Tag: conservation

The Araguaian River Dolphin: Secretive, Threatened and Surprisingly Chatty

Two Araguaian botos swimming together. Photo credit: Gabriel Melo Alves dos Santos Seven years ago, Gabriel Melo Alves dos Santos happened upon a remarkable sight: a rare and highly reclusive Amazonian river dolphin, the Araguaian river dolphin, gathering in numbers at a marketplace along the Tocantins River in the Amazonian […]

Using Wikipedia to Measure and Understand People’s Interest in Nature

Image credit: Jordan Kraft Whether or not humans are growing increasingly distanced from nature is a perennially popular question in our technological age. Actually measuring changes in this supposed distance poses a thorny challenge. Past researchers have measured the proportion of “nature-related words” in song lyrics, without asking whether this […]

War and Peace and Environmental Consequences

Image source: https://colombiareports.com/chiribiquete-national-park-in-heart-of-colombian-amazon-to-more-than-double-in-size/ War inflicts plenty of damage upon ecosystems (among other things), but peace carries its own pitfalls. In a study recently published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, Drs. Dolors Armenteras, Laura Schneider and Liliana María Dávalos, of the Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Rutgers and Stony Brook, respectively, describe how the Colombian […]

Getting Blue Carbon Right

Image source: https://aggietranscript.ucdavis.edu/the-relationship-between-genetic-diversity-and-disturbance-in-the-eelgrass-species-zostera-marina/ Blue carbon (Blue C) is the carbon stored in coastal ecosystems, such as mangroves, salt marshes and seagrass meadows. Correctly measuring the amount of carbon stored in these habitats is vital to avoid costly distortions in carbon markets and to efficiently manage conservation efforts. Recent research, however, […]