Feed aggregator
Application for exceptional circumstances permit for artwork containing feathers from native species
'Industrial' farms should lose subsidies
The Queen and David Attenborough urged to cut ties with charity linked to Finland mining plans
Flora and Fauna International has been hired by a British mining firm to assess the environmental value of a national park in the Arctic circle
Environmentalists and indigenous reindeer herders are calling on the Queen, Sir David Attenborough and Stephen Fry to disassociate themselves from a charity contracted to help a mining operation in a national park in Finland.
Fauna and Flora International (FFI), whose patron is the Queen, has been hired by the British-listed mining company Anglo American to assess the environmental value of Viiankiaapa, a stunning 65 sq km (25 sq mile) habitat for 21 endangered bird species in the Arctic circle.
Continue reading...'We have to stop the bulldozers': swaths of koala habitat lost, say activists
Queensland’s relaxed land-clearing laws have allowed 84,000ha of habitat to be destroyed and must be rolled back, say WWF and Australian Koala Foundation
A relaxation in Queensland’s tree clearing laws led to the destruction of 84,000 hectares of critical koala habitat in the two years after the national icon was listed as vulnerable, according to new mapping by conservationists.
That koala habitat made up about 14% of all land cleared between mid-2013 and mid-2015 was an alarming revelation, WWF and the Australian Koala Foundation said.
Continue reading...Scotland's rare mountain plants disappearing as climate warms, botanists find
Research by the National Trust for Scotland shows rare mountain plants in the Highlands and islands are retreating higher or disappearing entirely
There is clear evidence that some of Britain’s rarest mountain plants are disappearing due to a steadily warming climate, botanists working in the Scottish Highlands have found.
The tiny but fragile Arctic plants, such as Iceland purslaine, snow pearlwort and Highland saxifrage, are found only in a handful of locations in the Highlands and islands, clustered in north-facing gullies, coires and crevices, frequently protected by the last pockets of late-lying winter snow.
Continue reading...On the trail of Scotland's rare mountain plants - in pictures
Ecologists and botanists have been working with highly skilled mountaineers in a series of intensive studies to map and track mountain plants and help ecologists understand the impact and speed of climate change
Continue reading...An abandoned tin mine blossoms above ground
Drakewalls, Tamar Valley The spoil tips and the dressing floors where ore was processed have been covered in earth, and seeded with grass and flowers
Up the hill from Gunnislake, Drakewalls mine was the first stop for the Man Engine on the huge mechanical puppet’s celebratory journey through the world heritage mining landscapes of Cornwall this summer. Now the site is quiet again, bereft of the admiring crowds. Consolidated ruins of engine houses and chimneys remain from the 19th century, when this mine was the largest tin producer in east Cornwall, employing 398 people at its peak. Wolframite, a tungsten mineral, was separated from the tin ore and, by 1890, arsenic and copper were also being produced and loaded in sidings that connected to the new mineral railway. Contemporary reports described underground caverns that could be “traversed only by boat”. Earlier opencast excavations were filled in, but there remains a walled-in linear chasm or “gunnis”, choked with ferns and bushes. Come 1895, production was almost finished: “Coals stopped, mine stopped, water risen in the shaft.”
Continue reading...China plans to fast-charge electric vehicle production
First act of Coalition’s “innovation” government: strip funds from ARENA
Fossil fuel industry holding Australian economy to ransom
Rule changes for emissions reduction fund likely to push prices higher
Tesla vs LG vs Sony vs … storage goes head to head at new ACT test centre
Time to ditch the “dumb” grid and embrace a smart energy future
Facebook's internet of the sky
Solar households to lose subsidies, but it’s a bright future for the industry
RN subject podcasts are closing
RN subject podcasts are closing
The multicoloured wonders of Atauro Island – in pictures
A Conservation International team has counted an average of 252 species of reef fish at each site in the waters around Atauro Island – more any other place on the planet. There is a push to protect the island, which is 24km north of Timor-Leste’s capital, Dili, with a view to developing an ecotourism industry.
Continue reading...Neonicotinoids linked to wild bee and butterfly declines in Europe and US
![](https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/134362/width496/image-20160817-13703-1re91nd.jpg)
Two separate studies from the United States and England, both published today, show evidence that populations of butterflies and wild bees have declined in association with increased neonicotinoid use.
