General

Hoeveel natuur moet op het Nederlandse platteland nog worden ingeleverd voor een verbod op de neonicotinoÏden?

Met de natuur in Nederland gaat het vooral op het platteland dramatisch slecht. Dat staat in het Living Planet Report – Natuur in Nederland van het Wereld Natuur Fonds (WNF). Op het platteland zijn dierpopulaties sinds 1990 met 40 procent gedaald. Dat is vooral toe te schrijven aan de grootschalige en intensieve landbouw. Zware bemesting en pesticidengebruik, het voortdurend maaien van de monotone weilanden, stikstof uit de veehouderij en het droogmalen van polders zijn funest voor vogels en vlinders. Weilanden met diverse plantsoorten en natuurlijke plekken voor dieren om nesten te bouwen en te schuilen zijn schaars. De vogelstand in het agrarisch landschap is sinds 1960 al met ruwweg tweederde afgenomen. Weidevogels als de grutto, de tureluur en de scholekster hebben het erg zwaar. Boerenlandvogels, zoals de veldleeuwerik en patrijs, vinden te weinig voedsel door rijkelijk gebruik van bestrijdingsmiddelen. Vlinders komen op het platteland alleen nog voor in kleine versnipperde randen van weilanden, erven, bermen en op dijken. In open natuurgebieden, zoals heide en duinen, zijn populaties diersoorten sinds 1990 met gemiddeld 50 procent gedaald. Ook hier is de intensieve landbouw een belangrijke oorzaak. Door vermesting en verzuring groeien heidevelden en duinen dicht met grassen en struiken. Vogels en vlinders die afhankelijk zijn van het open landschap verdwijnen. Zo is de heivlinder sinds 1990 sterk achteruitgegaan. Vogelsoorten als de tapuit en wulp nemen af. Ook reptielen verdwijnen in heidevelden en duinen. Hoewel de aandacht voor stadsnatuur toeneemt, profiteren broedvogels en dagvlinders daar nog niet van. Die populaties zijn de afgelopen twintig jaar met gemiddeld 30 procent afgenomen. De huismus en de spreeuw doen het slecht. Amfibieën deden het jarenlang erg goed, maar nemen sinds 2008 af. Dit komt voornamelijk door de vuursalamander die vrijwel uit Nederland is verdwenen.

Fast die Hälfte aller 13 Reptilienarten sind extrem selten

Rund 600.000 Einzeldatensätze für 33 heimische sowie 14 eingeschleppte Amphibien- und Reptilienarten, die einen bundesweiten Überblick über deren Verbreitung vermitteln. Das ist das Ergebnis eines Projektes, das die Deutsche Gesellschaft für Herpetologie und Terrarienkunde (DGHT) im Auftrag des Bundesamtes für Naturschutz durchgeführt hat. Daraus entstanden ist der erste Online-Atlas der Amphibien und Reptilien für Deutschland, der ab sofort auf der Website www.feldherpetologie.de/atlas abrufbar ist. Der Online-Atlas liefert nun – 18 Jahre nach dem Standardwerk der Amphibien und Reptilien Deutschlands von Rainer Günther – einen umfassenden Datenfundus für eine zukünftige Revision der Roten Listen der Amphibien und Reptilien Deutschlands und zeigt, welche Arten am häufigsten und welche besonders selten sind. Zu den sehr häufigen Arten zählen bei den Amphibien die Erdkröte und der Grasfrosch, bei den Reptilien Blindschleiche, Waldeidechse und Zauneidechse. Sehr selten ist bei den Amphibien der Alpensalamander, der seinem Namen entsprechend tatsächlich nur im Alpengebiet vorkommt. Bei den Reptilien sind fast die Hälfte der 13 Arten extrem selten, beispielsweise die Europäische Sumpfschildkröte, die Würfelnatter und die Aspisviper.

What are the implications of suddenly losing billions of insects across an entire farm landscape?

