Now classified as endangered, the ancient skate’s population has almost halved in the past decade, restricted to only one remaining habitat – lutruwita/Tasmania’s Macquarie Harbour.

Scientists are so worried the Maugean skate may soon become extinct, they recently lobbied the federal government to downgrade the classification of the species from Endangered to Critically Endangered. Environment Tasmania backed this call for help, adding the demise of the species would be an embarrassment for the current government who made a “no new extinctions” pledge when coming into power.

The classification was not changed, but in recognition of the dire situation, the government committed $5.7 million in funding to help protect the skate. This included $2.1 million to initiate a captive breeding program. The Tasmanian government also contributed $4 million in funding.

The Maugean skate captive breeding program is run by a team at University of Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) in a facility at Taroona, near nipaluna/Hobart, Tasmania.

In December last year, an adult female skate was introduced into the program. Laying eggs shortly after, marine ecologists have been working around the clock since to ensure the best outcome.

“The eggs take around seven months to develop, with the first healthy female skate hatchling arriving on 10 July,” says IMAS researcher, Professor Jayson Semmens, who leads the program.

“Successfully producing our first hatchling from a captive-laid egg for this very unique skate is really something to celebrate – and it’s a significant step towards conserving the species.”

The new hatchling is healthy and growing fast, and is hoped to be the first of many.

“The adult female has been laying eggs since her arrival last December – two at a time, every four days on average – and has produced more than 100 eggs to date. So we’re preparing for more hatchlings to make their appearance any time now,” Jayson says.

The IMAS team also brought 50 wild-laid eggs into captivity in December. Half of those are also producing healthy hatchlings, but captive egg-laying is another way to rapidly increase the numbers of animals in captivity, with the ultimate aim to bolster the wild population.

“The next stage is to understand the genetic identity of the Maugean skates we have in captivity and examine how this compares with genetic diversity in the wild population. This will help us determine which animals to retain as founders for a captive population, and which animals could eventually be released,” explains Jayson.

“Genetic sequencing information is crucial for managing a captive population and to achieve our ultimate goal – ensuring the continued existence of the species.”

Head of IMAS Fisheries and Aquaculture Centre, Professor Sean Tracey, says the success of the program to date has been “beyond expectations”.

Not only has the team achieved great success in hatching the species in captivity, adult skates have thrived in the artificial environment.

“We have a low mortality rate of less than 8 per cent, which is also a positive outcome as we didn’t know how the skate would respond to being held in our experimental animal-holding facilities,” says Sean.

Federal Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek has also congratulated the IMAS team.

​“It is fantastic news that the University of Tasmania has achieved such great outcomes in such a short time,” she said in a statement. ​

“We’ll keep working with industry, environmentalists and the Tasmanian government… the battle to ensure the future for the endangered Maugean skate is by no means won.”

The post Maugean skate baby delivers hope for endangered species appeared first on Australian Geographic.

As their name suggests, GRBs are short-lived, lasting anything from a few milliseconds to several minutes. Often they are followed by a visible-light afterglow, allowing optical telescopes to make detailed measurements. We know that most of them occur in galaxies billions of light-years away and that the brief burst of radiation each one releases is comparable with the Sun’s output during its whole lifetime.

But what causes this staggering brilliance? 

Related: Six cosmic catastrophes that could wipe out life on Earth

We believe it’s the aftermath of a giant stellar explosion – a supernova – that creates a black hole spraying intense beams of particles and radiation from its poles. What we see as a GRB is our view directly into the beam. The bursts can be analysed to show how the gamma-ray intensity rises to a peak, then falls again. 

Strangely, the details of the intensity profile are often quite symmetrical – the fall-off in intensity is a perfect mirror-image of the rise – hence the idea of time being reversed in the fall-off. But the American team has arrived at a far more likely explanation of what is going on. Imagine the beam of gamma-rays to be the light from a distant lighthouse. Its beam might be dimmer at the edges than the centre but it will be symmetrical in cross-section. 

Now imagine that beam scanning across your vantage point as the lighthouse rotates. What will you see? It will be a rise in intensity, followed by a fall-off that will be a mirror-image of the rise due to the symmetry of the lighthouse beam. 

This simple logic has led the astronomers to conclude that in many GRBs the intense beam of gamma radiation is moving laterally so it sweeps over our view from planet Earth – just like a lighthouse beam.

The post Astronomers liken gamma-ray bursts to lighthouse beams appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The results are sobering confirmation that global warming – caused by human activities – will continue to damage the Great Barrier Reef.

All hope is not lost. But we must face a confronting truth: if humanity does not divert from its current course, our generation will likely witness the demise of one of Earth’s great natural wonders.

One-of-a-kind ecosystem

The Great Barrier Reef is the most extensive coral reef system on Earth. It is home to a phenomenal array of biodiversity, including more than 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of molluscs, as well as endangered turtles and dugongs.

However, mass coral bleaching over the past three decades has had serious impacts on the reef. Bleaching occurs when corals become so heat-stressed they eject the tiny organisms living inside their tissues. These organisms give coral some of its colour and help power its metabolism.

In mild bleaching events, corals can recover. But in the most recent events, many corals died.

The Great Barrier Reef has suffered five mass bleaching events in the past nine summers. Is this an anomaly, or within the natural variability the reef has experienced in previous centuries? Our research set out to answer this question.

A 400-year-old story

Coral itself can tell us what happened in the past.

As corals grow, the chemistry of their skeleton reflects the ocean conditions at the time – including its temperature. In particular, large boulder-shaped corals, known as Porites, can live for centuries and are excellent recorders of the past.

Our study sought to understand how surface temperatures in the Coral Sea, which includes the reef, have varied over the past four centuries. We focused on the January–March period – the warmest three months on the reef.

First, we collated a network of high-quality, continuous coral records from the region. These records were analysed by coral climate scientists and consist of thousands of measurements of Porites corals from across the Western tropical Pacific.

From these records, we could reconstruct average surface temperatures for the Coral Sea from the year 1618 to 1995, and calibrate this to modern temperature records from 1900 to 2024. The overall result was alarming.

From 1960 to 2024, we observed annual average summer warming of 0.12°C per decade.

And average sea surface temperatures in 2016, 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2024 were five of the six warmest the region has experienced in four centuries.

Humans are undoubtedly to blame

The next step was to examine the extent to which increased temperatures in the Coral Sea can be attributed to human influence.

To do this, we used published computer model simulations of the Earth’s climate – both with and without human influence, including greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

So what did we find? Without human influence, Coral Sea surface temperatures during January–March remain relatively constant since 1900. Add in the human impacts, and the region warms steadily in the early 1900s, then rapidly after the 1960s.

In short: without human-caused global warming, the very high sea temperatures of recent years would be virtually impossible, based on our analysis using the world’s top climate models.

Related: Australian scientist urges world to “slam the brakes” as report reveals climate change tipping point now closer

There is worse news. Recent climate projections put us on a path to intensified warming, even when accounting for international commitments to reduce emissions. This places the reef at risk of coral bleaching on a near-annual basis.

Back-to-back bleaching is likely to be catastrophic for the Great Barrier Reef, because it thwarts the chances of corals recovering between bleaching events.

Even if global warming is kept under the Paris Agreement goal of 1.5°C above pre-industrial temperatures, 70 to 90 per cent of corals across the world could be lost.

We must stay focused

The Australian government has a crucial role to play in managing threats to the Great Barrier Reef. The devastation is in their backyard, on their watch.

But what’s happening on the Great Barrier Reef should also be an international wake-up call. The fourth global mass coral bleaching event occurred this year; the Great Barrier Reef is not the only one at risk.

Every fraction of a degree of warming we avoid gives more hope for coral reefs. That’s why the world must stay focused on ambitious action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Emissions reduction targets must be met, at the very least. The solutions are available and our leaders must implement them.

Our research equips society with the scientific evidence for what’s at stake if we don’t act.

The future of one of Earth’s most remarkable ecosystems depends on all of us.

Related: A beautiful disaster

The authors of this piece gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Andrew King, Ariella Arzey, David Karoly, Janice Lough, Tom DeCarlo and Brad Linsley and the producers of the coral data which made this study possible.

Ben Henley is a Lecturer at the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences at The University of Melbourne.

Helen McGregor is a Professor of Environmental Futures & Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future at the School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences at the University of Wollongong.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is a Professor at the School of the Environment at The University of Queensland.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Has this summer’s bleaching killed many corals on the Barrier Reef – or will they recover? The answer is – we don’t know yet. The latest Australian Institute of Marine Science coral cover report, released today, reports coral cover has increased slightly in all three regions, reaching regional high points in two of them.

Related: A beautiful disaster

How can that be? The answer is simple: lag time. Between 2018 and 2022, large areas of the Great Barrier Reef had a reprieve. Marine heatwaves and bleaching still occurred, but the damage was not too extreme. Coral began to recover and regrow.

Over the 2023–24 summer, the heat returned with a vengeance, triggering widespread coral bleaching. But bleached coral isn’t dead yet – it’s very stressed. The summer’s bleaching is only just winding up now, in August. We won’t know how much coral actually died until we complete our next round of surveys. We’ll be back in the water from September to find out.

How can we reconcile high coral cover and intense shocks?

Bleached coral is very stressed, but it’s still alive.

Corals respond to intense heat by expelling their tiny symbiotic algae, or zooxanthellae. In the process, they lose their colours and become bone-white. If the heat eases, the zooxanthellae can sometimes return, and the corals can bounce back.

But if temperatures stay high, corals die. A dead coral is not bone-white – it’s covered in light green fuzz, a sign of colonisation by filamentous algae.

What this means is it takes time to say a coral is truly dead.

For almost four decades, AIMS scientists have monitored the Great Barrier Reef. It’s no easy task to monitor a reef system the size of Italy.

To do it, our team spends 120 days at sea between September and June, across six separate trips.

The two trips we did during the peak of the mass bleaching event in February and March recorded bleached coral as live coral cover – because they were alive when we did the surveys.

So while our new report provides an update on the state of the reef, we cannot use it to describe the full impacts of this summer’s bleaching. It’s a reference point.

Surveys found the average hard coral cover in the year to June 2024 was:

• 39.5 per cent in the northern region (north of Cooktown), up from 35.8 per cent last year.
• 34 per cent in the central region (Cooktown to Proserpine), up from 30.7 per cent.
• 39.1 per cent in the southern region (south of Proserpine), up from 34 per cent.

This year’s coral cover averages are higher than the last few years, but not by much. Statistically speaking, they’re within the margin of error.

By contrast, the reef recovered much more strongly during the less stressful years from 2018 to 2022. In the northern region, coral cover increased by 22.9 per cent.

If we were living in ordinary times, corals would grow back over a decade or two, giving rise to more diverse reefs.

But as the world heats up, the reprieve from heatwaves and extreme weather is getting shorter and shorter. In recent decades, both size and frequency of events causing severe damage to the reef have increased.

How bad was this year’s bleaching?

This year’s marine heatwaves peaked in February and March, when researchers from AIMS and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority conducted additional surveys from the air and underwater.

What this showed was the 2024 mass bleaching event was one of the most serious and widespread so far. It took place against the fourth recorded global bleaching event.

Heat stress is cumulative – it gets worse the longer corals have to endure warmer water.

Related: Another summer, another mass coral bleaching event hits GBR

Some of the southern reefs were exposed to up to 15 degree heating weeks, a measure of the accumulated heat stress. Such high levels have never been recorded on the reef before.

Our aerial surveys detected extreme levels of bleaching – affecting over 90 per cent of corals on a reef – across all three regions of the reef, though not equally. Extreme bleaching was widespread in the southern region of the reef, but less so in the northern and central regions.

Reports of coral death on bleached reefs are beginning to arrive, but it’s too early to draw broad conclusions about the full impact of this event.

What will happen next?

During the cooler months, bleached corals can recover, but it’s not guaranteed. Bleaching makes it harder for corals to grow and reproduce, and leaves them more susceptible to disease. If their symbiotic algae return, some corals will recover, but many corals will not make it. We won’t know the death toll until after we do our next roundDaniela Ceccarelli, David Wachenfeld and Mike Emslie of surveys.

While coral cover has increased and decreased over time, the variability has become much more erratic. Over the last 15 years, coral cover has had its highest highs and lowest lows on record.

Related: World first: trials begin to seed the threatened Great Barrier Reef with thousands of healthy baby corals

What we should take from this is the reef – the world’s largest living structure – is currently still able to recover from repeated shocks. But these shocks are getting worse and arriving more often, and future recovery is not guaranteed.

This is the rollercoaster ride the reef faces at just 1.1°C of warming. The pattern of disturbance and recovery is shifting – and not in the Reef’s favour.

Daniela Ceccarelli is a Reef Fish Ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

David Wachenfeld is the Research Program Director of Reef Ecology and Monitoring at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

Mike Emslie is a Senior Research Scientist in Reef Ecology at the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post How the Great Barrier Reef shows record growth AND intense bleaching appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The femur, ankle and nine toe bones were fully articulated – lying connected in the same position as when the animal died.

Finding an articulation like this is rare at Alcoota, where bones usually lie scattered in a random jumble.

Rich fossil field

The Alcoota site is about 150km northeast of Alice Springs and is the size of two football fields.

Concentrated inside its fossil beds are tens of thousands of bones, from thousands of individual animals, that died some 8 million years ago.

Widely regarded as Australia’s richest terrestrial vertebrate fossil site from the late Miocene, Alcoota has been excavated on-and-off since the 1960s and continues to deliver surprises.

“It seems no matter how much we dig there, there’s more to come,” Dr Adam Yates, senior curator of earth sciences at the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT) told Australian Geographic.

“This is the thing about Alcoota: once you start excavating one thing and start clearing around it, you find more things. It’s like a game of pick-up sticks in some ways.”

The extraordinary new articulation was found in a pit known as ‘Classy Corner’, which was opened at the beginning of MAGNT’s 2024 dig.

Lying close to the articulation is a shoulder joint and vertebra belonging to the same species.

“There could be a skeleton that belongs to one individual,” Adam said. “That’s really significant because there’s more than one [Ilbandornis] species and associating particular bone types with each particular species can be quite tricky.”

Ancient family of huge birds

The birds known as thunder birds or demon ducks belong to the now-extinct family Dromornithidae.

Many examples of this ancient group have now been excavated at Alcoota, including Dromornis, which weighed an estimated 600kg and stood 2–3m tall, making it the largest bird species to ever roam Earth. 

This family of huge flightless birds first appeared in the fossil record about 55 million years ago, until their extinction some 50,000 years ago.

More than 30 mammal, bird and reptile species are represented at Alcoota, including marsupial “rhinos” (diprotodontids), short-faced kangaroos, crocodilians and fearsome marsupial lions the size of a leopard.

Related: 100-million-year-old fossil find reveals huge flying reptile that patrolled Australia’s inland sea

These animals are the evolutionary ancestors of the Pleistocene megafauna that lived alongside the First Australians.

Paleontologists once thought the Alcoota fossils were the remains of animals that gathered around a surviving waterhole during a years-long drought.

But recent evidence that the animals were in breeding condition when they died has cast doubt on that hypothesis.

Now, Adam speculates they were killed in a flood.

“[After drowning], their carcasses drifted downstream and banked up at one spot, maybe a bend in the river or something like that. And that’s what we’re digging through, it’s just a giant pile of carcasses that piled up after a flood,” he said.

Read more about searching for Aussie dinosaurs in the next issue of Australian Geographic, available on newsstands and online from September 2024.

The post Stunning specimen of rare ‘demon duck’ fossil unearthed in Australian dig appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Some meteor showers are better than others. The faster the debris is travelling, or the more debris there is, the more meteors you will see. But generally, these showers are annual events – recurring whenever Earth returns to the same place in its orbit.

The end of July is one such time, with Earth going through several swathes of our Solar System’s debris at once.

Two of those showers reach their peak around July 31. While neither ranks among the very best showers of the year, taken together the two can put on a lovely show in the depths of our cold winter nights.

The Southern Delta Aquariids: the fast ones

The first, and most active, of the two showers is the Southern Delta Aquariids. For stargazers in Australia and New Zealand, they are the third-strongest meteor shower of the year after the amazing Geminids, in December, and the Eta Aquariids, which peak in early May.

The Southern Delta Aquariids are dust from comet 96P/Machholz – a dirty snowball that moves on a highly elongated and tilted orbit within the inner Solar System. 96P/Machholz is the largest object in a broad stream of debris which produces several meteor showers throughout the year.

