English

This is the time of the year when night life has a new meaning. The city's fireflies, with their alluring, blinking magical displays, offer a fascinating contrast to the city's techno-colored street and shop lighting, and many Shanghai people are setting out to spend time watching and enjoying this natural spectacle. The hunt for the fireflies has also been given a public push recently by the publication of recommended viewing spots for the tiny nocturnal creatures by the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration. The list of six destinations includes the highly recommended Cenbu village, a village beside Shanghai's largest freshwater lake Dianshan Lake in Qingpu district. Other spots listed are the Shanghai Botanical Garden, the Chenshan Botanical Garden and the Shanghai Zoo.

Imidacloprid, one of the most commonly used insecticides, is highly toxic to bees and other beneficial insects. The regulatory challenge to determine safe levels of residual pesticides can benefit from information about the time-dependent toxicity of this chemical. Using published toxicity data for imidacloprid for several insect species, we construct time-to-lethal-effect toxicity plots and fit temporal power-law scaling curves to the data. The level of toxic exposure that results in 50% mortality after time t is found to scale as t1.7 for ants, from t1.6 to t5 for honeybees, and from t1.46 to t2.9 for termites. We present a simple toxicological model that can explain t2 scaling. Extrapolating the toxicity scaling for honeybees to the lifespan of winter bees suggests that imidacloprid in honey at 0.25 μg/kg would be lethal to a large proportion of bees nearing the end of their life.

Since the end of World War II there has been a decline in forest songbird populations over much of the eastern United States. For example, in Rock Creek Park in the middle of Washington, D.C., populations of Red-eyed Vireos (Vireo olivaceus) have dropped by 79 percent and Ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla) by 94 percent. Acadian Flycatchers, Yellow-throated Vireos (Vireo flavifrons), Black-and-white Warblers (Mniotilta varia), and Hooded Warblers (Setophaga citrina) have disappeared entirely. The decline has not been uniform for all species; the Acadian Flycatcher (Empidonax virescens) and others that migrate long distances to tropical America have suffered more than residents or those like robins and towhees that can overwinter in the southern United States. Nor has the decline been equal in all types of forest; the loss of species from woodlots and small forest tracts exceeds the loss from large stretches of forest such as those of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Prairie bird populations are falling in many Midwestern states, from ring-necked pheasants to horned larks to sparrows. Scientists now say insecticides are a primary culprit. Minnesota birds are hardest hit with 12 species in decline, followed by Wisconsin with 11, and Illinois, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska and New York with nine affected species each. The recent study looked at a range of possible causes of the population declines, including habitat loss which has long been considered a key driver of the problem. Bird conservationists are “still concerned” about range management, urban development and loss of habitat, but are now focusing additional attention on the harmful impacts of pesticides.

Last year, the barn owl (Tyto alba) suffered its worst breeding season in over 30 years, and now the charity fears that numbers in Northern Ireland may have plummeted.The barn owl was once a common sight in our countryside, but now there are thought to be less than 30 breeding pairs left here. Extreme weather, loss of suitable feeding and nesting habitat, combined with the build up of toxins from consuming poisoned prey are the main reasons for the bird’s decline. Through its ‘Be there for Barn owls’ project, supported by Heritage Lottery Fund, Ulster Wildlife wants to give this iconic bird a fighting chance for survival, by working with farmers and landowners to ensure there is enough rough grassland for barn owls to hunt and breed, as well space for it to nest. “We are urging everyone in to give our barns owls a helping hand by contacting us with sightings of this beautiful bird or signs of their presence, such as nesting sites or pellets,” said Catherine Fegan, Ulster Wildlife’s Barn Owl Officer.

When a creature becomes extinct, we are left with whatever essence of its existence can be conveyed through science, art and the written word. In the case of the passenger pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius), a prolific and gregarious migratory bird of North America’s eastern and central forests, we’ve been trying to preserve it in memory for a century now. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the passenger pigeon’s extinction. The species’ four-decade decline from billions upon billions to none concluded when a captive bird named Martha died in her cage at the Cincinnati Zoo on Sept. 1, 1914. Martha’s remains were packed in a 300-pound block of ice and shipped to the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, where she was stuffed and mounted. Last week, the Smithsonian opened an exhibit on the passenger pigeon and other extinct North American birds and put Martha on display for the first time since 1999.

The mainstream media inexplicably seems to downplay the links between chronic pesticide exposure and birth defects, but a new study is bringing this topic back into view. Applied pesticides don’t just impact farm-workers. They also take a toll on families who live within 2 miles of a farm that uses toxic pesticides, according to the latest research from the MIND Institute at University of California, Davis Medical Center. From birth defects to other developmental issues, early exposure to pesticides isn’t healthy for babies. What are the chemicals we’re exposing people to, and how do they work? The study cites three of the most commonly used agricultural pesticides in the past 50 years. These three classes of pesticides implicated in the study are: organophosphates, pyrethroids, and carbamates.

Babies whose moms lived within a mile of crops treated with widely used pesticides were more likely to develop autism, according to new research. The study of 970 children, born in farm-rich areas of Northern California, is part of the largest project to date that is exploring links between autism and environmental exposures. The University of California, Davis research – which used women’s addresses to determine their proximity to insecticide-treated fields – is the third project to link prenatal pesticide exposures to autism and related disorders. “The weight of evidence is beginning to suggest that mothers’ exposures during pregnancy may play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorders,” said Kim Harley, an environmental health researcher at the University of California, Berkeley who was not involved in the new study. One in every 68 U.S. children has been identified with an autism spectrum disorder—a group of neurodevelopmental disorders characterized by difficulties with social interactions, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

A recent study by Robert Meese of the University of California states that the tricolored blackbird (Agelaius tricolor) species of the Central Valley of California has witnesses a major decline in its population and soon will be on the verge of extinction, if not checked. A survey conducted by the study along with the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, California Department of Fish and Wildlife and Audubon California, was released on Wednesday. It depicted that the tricolored blackbird now numbers about 145,000 in the state, 260,000 birds were counted in 2011. The number has fallen by 64% since 2008. These numbers are a huge blow when we consider that almost a decade ago the population of these birds was around a million. Even worst would be when we consider the fact that way back in 1937, the tricolored blackbirds' population was 3 million. The reasons for this huge decline can be explained by the drying up of the wetlands that were historically used as nests by these birds. These wetlands dried up because of drought and also because of the establishment of large farms that use pesticides. This pesticide use has declined the type of insects that this bird feeds on, be it caterpillars, beetles or grasshoppers. This reduction in food has caused the birds to reproduce just once instead of the usual two times that it earlier did.