Insecticides can be an important tool for producers to use in times of emergency to prevent a pest from economically damaging crops. To understand the broad implications of current insect management practices let’s focus for a moment on one insecticide application method in one crop: foliar sprays in oilseed sunflowers. Sunflowers are an “entomophilous” (insect loving) crop, offering a multitude of resources to a diverse assortment of insects. This diversity and abundance of critters visiting a sunflower include a number of pests that often are the targets of insecticidal sprays. In a recent study of South Dakota sunflower fields, foliar insect densities were found to be more than 290,000 individuals per acre, not including any surface-dwelling or below-ground organisms. If a producer decides to use an insecticide spray on a 100-acre sunflower field, this will end more than 29 million many-legged lives. What are the implications of suddenly losing billions of insects across an entire farm landscape?

Animals on the Brink: 2015's Newly Endangered Species

Here are just a few of the animals that were deemed endangered in 2015. The International Union for Conservation of Nature reclassified the Geometric Tortoise (Psammobates geometricus) as "critically endangered" in 2015. The IUCN cataloged the Splendid Toadfish (Sanopus splendidus) as endangered this year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed both the great green macaw (Ara ambiguus) and the military macaw as endangered in an announcement made in October. The USFWS declared the Mexican Wolf (Canis lupus baileyi) as an endangered species earlier this year. The USFWS announced it was adding the Honduran hummingbird (Amazilia luciae) to the endangered species list this year. The USFWS placed several species of sawfish to the endangered species list this year. The USFWS announced in September that the Slevin's skink (Emoia slevini) would be added to the endangered species list. The IUCN declared the New Zealand Sea Lion (Phocarctos hookeri) to be endangered primarily due to "fishing-related mortality." The IUCN raised the status of the White Headed Vulture (Trigonoceps occipitalis) from threatened to critically endangered in 2015. The IUCN listed the bokiboky (Mungotictis decemlineata) as endangered this year. The IUCN flagged the Steppe Eagle (Aquila nipalensis) as endangered this year. The IUCN deemed the Ishikawa's Frog (Odorrana ishikawae) as an endangered species this year. The IUCN classified the the ayumodoki or Kissing Loach (Parabotia curtus), as critically endangered this year. The IUCN once feared the Mahé Boulder Cricket (Phalangacris alluaudi) to be extinct, but after a recent rediscovery, it reclassified it as critically endangered. The IUCN added the Giri Butri Cave Crab (Karstama emdi) to its critically endangered list.

Fungus Killing Snakes in Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Is Pinpointed

A new federal study documents for the first time that a specific fungus is the cause of a disease that is killing an unusually high number of snakes in the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. The findings announced Tuesday by the U.S. Geological Survey determined that a fungus known as Ophidiomyces ophiodiicola is the cause behind the skin infections known as snake-fungal disease. Outbreaks of the sometimes fatal disease have been confirmed over the past decade in nine states: Illinois, Florida, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. By pinpointing the cause of the disease, scientists can better help conserve snake populations threatened by the disease that play an important role in the environment, said Jeffrey Lorch, a USGS National Wildlife Health Center scientist and lead author of the study published in the online journal mBio. Among other benefits, snakes help keep rodent populations in check and serve as a food source for other predators including hawks and eagles, scientists say. “We don’t know what will happen if snakes disappear, but there is a concern it could be bad for the ecosystem as a whole,” said Mr. Lorch, who is based in Madison, Wis. Rising snake mortality has been a concern world-wide. A 2010 study by Britain’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology documented “alarming” declines in 17 snake populations from the U.K. to France, Italy, Nigeria and Australia.

China's domestic population of reptiles and amphibians has dropped by a staggering 97% in the past four decades

China’s wildlife is vanishing at an alarming clip, a new report has found. The Middle Kingdom’s population of terrestrial vertebrates – including mammals, amphibians, birds, reptiles – has fallen by nearly one half over the past four decades, according to the World Wildlife Fund. That gloomy stat is in keeping with trends around the globe, which saw the number of vertebrates drop by 52% between 1970 and 2010, WWF said. Reptiles and amphibians took the biggest hit during the 1970-2010 period, with their numbers dropping by a staggering 97%. Likewise, numbers of forest mammals—such as musk deer and snub-nosed monkeys—fell by 78%.