The Southern Delta Aquariids are active for around six weeks, from mid-July to late August, and reach their peak on July 31. In a typical year, the shower is at its best for around 48 hours. During the peak, observers under perfect conditions can see up to 20–25 meteors per hour.

While many meteors from this shower are relatively faint (and so become harder to see if the Moon is above the horizon, or if you’re observing from a light-polluted site), the shower is known for producing some brighter meteors, particularly around their peak.

In addition, the Southern Delta Aquariids have produced at least two unexpected outbursts in the past, with enhanced rates observed in 1977 and 2003 – a reminder that meteor showers can sometimes throw up nice surprises!

The Alpha Capricornids: slow, with occasional fireballs

The Alpha Capricornids is a significantly weaker shower than the Southern Delta Aquariids – it produces fewer meteors per hour. Even at their best, on the nights of July 30 and 31, it is rare for observers to see more than four or five meteors from the shower in any given hour.

But where the Southern Delta Aquariids are plentiful, fast and often faint, the Alpha Capricornids are slow, and often bright. Indeed, the shower has a reputation for producing spectacular bright meteors and fireballs. Its meteors, infrequent as they are, are often the highlight of a winter night’s observing.

In 2010, two of the world’s leading meteor scientists identified the parent of the Alpha Capricornid meteor shower – a dim comet called 169P/NEAT. They suggest it’s just a small piece of a larger object which fragmented between 4,500 and 5,000 years ago.

Currently, Earth only passes through the very outer layers of a vast debris stream laid down by that ancient fragmentation. The scientists who identified it predict that in just 200–300 years we will instead move through the very centre of the stream.

If that comes to pass, the Alpha Capricornids will one day become by far the best meteor shower of the year.

Where and when should I look?

This year, the peak of both meteor showers falls mid-week, on Wednesday July 31. However, both showers have relatively broad peaks and will produce respectable numbers of meteors for a few days.

If you’re planning a camping trip on the weekend of July 27–28 or August 3–4, you might still get a decent show, particularly in the early morning hours after midnight.

But for the best rates you should head out on the nights of Tuesday July 30 and Wednesday July 31.

From across Australia and New Zealand, you can start observing from 9pm or 10pm, when the radiants for both showers – the place in the sky from which meteors appear to radiate – rise in the east. At first, rates from the showers will be low, but the higher in the sky the radiants rise, the more meteors will be visible.

The bright stars Altair and Fomalhaut are useful guides. As a bonus, the planet Saturn can be found in the same part of the sky, shining as bright as the brightest stars.

The longer you’re willing to stay out, the better your chance of seeing meteors. As the night progresses, the radiants will move across the sky, climbing higher until they culminate in the north after midnight. The best rates will be visible when the radiants are highest: between around 11pm and 3am.

Head out somewhere well away from city lights. Our eyes take a significant amount of time to adjust to the darkness, so it’s best to watch for at least half an hour, if not longer – particularly since meteors are not equally spaced out. You can wait 20 minutes and see nothing, then spot several in just a minute or two!

If you’re fortunate enough to find a site where the sky is dark in all directions, you should look to the northeast in the evening, to the north in the hours around midnight, and then northwest in the pre-dawn hours.

The darker the sky, the more you’ll see. By the peak of the two showers, the Moon will be all but out of the way, rising only a couple of hours before dawn.

As a result, this year is the ideal time to head out and watch an annual winter spectacle. And who knows, you might just get lucky and see a spectacular fireball caused by the debris shed by a dying comet 5,000 years ago.

Jonti Horner is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Southern Queensland.

Tanya Hill is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne and a Senior Curator of Astronomy at the Museums Victoria Research Institute.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Twice as nice: two meteor showers to light up Australia’s skies appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Two days later, the vessel disappeared in the night beneath ten-metre waves, lashed by a violent storm. Tragically, only five of the 26 crew would be rescued during one of the largest searches for survivors in post-war Australian maritime history. As for the MV Noongah, its resting place would remain a mystery – until now.

While on a research voyage to study submarine canyons off the New South Wales coast, a team aboard the CSIRO research vessel RV Investigator became the first to set eyes on MV Noongah in nearly 55 years. This discovery was no accident. It was part of a collaborative project and a targeted investigation to help identify a mysterious shipwreck.

It’s also no coincidence there have been several shipwreck discoveries in the news recently. Australia’s national science ship has developed an impressive record as a shipwreck sleuth.

What is RV Investigator?

RV Investigator is part of the Marine National Facility – a national research infrastructure operated by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency.

All Australian researchers and their international collaborators can access the capabilities of RV Investigator. This makes it a collaboration hub for marine research. And it’s been an important factor in many of the recent shipwreck discoveries.

Over the past ten years of operation, more than 150 institutions have collaborated to deliver science on voyages. Usefully, RV Investigator can accommodate multiple projects on each voyage. The research has ranged from fisheries’ surveys and seafloor mapping to atmospheric studies and, of course, maritime heritage surveys.

RV Investigator is equipped with a suite of advanced acoustic systems. It also has three seafloor mapping systems, called multibeam echosounders. These allow for high-resolution measurements (bathymetry, literally meaning “deep measurement”) of the seafloor, from shallow coasts to full ocean depth.

These systems map the seafloor everywhere the vessel goes, both through data collection while underway, and through targeted surveys.

Both the distance RV Investigator travels during its annual research program and the volume of bathymetric data it collects are immense. This greatly increases the likelihood of making seafloor discoveries.

Over the past ten years, RV Investigator has travelled more than 500,000km and mapped more than 3 million sq.km of Australia’s marine estate. It has circumnavigated the continent several times.

All this has provided an opportunity to investigate many suspected shipwreck sites. These are often “piggyback” projects – ones that are added to the voyage but use no additional resources.

The power of collaboration

Shipwreck discoveries are impossible without collaboration. The maritime community, heritage agencies, research agencies and members of the public have all contributed to the recent shipwreck finds.

It is not uncommon for searches to be targeted by local knowledge from fishing communities, volunteer shipwreck hunters and even historians who have pieced together clues on the potential location of shipwrecks.

Related: 21 historic shipwrecks around Australia

Outreach to those affected by the findings is also invaluable. This includes the survivors of these tragedies and the families of those lost at sea, to keep them informed throughout the process.

Shipwreck discoveries can literally change lives – like the reunion of two siblings who spent their lives apart as orphans after their father died onboard SS Iron Crown in 1942.

‘Eyes’ in the depths

RV Investigator also has specialised drop cameras that can provide a view of the seafloor at depths up to 5000m. The visuals provided by these have been essential for identifying shipwrecks once found.

In 2023, a CSIRO team used this camera system to help identify the wreck of SS Nemesis, a steamship that was lost in 1904 off the coast of New South Wales. Also in 2023, an unidentified wreck off the southwest coast of Tasmania gained a name – it was the coastal freighter MV Blythe Star which capsized and sank in 1973.

The large areas of seafloor mapped by RV Investigator have also led to unexpected discoveries. The wreck of the 1890s iron barque Carlisle in Bass Strait in 2017 was a “chance encounter” for the vessel.

Why hunt for shipwrecks?

These discoveries are important for several reasons. Finding and analysing a shipwreck can help us understand the circumstances that led to these tragedies. It can also help provide closure to affected communities whose loved ones were lost at sea.

Knowing the current state of the shipwreck is important for heritage professionals and agencies who manage and protect the sites. Some shipwrecks are at risk of creating environmental damage such as fuel or oil leaks, so having data on them is vital for managing those risks.

RV Investigator is currently scheduled for a series of scientific upgrades, including its acoustic systems. With 8000 shipwrecks scattered around Australia’s coastline, and more than half of those undiscovered, there are many more maritime mysteries to solve.

Toni Moate is Chair of the National Marine Science Committee and Director of National Collections and Marine Infrastructure at CSIRO.

Emily Jateff is an Adjunct lecturer in archaeology at Flinders University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related: Delivered from the deep

The post The ship finding shipwrecks appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The trio from the University of Melbourne’s Grimwade Centre for Cultural Materials Conservation were heading to the municipality of Kabayan, Benguet to meet with local community members to request access to the area’s ancient rock shelters.

Tucked away within these secluded shelters are ‘meking’ or ‘fire mummies’ – the preserved ancestors of the Ibaloi people, one of the distinct ethnolinguistic groups of the mountainous Cordillera Benguet region.

Coming together

Fen, Camille and Sarah first met while studying the Master of Cultural Materials Conservation program at the University of Melbourne. In their shared class, Respect, the trio partnered to write a mock grant proposal.

They decided to investigate the Kabayan mummies – a topic especially close to home for Fen, an Ibaloi descendant.

“Growing up, I was very aware of my great-grandmother and her identity as an Ibaloi woman,” Fen says. “When she passed in 2021, I was starting this course and wanted to connect to her and her heritage.

“That led to this research pathway and learning about the mummies and my cultural heritage. As I was learning more, my grandmother flagged that we had somebody in our family within living memory who was, they say, ‘half-mummified’.

“They began the [mummification] process on her for a few weeks, but her children, who were Catholic, stopped the process and gave her a traditional burial. Her name was Kong, and she passed away in the 1920s.”

Camille also had a close connection with the project. Working on projects related to the mummies for several years, her expertise offered a unique insight. This led Fen, Camille and Sarah to learn about the mummies’ current deterioration and write their mock grant proposal on potential research into how they could work with the Kabayan community to conserve them.

However, the grant proposal didn’t stay in the classroom: “We realised we had this completed grant proposal with all the structural components,” Fen says. “We’ve got the budget, we’ve got the aims, we’ve got the significance; why don’t we actually submit it and see what happens?

“It was October when we submitted the grant, and we sort of forgot about it, especially with the holiday period. Then, in March of the next year, we got an email saying the grant was approved.”

The making of  ‘meking’

Most of the secrets of the Kabayan mummification process have been lost over time. The methodology was passed down solely through oral storytelling and anecdotes dating back to as early as 200 BCE.

According to Fen, the process involved drying and dehydrating human remains using heat and smoke from a fire – hence the term ‘fire mummy’.

“The actual process of mummification would take several weeks to do, and they would sit the body by a fire and have the chemical aspects of the smoke and heat dry it out over time,” Fen says. “Once that was done, they would enter the body into a wooden coffin, and that would be placed in a rock shelter or cave in the mountainside.

“If successful, the mummification was so effective it preserved tattoos and hair still visible today.”

Preserving an ancient people

While many of the rock shelters that house these ancient remains have been forgotten or remain purposefully hidden, around ten Kabayan sites are well known.

For hundreds of years, the cooler climate of the mountains helped preserve these mummies, but due to progressive environmental changes, the mummies are slowly deteriorating.

According to Sarah, the deterioration of the Kabayan mummies started increasing significantly in the 1970s due to climate change, growing industrialisation and a rise in tourism in the area.

These factors have led to environmental changes within the burial caves, causing the skin of some mummies to become brittle, and enabling mould growth and insect activity.

“Our project decided to use technology to monitor the environments that the mummies reside in and assess and monitor the agents of deterioration so that we can better understand why they are deteriorating,” Sarah says.

“We hope that by getting a better understanding of the temperature and the relative humidities of the rock shelters in which the mummies are housed, we can then figure out what we need to do so we can conserve the mummies and so they can remain in situ.”

To do this monitoring, Fen, Camille and Sarah would need to install data loggers in the caves where the mummies reside, which required permission from the locals.

“We wanted to make sure everything we were doing was going to be approved by the community and that we didn’t do anything that they would be even slightly uncomfortable with,” Sarah says.

“It was completely up to them whether or not they wanted us to come in and do this project. Even though it would be helping conserve like their ancestors, it was completely up to them whether they wanted outsiders to participate in the conservation.”

Fen adds that it was stressful making the long journey without knowing whether they would be allowed to conduct their research.

“It was a little bit scary having to face these Elders who are wary, and rightfully so,” she says. “There’s been a history of bad experiences with other research teams that have come to that community, so I think it was essential for us to make a good impression and to do right by them.

“At the end of our time in the community, there was a physical show of hands, like, stand up if you agree with the project,” Fen says. “It was almost like a moment from a movie – all the Elders stood up. It was unanimously agreed upon in terms of support.”

Connecting with culture

Fen, Camille and Sarah got to know the Kabayan locals and learned about their culture first-hand to ensure they showed respect to the ancestors whenever they conducted their research.

When meeting with the community, the team joined a Kabayan tradition known as ‘Cañao’, in which they danced and offered a pig to ask the gods for permission to do their research and as a blessing.

They also needed to be respectful of the mummies whenever they entered the caves.

“It’s really important to be respectful of the ancestors and the spirits of the mummies that are housed within the rock shelters, and before you can enter or even look into one of the rock shelters, you’re supposed to explain exactly what you’re going to be doing and then ask for permission,” Sarah explains.

The team would say hello and introduce themselves, explain what they were doing and why, and apologise for disturbing their rest. They would work with local spiritual guides to make offerings to the ancestors, providing them with items such as cigarettes, tobacco and gin.

The team believes the most essential part of their project was respecting and understanding the Kabayan culture so they could equip them with new skills and knowledge to continue caring for their ancestors.

Finding answers

The team partnered with the National Museum of the Philippines to continue the research and has now installed data monitors in seven separate sites.

These data loggers are specifically designed for outdoor temperature and environmental readings.

They will provide data on temperature and humidity at 30-minute intervals for ten months, allowing the team to understand the environment and recognise how it changes over seasons and times.

The loggers have Bluetooth functionality, so the caves don’t need to be disturbed to collect data. Each month, a team member in the Philippines visits the cave sites and downloads the data by remotely connecting to the loggers from within a 30m radius before sending the information back to Melbourne.

Fen says that this data will allow the team to best predict how environmental changes are impacting the mummies and provide insight on how to find practical solutions for their care and preservation in the future.

“At this point, it’s a bit too early to say exactly what those conservation actions will be, but we know that this information will provide a really good basis for us to start to understand why the mummies are deteriorating.”

The post Conserving the Kabayan mummies: from an Australian classroom to the Philippines mountains appeared first on Australian Geographic.

That was when an intact carcass of a male of the species was found on a beach in Otago, New Zealand.

It was discovered by beachgoers who notified New Zealand’s Department of Conservation (DOC), which didn’t realise the significance of the discovery until its staff arrived and saw the 5m-long beaked whale.

After closer inspection and consultation with marine mammal experts the team soon concluded the carcass was that of the extremely rare species.

To appreciate the magnitude of this find, let’s rewind the clock back to the early 1870s. At this time, no one knew the whale existed.

Then, in 1872, an unusual lower jawbone and two tusk teeth were collected from New Zealand’s Pitt Island by naturalist Henry Travers, explains DOC marine mammal expert Anton van Helden.

Two years later, Scottish geologist James Hector used these skeletal remains to describe the species as a strap-toothed whale (Mesoplodon layardii). But in 1874 British zoologist John Gray studied Hector’s description and “decided that it should be a new species and gave it the species name traversii, after Henry Travers,” says Anton.

It wasn’t until 1950 that any evidence of the species surfaced again, when a partial skull was found, again in New Zealand, on White Island. Decades passed until, in 1986, another partial skull was discovered, this time on Chile’s Robinson Crusoe Island. In 2002 a scientific paper was published, confirming “based on comparing the morphology of the skulls, and the DNA of all three known specimens, that they were all the same species,” Anton says.  

Still, no one had seen any more of the animal than a few skeletal remains, so nobody knew what it looked like and it might have already gone extinct. 

In 2010 not one but two of the animals were finally seen in the flesh – albeit dead with parts missing by the time they were found – when a mother and calf stranded in New Zealand’s Bay of Plenty. 

At the time, however, the find was considered unremarkable. Whale strandings are common in New Zealand and it was assumed the whales were Gray’s beaked whales (Mesoplodon grayi), the most common strandees. 

As per national protocol, however, photographs, body measurements and tissue samples were taken before the carcasses were buried on the beach where they were found. DNA sequencing soon matched the mother and calf to the existing samples of spade-toothed whale skeleton in the database. 

Finally, the spade-toothed whale’s physical appearance could begin to be documented. 

“This was the first time the species had been seen with flesh on,” says Anton, “and from which the first tentative description of the colour pattern and external morphology was done.”

After the DNA revealed the significance of the two whale bodies they were exhumed from the sand and are now preserved at Te Papa Tongarewa (Museum of New Zealand). 

In 2017 another partial body washed ashore, in New Zealand’s Gisborne. Again, it was at first mistaken for a Gray’s beaked whale, identified later as a spade-toothed whale using photographs. 

Anton says this specimen – also now in Te Papa Tongarewa’s collection – gave scientists the “first really good idea of what the colour pattern of the animal was and other key external features.”

