A good write-up of an amazing (and cautionary) story that should be more widely known.

Native to Indonesia, the corpse flower is known locally as bunga bangkai. It is endemic to the rainforests of western Sumatra.

The flower, also known by its scientific name amorphophallus titanum or titan arum, is known for its distinctively pungent smell, which has been likened in the past to dead animals, rotten meat, eggs, sweaty socks, sewage and rubbish.

Sharing the news on social media, the botanical garden, which is in the city's Golden Gate Park, encouraged people to come and see the phenomenon.

The blooming process only lasts for a couple of days and will not occur again for another three to five years, according to the garden's website.

When carnivores that roam our Earth feast gleefully on the flesh of their prey, the hard, unpalatable bones are usually left behind.

But snakes can unhinge their jaws to swallow their meals whole – and, unlike other animals that pass or regurgitate the bones they cannot break down, the skeletons swallowed by snakes do not re-emerge in a recognizable format.

Exactly how snake bodies pull off this astonishing feat of bone digestion has been unclear. Now, scientists have found a previously unknown type of cell in the intestines of Burmese pythons (Python molurus bivittatus) that appears to enable them to completely and utterly absorb the skeletons of their prey.

These cells help process large amounts of calcium and phosphorus that would otherwise overload the snake's system.

New research on Monday contradicted the commonly held idea that males dominate females among primates, revealing far more nuanced power dynamics in the relationships of our close relatives.

Since 1970, 73% of global wildlife has been lost, while the world's population has doubled to 8 billion. Research shows this isn't a coincidence but that population growth is causing a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.

Our research demonstrates that biodiversity recovery needs to be actively managed, especially in depopulating areas.

This will surely be controversial but personally I'm convinced.

It's reminiscent of the "garden Earth" theory. This holds that, whether we like it or not, there are basically no truly wild places left. Humans have turned the Earth into a de-facto garden - and they now need to own that fact and behave like better gardeners. I was skeptical (even a bit outraged) at first but I'm coming round to the logic.

Inspiring story. This theme of bridges is going to become ever more important.

Animal communication takes many forms.

Archive link: https://archive.is/Osjfb

Researchers have documented orcas seemingly gifting rays, seals and fish to scientists and divers, which could suggest they have a theory of mind and engage in altruism – even across species

When it rains in Newton, Massachusetts, water rushes off roads, down asphalt gullies, and into Cheesecake Brook – a small stream that was converted many years ago into a narrow channel lined with masonry walls.

During downpours, more water is shunted to the brook than it can hold. Max Rome is with the nonprofit Charles River Watershed Association: “Basically, what we’ve designed is a system that is almost perfectly set up to create flooding.” As climate change causes heavier downpours, the brook is more likely to flood nearby roads and yards. So Rome’s group is working with the city of Newton to restore a section of the brook and reduce those risks.

Instead of sending stormwater to the brook, they’re diverting it into underground tanks. The stormwater will then be able to slowly trickle out of the gravel-lined tanks and into the ground. They’re also planting native vegetation along its banks that will help slow and filter runoff.

Rome: “There’s going to be a lot of really beautiful plants, a lot of flowering, interesting species that are going to be attracting pollinators, attracting birds.”

• Tropical dry forests are critically endangered ecosystems that once covered vast areas of the planet but have been largely destroyed, with less than 8% of the original extent remaining in some regions due to conversion to agriculture and development.
• These forests support hundreds of millions of people who depend on them for essential resources, such as food, medicine and economic opportunities, while also hosting remarkable biodiversity, including jaguars, tapirs and numerous endemic species.
• A 2022 study revealed that more than 71 million hectares of tropical dry forests were lost between 2000-2020 alone — an area twice the size of Germany — with remaining forests under immediate threat in rapidly expanding deforestation frontiers and from climate change, with some areas experiencing two additional months of drought compared to the 1960s.
• Immediate conservation action is crucial as scientists warn that without aggressive intervention, including land restoration, assisted migration and emergency management techniques, these ancient ecosystems face collapse within decades.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Nestled in the eastern edge of Sri Lanka’s Uva province, Nilgala stands out as a landscape of remarkable ecological and cultural importance. Long overlooked in mainstream conservation efforts despite its significance, Nilgala finally received due recognition on June 2 when it was declared a forest reserve covering its full extent of 40,685 hectares (100,543 acres). Located within Sri Lanka’s intermediate climatic zone, Nilgala is primarily covered by dry mixed evergreen forest. However, what truly distinguishes the area is its savanna landscape of open grasslands dotted with trees, which is a rare habitat type in Sri Lanka.