Tut der Freistaat Bayern nichts für den Schutz von Fischotter, Wendehals und Vergissmeinnicht, werden sie verschwinden

Kröte, Natter, Käfer – besonders attraktiv wirken diese Tiere auf viele Menschen nicht. Aber nach Ansicht von Naturschützern sollten diese Arten im Freistaat besonders geschützt werden. Das gilt laut Experten des Landesbundes für Vogelschutz (LBV) vor allem für das Bodensee-Vergissmeinnicht, das weltweit nur noch an Boden- und Starnberger See vorkommt. Die Fachleute fordern: Für diese Arten müsse sich Bayern besonders einsetzen.

Frogs Are on the Verge of Mass Extinction

Things aren’t looking good for reptiles and amphibians lately, especially frogs. John Alroy at Macquarie University in Australia published a study last month examining recent extinctions for the two groups of animals, and the results are alarming. “About 200 frog extinctions have occurred and hundreds more [frog species] will be lost over the next century, so we are on pace to create a mass extinction,” according to the study. Alroy chose to study reptiles and amphibians partly because “there was a large amount of global data available for these groups, and partly because of a growing concern in the scientific community over the health of frog populations, which are thought to be in a state of decline in many places,” says the Washington Post. Alroy also looked at salamanders, snakes and lizards, but “he found that frogs seemed to be the most vulnerable to extinction—the results suggested that more than 3 percent of all frog species have disappeared, largely since the 1970s,” according to the Washington Post. The findings are especially alarming because the research method known as a Bayesian approach is “highly conservative,” meaning that the estimated number of past and future frog extinctions could, in fact, be even higher.

Current extinction rates of reptiles and amphibians

There is broad concern that a mass extinction of amphibians and reptiles is now underway. Here I apply an extremely conservative Bayesian method to estimate the number of recent amphibian and squamate extinctions in nine important tropical and subtropical regions. The data stem from a combination of museum collection databases and published site surveys. The method computes an extinction probability for each species by considering its sighting frequency and last sighting date. It infers hardly any extinction when collection dates are randomized and it provides underestimates when artificial extinction events are imposed. The method also appears to be insensitive to trends in sampling; therefore, the counts it provides are absolute minimums. Extinctions or severe population crashes have accumulated steadily since the 1970s and 1980s, and at least 3.1% of frog species have already disappeared. Based on these data and this conservative method, the best estimate of the global grand total is roughly 200 extinctions. Consistent with previous results, frog losses are heavy in Latin America, which has been greatly affected by the pathogenic chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis. Extinction rates are now four orders-of-magnitude higher than background, and at least another 6.9% of all frog species may be lost within the next century, even if there is no acceleration in the growth of environmental threats.

Die Juraviper und die Ringelnatter werden im Baselbiet nur noch sehr selten beobachtet

Die Juraviper (Vipera aspis), auch Aspisviper genannt, und die nahe verwandte Kreuzotter (Vipera berus) sind die beiden einzigen in der Schweiz vorkommenden Vipernarten. Die Ringelnatter (Natrix natrix) ist die grösste Schlangenart im Jura und wird im Schnitt etwa einen Meter lang. Die Nahrung der Juraviper besteht vor allem aus Mäusen und Eidechsen. Jedes erwachsene Tier verzehrt pro Saison etwa 120 % seines Körpergewichts, was bedeutet, dass es etwa ein Dutzend grössere Beutetiere pro Jahr verschlingt. Die Hauptnahrung der Ringelnatter sind Frösche, Molche, geschwächte Fische, selten Kröten, Mäuse oder Salamander. Die Juraviper und die Ringelnatter waren in der Region bis zur Mitte des 20. Jh. weit verbreitet. Wie viele andere Tierarten sind sie aber durch Lebensraumveränderungen stark zurückgedrängt worden. Die wärmeliebende Juraviper wird im Baselbiet nur noch sehr selten beobachtet und gilt als vom Aussterben bedroht. Die Ringelnatter kommt noch häufiger vor, doch sind auch ihre Bestände rückläufig und gefährdet.