Fast forward to two weeks ago – July 4 – when the latest spade-toothed whale was found – only the sixth recorded specimen, the third including body tissue, and the first fully intact.  

DOC Coastal Otago operations manager Gabe Davies summarises the magnitude of the find: “Spade-toothed whales are one of the most poorly known large mammalian species of modern times. Since the 1800s, only six samples have ever been documented worldwide, and all but one of these was from New Zealand.”

What do we know about spade-toothed whales?

Everything science currently knows about the spade-toothed whale (Mesoplodon traversii) comes from two partial skulls, a jawbone, a few teeth, and three specimens washed up dead on beaches. 

It’s one of 21 species of beaked whale (family Ziphiidae) and there are only subtle differences – in size, teeth, beaks, and colour – between them all.

It’s thought they spend most of their time at extreme ocean depths, explaining why they are so rarely seen by humans. Another possible reason why they are scantily seen is that there are simply so few of them.

New Zealand seems to be a hotspot for the family with 13 species of beaked whales recorded in waters surrounding the island nation.

Spade-toothed whales are classified as ‘data deficient’ in the New Zealand Threat Classification System.

Next steps

Genetic samples already taken from the body will be processed by the team at University of Auckland’s New Zealand Cetacean Tissue Archive. This DNA will provide official confirmation that the species is indeed a spade-toothed whale.

The whale’s body has since been removed from the beach where it was found and is being preserved in cold storage while the next steps are discussed. 

A body this fresh offers the first opportunity in history for a spade-toothed whale specimen to be dissected.

“From a scientific and conservation point of view, this is huge,” Gabe says. 

But there are many stakeholders to consider. 

DOC is working in partnership with Te Rūnanga ō Ōtākou (the organisation representing the local Mauri peoples of the land on which the whale was found) to make decisions involving the whale’s remains. 

“It is important to ensure appropriate respect for this taoka [sacred/treasured animal] is shown through the shared journey of learning, applying mātauraka Māori [Maori knowledge] as we discover more about this rare species,” says Te Rūnanga ō Ōtakou chair, Nadia Wesley-Smith.

The post The world’s rarest whale has captivated scientists since the 1800s appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Many cobras have tissue-damaging venoms that can’t be treated with current antivenoms. Research has discovered that cheap, readily available blood-thinning medications can be repurposed as antidotes for these venoms.

Using CRISPR gene-editing technology, researchers learned more about how these venoms attack our cells, and found out that a common class of drugs called heparinoids can protect tissue from the venom.

Snakebites are a serious problem

Snake venoms are made up of many different compounds. Generally, they target the heart, nervous system or tissue at the exposure site such as the skin and muscle.

Much snakebite research understandably focuses on the most deadly venoms. As a result, venoms that are less deadly but still cause long-term problems – such as cobra venoms – have received less attention.

In the regions where cobras live, serious snakebites can have devastating effects, such as amputation, leading to life-changing injuries and a loss of livelihood. The World Health Organization has declared snakebite a “Category A” neglected tropical disease and hopes to reduce the burden of snakebites by half by 2030.

Related: Turning toxins to therapies: the wild world of researching venom

The only current treatments for snakebites are antivenoms, which are made by exposing non-human animals to small amounts of the venom and harvesting the antibodies they produce in response.

Antivenoms save lives, but they have several drawbacks. Each one is specific to one or more species of snake, they are prohibitively expensive (when they are available at all), they need cold storage and they must be administered via injection in a hospital.

What’s more, antivenoms can’t prevent local tissue damage. This is mainly because the antibodies that make up antivenoms are too large to reach peripheral tissue, such as a limb.

How cobra venom kills cells

A team from the University of Sydney in Australia, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the United Kingdom and Instituto Clodomiro Picado in Costa Rica set out to look for other options to treat snakebites.

First, researchers wanted to try to understand how these venoms worked, starting with cobras which are found across Africa and South Asia.

They took venom from the African spitting cobra, which is known to cause tissue damage, and performed what is called a whole genome CRISPR screen.

They took a large mixture of human cells and used CRISPR gene-editing technology to disable a different gene from across the whole human genome in each cell. CRISPR technology uses a special enzyme to remove or change specific parts of the DNA in a cell.

Then they exposed all the cells to the cobra venom and looked at which ones survived and which ones died.

Cells that survived must have been missing whatever it is that the venom needs to hurt us, so researchers could quickly identify what these features were.

They found various cobra venoms need particular enzymes to kill human cells. These enzymes are responsible for making long sugar molecules called heparan and heparin sulfate.

Heparan sulfate is found on the surface of human and animal cells. Heparin sulfate is released from our cells when our immune systems respond to a threat.

The importance of these molecules intuitively made sense. Snake venoms have evolved alongside their targets, and heparan and heparin have changed very little throughout evolution. The venoms have therefore hijacked something common to animal physiology to cause damage.

How heparin decoys reduce tissue damage

Heparin has been used as a blood-thinning medication for almost 100 years.

The drug was tested on human cells to see if flooding the system with free heparin could be used as a decoy target for the venom. Remarkably, this worked and the venoms no longer caused cell death, even when the heparin was added to cells after the venom.

Researchers also tested heparin against venoms from distantly related Asian cobras and it had the same protective effect. Injecting a smaller synthetic version of heparin called tinzaparin could reduce tissue damage in mice with an artificial “snakebite”.

To figure out how heparin was blocking the venom, the researchers separated the venom into its major components. They found that heparin inhibits “cytotoxic three-finger toxins”, which are a major cause of tissue injury. Until now there were no drugs known to work against these toxins.

The next step will be to test the effects of heparin in people.

Cheaper, more accessible snakebite treatment

The goal is to make a snakebite treatment device containing heparin-like drugs called heparinoids, which would be similar to the EpiPen adrenaline injectors often carried by people at risk of severe allergic reactions. These devices could be distributed to people who face a high risk of cobra bites.

Heparinoids are already inexpensive essential medicines used to prevent blood clots. The US Food and Drug Administration has approved them for self-administration in humans which may reduce the time required for the lengthy process of getting a drug to market. Heparinoids are also stable at room temperature, meaning the drugs can be more accessible in remote regions and delivered faster in the field.

Related: Australia’s 10 most dangerous snakes

Other studies have also confirmed the usefulness of repurposing drugs for treating snakebites. These drug combinations could herald a new age for snake venom treatment that doesn’t solely rely on costly antivenoms.

CRISPR screening has been previously used to investigate box jellyfish venom and researchers on this study are currently looking at other venoms closer to home from bluebottles to black snakes. The screening technique lets the team uncover a wealth of information about a venom.

It’s early days, but they are finding many venoms rely on overlapping targets to attach to our cells. This research all feeds into the more lofty goal of making universal and broad-acting venom antidotes.

Tian Du is a PhD candidate in venom genomics at the University of Sydney.

Greg Neely is a Professor of functional genomics at the University of Sydney.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Biting back: Australian researchers say century-old drug could revolutionise cobra bite treatment appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Amber acts like a time capsule, capturing tiny animals, plants and even microorganisms from millions of years ago. These fossils – also known as inclusions – can appear astonishingly fresh, preserved just as they were when they died trapped in sticky tree resin.

Australian amber is now helping to understand the biological diversity of ancient Gondwanan environments from 42 million years ago and their connections to today’s Australian forests. From it, we can learn yet more reasons for why we must protect today’s forests.

The unique value of Australian amber

Unlike typical, squashed fossil rock shapes, palaeontologists value amber for its remarkable ability to preserve inclusions in full three dimensions. This means we can study fossil organisms that would otherwise not have been recorded in such detail.

This is especially important considering that around 85 per cent of modern biodiversity comes from arthropods – spiders, flies, beetles, bees and the like. Only 0.3 per cent is represented by the “bony” mammals more commonly found as fossils in rocks.

Overall, only a tiny fraction of all life throughout geologic time has been fossilised. This means we work with a biased fossil record that may not accurately represent past diversity.

Amber provides a unique opportunity to find less common specimens. It helps to reveal the diversity of past ecosystems and to reduce these biases in our understanding of ancient life.

Related: Rare local amber findings offer insight into ancient terrestrial ecosystems

Most amber discoveries come from the Northern Hemisphere in places such as the Baltic region, Spain, China and Myanmar. Australia is one of the rare places in the Southern Hemisphere where scientists can also study organisms trapped in amber.

The most promising site for finding these preserved organisms is a former coal mining area in Victoria. The amber and fossils from this site are estimated to be 42–40 million years old, dating back to the Eocene epoch.

At that time, Australia and Antarctica were still connected as part of the slowly fragmenting supercontinent called Gondwana. Australia had a warm and moist climate, and forests teeming with insects, arachnids and other creatures.

Living fossils

The amber we’re working with has been studied by researchers since 2014. Findings described in 2020 include biting midges, baby spiders, and even a pair of mating flies.

Our latest work reveals more details on the species. We’ve learnt not only where these organisms lived in the past, but also the surprising fact that many of them still exist in Australia’s forests today, albeit in greatly reduced geographic ranges.

This means creatures from ancient Gondwana have persisted for more than 40 million years. Their survival for so long gives even more reason to protect them into the future.

One major breakthrough in our research is based on new advancements at ANSTO’s Australian Synchrotron research facility in Melbourne. Improved resolution and the capability to scan smaller samples with X-rays have greatly improved how we can produce images of organisms trapped in amber. This allows us to create detailed 3D reconstructions, and we can identify the species more easily.

The synchrotron has also made it possible to finally detect inclusions within large, opaque pieces of amber that were hard to examine previously with traditional microscopes.

What have we found in Australian amber?

Some of the new major findings have been a “non-biting” or “feather” midge from the Podonominae insect subfamily. It’s the first fossil record of the genus Austrochlus in the Southern Hemisphere. Even though it was widely distributed globally in the past, it is now restricted to Australia.

With the synchrotron, we revealed not only the specimen’s sex and position in its family tree, but also internal structures of what are potentially wing muscles. Even in amber fossils, that’s a rarity.

A true biting midge that’s still around today known as Austroconops was also found. It’s the first fossil of its kind dating back to the Cenozoic, spanning the last 66 million years. Once widespread, today this midge is only found in Western Australia, again restricted just to our continent.

A wasp from the family Embolemidae, recognised today from all around the world to be a parasite on planthopper nymphs, is another highlight from Australian amber. This group has quite a scarce fossil record, and this is only the second time one has been found in the Southern Hemisphere.

All of these insect fossils are the first of their kind found in Australia. And we’ve only scratched the surface – there are many more yet to be described.

Remarkably, these insects are still around in Australian forests today, tracing their lineage back in time to ancient Gondwana. Without realising it, we exist among living fossils.

Related: Feathered dinosaur tail found in amber

While we know these species were widely distributed in the past, today most of them are found only on this continent. They now face new challenges which threaten their habitats. The threats include climate change, deforestation and urban sprawl.

Protecting these ancient “living fossils” and their environments is essential for the health of our native ecosystems.

Maria Blake is a PhD student at Monash University.

Jeffrey Stilwell is an Associate Professor of Palaeontology of the School of Earth, Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Australian amber reveals our ‘living fossils’ existing for 42 million years appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The biobank is like a “frozen zoo” within the Melbourne Museum that is cryogenically freezing live animal cells in a bid to preserve the genetic diversity of Australia’s unique wildlife. Scientists hope to one day reintroduce this genetic material back into wild populations through cloned lab-grown cells, to help boost a population’s genetic diversity – or even bring a species back from extinction. 

“The idea behind this [the biobank] is being able to preserve cells from all of our endangered species in a living format,” says project lead Professor Andrew Pask, an epigeneticist from The University of Melbourne. “Far down the track…if we have a horrendous bushfire that wipes out a particular species, or so many animals from that population that they’re unhealthy, you could use these cells to bring back the [genetic] variation that occurred in that particular region and rewild those animals once the bush is regenerated.” 

The biobank began collecting genetic material in January 2024, following a $500,000 grant from the Australian Research Council Linkage in 2023. At the time of going to press, they had gathered DNA from upwards of 20 species, including the fat-tailed dunnart, brolga, smoky mouse, malleefowl and dusky antechinus. “We’re kind of opportunistically collecting everything we can,” Andrew says. The biobank aims to cryopreserve the genetic material of more than 100 species over the next three years.

Most of the cells collected are skin cells, which were scraped from an animal’s ear or foot during population surveys or donated from zoos and breeding programs. “At the moment we are doing things with people already out monitoring and catching animals,” Andrew says. “We supply them with tubes, so that when they’ve got the animal, they just do these little skin scrapings or clippings and then drop them into the vial that comes back to the museum.” 

Remarkably, the scientists at the living biobank can culture cells from animals up to a week after an animal has died. Cells extracted from a loggerhead turtle and common dolphin made their way into the collection after washing up dead on a beach, while other cells were sourced from roadkill. 

At the lab, geneticists establish cell lines – a population of cloned cells – from these skin scrapings. Andrew says skin cells are ideal for cloning because of its high cellular turnover. “Because our skin is constantly replacing itself, it grows really fast so it’s a really good way to get…millions of cells that we can then freeze to make sure we never lose that DNA, that uniqueness, from that population again,” he says. The cells are frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at –196°C. This sub-zero temperature puts the cells’ biological processes “on pause” and allows the genetic material to be preserved indefinitely.

Andrew is also the head of the Thylacine Integrated Genomic Restoration Research Laboratory (TIGRR Lab) at The University of Melbourne and is arguably best known for his work on the “de-extinction” of the thylacine. Without access to any living genetic material from a thylacine, Andrew says the bulk of his work at the TIGRR Lab involves engineering cells back into existence. “For the thylacine we never had this foresight – or the technology – to save cells down,” he says. “It’s a very long, slow process [that’s] going to take us years and years and years.” But the frozen biobank means that, should a species become extinct, scientists will have access to a frozen repository of cell lines. “You already have that living cell, you’ve got that intact nucleus, and so it’s just a matter of turning those cells back into an animal,” Andrew says. 

Some skin cells are reprogrammed into stem cells that, in turn, can be differentiated into gametes – sperm and egg cells – and used to create a living animal. But animals can be cloned without this stem cell technology. “You can take just the nucleus from that cell line – so these are just skin cells – and put it into an embryo that you’ve taken the DNA out of, and then you can create a whole other animal from that,” Andrew says, explaining that this was the method used to clone Dolly the sheep in 1997. 

The genetic material preserved in the biobank is an insurance policy against diversity loss at a time when an entire species might be wiped out in an extreme weather event. A single flood or bushfire could render an entire species locally extinct – or shrink a population to such a degree that they’re put on the fast-track to extinction. 

The smoky mouse is one such species. This critically endangered rodent is scattered across south-eastern Australia but is mostly concentrated around the Victoria–New South Wales border. Urbanisation and bushfires have fragmented populations and prompted a major collapse of genetic diversity within the species. “[Smoky mouse populations] were heavily impacted by the 2019–20 Black Summer bushfires in NSW, and the smoke may have been the cause of deaths in the captive breeding program in Canberra,” says Dr Kevin Rowe, Senior Curator of Mammals at Museums Victoria. “In Victoria the populations were mostly spared. There’s a major smoky mouse population in Grampians (Gariwerd) National Park in western Victoria that didn’t suffer from the fire, but they suffered from the fire [in February 2024].” Faced with an uncertain future, the biobank has cryopreserved DNA donated by the University of Canberra’s smoky mouse captive breeding program.  

The biobank also holds genetic material extracted from two broad-toothed rats, which were trapped and released back into the wild after an ear biopsy. These endangered rodents dwell in Australia’s alpine and subalpine regions – and this was the first species to have its cells cryopreserved in Museums Victoria’s collection. “Broad-toothed rats were heavily impacted by the [Black Summer] bushfires, particularly in their northern habitat in the alpine regions,” Kevin says. “In the eastern alpine region we had quite a few sites that were completely scorched earth where they were present.” 

As well as preserving the genetic material of animals teetering on extinction, the biobank holds material from animals seemingly back from the dead. The grassland earless dragon was believed extinct from the 1960s until a small population was discovered during a building survey last winter. Melbourne Zoo has now established a captive breeding program to ensure the future of this species, and has donated cells to the biobank. 

At the time of going to press, 18 of the species preserved in the biobank are native to Australia. Two are non-native but endangered – the Asian elephant and Bornean orangutan – and there’s even one invasive species, the black rat. 

“One of the interesting things about cells is we can use them to preserve genetic diversity in a living form in species, but we can also use it as a tool to potentially control invasive species,” Kevin says. “Our colleagues in the TIGRR Lab are working on growing those cells and making stem cells from them, ultimately to come up with methods for controlling their populations in the wild.”