archived (Wayback Machine)

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5344173

In Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin, and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie, longtime Minnesota journalists Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty trace this staggering transformation.“ The Europeans who colonized North America in the 19th century transformed the continent’s hydrology as thoroughly as the glaciers,” they write. “But, remarkably, they did it in less than 100 years instead of tens of thousands.”

In putting hundreds of millions of acres of prairie to the plow, settlers not only forcibly displaced Indigenous nations, but completely altered the region’s ancient carbon and nitrogen cycles. They also turned the region into an agricultural powerhouse. The deep black soil once prevalent in the Midwest — the result of thousands of years of animal and plant decomposition depositing untold carbon stores into the ground — became the foundation of the modern food system. But the undoing of the American prairie also dismantled one of the Earth’s most effective climate defenses.

Grasses, like all plant life, inhale planet-warming carbon dioxide. As a result, “​​earth’s soils now contain one-third of the planet’s terrestrial carbon — more than the total released by human activity since the start of the Industrial Revolution,” Hage and Marcotty write. A 2020 Nature study found that restoring just 15 percent of the world’s plowed grasslands could absorb nearly a third of the carbon dioxide humans added to the atmosphere since the 1800s.

Today, the tallgrass prairie, which covered most of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and the far eastern edge of the plains states, clings to about 1 percent of its former range. Even the hardier shortgrass prairie of the American West has been reduced by more than half.

Full Article

cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/23702048

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One kind of Australian moth looks to the stars on its voyage to a summertime refuge.

Stellar cues from the Milky Way’s bright band may help Bogong moths (Agrotis infusa) chart a path from the sizzling plains of southeastern Australia to cool caves in the country’s Snowy Mountains, researchers report June 18 in Nature. While people, some birds and possibly seals rely on the night sky to navigate, Bogong moths are the first known invertebrates to reach a destination they’ve never seen before with help from the stars.

In spring, mounting temperatures and dwindling food sources send the moths roughly 1,000 kilometers south toward the caves, says David Dreyer, a neurobiologist at the Lund University in Sweden. “When they arrive … they line up [on] the walls [and look] like the skin of a rattlesnake.” The moths lie dormant until the fall, when they return to the plains to mate and die.

• A new study has discovered a novel social unit among sarus cranes, where these formerly monogamous birds now form trios to raise their chicks.
• Study authors note that these breeding trios were most observed in more degraded habitats.
• The highly territorial cranes may be forced to change their mating behaviours to increase offspring’s chances of survival as habitat loss in India is on the rise.

archived (Wayback Machine):

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• Sri Lanka’s isolation during past glacial cycles resulted in the evolution of unique species, but ongoing human-induced climate change now poses a major threat to their survival.
• Using species distribution models, researchers have discovered that montane amphibians and reptiles that are particularly restricted to narrow ecological niches with limited mobility are particularly vulnerable to rising temperatures.
• Species with direct development, like many Pseudophilautus frogs, which bypass the tadpole stage, are especially sensitive to microclimate changes.
• Of the 34 amphibian species confirmed extinct worldwide, 21 were endemic to Sri Lanka, underscoring the island’s fragility and the urgent need for targeted conservation efforts.

archived (Wayback Machine)

Now, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said it plans to declare seven species of it as endangered.