kenya. Via ThisIsColossal

In Africa and India, elephants can be huge–literally–agricultural pests. Stomping casually through plantations, plowing over fences and crushing or devouring crops, these nearly unstoppable giants are often shot by farmers not for any ivory-related avarice, but rather out of a desire to protect their livelihood that lives in the form of fruits and vegetables.

A more pacific method of keeping elephants out of agricultural areas that I have seen in southern India is deep and wide trenches surrounding the plantation, which elephants are loath to cross since they are likely to get stuck. Of course, these moats are understandably impossible to replicate everywhere, and biologist Lucy King has been studying the possibility of creating another sort of fence since 2006.

As you can see from the photo above, Dr. King’s idea was Continue reading →