The post A place of last resort appeared first on Australian Geographic.

But the magnificent tree frog recently discovered by Australian Wildlife Conservancy (AWC) ecologists is anything but normal!

The bright blue individual is living within AWC’s Charnley River-Artesian Range Wildlife Sanctuary, on Wilinggin Country. Incredibly, it was first spotted within just metres of the team’s research station. 

“I was out there at the time and I got a message with a photo of the blue frog from another member of our team, asking what the cool frog was,” says AWC field ecologist Jake Barker. “As soon as I saw the picture, I was pretty excited – it was rare, so I ran down with my own camera.”

“Magnificent tree frogs are already spectacular, they’re very pretty frogs to begin with when they’re green… So to see a blue one rates pretty highly on the list of cool things I’ve seen on this job.

“And we were able to find it a second time, about a week later,” says Jake. “No one’s really looked for it since then, so there’s a decent chance it’s still hanging around the vicinity.”

Why is the frog blue?

The frog’s blue-coloured skin is due to a rare genetic mutation called ‘axanthism’.

“Essentially, green frogs have both blue and yellow pigments in their skin. The pigments combine and that’s why green frogs are green,” Jake explains.

“This mutation basically inhibits the yellow pigments so only the blue ones come through.”

Is this a first?

AWC ecologists believe this may be the first recorded instance of axanthism mutation in a magnificent tree frog. 

Amphibian expert Dr Jodi Rowley adds that axanthism is an extremely rare occurrence in any frog species.

“I’ve seen tens of thousands of frogs over the years, but I’ve only seen one blue frog – and it was nowhere near as spectacular as this magnificent tree frog,” Jodi says.

Related: Why would a green frog be blue?

The post Mutant blue frog excites ecologists appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Most of the time T CrB, which is 3,000 light years away, is much too faint to be seen. But once every 80 years or so, it brightly erupts.

A brand new star suddenly seems to appear, although not for long. Just a few nights later it will have rapidly faded, disappearing back into the darkness.

A burst of life

During the prime of their lives, stars are powered by nuclear fusion reactions deep inside their cores. Most commonly, hydrogen is turned into helium creating enough energy to keep the star stable and shining for billions of years.

But T CrB is well past its prime and is now a stellar remnant known as a white dwarf. Its internal nuclear fire has been quenched, allowing gravity to dramatically compress the dead star.

T CrB also has a stellar companion – a red giant that has puffed up as it enters old age. The white dwarf mops up the swollen red giant’s gas, and this forms what’s known as an accretion disc around the dead star.

The matter keeps piling up on a star that’s already compressed to its limit, forcing a continual rise in pressure and temperature. Conditions become so extreme, they mimic what once would’ve been found inside the star’s core. Its surface ignites in a runaway thermonuclear reaction.

When this happens, the energy released makes T CrB shine 1,500 times brighter than usual. Here on Earth, it briefly appears in the night sky. With this dramatic reset, the star has then expelled the gas and the cycle can begin all over again.

How do we know it’s due?

T CrB is the brightest of a rare class of recurrent novae that repeat within a hundred years – a time scale that allows astronomers to detect their recurrent nature.

Only ten recurrent novae are currently known, although more novae may be recurrent – just on much greater timescales that aren’t as easily tracked.

The earliest known date of T CrB erupting is from the year 1217, based on observations recorded in a medieval monastic chronicle. It’s remarkable that astronomers can now predict its eruptions so precisely as long as the nova follows its usual pattern.

The star’s two most recent eruptions – in 1866 and 1946 – showed the exact same features. About ten years prior to the eruption, T CrB’s brightness increased a little (known as a high state) followed by a short fading or dip about a year out from the explosion.

T CrB entered its high state in 2015 and the pre-eruption dip was spotted in March 2023, setting astronomers on alert. What causes these phenomena are just some of the current mysteries surrounding T CrB.

How you can see it

Start stargazing now! It’s a good idea to get used to seeing Corona Borealis as it is now, so that you get the full impact of the “new” star.

Corona Borealis currently reaches its best observing position (known as a meridian transit) around 8:30pm to 9pm local time across Australia and Aotearoa. The farther north you are located, the higher the constellation will be in the sky.

The nova is expected to be a reasonable brightness (magnitude 2.5): about as bright as Imai (Delta Crucis), the fourth brightest star in the Southern Cross. So it will be easy to see even from a city location, if you know where to look.

There’s not long to observe

We won’t have long once it goes off. The maximum brightness will only last a few hours; within a week T CrB will have faded and you’ll need binoculars to see it.

It almost certainly will be an amateur astronomer that alerts the professional community to the moment when T CrB outbursts.

These dedicated and knowledgeable people routinely monitor stars from their backyards on the chance of “what if” and therefore fill an important gap in night sky observations.

The American Association of Variable Star Observing (AAVSO) has a log of over 270,000 submitted observations on T CrB alone. Amateur astronomers are collaborating here and around the world to continually monitor T CrB for the first signs of eruption.

Hopefully the nova will erupt as expected sometime before October, because after that Corona Borealis leaves our evening sky in the Southern Hemisphere.

Tanya Hill is a Senior Curator in Astronomy at Museums Victoria and Honorary Fellow at University of Melbourne’s Museums Victoria Research Institute.

Amanda Karakas is an Associate Professor at the School of Physics and Astronomy at Monash University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Look up: A once-in-a-lifetime explosion is about to create a ‘new’ star in the sky appeared first on Australian Geographic.

“They [the old people] have been looking after all these tjakura for a long time,” says Cedric Thompson, a Mutitjulu Community Mala Ranger (Anangu rangers who care for Country in Uluru-Kata Tjuta NP). “That’s why it’s for us mob to look after them now.” 

Tjakura is a striking desert reptile species that’s of widespread cultural significance for First Nations people. Belonging to the same family as the better known blue-tongue lizards, tjakura is a skink with a solid body. It reaches 45cm in length and has smooth scales coloured orange-red on its upper body, fading to bright yellow on its under-belly – perfect camouflage against the red desert sands. In some places they can also be grey in colour.

Tjakura is the species’ name in the languages of the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra peoples. In other areas, it’s known as mulyamiji, tjalapa, warrana or nampu. In English, the great desert skink is its common name. 

Celebrated in art, dance and song, tjakura is an important Tjukurrpa (Creation) animal, and was once a food source, said to taste like fish. But because its numbers have been declining, Traditional Owners are now opting to protect the lizard. Occurring almost exclusively on Aboriginal land, tjakura is endemic to Australia, with a natural distribution across a large part of Western Australia and the Northern Territory, and into the north-western corner of South Australia.

It’s a crepuscular species, meaning it’s most active during dusk and dawn. Termites make up the bulk of its diet, but the lizard is also partial to nibbling on beetles, spiders, centipedes and other invertebrates, as well as parts of plants, including bush tomatoes and paper daisies. Tjakura are least active in the middle of the day when the sun beats down on the desert sand.

To escape the heat, it lives underground in extensive communal burrows. It’s also one of few reptiles worldwide that cares for its young. One burrow is home to a family unit, with up to 10 individuals nestled in – a male, female and their young from multiple breeding seasons.

The small above-ground entrances belie the large, cosy home below. Tjakura burrows are more than 1m deep and up to 10m in diameter, with multiple entrances. On the surface is a communal latrine where all the family deposit their faecal pellets – known as scats. If you want to picture the latrine, imagine that someone has spilt a packet of old chocolate bullets on the desert sand.  It’s these scats – also known as kuna in many desert languages – that are helping us to understand more about tjakura. Tjakura have disappeared from many areas, and their population is in decline. 

The key threats to the skink are feral animals and unmanaged bushfires. Feral cats are a menace across Australia’s deserts. “When we look at cat kuna, we find a lot of tjakura scales. You can see them; the skin is still orange,” says Dr Rachel Paltridge, an arid-zone ecologist with the Indigenous Desert Alliance, an Indigenous-led organisation strengthening desert ranger teams to keep Country healthy. 

“Tjakura is endangered, and we have to monitor them because [there are] a lot of cats and foxes here. When you do a dissection of a cat’s stomach you see all the lizards, skinks and dragons, the whole lot, in a cat’s stomach,” explains Leroy Lester, a senior Anangu Traditional Owner and Parks Australia Anangu Engagement Officer.

Unmanaged bushfires also pose a major threat to tjakura. In the past, Traditional Owners carried out regular burns with fine-scale fire mosaics – they burnt small patches of the landscape and left other patches unburnt where animals could seek refuge. But since European colonisation, there are more hot, unmanaged fires – sometimes started by lightning – that sweep across large swathes of the landscape and raze everything in their path. 

When bushfires and ferals combine, tjakura fight a losing battle. Unmanaged bushfires remove the protective cover of plants such as spinifex from around tjakura burrows. Although skinks usually survive the fire, they become easy prey for feral cats and foxes.  

Vital Indigenous knowledge

Tjakura are now confined to a small number of locations. The species is nationally classified as vulnerable to extinction. “This means,” as the skink’s National Recovery Plan explains, “that it is at risk of going extinct in the wild (in the next 100 years) if nothing is done to manage threats.” 

This is where Indigenous rangers are vital. Yes, tjakura are threatened. But the species is also thriving where Indigenous rangers are looking after Country – controlling feral cats and re-establishing traditional fire regimes.

But part of the puzzle is still missing. We don’t have a solid understanding of tjakura numbers, and whether the population is increasing or declining.

And that’s why I’m here, with a wonderfully diverse team made up of Anangu Traditional Owners, Mutitjulu Community Mala Rangers, Indigenous rangers from nearby areas, scientists, Parks Australia Rangers, and school kids from near and far. 

We’re camping in the heart of World Heritage-listed Uluru-Kata Tjuta NP, and each morning we’ll be up before sunrise. It’s already warm at 6.30 and the mercury will rise daily to 41°C for the rest of the week. To say the location is stunning is an understatement. We’re flanked by two of Australia’s most iconic sites: to the east lies Uluru, the sandstone monolith in all its glory, and to the west is Kata Tjuta, with its domes glowing in the morning sun. 

About 30 of us are camping out, and on the first morning, as everyone begins to stir, heads emerge from tents and tarps pitched under a small patch of mulga trees. 

We make cups of tea and coffee and load up on breakfast before we embark on five long days of surveys. From dawn to dusk, we’ll work together to look for tjakura burrows and their latrines, recording important scientific information. We want to know if there are more or fewer active burrows, compared with what the surveys found in 2023.

This extraordinary monitoring program is called Mulyamiji March. Mulyamiji is the Martu name for the skink. And March is the designated month for ranger groups to march across the desert doing their surveys. It’s the largest collaborative threatened-species monitoring program in Australia’s deserts. The ranger groups are spread across 500,000sq.km – seven times the size of Tasmania.

The driving force behind Mulyamiji March is Rachel Paltridge, who is funded by the National Environmental Science Program’s Resilient Landscapes Hub (known as the hub). 

“The exciting thing about this project is that we’re developing a scientifically robust monitoring method that’s based on expert tracking skills,” Rachel says. “With so many rangers involved, all using a consistent method to collect the same information from nearly 100 sites across the desert, we can pool the data to create a really powerful dataset to monitor trends in the national population.”

Understanding the size of the population and how it’s trending over the next 10 years is also a key strategy under the  ‘Indigenous Desert Alliance (2022), Looking after Tjakura, Tjalapa, Mulyamiji, Warrarna, Nampu. A National Recovery Plan for the Great Desert Skink (Liopholis kintorei)’. This is the first Indigenous-led recovery plan in Australia. The Australian government has listed tjakura as a priority species under the 2022–2032 Threatened Species Action Plan, and is supporting ongoing monitoring and recovery efforts.

The Resilient Landscapes Hub provides scientific advice to support work under the recovery plan. For example, it created standardised monitoring methods and a power analysis so information can be accurately compared about tjakura across its range. The first Mulyamiji March was launched here in 2023, involving 13 Indigenous ranger teams from the NT, WA and SA. Together with Traditional Owners, scientists, and land managers, they surveyed 90 sites and found 541 active tjakura burrows.

Reading the signs

So here we are in 2024 and the second year of Mulyamiji March surveys is underway at Uluru-Kata Tjuta NP, a stronghold for the species. After waking up in the desert, we join a convoy of four-wheel-drive troopies to the first survey site, each of which is a 10ha rectangle. We split into a group of men and a group of women, walking up and down the monitoring sites. Tracking skills are needed to find the burrows, and the Indigenous rangers’ expertise is key to the success of this project.

“It’s amazing how much detail people can read in the tracks: the size of animals, what they are doing, which predators are hunting around their burrows,” Rachel says. 

And how do you know who is living underground when you find a burrow? The clue is in the poo. If a latrine has fresh, dark-brown scats, it indicates there are tjakura in the burrow below and the burrow is considered active. The size of the scats also reveals who is below – large scats suggest adults, for example. The rangers enter all of this information, plus photos and other details, into a tablet. This data will be used to monitor how the tjakura population is changing year to year. 

Mulyamiji March is not just about science. It’s also about culture. To celebrate the monitoring program, artists from Walkatjara Art, an Anangu-owned not-for-profit art centre, have made large sculptures and several paintings of tjakura. Other ranger teams visit sacred Creation sites for tjakura to conduct increase ceremonies for this culturally significant species.

The project is also about sharing knowledge. The Tjuwanpa Women Rangers from nearby Hermannsburg (Ntaria) are joining the Mutitjulu Community Mala Rangers this week to learn how to do their own lizard surveys. They are led by senior ranger Sonya Braybon.

“The Uluru and Mala rangers invited us,” Sonya says. “We feel really happy to join them and do some surveys on their sites here. We’ve learnt a lot. It was great to see a live desert skink, the tjakura, and nice to meet the scientist people as well.” 

Mulyamiji March is also about passing knowledge on to the next generation. Troops of school kids and recent school-leavers join us for surveys during the week: some students are from the local Nyangatjatjara College, outside Yulara; other students drive all the way from Warakurna in WA, a 330km journey. 

At first the kids laugh at the idea of measuring kuna, but in no time they’re scouring the spinifex for tjakura burrows and latrines and helping enter data into the tablet.

Importantly, Mulyamiji March is also about having fun. In 2024, there are several competitions between the participating ranger groups. Which group will cover the largest number of survey sites? Which group has the best school participation? Who can capture the best photograph of a tjakura? The stakes are high: the legendary television reporter Barranbinya man Tony Armstrong will present the awards, including the coveted Most Burrows trophy. 

The team effort continues

It’s a full week of monitoring tjakura at Uluru-Kata Tjuta. Each night we drive back to the camp, sharing food and stories, and getting ready for the next day of surveys. In total, we cover 34 sites in the 41°C heat. 

Then, with the Mulyamiji March surveys done at Uluru, the rangers set to work, doing the cat-control activities and mosaic burning that give these skinks a fighting chance. Rachel hits the road, driving to the next monitoring sites, supporting the next team of Indigenous rangers and expert trackers as they march across the desert, searching for tjakuraa. 

With this team effort, along with First Nations knowledge and western science, we’re hoping these skinks will continue to appear at their burrow entrances, warming themselves in the early morning sun for generations to come.

Kate Cranney is the Communications Manager for the National Environmental Science Program’s Resilient Landscapes Hub, which partners with the Indigenous Desert Alliance for Mulyamiji March. Through the hub, researchers ensure that the science behind the survey is robust, so that the data collected can accurately indicate if the tjakura population is increasing or decreasing across the country.

Keeping the desert connected

Brought to you by Indigenous Desert Alliance

The Indigenous Desert Alliance (IDA) is an Indigenous-led organisation strengthening desert ranger teams who work together at landscape-scale to keep Country healthy. Together with its members, including 65 Indigenous ranger teams, the IDA facilitates the largest Indigenous-led and culturally connected conservation network on Earth.

The IDA works to enable a strong and united voice for Indigenous desert rangers, to support strong and sustainable ranger teams, and to ensure the future health of Australia’s precious living deserts.

Learn more about how you can support the IDA’s vital work.

Looking After Tjakuṟa

Rangers across the Australian desert have joined forces to protect the iconic great desert skink ­­– or Tjakuṟa – also known by different Aboriginal language groups as Tjalapa, Mulyamiji, Warrarna, and Nampu.

The great desert skink is a species of cultural significance for Indigenous people, both as an important Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) species and, historically, a favoured food resource. It occurs almost exclusively on Aboriginal land.

Threatened by the combined impacts of unmanaged wildfire and feral cat predation, these iconic lizards have disappeared from many sites where they were formerly known. But they continue to thrive in areas where Indigenous Rangers conduct traditional burning and/or cat management.

