Environment-Biodiversity-Effects: Difference between revisions
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When 323 reindeer were killed by lightning on a remote Norwegian plateau, their bodies were left for nature to take its course. | When 323 reindeer were killed by lightning on a remote Norwegian plateau, their bodies were left for nature to take its course. | ||
Scavenger birds such as ravens, crows and eagles visited the highest density of carcasses in 2017 and then were nearly absent in 2018. The reverse was true of rodents (such as root vole, lemming, bank vole and field vole), which were absent from the site in 2017 and then were everywhere in 2018. Scientists believe rodents were too fearful to go to the site while these larger birds were around. Carcasses are interaction hotspots, but not all interactions are positive: “It’s kind of like, here’s a buffet, you’ve got a lot of hungry folks coming in to eat, and maybe they don’t like one another very much,” says Frank. | Scavenger birds such as ravens, crows and eagles visited the highest density of carcasses in 2017 and then were nearly absent in 2018. The reverse was true of rodents (such as root vole, lemming, bank vole and field vole), which were absent from the site in 2017 and then were everywhere in 2018. Scientists believe rodents were too fearful to go to the site while these larger birds were around. Carcasses are interaction hotspots, but not all interactions are positive: “It’s kind of like, here’s a buffet, you’ve got a lot of hungry folks coming in to eat, and maybe they don’t like one another very much,” says Frank. | ||
=====The Rabbit Outbreak A highly contagious, often lethal animal virus arrives in the United States===== | |||
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/07/06/the-rabbit-outbreak?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_063020&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&bxid=5ef586acfda7562feb3d736e&cndid=61512174&hasha=f0e57389b5b6ce947e27301c632cb161&hashb=aeac0b5ca6f36cc0019dc8d94ae23514280b8daa&hashc=0c33721abf404e89835e29b0b03b7c348ebcdc56eb2922e714366c4e01e510ad&esrc=bouncexmulti_first&utm_term=TNY_Daily&fbclid=IwAR3IoF7jdSJloWxipgLZPMB45Hr2KtgOAgTXijqGKk89JOfxT1ePGLBz3SQ The New Yorker June 2020] | |||
One of the lagoviruses of the family Caliciviridae causes a highly contagious illness called rabbit hemorrhagic disease. RHD is vexingly hard to diagnose. An infected rabbit might experience vague lethargy, or a high fever and difficulty breathing, or it might exhibit no symptoms at all. Regardless of the symptoms, though, the mortality rate for RHD can reach a gloomy hundred per cent. There is no treatment for it. The virus’s ability to survive and spread is uncanny. It can persist on dry cloth with no host for more than a hundred days; it can withstand freezing and thawing; it can thrive in a dead rabbit for months, and on rabbit pelts, and in the wool made from Angora-rabbit fur, and in the rare rabbit that gets infected but survives. It can travel on birds’ claws and flies’ feet and coyotes’ fur. Its spread has been so merciless and so devastating that some pet owners have begun referring to it as “rabbit Ebola.” | |||
=====Long-term predator–prey cycles finally achieved in the lab===== | =====Long-term predator–prey cycles finally achieved in the lab===== | ||
