DAILY QUICK READ - JULY 29-30, 2016

Sometimes Solutions Are That Simple

A quaking aspen made up of 47 thousand trees with a single root system.  It could be saved with a simple fence.  Estimates place Pando’s age at 2000 to one million years old.

Meet Pando, thought to be the world’s largest living thing by mass. It’s a forest, but all of its 47,000 trees come from a single root system spread over 43 hectares in Utah, making it genetically one individual.

But Pando is dying. Hungry deer and cattle have been eating its young stems, and many of the oldest trees are reaching the end of their natural lifespan.  It’s falling apart on our watch,” says Paul Rogers of Utah State University and the Western Aspen Alliance. “The old trees are dying, and the young ones are being eaten.”

At about 6000 tonnes, Pando, which is Latin for “I spread”, is some 35 times heavier than the heaviest living animal, the blue whale. The largest living thing by area is thought to be a fungus in Oregon, while the tallest record is held by a redwood tree in California.

Pando is also likely to be the world’s most ancient living organism, though estimates of its age vary widely, from 2000 years to 1 million years old.

But saving it may be as simple as putting up a good fence.

Talk About An Ant Invasion

As mankind works diligently to exterminate mammals, the insect world throws up new species on a routine basis.  So, at least we know who will inherit the planet when we exterminate ourselves.

Not this one.

The island of New Guinea is home to some of the rarest animals on the planet. Among them are over 800 species of ants with a diverse range of fascinating characteristics, each well-suited to their unique island habitat. Scientists estimate that around 60% of these ants are found only in New Guinea. In many cases, a single species originally colonised the island and then developed into multiple distinct forms.

This one.

Now two new species of ant have been discovered with the help of a major technique that uses 3D imaging technology to identify insects. The ants themselves have a particularly striking appearance thanks to their formidable spine-covered exoskeletons.

Perhaps just as notable as their appearances, though, are their names, Pheidole viserion and Pheidole drogon, inspired by the fire-breathing dragons from the fantasy series Game of Thrones. While not quite in the same size bracket as their mythical namesakes, the ants do have a strong resemblance to the dragons thanks to the distinct blade-like serrations adorning their backs.

Extinction Causes

Apparently the behavior of one group of species can result in driving the extinction of other species.  Does this sound familiar.

New fossils discovered in the southwest African country of Namibia reinforce a theory that Earth's first mass extinction was caused by the planet's earliest animals, known as metazoans. These animals, which comprise most common forms of life today including vertebrates and arthropods, arrived on the scene roughly 540 million years ago. The effects of the diversification and spread of animals across the globe is known as the Cambrian explosion, and scientists now think it may have also led to the extinction of Earth's first multicellular organisms, known as Ediacarans.

"These new species were 'ecological engineers' who changed the environment in ways that made it more and more difficult for the Ediacarans to survive," said Simon Darroch, an assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University, in a statement. Ediacarans are thought to have evolved from the planet's single-celled organisms and populated Earth about 600 million years ago.

Megafauna Rules

Wipe out the “mega” and it is likely that the insects will end up as the dominant species.  Maybe not, but it could leave the planet to rats and mice.  Sounds like fun.

In a public declaration published in today's edition of the journal BioScience, a group of more than 40 conservation scientists and other experts are calling for a coordinated global plan to prevent the world's "megafauna" from sliding into oblivion.

Among the threats cited by the group as drivers of this mass extinction are illegal hunting, deforestation and habitat loss, the expansion of agriculture and livestock into wildlife areas, and the growth of human populations.

"The more I look at the trends facing the world's largest terrestrial mammals, the more concerned I am we could lose these animals just as science is discovering how important they are to ecosystems and to the services they provide for people," said Dr. William Ripple, professor of ecology at Oregon State University and lead author of the study.

Ripple worked with other authors on the study to examine population trends of many species, including many of the most well-known, charismatic species such as elephants, rhinos, gorillas, and big cats that are now threatened with extinction.

Tahoe is a Gem

If only we could see some evidence of climate change without traveling to the ends of the earth.

The biggest alpine lake in North America is warming faster than ever thanks in large part to a changing global climate.

That’s according to scientists who study Lake Tahoe to produce reports on everything from water temperature to clarity to invasive species.

The latest data in the State of the Lake report shows average water temperature in the lake increased nearly half a degree in one year, that’s 15 times the long term rate of warming. The average surface temperature reached 53.3 degrees. The overall average water temperature is a little over 43 degrees.

Geoffrey Schladow of the University of California-Davis Tahoe Environmental Research Center said the changes at Lake Tahoe highlight the magnitude of human-caused global climate change.

“That is a huge amount of water,” Schladlow said of Lake Tahoe, which reaches more than 1,600 feet in depth. If the water were spread out over an area the size of California it would still be 15 inches deep, he said.

“It takes a lot of energy to raise that a half degree,” Schladow said.