The IDA is coordinating the implementation of priority actions in the Great Desert Skink Recovery Plan with support from the Australian Government’s Saving Native Species Program and the National Environmental Science Program’s Resilient Landscapes Hub.

Ranger Teams are supported to record cultural knowledge, conduct surveys, establish monitoring programs, and manage fire and cats around great desert skink sites. A collaborative, simultaneous, tri-state monitoring event called ‘Mulyamiji March’ is conducted annually.

Learn more about the program on the IDA’s website

The post Looking for Tjakuṟa appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Almost 25 years ago, the lure of playing professional football took Jason Ramsamy from northern Queensland to the Northern Hemisphere. But it was the call of Country, and an inherent connection to Australia’s greatest natural wonder, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR), that brought him home.

A leading sports commentator once described Jason as “incredibly versatile”. A professional career that started in a Cairns welding workshop and culminated in the upper echelons of Australian sport, spanning three continents and twice as many job titles, suggests this may be something of an understatement.

Tradesman. Athlete. Coach. Counsellor. Manager. Director. Jason’s jack-of-all-trades resumé is testament not only to mercurial talent, but opportunities taken and a professional life lived well. He’s long since laid down the tools, and despite being a self-confessed late bloomer, his rugby days are also behind him. Today Jason’s professional passion is irrevocably tied to his Indigenous cultural heritage, as he helps the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) work to further integrate modern marine park management with traditional knowledge borne from the world’s oldest continuous living culture.

Image credits: Reef Authority; Braden Smith

“I grew up around the Cairns and Mossman areas in North Queensland where two World Heritage areas meet – Land and Sea Country,” Jason says. “It’s in my blood.” And with ancestral ties to the Eastern Kuku Yalanji people (Jalunji clan) on his maternal side, and paternal connections to Boigu Island (Malu Kiwai) in the top western cluster group of the Torres Strait Islands, Jason’s role as Director of Traditional Use of Marine Resources Agreements (TUMRAs) seems less a vocation than a natural fit.

TUMRAs are legislated, community-based plans for the management of traditional resources, and are vital to the successful co-management of the GBR. “Essentially, in my role, we help facilitate how GBR Traditional Owner (TO) groups work in partnership with the Australian and Queensland governments to manage traditional-use activities and their Sea Country aspirations,” Jason says.

“I’m a hunter and a fisher, but my Country is further north,” he explains. “So for me to exercise my traditional rights and interests here on Gimuy Walaburra Yidinji and Yirrganydji peoples’ Country and the area where I now live, I would seek prior permission from the rightful TOs as a sign of respect.”

Image credits: Reef Authority; Braden Smith

It’s a custom as time honoured as the GBR itself. There are approximately 70 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Traditional Owner groups spread across the GBRMP. All of them share a unique cultural and spiritual affiliation with the GBR, and have done so since time immemorial, caring for their Sea Country through the sustainable use of its resources.

Traditional Owner knowledge is critical to helping preserve and protect Australia’s greatest natural wonder.

“In some of the more remote areas, a lot of the groups still rely heavily on the GBR, be it through fishing and hunting, to provide for their families in a very traditional way,” Jason says. “But there is also a lot more education and awareness around the GBR now, and a lot more opportunity for Traditional Owners, some of whom may have been displaced and dislocated from their Sea Country over time, and have now returned home.

“The beauty of the TUMRA program is we help facilitate that reconnection to Country. I know as a kid we used to hear stories about trading routes, songlines, shell middens and where our ancestors used to hunt and gather, but at the time, I took the Indigenous values and the historical context of it all for granted.

“Today, I see firsthand how important it is to really embrace our history and protect our Indigenous heritage values.”

Image credit: Reef Authority

Thanks to the work of Jason and his predecessors over the past 20 years since the program’s inception, there are now 10 long-term accredited TUMRAs in place, as well as an Indigenous Land Use Agreement, which are helping to preserve Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture, and inform the future management of the GBRMP.

Each Traditional Owner-led TUMRA employs a TUMRA coordinator and has its own committee to represent its respective language group/s and Sea Country area to collectively manage and implement the agreement and traditional use of marine resources.

Management of traditional-use values and Sea Country values is based on both cultural lore and contemporary science, and is also utilised where relevant for broader Sea Country planning and policy development.

Image credits: Reef Authority; Braden Smith

Despite these agreements covering more than 43 per cent of the Marine Park coastline, Jason says it’s not about the metrics, so much as laying the foundation for mobs (TOs) to have a seat at the table with local, state and Commonwealth government agencies. “We also have six Sea Country Planning Agreements in place with new and emerging TO groups, and that’s the most pleasing aspect – that other groups are now expressing their interest in working with the GBRMPA, not only through TUMRAs, but on Sea Country management actions, policy and planning programs,” he says.

And with another mass bleaching currently affecting the GBR (the fifth in just eight years) Jason knows, holistically, that TO knowledge is critical to helping preserve and protect Australia’s greatest natural wonder – now and for future generations.

Image credits: Reef Authority

“The GBR is part of our identity, but it’s under increasing pressure from climate change and other impacts,” he says. “We all have a role to play to ensure the GBR remains in great hands. Ours, and yours.”

This article is brought to you by Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The post Ancient know-how meets a modern challenge appeared first on Australian Geographic.

By Ashley’s own admission, he is only one person in a colony of committed conservationists who have, for decades, been fighting for the koalas of the Mid North Coast of New South Wales. 

“Local conservationists were campaigning to protect koala habitat back in the 1970s,” Ashley says. “But it’s taken 50 years of hard graft, and a recent change in classification of the koala – from vulnerable to endangered – to finally protect the most important koala habitat in the world.” In February 2022, under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999, the iconic marsupial was classified as endangered on Australia’s east coast, with reports revealing up to 62 per cent of NSW’s population had been lost since 2001. Queensland’s population crashed by an estimated 50 per cent over the same period. 

At the time of the classification, conservationists and scientists declared the endangered listing as an imperative turning point for koalas. 

“Koalas have gone from no listing, to being listed as vulnerable, then endangered, within a decade,” said WWF-Australia conservation scientist Dr Stuart Blanch. “That is a shockingly fast decline. The decision [to list koalas as an endangered species] is welcome, but it won’t stop them from sliding towards extinction unless it’s accompanied by stronger laws and landholder incentives to protect their forest homes. Koala numbers have halved in the past 20 years… We must turn this trend around and instead double the number of east-coast koalas by 2050.” On the heels of this change in classification, and perhaps emboldened by it, NSW Labor campaigned for the GKNP in the lead-up to the March 2023 election, which they won. Shortly afterwards, the new government committed $80 million in funding over four years to support the park’s development. 

“I don’t accept that one of our most loved and iconic native species could become extinct here,” said Premier Chris Minns. “By protecting the places these koalas live, and by working closely with all stakeholders, we can ensure we bring these incredible creatures back from the brink.”

By June the government was being urged to fast-track the GKNP, with MPs and environmentalists alike saying state-owned logging operations continue to kill the endangered marsupials across land set down for the park. By September logging was stopped in 106 koala hubs – areas of important habitat identified by the NSW environment department in 2017. The hubs cover just 5 per cent of the state forest that the government is now assessing for potential protection. The reviews are expected to be complete by the final quarter of 2024.

While this was a much-welcomed first step, many believed it didn’t go nearly far enough and called for the government to impose a logging suspension across the entire area of the proposed park. “We need to stop logging the hubs and the compartments that surround them,” said National Parks Association NSW president Dr Grahame Douglas. “We need to stop logging all native forests within the GKNP.”

Ashley concurs. “Koalas don’t just live in isolated hubs. They move. They travel. We know that from the extensive survey work we’ve done. If you protect a hub, but decimate the surrounding forest compartment, you destroy the corridors that koalas, and a raft of native species, use to access other habitat and feed trees.”

As it stands today, the proposed park will include 1760sq.km of state forest and 1400sq.km of existing national parks across five LGAs – Clarence Valley, Coffs Harbour, Bellingen Shire, Nambucca Valley and Kempsey Shire. It will also be a world first – a dedicated koala national park – and will protect about 20 per cent of the state’s wild koala population, 44 per cent of its identified koala hubs and, according to Ashley, it is the best koala habitat in the world, bar none.

Koala land custodians

For years, Uncle Micklo Jarrett has been a fixture in the idyllic country town of Bellingen, a 35km drive south-west of Coffs Harbour. 

With his long, dark dreadlocks and easy smile, he’s hard to miss, and his exuberant welcome sets him apart. “Giinagay. Yaam ngaya Gumbaynggirr ngulungginyay. Yaam nganyundi wajaarr,” he says. “That means welcome. I am a Gumbaynggirr Elder and this is my Country.”

Surrounded by state forest, national park and private landholdings, Bellingen is nestled in the heart of the GKNP. As a Traditional Owner and Elder, Uncle Micklo is keen to be part of the dialogue about the park. “The concept of a GKNP has been around for decades and I come to it as a custodian of the land to support it through my language and storylines, and thousands of generations of Dreaming,” he says. “It’s my job, it’s all Gumbaynggirr mob’s job, to let people know how important it is. Ngiambandi wajaarrbin yarrang jaagi gurraygu – our homelands are sacred to everyone.” 

Uncle Micklo is particularly set on conserving koalas. “Dunggiirr [koalas] are sacred to my people and the landscape of the Gumbaynggirr Nation. They’re vital to our Creation stories, laws and customs, and the Gumbaynggirr identity.”

As well as this, dunggiirr are a widjir (totem) animal for Uncle Micklo. “When dunggiirr are dying it’s like part of my family is dying, you know. We need to help people understand that. We need to help people realise that looking after Country, protecting it, is everyone’s purpose and it will make us all strong.”

Related: New genetic data reveals five distinct koala groups

His point is reiterated by ecologist and tireless eco-warrior Mark Graham when I meet him at Clouds Creek State Forest, 90 minutes drive north-west of Bellingen, the following day. “It’s all Gumbaynggirr Country,” he says, as we gaze over the heavily wooded hills and gullies that roll east to the sea. “And it’s all a place of plenty, on a continental scale.”

Mark explains: “Australia is a place of waxing and waning resource availability, drought to flood, and Gumbaynggirr Country was traditionally seen as a place of last resort – where other nations’ people could come to survive. That’s because the mountains come right to the coast, so there’s always water and an abundance of food, from the forest through to the sea. 

Our mission now is to protect, restore and expand the fabric of life here, to keep the rivers flowing, the rain falling, the forests intact and the animals thriving.” 

Mark’s words hold great resonance because of what has been – bushfires ravaged the region from September to Christmas Eve in 2019 – and what is to come: the state-sanctioned logging of great swathes of Clouds Creek State Forest, home to a host of ancient Gondwana plant species, native hardwoods and endangered animals, including the koala, southern greater glider and glossy black-cockatoo.

A dedicated band of locals beat back the fires, and today this incredibly resilient community is standing together once more to fight a “scourge we deem to be just as destructive, the Forestry Corporation of NSW”. 

Related: Koala sperm banks could future-proof populations

I meet Barry Hunt and Rhona Verrall at the Clouds Creek blockade site, along the Armidale to Grafton road and aptly named Glider Reviver, where you can stop for a chat about the cause as well as a cuppa, a slice of cake, a bunch of freshly picked flowers and even some home-grown vegies. Since January 2024 the duo have turned up at 4am sharp to prevent loggers from entering the native forest and to protect endangered species. Despite the early starts, both are determined to hold strong. 

“We’ve lived here for more than 20 years and over that time have seen logging practices change dramatically,” Barry says. “It used to be a small crew with chainsaws selectively logging, but now it’s massive machinery that rips and tears at the forest and decimates wildlife habitat. It’s apocalyptic and we can’t have it.” 

As if on cue, a logging truck rolls past, hauling a huge, bright-yellow feller buncher – a heavy-duty vehicle with tracks that rotate like an excavator, allowing it to move through the forest while dropping and gathering trees. 

Barry explains: “It has an arm with a chainsaw attachment. The arm grabs hold of the tree around the base, cuts it, then puts it in a pile. The number it can log in a day depends on the slope of the terrain and the density [of trees], but it’s in the hundreds.”

This is not the first time Clouds Creek has been blockaded. According to local activist Meredith Stanton, logging contractors came calling in the late 2000s, despite detailed reports highlighting the decline of koalas in the area during a 10-year period from 1998. “Then, as now, the harvest plans failed to provide adequate protection for koala habitat, so we must [provide it],” Meredith says, resolute. Clouds Creek, which sits within the boundary of the GKNP, is one of many government-owned native forests that are currently available to be harvested for hardwood. Vigilant locals continue to protest logging operations in other state forests within the proposed park and the NSW Environmental Protection Agency has been charged with ensuring that there is no increase in logging in the permitted areas to compensate for the halt to logging within the hubs.

“It’s profoundly distressing to me, to the Gumbaynggirr people, to our community, to realise that the government’s intention is to let loggers in and at some point down the track, maybe a year or 18 months from now, make some form of GKNP after these globally significant habitats have been gutted,” Mark says. “The koala is endangered and in steep decline. The reality is that all industrial logging needs to stop across the GKNP immediately.” 

Related: Unbearable loss: our koalas are endangered

Forest for conservation

Dean Kearney is for the trees. He’s worked for the Forestry Corporation of NSW for more than 25 years, developing a deep understanding of the canopy and the life that lives beneath it. 

As we stand in a slice of state forest north of Coffs Harbour, Dean explains the principles of multi-use forests, where sustainable timber production is just one objective. 

“More than 80 per cent of the NSW public forest estate is permanently dedicated to conservation,” the Manager of Environment and Sustainability says. “And in state forests where timber harvesting is permitted, we also look after hundreds of public recreational areas, are charged with fire management, maintaining roads, tracks and trails, and we support local organisations with recreational and tourism businesses and forest regen[eration] projects. Our harvesting program involves just 1 per cent of state forests each year.”

While there is no dispute over the management of Forestry’s 20,000sq.km of ‘recreational’ forest when it comes to the GKNP, there is over its continued logging of native hardwoods within the proposed park. Dean won’t be drawn on this matter – “That’s a government policy issue so I can’t comment” – but is happy to walk me through the planning that precedes a harvest operation.

“We have an overarching strategic plan, which sets out our sustainable yield limits for the next 100 years, and tactical plans for the next 5–10 years. And on the ground, in a hardwood forest like this, we develop a detailed site plan that will take us anywhere up to one or two years to complete. It includes ecological and cultural surveys, as well as plans for where roads will be maintained and detailed maps of the area.”

I’m particularly interested in the survey work, which, Dean explains, include broad-area habitat searches, acoustic wildlife monitoring and, most recently, thermal drone imaging to help better understand how wildlife populations respond to timber harvesting in state forests over time. 

Whipping out an iPad, he pulls up a topographic map of the forest in which we stand. It’s overlaid with a confusing confection of colours, shapes, symbols and letters that, when zoomed in on and deciphered, show areas set down for tree felling and the survey work accompanying it. The map also includes areas where felling is excluded and individual trees have been identified to be retained, listed by type: “giant”, “dead standing”, “hollow bearing”, “glossy black-cockatoo feed”, “nectar”, “koala browse” and others. 

“This iPad-based electronic mapping is crucial,” Dean says. “We have people out in the field for weeks at a time, undertaking surveys, gathering data on wildlife, identifying habitat trees and assessing forest use. It’s all recorded and used to inform our operations. When our contractors come into the forest to fell trees, they are required to use the same system and data so we can be sure they’re only taking trees that are suitable to be felled for timber and not those that are to be protected,” Dean says. “We conduct regular compliance checks to ensure it’s all being adhered to.” 

According to the Environmental Defenders Office, however, “in the past three years alone, Forestry Corporation has been fined 12 times for illegal logging activities. There are 21 investigations still pending,” a spokesperson says. 

“Forestry Corporation operates under bilateral agreements with the federal government, called ‘regional forest agreements’ (RFAs), which allow logging to bypass normal federal environmental scrutiny. No other industry benefits from such an allowance. Under the current system of RFAs, threatened species such as the koala, greater glider and gang-gang cockatoo are being driven to extinction and the ecosystems and landscapes that we depend on are being destroyed at an astounding rate.”

Iconic koala habitat

Data recording on an iPad may not feature in John Pile and Anne Coyle’s forest surveys, but they’re exhaustive nonetheless. 

Many moons ago the couple bought an over-worked patch of land in Valery, just south of Coffs Harbour, and have spent the ensuing years regenerating it. Today, it’s a green haven where frogs, birds, possums, pademelons, koalas and all manner of other native wildlife find refuge. 