Neonicotinoids, or neonics, are pesticides applied to crops as seed treatments or sprays. Neonics have high selective toxicity for insects, meaning they are more toxic to insects than mammals. When insects eat the treated plants, the pesticides affect the insects' health, behaviour and reproductive success.
While there have been few studies in the natural environment until now, concerns about the ecological impact of neonics, including their possible link to bee declines, led the European Union to restrict their use in 2013. EU scientists are currently reviewing the ban, with recommendations expected next year.
What do the new studies tell us?In the US study, researchers looked at 40 years of butterfly data in northern California. They found that populations declined dramatically in the late 1990s. Smaller butterfly species that produced fewer generations each year were the most affected.
These declines were associated with increasing use of neonics across the region, beginning in the mid-1990s. The data for neonics usage was obtained from US government pesticide use databases.
This study is an important contribution to our understanding of how neonics affect non-target insects in the wild.
The butterfly data was collected from four sites monitored by the same person (an expert entomologist) for up to four decades. This level of data integrity is quite rare in modern ecological studies. Long-term consistency in the data collection means that many of the effects of different observer skills or collection efforts have been minimised.
The second study looked at wild bee populations in the UK. The researchers focused on oilseed rape that had been seed-treated with the pesticide. Rape is a common source of neonics in agricultural environments and is also a highly attractive floral resource for many wild bees and other pollinator insects.
This study also uses high-quality data. It is based on 18 years of data for 62 bee species collected by the Bees, Wasps and Ants Recording Society, a specialist UK entomological society, as well as pesticide use data from the UK government. The researchers show that, over time, the negative effects of neonics exposure for wild bees outweighed the benefits of the crop as a food resource.
They provide the first evidence that neonic seed treatments are associated with national-scale declines in wild bees at the community level. Populations of species that are known to forage regularly on rape were affected three times more than species not seen on rape flowers.
Out of the labThese studies are important contributions to science. Most previous studies showing negative effects of neonics on non-target insects have been conducted under short-term field conditions, or controlled conditions in a laboratory, using commercially bred bees (mostly European honey bees or bumblebees).
The evidence from these studies shows that while individual bees may not die immediately after exposure to the pesticides, sub-lethal effects on behaviour and health can affect their ability to pollinate crops, and impact the success of the colony as a whole.
These short-term, controlled studies tell us a lot about the biological and physiological effects of neonics on managed colonies of particular bee species. But they can’t tell us how neonics affect wild insects under natural conditions, or how consistent exposure might affect populations of other insect species over time.
The evidence from the studies published today comes from decades of data collected under natural conditions before and after neonics were introduced to the environment. It shows that neonics could affect the long-term persistence of wild pollinator communities.
Importantly, these studies also show that the biological traits of different species influence how neonics affect them. This means that results from studies of one species (e.g. commercially bred honey bees) aren’t helpful to understand impacts on other wild species.
What does this mean for Australia?There is very little evidence of how neonics affect bees, or other non-target insects, in Australia. The Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Management Authority published a report in 2014 summarising the impact of neonics on honey bees in Australia.
The report concluded that there was a lack of consensus on causes of honey bee declines in Europe and the US. It also stated that insecticides are not a significant issue in Australia, where honey bee populations haven’t declined as we have seen overseas.
However, it’s important to remember that a lack of scientific consensus on this issue exists because very little ecological evidence is available for scientists to answer these questions conclusively.
These new studies provide evidence from specific regions in the US and UK, so we can’t extrapolate the results to Australian conditions with certainty. However, they do leave us with an important reminder that long-term monitoring is essential when trying to understand ecological systems.
In Australia, neonics are approved for use as a seed treatment in a number of crops that are attractive to honey bees and other pollinator insects. This includes canola, corn, sunflower, cotton, kale and clover.
There are still major knowledge gaps in our understanding of these insecticides, but a recent review of evidence found that neonics can persist for years in the environment and affect biodiversity through multiple pathways.
Australia has over 1,800 native bee species, many of which are providing free pollination services to many Australian crops. Thousands of other beneficial insect species living on farms – like flies, wasps, beetles and butterflies – can also be important pollinators and natural enemies. However, it is impossible to know how neonics might affect them without more comprehensive ecological research.
![The Conversation](https://counter.theconversation.edu.au/content/63999/count.gif)
Manu Saunders is affiliated with the Institute for Land Water & Society at Charles Sturt University. She is co-founder of the Wild Pollinator Count, a non-profit organisation aimed at wild pollinator conservation.