BBC Wild Europe - Invasive species video

Global Invasion - blurring the boundaries

Global economy, ease of travel and transportation, pet trade. What do these things have in common? Well, they all contribute towards a new component of human induced global environmental change: biological invasion. Throughout Earth's history species colonized new geographic areas and established successfully, so arguably to some extent biological invasion is a natural phenomenon. However the process we witness today is quite different from that of historical times regarding both spatial and temporal scales.

Bats, Birds and Purple Turbines

Earlier this year I came across a short report in the January issue of Oryx-The international Journal of Conservation, which suggested that wind turbines should be painted purple (see also BBC report). Beside making the landscape funky, there is scientific evidence that such a measure would have desirable impact on wildlife. But how and why?

Predicting Future Range Shifts - What can models tell us?

Species are already responding to climate change by moving upwards and polewards, and scientist are keen to know to what extent is this trend going to continue in the future. To address this question, several so called species distribution models (SDMs) have been developed. Ecological Niche Models are some of the most widely used ones. These models infer the habitat requirement of species by looking at correlation between their distribution and climatic conditions. Once the climatic requirement, the so called ‘climatic envelope’ of the species is established, its distribution can be projected into the future with altered climatic conditions.

On Thin Ice

The final episode of the stunning Frozen Planet series, entitled 'On Thin Ice' have been broadcasted today on BBC. Written and narrated by Sir David Attenborough, this episode explores the wide-ranging impact of rising global temperature on the most badly impacted regions of our planet, the Arctic and Antarctic. It touches on most major issues, such as the response of wildlife, the impact on Inuit communities, melting of glacier, and sea level rise. It features stunning images on the recent break-up of the Wilkins Ice Sheet on the Antarctic peninsula, and on the meltwater lakes and drains of Greenland. The whole series, and this episode in particular is I think a fine example of how scientists could and should communicate issues like global warming to the public. It's both entertaining and scientific at the same time, hopefully it will make many of us realise the impact we make on our very own Frozen Planet. The episode is available to watch on BBC iPlayer. Enjoy!

Biological responses to climate change II- Extinctions

Despite it is extremely hard to attribute a single cause to an extinction event, there are documented cases of climate change induced extinctions. For example in spite of habitat protection, 67% of the cloud forest specialist South American harlequin frogs (genus Atelopus) already went extinct and many more are critically endangered (see IUCN red list). Interestingly despite these are mountain restricted species, the reason for their extinction is not the loss of habitable climatic space, as we may think. Instead, altered dynamics of the Chytridiomycosis disease caused by the fungus Batrachochytrium is responsible for the mass decline of these species. Pound and colleagues (2006) showed that the increased cloudiness resulting from warming shields the forest from heat, and provides the moist conditions required for the survival, growth and reproduction of  Batrachochytrium. This example reminds me again how complex the earth-system and ecosystems are. Higher temperature causes increased evaporation which in turn results in more clouds. Clouds reflect sunlight, protect from too high temperatures and aids the reproduction of a fungus, which after penetrating the frog's skin completes it's life cycle and kills the frog. How many similar pathways exist, and what small fraction of these will ever be discovered? Staggering.... 

Biological Responses to Climate Change I - Range Shifts

Climate change is probably the most widely discussed global environmental issue of our day. When I carried out a small survey for a project with my friend and asked people on the street to list the global environmental issues they are aware of, nearly everyone mentioned climate change on the first place and only a few noted pollution, biodiversity loss, deforestation or any other issues. Things are no different in the media: if one looks at Richard Black’s Environment blog on BBC, they will find that a great proportion of entries are on climate change and less attention is payed to other environmental problems. Therefore I will start the blog by discussing the biological effect of climate change.

Welcome to the planet of 7 billion!

Within only three weeks, the world population will hit 7 billion according to the United Nation Population Fund. Together with rapidly increasing consumption, this of course means that our impact on the planet is greater than ever: we destroy rainforests that accommodate some of the most species rich ecosystems, (so called biodiversity hotspots), we create lakes through construction of massive hydroelectric dams, only to destroy others through over extraction of freshwater. We already caused the climate to warm by around 0.6℃, and are well on the way to emit the trillionth tonne of carbon which would mean being committed to a 'dangerous', 2℃ warming. Carbon in the atmosphere of course not only implies warming and changing weather patterns, but also has the potential to impact marine life through causing ocean acidification, and affects the global carbon cycle. In short, we generate global environmental change.