Beyond its boundary lies Pine Creek State Forest. Earmarked for inclusion in the GKNP, it is widely recognised as the most iconic coastal koala habitat in the world. 

As I wander among old-growth tallowwood, brushbox, pink bloodwood, ringwood and flooded gum with a barefoot John on a mizzly Monday, John talks about the logging that has occurred here in the past 30 years. 

“Integrated logging began in the early 1990s,” he says. “It’s the tool used to turn the last of these diverse, moist coastal forests into simple plantation forests [blackbutt]. It reduces biodiversity, dries out the forest and creates a young, even-aged forest that poses an incredible fire risk. Despite our protest to Forestry Corporation NSW at the time, it continued. And we weren’t alone in our protests, with some saw loggers siding with us, stating, ‘Until the conservationists strengthened their attack, there seemed no way of protecting other species.’”

Thanks in no small part to John and Anne’s tireless work to protect the forest, Pine Creek has also been the focus of three major independent scientific studies on koalas over the same three decades. 

The latest, published by renowned wildlife ecologist and environmental scientist Dr Andrew Smith in December 2023, and co-authored by John, says: “The area supports a mosaic of  wet and dry sclerophyll forest and rainforest on undulating topography across a network of moist drainage lines, which provides a high level of protection against intense fire and drought, enabling this region to support one of the largest and most stable koala populations in NSW.

“These findings indicate that the continuation and expansion of high-intensity logging across the remaining parts of the Pine Creek State Forest available for wood production has the potential to eliminate koalas from logged areas, destroy corridor links between remnant koala habitat in Bongil Bongil National Park and nearby upland conservation areas, and reduce the quality and integrity of koala habitat in the surrounding region including the proposed Great Koala National Park.”

Pine Creek is also a critical fire refuge. It escaped the Black Summer bushfires of 2019–20, unlike great swathes of state forest, national park and private landholdings to the north, west and south of it. More than 10,000 koalas across NSW perished during the fires and hundreds of thousands of hectares of prime koala habitat was burnt. It affected more than a third of the proposed park, and killed many hundreds – possibly thousands – of koalas within it. “Everyone loves koalas,” says Anne, “but won’t do what they need – protect their habitat from logging.”

Fighting fire with forest

Nurseryman Barry Hicks knows a thing or two about the 2019–20 fires. He lost everything. Well, almost. Incredibly, his sanity remained intact…and his caravan. “We called it an act of God,” he says, blue eyes twinkling. “It ate up everything in its path but left my van. Ran a circle around it. Can’t make any sense of how or why.”

The septuagenarian lives at Billys Creek on the western Dorrigo Plateau, surrounded by rainforest and native bush. He fought the fires for four months alongside his brother, whose shack is a stone’s throw to the north, and the locals of nearby Dundurrabin village. “I remember seeing a trail of smoke across the valley and thought, ‘Oh no, here we go.’ It didn’t ease up until Christmas Eve, when we finally had good rain. It was the first full night’s sleep we’d had since September.” 

The devastation the fires wrought is writ large across the landscape – charred bones of homes and burnt-out banksia trunks – and in the battle scars the survivors have band-aided with nonstop recovery work. That work includes the nurture of thousands of rainforest and koala feed-tree seedlings in greenhouse tunnels at Barry’s now-rebuilt Blue Rock Nursery. 

“I collect the seeds down in the gully,” he says. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, but the rainforest down there pulled up the fires.”

Barry and I sit in his rebuilt shed (sans walls) chatting about this phenomenon with ecologist Mark Graham. “There’s been a huge body of work done into how and why rainforest retards fire,” Mark says. “The naturally high levels of moisture that give rainforests their name result in rapid breakdown of leaves once they fall from the canopy, so that these areas have much lower fuel loads and are moister than other forests.”

But surface fuels aren’t the whole story – there are shrubs and grasses that also contribute to fire behaviour. “The vegetation is quite dense, but much of the foliage often holds moisture, making them less likely to burn,” Mark continues.

Logging of adjacent native forest, however, creates greater fuel loads, which in turn pushes fire into these protected wet zones and attacks it. According to research by the Bushfire Recovery Project – a joint endeavour between Griffith University and the Australian National University in response to the 2019–20 fires – native forest logging increases the severity at which forests burn, beginning about
10 years after logging and continuing at elevated levels for 30-plus years. The project also found that the likelihood of “crown burn” (when the canopy is burnt) is about 10 per cent in old-growth forest versus 70 per cent in forest logged 15 years ago. 

This drops steeply as the forest continues to age, but remains elevated for decades. This is because logging removes the canopy, resulting in increased drying of the young plants and soil by the sun and wind, and greater wind speeds on days with extreme fire danger. After logging, the young trees that begin to grow create an increased fuel load in the forest; many of those trees will die, becoming dry and highly flammable. 

World-leading forest ecology expert Professor David Lindenmayer AO stated in the bushfire recovery report that the link between fire severity and logging had been found in global studies, such as in the USA and Patagonia, as well as locally in Australia. 

“Logging typically takes only the trunk of the tree; the branches, the bark and the top of the tree are left dead in the forest. While some logging operations (mostly in Victoria) burn the forest after logging, up to 50 per cent of woody fuel can remain after the burn-off.”

Barry’s work with saplings, then, is fundamental to the recovery of the fire-ravished forests across the western plateau, as is his cultivation of koala feed trees, of which hundreds of thousands of acres were decimated (along with their inhabitants) during those darkest of months. “My life’s work is to regenerate the rainforest,” Barry says. “Like a wet blanket, it protects our forests and animals, the koala included, that call the bush around here home.”

Mapping koala hubs

When I meet Jack Nesbitt in the blue gum forest behind his family home in Brierfield, roughly 10km south of Bellingen, his English springer spaniel, Max, is running drills. 

While thunderheads storm across the sky and industrial-sized mosquitoes make quick work of the thin layer of cotton protecting my legs, Max puts his nose to the ground, hunting for scats.

“He’s trained in koalas as well as two species of endangered antechinus: the silver-headed and black-tailed dusky,” Jack says, as the dog tracks left, then right, across the forest floor, back and forth, before pulling up at the base of a towering tree. He steps back and waits. “See how he’s not digging or pawing at the ground?” Jack says. “We don’t want him disturbing the site. We need the scats intact so we can send them to the lab for testing.”

Max is a conservation detection dog and a vital member of Canines for Wildlife, run by Jack, his father Brad Nesbitt and mother Lynn Baker, who are both long-time ecologists.

“We have four scent-detection dogs working on threatened species research, survey and management, as well as invasive species detection and control,” Brad says. “We work all the way up the coast and into south-east Queensland, and inland to New England.”

While Max waits, Jack collects a scat buried beneath leaf litter at the base of the eucalypt. “If this was a live hunt, we’d mark the position using GPS, note the time and date, take photos of the scat and any other identifiable koala signs [such as scratchings on the tree trunk], take it back to the office, label it and put it in the freezer [–20°C or below to slow degradation]. Then we’d send it off for analysis.”

At the lab, an array of testing is undertaken: DNA is extracted, which helps identify individual animals and their sex, and pathogen sampling for Chlamydia pecorum and koala retrovirus. It also provides insight into the overall population health and interrelatedness of groups of koalas.

This information, and Max’s work, Jack says, has been instrumental in helping map koala populations in hubs identified for inclusion in the GKNP. “Genetic analyses can be used to monitor populations over time and provide data on size, structure, diversity and health,” he says. “It also helps investigate movement. For instance, we collected scats from two small patches of remnant bushland in Toormina [a heavily urbanised area just south of Coffs Harbour] and found it was from the same koala.

Looking at the map, you have to wonder how it got from one patch to the other – it’s a bit of a mystery, did it hitch a ride in a car boot? – but goes to show how important backyard trees and wildlife corridors are. While they’re mostly sedentary and stay in one spot, when they need to, these guys can travel.”

Related: Pap not poop: The ‘gift’ a mother koala gives her joey

Meet Mr Koala Head

It’s a steamy Sunday afternoon in Bellingen as the rally gets underway. Posters pasted around town have invited people to join a march across Lavenders Bridge in support of the GKNP. It’s the first of two for March, with more planned for the months beyond. The mood is upbeat as I walk alongside a tall, lean fellow wearing an oversized koala head. We stop for a group photo – handmade banners, gum leaves and toy koalas raised on high – before making our way to a grassy spot on the northern side. Seeking respite from the heat, kids stream in and out of the Bellinger River while others swing from a rope thrown over a tree branch.

Mr Koala Head steps up to the microphone, removes his ‘hat’ and introduces himself. “For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Dr Tim Cadman. I live within the footprint of the proposed park and I, like all of you, have had enough of the carnage.” A respected environmental researcher and academic at Queensland’s Griffith University, Tim is referring to the current clear-fell plantation logging in Tuckers Nob State Forest. A few clicks north of town, it’s also set down for inclusion in the GKNP. “It’s a visionary idea, a national park for koalas,” he continues. “But logging and koalas do not mix. In fact, clear-felling is like a nuclear bomb for wildlife – nothing survives.”

I’d driven past the site on my way into Bellingen today and was confronted by the scene. Where once stood a thriving forest now lies a ravaged landscape. Broken limbs, exposed earth, burnt trees. 

“If the proposed park is to live up to the ‘Great’ in its name, it has to be as big and as well connected as possible. The government has to end its take within the proposed GKNP area. It needs to stop the killing fields.” 

They’re potent words, and as I look around, I see everyone nodding in agreement. They remind me of something the park’s founding father, Ashley Love, told me a week ago: “We have the best koala habitat in the world right here, on our doorstep. We must do everything we can to protect it. The time is now.”

Amen, Ashley. Amen.

The post Clear-cutting koala country appeared first on Australian Geographic.

A tiny animal – with a very tiny brain – goes busily back and forth, carrying branches, feathers, grass and sometimes fur with a very specific plan in mind – a design for a nest.

Birds’ nests can come in all shapes and sizes – from the traditional cup nests to those that hang like pendulums from the branches of trees.

Building a nest can take hours, days, sometimes even weeks. But each design has been refined over millions of years of evolution and is specific to each species.

Nests are the key to the survival of birds, quite literally holding the future of their populations within them.

But how did nest designs become so very different? And will they change as the planet does?

Our research has been looking into these questions using over 700 museum specimens.

The answers will help us understand how future climatic challenges might affect species’ designs and how bird nests, and their occupants, will cope in a changing world.

Domes, pendants and cups

When we think of nests, the first image that usually comes to mind is a cup, a simple structure that works like a vessel to hold eggs and chicks. But with a plethora of designs in the bird world, this vessel can take many shapes.

Some species build enclosed nests, domed structures with a side entrance and a roof.

These nests are rarer than open cups but many perching birds build them, including Australian species like lyrebirds, thornbills, gerygones and fairy-wrens. Building a roof may be a tool to help protect young from higher levels of solar radiation.

Researchers are only just starting to understand the reasons behind the great variation in nest designs. There are broad architectural differences but, as with human houses, there is also variation in many other features.

Some nests have incredibly thick walls, while others you can see right through. Some nests are pendant shaped and elongated, while other nests are wide and flat.

Our team, along with others across the world, are studying why species build nests the specific ways they do, and how we ended up with such a huge variety of nest designs.

To do this, we looked to museums as an incredible, but often overlooked resource, that not only contain collections of animal specimens, but what they build.

Museums across the world, including Australia, have large collections of preserved nests, with some collected centuries ago. In cases where species have disappeared, all we have left are the structures they built.

By taking detailed measurements across collections in the United Kingdom and Germany, we characterised the type of nest built by different species.

For one study, we explored more than 700 nests from 55 perching bird species, and another paper looked at 49 species of tanagers – perching birds from Central and Southern America.

We connected nest diameter, wall thickness, cup depth and opening size with climatic information from the locations where the nests were found.

This allowed us to draw interesting links between certain climatic conditions and specific nest features.

For example, we found that nests constructed in locations with high levels of rain had thinner walls, while nests with thicker walls tended to be from drier environments.

Our findings supported at broad scale what had been reported in a few species – that thinner walls in wet environments would allow nests to dry much faster, so puddles don’t form inside.

Thicker walls on the other hand, might be able to capture and hold humidity better in dry environments, which is especially important to help eggs hatch.

Wind also seems to be an important force driving the evolution of certain nest features, specifically in open-cup nests. Here, we found nests had deeper cups if they were built in environments with higher wind speeds.

This makes sense, because if nests don’t have a roof, then strong winds can dislodge eggs and nestlings.

The higher walls in these nests would also protect eggs from cooling down too quickly – eggs need consistently high temperatures of around 37 °C to develop.

Other studies have also shown that the size of the nest and the amount of lining material also varies depending on the local temperature, with colder conditions favouring nests with more lining that may help keep their contents warm.

Our results support the idea that the link between environment and nest design is more refined than we previously suspected, and that the structures we see now are made for the local conditions where the birds are breeding.

The insights from our study come from very closely related species of birds called tanagers, which suggests that these design alterations could have evolved relatively recently or could even be the product of experience and learning.

A strict design or a general set of instructions?

Our research shows that closely related species can have a large range of variations in their nests, but we also wanted to know what happens within species and populations.

Do all individual birds from the same species use the exact same recipe for construction?

Looking at museum specimens, we found the individuals of some species build very uniform nests; for example, the width of the cup or height of the dome varies by less than two per cent.

But there are some species that show extreme variation in the shape of nests they build, with some building both open-cup and enclosed domed nests within the same species. 

Because similar levels of variation were found in closely related species, this nest building flexibility may be genetically determined, which could mean some groups of species may respond more effectively to global climate change.

It’s interesting to note that flexibility in food foraging behaviour did not appear to correlate with flexibility in nest construction.

Our study was a proof-of-concept that we could find this kind of information from museum nest collections, but we need more research to understand why some species are much more flexible in their designs. 

Avian architects of the future

Nest builders are deeply connected to their environment and their constructions tend to match their local climatic conditions.

We found this was the case across millions of years of evolution, but the obvious question is, what happens if we suddenly change the environments where birds are building their nests?

What happens if the temperatures where they breed become much warmer? And if the materials they build their nests with are not available anymore?

While we don’t yet have these answers and more research is needed, it’s clear that these environmental changes could have dramatic consequences for bird populations.

For example, recent research has already told us that temperatures inside nests are rising and this is leading to a decline in some bird populations.

There is almost no information about if and how quickly birds can adjust their designs. Nor about how effective those changes would be in protecting their offspring.

Our work suggests that not all birds will be able to adjust their designs within the tight time frames that might protect them from a warming climate, so some species might have to respond in ways that don’t involve architectural solutions, like shifting their ranges or breeding at a different time.

Other species might be able to adjust specific design features to decrease temperatures inside their nests or use different types of materials that can offer better insulation.

Next spring, spare some time to appreciate the wonder of nest building if you are lucky enough to see it happening.

The designs that have evolved over millions of years may not stay the same, needing adjustments to cope with the challenges imposed by humanity.

This article was first published on Pursuit. Read the original article.

The post Birds are the ultimate architects, designing their nests for every climate appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Steph has been here since late March following up on research she began in 2023, looking at bacterial diversity in the sand around corals. Although it’s not yet clear what role these life forms might play, they could be critical to coral-reef health, just like healthy gut biomes are known to be important to human wellbeing. When Steph first arrived here this season, she couldn’t wait to show her colleagues Raphael Burkart-Radtke and Ana Olmos-Pin the beauty in the famously untouched waters around OTI. As one of only two “orange” research zones closed to the public within the massive 344,000sq.km marine park that protects much of the GBR, the OTI environment is as close to pristine as you can get. It’s off-limits to tourists, only low-impact research is allowed and there’s virtually no run-off of any sort from operations here. 

Showers are limited to one bucket of fresh water a day per person, collected from rainwater tanks; only reef-friendly sunscreens and soaps are allowed, and toilet facilities are the sustainable long-drop pit variety. Heinrich Breuer, who manages the island with partner Ruby Holmes, even refuses to use potentially polluting antifouling chemicals on the research vessels that service the island. He opts instead to treat them by periodically hauling them out of the water so they can be exposed to natural UV light from the sun, which helps kill any algae growing on the bottom of the boats. 

