
Art © US State Dept./Doug Thompson
We wrote on these two biodiversity conservation ideas in the last month, and will continue to develop that theme for some time. Writing for The Guardian, biologist James Dyke explains a recent scientific study he was involved in that divided organisms into three distinct types, with “canary” species being the most important to monitor as indicators for ecosystem health:
The Earth’s biodiversity is under attack. We would need to travel back over 65 million years to find rates of species loss as high as we are witnessing today.
Conservation often focuses on the big, enigmatic animals – tigers, polar bears, whales. There are many reasons to want to save these species from extinction. But what about the vast majority of life that we barely notice? The bugs and grubs that can appear or vanish from ecosystems without any apparent impact?