All this has meant that underwater life around OTI in the 21st century has been flourishing unlike any other study location along the GBR, as it has done for millennia, with very little external influence. The reef here survives as it’s meant to, and has been well studied as it does so for more than 50 years. Even the notorious coral-munching sea star species known as crown-of-thorns (COTS), which is endemic to the GBR but can periodically reach plague proportions, seems to have been naturally kept in check at OTI, without any culling or other extraneous measures. USyd PhD student Matt Clements has been studying the COTS population around the island for the past four years, coming here up to four times a year to do so. “The interesting thing about One Tree is that the COTS population here has been stable and low density for 10-plus years,” Matt explains. “And there’s never been a documented [population] outbreak here, ever, which is interesting.” 

Even when Steph heard from other researchers that seawater temperatures last summer had been the highest recorded at OTI in 50 years, she was hopeful the pristine cay might have been able to hold its own against the bleaching crisis playing out elsewhere on the reef. It couldn’t.

On her first dive on the island this year, Steph was met with widespread signs of death and destruction. “I broke down three times that day,” she recalls. “I was physically hurt seeing what it had done to the reef, seeing the corals like that, some already bleached and white, others fluorescing [a sign of stress in coral]. “It just killed me,” she says. “We do this [research] work because we love the reef and it’s usually beautiful here. This just felt so wrong.” 

Related: The storytellers of the Great Barrier Reef

Widespread devastation

This most recent mass bleaching on the World Heritage- listed GBR, that occurred in 2023–24, is the fifth since 2016. Previous events have hit the northern sections of the reef hard, but sometimes spared southern GBR locations, such as Heron Island, about 20km west of OTI, and Lady Elliot Island, 90km south of OTI, from the worst impacts. This time the impact has been felt right along the GBR’s entire 2300km length. A report released in April by the GBR Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science estimated that up to three-quarters of the 3000 individual reefs in that massive area have been affected to some extent.

Associate Professor Chris Roelfsema, academic director of The University of Queensland’s Heron Island Research Station, has been coming to Heron annually since 1998 and surveying coral cover here using field photographs and satellite imagery since the early 2000s. From 2008 right up until early 2024 he’d actually documented increasing coral cover around the island, which is an 80km ferry ride east of the coal port of Gladstone. Chris had never seen a major bleaching event in the area but knew it was only a matter of time.

“For the last five or six years, every time I left the island I’d wonder what it would look like when I returned,” he says. When higher-than-normal ocean temperatures hit the reef for extended periods from December 2023, he advised Heron researchers to be on high alert, ready to ramp up and expand their usual research projects to gather as much information as possible about the bleaching event that the conditions warned was coming. Still, no-one expected what was to unfold in the waters around Heron last summer.

Heron is not as protected as OTI. But it’s a beautiful island that’s relatively easy to reach and well known for capturing the heart of famed naturalist Sir David Attenborough, who filmed here in 2009.

Dr Caitlin Alinya Lawson, a scientific officer at the research station who’s been coming to Heron since she was an undergraduate, little more than a decade ago, is devastated by what’s happened on the island. 

“There’s no sugar-coating the fact that this is by far the worst that Heron has ever bleached in recorded history, as far as we know, which is terrifying to see and hear about,” she says. “So, yes, there’s no denying that it’s been bad. But reports that refer to Heron as a ‘graveyard’ and that it ‘looks like a bomb went off’, are not true.” And neither are reports claiming the situation is not recoverable. 

“Yes, it was sad, so sad,” Chris agrees with resignation as he recalls the scenes he saw beneath the water on his first day back at the island in 2024. “But I saw more live coral than expected and that means there is hope.” 

Because many corals are “broadcast spawners”, meaning they reproduce externally by sending massive numbers of eggs and sperm into the water column to mix with each other, dead reefs can become reinvigorated and reseeded by the fertilised eggs that float past on currents from surviving coral colonies. That means any glimmer of life on a dead or dying reef is a sign of hope for a future recovery. In fact, research indicates that in good conditions – when temperatures remain at consistently average levels – a reef destroyed by a bleaching event can be making a good comeback within a decade or so.

Chris points out places like Heron are not only crucial as research centres offering clues to how reefs might survive in a warming world, but they’re also important for tourism and education. “People ask me often if I think tourism should stop and I say absolutely not, because tourism is an important way to get ordinary people to truly experience the reef,” Chris says. “You want people to know what’s going on – to see live corals, dead corals and corals in ‘intensive care’. And you want them to see that there are still turtles and manta rays and lots of fish swimming around – that there is still
beauty there.”

Related: A quick guide to help you understand coral bleaching

Signs of stress

To appreciate what happens when a reef bleaches, it’s necessary to first understand that most corals are interconnected networks of tiny animals called polyps. Importantly, the survival of these relies on a complex symbiotic relationship they have with tiny plant-like single-celled algae called zooxanthellae. In hard corals, polyps excrete protective external cup-like skeletons of calcium carbonate in which their soft bodies sit. It’s these “homes” that can survive for millennia – long after the soft-bodied animals that construct them have died – and ultimately build the foundations of massive living reefs, like the GBR. 

Polyps gain a small portion of the nutrition they need to fuel their reef-building capacity by eating tiny animals drifting past in the water, snaring them with stinging cells called nematocysts. But the main source of food for coral polyps is carbohydrates, produced by the zooxanthellae living within their tissues. 

These tiny plants get a safe place to live, and the corals benefit from the relationship by having a steady source of food, which is produced by the zooxanthellae via the process of photosynthesis (as it is in most plants). And photosynthesis, of course, needs sunlight, which is why coral reefs exist mostly in clear shallow waters through which sunlight can penetrate. 

It’s the breakdown in this coral–zooxanthellae relationship that’s at the heart of bleaching events. When seawater temperature rises higher than corals are accustomed to, they become stressed and that brings about a series of tell-tale responses that ultimately see them expelling their zooxanthellae. Perhaps the earliest sign this is likely to occur is an increase in mucus in the water. Corals naturally produce mucus that usually sloughs off as part of a normal process. “When the coral is really stressed, it can produce more mucus,” Steph says, explaining that the water around a heat-stressed reef can be filled with sticky, snot-like material with an unpleasant smell. 

Another sign corals have been stressed by elevated water temperature is that they’ll fluoresce, hence descriptions of coral bleaching sometimes being a deceptively attractive process. “I call it the most beautiful disaster,” Chris says, explaining that fluorescing is a sign that corals are in need of “intensive care”.

If the water temperature continues rising, corals eventually end up expelling their zooxanthellae permanently and that leads to another bizarrely stunning stage of coral ill-health – a bleached reef. But a bleached reef isn’t necessarily a dead reef: if temperatures return to normal, zooxanthellae can re-enter coral tissue and corals can bounce back.

Unfortunately, the temperatures recorded around OTI and elsewhere along the GBR during this most recent event have been so high and persisted for such extended periods of time that there has not only been much bleaching, but also widespread coral death. After they die, reefs quickly become covered in filamentous algae – devoid of the little fish and other life forms that usually live over, under and throughout them – and they can soon begin to look like lifeless wastelands.

Saving what we can

The rigorous long-term management of the GBR as a marine park will be crucial to how well it can bounce back from the recent disaster, and it’s GBRMPA that’s responsible for overseeing that. “I think the challenging part is to be able to see the reef for the coral,” says the authority’s chief scientist, Dr Roger Beeden, alluding to the fact that the reef will survive, even though individual patches of coral might be lost or transformed. “Even when we have these really substantial impacts, we have to look past and see how the reef is faring overall, and I think that’s where there’s some realistic hope.” 

Of course, it’s now undeniable that the world’s reefs – including the GBR – are taking a pounding from climate change. “The IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] reports that, because of their sensitivity to temperature and ocean acidification and the increasing frequency of severe storms, the world’s coral reefs will not fare well as we increasingly go down the path of a changing climate. The impacts we’re seeing now are the steps along the path towards that prognosis,” Roger says. “But I think it’s important to recognise that there is actually a lot of action going on in terms of the mitigation space. Is it as much as many of us would like? Probably not. But at the same time, there is action happening.”

Ultimately, in the long term, saving the GBR comes down to fighting for what we can but living with what we save, because the GBR is already showing signs of transitioning. “I think that’s unquestionable,” Roger says. “But what exactly will that look like over time? There are 450 species of hard corals that build the reef framework, and there’s an inherent adaptability within many of those species.” 

In coming decades it’s likely there’ll be changes in species composition, and changes in the ranges where species occur. Already these sorts of things have begun to play out. Recovery data from previous bleaching events are showing that early recovery on reefs is being driven by fast-growing, often short-lived, species in the genus Acropora – like the opportunistic weedy plant species that are the first to move into a disturbed terrestrial site.

“It’s a bit like early regrowth after bushfires,” Roger says. “And it’s not that those species are in any way better or worse than others, it’s just that we’ll get more of them because we’re having these more frequent disturbances. The future looks quite different from what it has been in the last few decades.”

The approach underpinning GBRMPA’s management of the reef is to keep it as healthy and vibrant as it can be, while the world continues to work at bringing down the atmospheric emissions driving climate change. It’s the same mentality that pervades the many research organisations and non-government conservation bodies working along the reef, and the tourism sector that so often operates beside them.

“There are some very tangible reasons why we have realistic hope,” Roger says. “For example, we’re very fortunate in Australia that we have a strong Protected Area Network [on the GBR]. A third of the marine park has full protection from any kind of extractive use like fishing. And we know that’s deeply important because even though the [GBR] is 3000 individual reefs, they are all connected, and that Finding Nemo story is real in terms of the water-based connections.

“Understanding those connections has also enabled us to target major new coral protection interventions like COTS control that directly supports recovery of reefs following other impacts such as severe tropical cyclones and increasingly frequent coral-bleaching events.” 

Related: What it will take to rescue the Great Barrier Reef

Australia’s stewardship

USyd marine ecologist Dr John Turnbull has been surveying reef communities and structure for more than a decade. The information he’s gathering now will ultimately help show how coral ecosystems respond to the recent bleaching event and that should assist in the management of heat-affected coral habitats in the future. But John is also heavily interested in the concept of stewardship and its influence on the sustainability of marine and coastal ecosystems. It’s clear there’s a lot of institutional stewardship at work to protect the reef, through GBRMPA and the many research organisations committing massive numbers of people and infrastructure to reef research. 

However, John feels that it’s ultimately the stewardship that individual Australians feel for the reef that will be vital to how it survives into the future. “I don’t think people realise how much trouble the reef is in,” John says. “Some probably feel that it’s being overexaggerated. But the people experiencing it firsthand don’t feel that. None of us feel that it’s being overblown. In fact, we’re shocked at what we’re seeing.”

It’s important, he believes, that the wider Australian population understands this, that the perilous impact climate change is having on the GBR is very real and that it’s not just the coral that is being affected, but also the other organisms that rely on coral structures for food or shelter. “The flow-on effects for the wider marine community are massive,” John notes. “And I don’t think people have made that connection yet.”

As a researcher, he and his colleagues are refusing to give up on the GBR and they hope that message will inspire the wider Australian – even global – community. Scientists, for example, each spend weeks at a time on reef-based research stations, away from friends and family, often conducting fieldwork for more than eight hours a day and then processing results well into each night. And many hundreds of them are doing that, up and down the GBR.

“To me, part of the real positive story here is we [researchers] get up every day and, even though we know we’re going to go out there and see horrible things, we still go out and do it, because we’re trying to lay down a record of what’s happening,” John says. 

He explains that it’s not just a record for the sake of being a record, but to help understand what’s happening so that it can inform managerial actions. John is optimistic that the same sense of commitment and positivity can be embraced by the broader population and that Australians come to appreciate this is a problem that is country-wide – a case of national decline. “I think in terms of our identity; we Australians see ourselves as outdoor people – as coastal, or beach, or bush people,” he says, explaining that the future of the reef is personal for a lot of Australians. “Even though the vast majority of us live in cities, we still feel part of us is the bush and the reef and the beach. I think – unlike other things where we might say, ‘Well, that’s not my problem’ – we do feel like this is our problem. We do feel like we have a sense of ownership and responsibility for it. And while I’m studying the pure ecological side now, I always try to have a social ear to what’s happening, and I see people suddenly waking up to the fact that the reef is in peril.

“So, yes, we do feel the need to not lose it on our watch. It’s the same with other remote places, like Antarctica. People really care about it. They’d hate to think that it all melted on our watch and would see that as a personal failure, even though they may never actually go there.” 

And that, John says, is how he believes most Australians feel about the GBR.

Related: Little lives lost

The post A beautiful disaster appeared first on Australian Geographic.

But in 1967 Donald Forbes, Secretary of the Cairns District Cane Growers’ Executive, applied for a lease to mine coral on Ellison Reef, south-east of Innisfail, for agricultural lime, claiming Ellison’s corals were “dead” after a cyclone. Concerned the application might set a precedent for future mining on the reef, John Büsst and poet Judith Wright of the WPSQ, together with the QLS, successfully opposed the mining proposal through the Innisfail Mining Warden’s Court. 

However, the conservation societies didn’t have the resources to fight every mining application in court, so, soon after their Innisfail success, they launched a state-wide Save the Reef campaign, calling on the federal government to take control of the area and declare it a marine park. 

During this time, the Queensland government, under the leadership of Joh Bjelke-Petersen, was determined to establish an offshore petroleum industry and in 1968 opened up the state’s entire coastline to oil exploration. Within two years, six exploration holes had been drilled by different companies along the GBR. 

The turning point for conservationists came when an Australian–Japanese joint venture, Japex Ltd, announced it would begin drilling in February 1970 at Repulse Bay, south of the Whitsunday Passage. The Queensland Trades and Labor Council threw its support behind a wider reef conservation campaign by black-banning all reef mining and drilling activities, preventing trade unionists from providing goods or services necessary for the Whitsunday drilling project to continue. Public opinion against mining on the reef intensified after a series of international disasters involving oil tankers from 1967 to 1970. 

In January 1969 the Queensland and federal governments launched a joint inquiry to look at the “possibility” of oil drilling causing damage to the reef, leading to the establishment of a royal commission the following year. The then prime minister, John Gorton, supported a mining moratorium, but a lack of clarity about state–federal jurisdiction over offshore resources meant he was reluctant to override the petroleum exploration leases issued by the Queensland government. Gough Whitlam, who was leader of the Opposition at the time, believed the federal government already had the constitutional right to protect the reef. When Whitlam’s Labor government was elected on 5 December 1972, it moved quickly to enact the Sea and Submerged Lands Act 1973. This legislation provided the federal government sovereignty over territorial seas and resources to the extent of the continental shelf.

In November 1974 Whitlam announced the Australian Government would create a marine park to protect the reef from oil drilling, leading to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Act 1975. The first area of the marine park – the Capricornia Section – was proclaimed in 1979 and covered 12,000sq.km. Today, the marine park has an area of 344,400sq.km. and coral reefs make up about 7 per cent of the area. The park’s other ecosystems include shallow seagrass, mangroves, sand, and algal and sponge gardens. Areas within the park are zoned for certain activities and some are open to general use.

In 1981 the GBR was inscribed on the World Heritage List as “one of the richest and most complex complex natural ecosystems on earth” and an area of “superlative natural beauty”.

‘Protecting the Great Barrier Reef’ forms part of the National Museum of Australia’s Defining Moments in Australian History project.

The post Defining Moments in Australian History: Protecting the Great Barrier Reef appeared first on Australian Geographic.

From February 2023 to April 2024, significant coral bleaching occurred in at least 53 countries. In 2022, bleaching affected 90 per cent of coral reefs assessed at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, one of the world’s largest coral reef ecosystems.

Despite bleaching events and rising sea temperatures causing widespread decline, a glimmer of hope emerges from an unexpected source — the remote Kimberley coast of Western Australia.

The Kimberley region is known for its landscapes, gorges and waterfalls. These reefs located along the vast 12,000km Kimberley coastline contain a hidden treasure: a network of pristine intertidal reefs, teeming with life including dugongs, sharks, stingrays and seabirds.

It is home to the Montgomery Reef, the world’s largest inshore reef with a total area of 400 square kilometres, which rises from the ocean floor at low tide, creating cascading waterfalls and revealing a vibrant underwater ecosystem.

Coral cover at the Kimberley region averages about 23 per cent, similar to what is recorded on the Great Barrier Reef.

More than 225 species of coral have been documented — other intertidal reefs around the world usually have just a handful.

Taxonomic studies have revealed many species recorded in the Kimberley are known only from Indonesia and they do not occur anywhere else in Australia, hinting that the corals that now live in northwest Australia may be closely related to corals in Indonesia, although this remains to be tested with population genetic studies.

What is most remarkable about these corals is their resilience.

Taking on a harsh climate

Unlike reefs elsewhere, Kimberley corals thrive under harsh conditions. The reefs endure hours of exposure at low tide to scorching sun and intense UV light. Even a major global mass bleaching in 2016 failed to trigger mass mortality, while neighbouring reefs suffered devastating losses.

Scientists believe the answer lies in the corals’ unique genetic makeup.

Recent studies have identified genes in Kimberley corals that are under evolutionary pressure, suggesting an adaptation process. These naturally resilient corals may hold the key to understanding how coral reefs can survive a changing climate.

An examination of the whole genomes of Kimberley corals has found genes under recent selective pressure providing evidence that the corals are actively evolving in response to changes in the environment. While the exact function of these genes is not known, it is likely their increased prevalence helps corals survive extreme environmental conditions.

Researchers discovered that less tolerant corals have historically been eliminated from the Kimberley coast, resulting in a collection of locally adapted corals with the genetic make-up to withstand current climate stress.

Coral of the future

Further research is required to understand how Kimberley corals have developed higher thermal thresholds. However, these corals offer significant opportunities to enhance our knowledge of coral adaptation.

Despite their potential, the vast diversity of naturally thermally tolerant Kimberley corals has been largely overlooked in the coral adaptation narrative.

Related: Tough Aussie corals thrive under pressure

These corals serve as a natural laboratory to study how diverse corals have adapted to climate change and to uncover the nature of these beneficial adaptations.

Integrating Kimberley corals into the broader coral adaptation discourse is essential, as they offer evidence that corals can adapt to environmental pressures.

Associate Professor Zoe Richards is a coral taxonomist at Curtin University, Australia whose research revolves around coral biodiversity and how best to monitor and protect it. Working in the areas of systematics, phylogenetics, population genetics, ecology and conservation biology, she has conducted research on coral reefs across the globe for over 25 years. She is also curator of marine invertebrate zoology at the Western Australian Museum.

This article was originally published under Creative Commons by 360info™.

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“The first time I met the ANU Solar Racing team was on a cold, wet Friday night in a Canberra campus shed, about six months before the race, and I was instantly blown away,” Thomas told us. “It looked like a scene from the TV series Thunderbirds. Everybody had a notepad, or a computer. There were whiteboards and all sorts of equipment, and there was a flurry of activity around the partially disassembled solar car.

“Next thing I was on the side of the Stuart Highway somewhere south of Alice Springs, it was well past curfew and the Japanese team was whispering. The lid of their solar car was open and facing the red ball of the sun that was hanging in a thick smoke haze just above the western horizon. To me it seemed futile, but to them every last scrap of light mattered. It felt wrong to have my shutter clicking – like I was interrupting. But it had to be done. They were so absorbed in sucking every last bit of energy before dark that the flies didn’t bother them and neither did I. Happy to get away with a few shots, I got a sense of how serious this event was.

“Next morning the Dutch team had their cells pointed eastwards well before sun-up. The only sound was the Barrow Creek generator – the irony was palpable. I was hissed at when I walked across the front of their car as my shadow briefly glided over their solar panels. It was moments like these that made you aware that, for the teams, every single photon counted – and I loved witnessing that obsession. It’s precisely those times that make my job so rewarding.”

Read the story featuring Thomas’ photographs:

Related: Chasing the Sun

The post Notes from the field: ‘I loved witnessing that obsession’ appeared first on Australian Geographic.

If just one species can shift the equivalent mass of the Great Sphinx of Giza each year – as was recently discovered by a study conducted by the University of Newcastle – then the scale of impact that these species are having collectively is nearly unfathomable.

The study focused on the estuary stingray (Hemitrygon fluviorum), which is well known as providing important ecosystem services to the estuaries it inhabits, but the study lead, PhD student Molly Grew, and her team wanted to know just how much of an effect the rays were having.

“When rays are feeding, they use their pectoral fins to push the sand in and out so they can excavate their food,” explains Molly.

“They’re also moving sand when they’re resting – they kind of shimmy down and hide themselves in the sand. We know that this turning over of the sediment helps with nutrient cycling, oxygen penetration and other ecosystem services, but we wanted to put a number on it.”

Molly’s team used drone imagery to survey a 1400sq.m area of the Brisbane Water estuary, near Gosford on the NSW coast, over the period of a week to look at the impacts of this ray behaviour.

They then extrapolated the data using high-resolution aerial imagery of the estuary to identify other ray feeding areas, which covered a 69,000sq.m area.

“We used special software to analyse the drone images, which gave us the mass of sand removed from ray feeding pits. Then, by using the aerial images, we could work out the mass of sand being moved per day, week and year in the identified ray feeding areas within the estuary,” Molly says.

What the team found was…monumental.

“Over a year, we found that they turned over more than 21,000 tonnes of sand, which is actually a greater mass than the Great Sphinx of Giza! It’s an insane amount,” says Molly.

“It’s so important that we’re managing how we interact with these species, and what we do around different estuaries and ecosystems. We need to be protecting those individuals and protecting their environment.”

Ecosystem engineers

Ecologists often refer to environment-sculpting species as ‘ecosystem engineers’. Though many species help to maintain, and ensure balance, in their ecosystem, it’s startling how much influence a single species can sometimes have on their surroundings. The rays in Brisbane Water ‘engineer’ an environment where other species can thrive, and without their machination, that delicate system could fall apart.

“When you lose ecosystem engineers, you’re also losing their ecosystem services. If the sand’s not getting turned over, the sediments become anoxic and the small animals living in the sand die out. That’s a bigger problem up the food chain because important fish species eat those little creatures,” says Molly.

Unfortunately, this loss is exactly what Molly is concerned might happen in Brisbane Water.

Estuary stingrays are often caught as bycatch in commercial fishing, but the main threat to many coastal ray species comes from coastal developments and commercial infrastructure that often destroy critical stingray habitat.

Pressed on all sides, the numbers of estuary stingrays have been steadily declining for decades, and they’re now classified as near threatened.

“When you lose important habitats like mangroves or seagrasses, you also lose the fish living in those habitats. As suitable spaces are getting smaller and smaller, there aren’t as many individuals that can live in them,” says Molly.

Threatened with extinction

As it stands, 30 per cent of all ray species are near threatened with extinction, and 19.9 per cent are listed in a threatened IUCN red-list category. Efforts are being made to help conserve stingray populations, but their numbers have continued to decline all over the world. Often, conservation endeavours are stymied by a simple lack of information.

Related: Stingrays: the misunderstood creatures of the sea

“We hardly know anything about any estuarine elasmobranch [sharks and rays]. Unless they’re one of the big, charismatic species, very little research has been done”, says Molly.

“We need to find out so much more about them – where they hang out, what they eat, where they go. If we can provide more information to estuary managers, that would go a long way to help conserve stingray numbers.”

One species can make all the difference to the health and wellbeing of an environment, but we first need to act and ensure those ecosystems builders are still around to do so.

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Basically, it’s a ball of rock enveloped in water, which is in the form of ice unless it’s within the “habitable zone” of its parent star – in which case it becomes liquid water.

Earth holds that privileged position in our solar system, but further out, ice predominates, with the subtle twist that internal heating from beneath the rocky surface can melt the lower levels of the ice mantle to create a sub-ice ocean. 

Perhaps the best-known examples of this structure are Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus. 

Europa, with a diameter of 3122km, is six times the size of Enceladus, but they both have smooth, icy surfaces with prominent fractures and few craters. Their surfaces are kept fresh by fountains of ice crystals erupting from the fractures.

In the case of Enceladus, the ice-plumes have been sampled directly by the extraordinarily productive Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017.

Now that cohort of ocean worlds may have been joined by an unexpected newcomer.

With a heavily cratered surface, Saturn’s small moon Mimas could hardly appear more different from a conventional ice-world.

One very large crater, Herschel, gives rise to Mimas’s nickname – “Death Star”– because it resembles the fictional space station in Star Wars.

But it’s the subtleties of Mimas’s orbit and rotation that led an international team of astronomers based at the Paris Observatory to conclude that a large volume of liquid water exists some 20–30km beneath the icy surface. 

If that’s the case, why hasn’t the pressure of the ice forced water through cracks to erupt as ice geysers, as in the case of Enceladus and Europa?

Further analysis of Mimas’s orbit led researchers to conclude that its ocean is young, perhaps less than 25 million years old.

Moreover, it’s still growing upwards, with the likelihood it will eventually crack the surface ice and allow geysers to erupt through.

This will coat it with a fresh layer of ice and smooth its pockmarked surface to look more like Enceladus or Europa. 

The post What is an ‘ocean world’? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Garnet is rare in beach sand, as it is destroyed by prolonged exposure to the waves and currents of the ocean. If we find large amounts of garnet in beach sand, it means there must be a local source of garnet-bearing rock. But where is this rock?

The hunt for the source of South Australia’s pink sand took us thousands of kilometres and half a billion years back in time, to a previously undiscovered mountain range we believe is now buried deep beneath the Antarctic ice sheet.

A local source?

Geologists get excited when we find garnet in beach sand or other sediments, because these minerals grow deep in Earth’s crust, in the same kind of conditions in which diamonds are formed.

One way diamonds or garnets can reach the surface is via carrot-shaped volcanic structures called kimberlite pipes. There are kimberlites (and diamonds) to be found in South Australia – at Eurelia, for example. However, these deposits are far from the coast, are not very abundant, and are only around 170-190 million years old – so they are unlikely to be the source of our beach garnets.

Another way garnet can reach the surface is via prolonged erosion.

Garnet typically forms in greater volumes in places where the crust is thick, such as under mountains. As the mountains erode, the garnet may be revealed as a record of the former mountain belt.

So another possible origin for the beach garnets is the erosion of the Adelaide Fold Belt. This mountain belt, which stretched north from Adelaide for hundreds of kilometres, developed between 514-490 million years ago.

A third possible source is the Gawler Craton, a huge slab of ancient rock beneath South Australia with outcrops in the Adelaide Fold Belt. The Gawler Craton contains plenty of garnet, which formed in several episodes between 3.3-1.4 billion years ago.

To find the source of our beach sand garnets, we set out to find their ages. Very old garnets could be from the Gawler Craton, while younger ones would have the Adelaide Fold Belt as a more likely origin.

A timing mismatch

We analysed several hundred grains of coastal garnet, and found the majority of them formed around 590 million years ago. Far from answering our questions, this result only raised more.

The beach sand garnets were far too young to have come from the Gawler Craton, but too old to have come from the eroding Adelaide Fold Belt. In fact, this time around 590 million years ago is thought to have been a tectonically quiet period in the region, where we would not expect garnet to grow.

Our dating results effectively ruled out a local source for the garnets. So what was left?

Long-distance travellers

If the garnets did not come from a local source, we can say two things about them. First, they must have travelled in a way that would not grind them to smithereens. Second, they must have been stored locally in a protected environment before finding their way onto the beaches.

A possible solution that meets both these criteria can be found at Hallet Cove Conservation Park, located on the South Australian coast around 20km south of Adelaide.

Here we find exposed sedimentary rocks that were formed around 280 million years ago, during a very icy phase of Earth’s history. The ice is important, because glaciers and icebergs can transport large volumes of rock over long distances without damaging their internal structure.

Furthermore, garnets found in glacial sediments on Kangaroo Island, which were deposited around the same time as the Hallet Cove sediments, were dated to around 590 million years as well. The garnets were not born in these deposits, but were transported into them by ice flow.

A former land bridge

So, if the beach garnets were stored in sedimentary glacial deposits along the South Australian coast since the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age, before being washed onto the shore, where did they come from originally?

During the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age around 280 million years ago, Australia was connected to Antarctica in a large landmass called Gondwana, covered by a massive ice sheet.

Reconstructions of ice flow at this time suggest glaciers would have brought ice northwest from what are now the Transantarctic Mountains in East Antarctica.

The Transantarctic Mountains are the expression of an older mountain belt, the Ross Orogen, which started developing around 550 million years ago but was not experiencing any peak garnet-forming conditions until around 520 million years ago – 60 million years after the garnet in the pink sands. So we are getting warmer, but the Transantarctic Mountains are not a suitable source either.

Related: How an Australian lake turned bubble-gum pink

A hidden treasure

There is one outcrop of rock in East Antarctica where garnets of the right age have been found, near the Skelton Glacier in Southern Victoria Land. However, such a small outcrop could not have produced the large volume of garnet we see on Australian shores.

This outcrop sits at the edge of a colossal area of some 2 million sq.km buried beneath a thick ice sheet. We postulate that this area contains abundant garnet that grew in an unknown mountain belt around 590 million years ago.

It is currently not possible to sample the rock under this ice sheet to confirm our theory. But it is conceivable that millions of years of ice transport eroded the bedrock beneath, and transported the ground-up rock – including garnets – northeastwards towards the area that has now split into the coastlines of Antarctica and Australia.

The transported rock was then delivered to the South Australian coast some 280 million years ago and stored in sedimentary deposits such as Hallet Cove. Here it sat undisturbed until erosion eventually released the garnets into the sea – and then, finally, onto South Australia’s beaches.

Stijn Glorie is an Associate Professor of Geology at the University of Adelaide; Jack Mulder is a Lecturer in Geology at the University of Adelaide, and Sharmaine Verhaert is a PhD Candidate in Geology at the University of Adelaide.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Thousands of animals have met their end after tumbling into the caves’ concealed entrances and becoming trapped. Unable to climb out, they perished and their skeletons have mingled with those of cave-dwelling animals dead from natural causes, and bones picked clean by predators and scavengers. 

“The caves at Naracoorte have been accumulating animal remains for the best part of the last 500,000 years, more or less continually, so you’ve got a record for vertebrate life within one place that spans the last half-million years,” says palaeontologist Professor Gavin Prideaux from SA’s Flinders University. “A lot of really significant climatic changes occurred over that time: there were the glacial–interglacial cycles, which are the comings and goings of ice ages, so you can see how a really diverse fauna responded to that glacial–interglacial cycling…and what the environment was like at all these successive time periods.”

About 120 animal species are represented in Naracoorte’s fossil and bone deposits, including wallabies, possums, bats, lace monitors, quolls, bettongs, owls, mice and more. “When you look at the Naracoorte fossil assemblages, most of the species that are preserved there are still around now,” Gavin says. “But there’s a whole bunch…[of] larger species – what we’d call megafauna – that aren’t.”

Related: Marsupial lions, enormous kangaroos and giant monitor lizards: treasures of the Naracoorte Caves

These megafauna fossils are the crown jewels of Naracoorte, and a major drawcard for tourists. They include: Thylacoleo carnifex, the leopard-sized “marsupial lion” that was the largest-known mammalian carnivore to ever prowl Australian ecosystems; Procoptodon goliah, a flat-faced kangaroo that stood 2m tall; modern wombats’ evolutionary relative, Zygomaturus, a hippopotamus-like marsupial herbivore that weighed 500kg; and a 5m-long constrictor snake, Wonambi naracoortensis. Thylacine and Tasmanian devil remains have also been found inside the caves. Collectively, these fossils provide a perspective on the diversity of extinct animal forms known as megafauna. 

This ancient and mostly oversized assemblage became extinct 60,000–40,000 years ago. Whatever caused this extinction event remains a hot topic in scientific circles; many researchers are hardline advocates that humans overhunted these animals to extinction, while others blame climate. It was possibly a mix of the two. 

“It’s really hard to pull apart what’s likely to be a human-influenced change versus a climatically influenced change, because we know [both] of those factors can drive biotic change,” Gavin explains. “That record prior to 65,000 years ago is super critical. It gives us a baseline that shows how fauna and vegetation respond to climatic change when there are no humans on the scene. Once humans are on the scene and we see evidence of change in the record, we’re better able to decipher what’s likely a human impact versus a climate impact.”

The megafaunal extinction debate looms disproportionately large among scientists; Gavin says it’s “sucking up so much oxygen out of a whole area of research”. Instead, he is more fascinated by the animals themselves. He wants to understand how Australian ecosystems were structured before the arrival of humans 65,000 years ago, and piece together the evolutionary record of these mammals that were biologically distinct from the rest of the world.

“Australia is a unique experiment in mammal evolution because we have all these mammals here that evolved in isolation for 30 million years,” he says. “It’s like this independent experiment; some of them evolved into niches that were somewhat similar to placental mammals elsewhere, whereas others were just doing their own thing.” 

There’s still a lot we don’t know about Australia’s megafauna: their diets, population sizes, distribution and ecological roles – alongside the tantalising certainty there are more species out there, waiting to be discovered. “We can get the data [to] work out how big they were, what they ate, how they moved and how far they roamed across the landscape. All that information is attainable – but we don’t have it. So I’ve become sort of more interested in that, rather than the bloody extinction debate,” Gavin says.

“Believe it or not, the current tally is about 73 species of megafauna in the Pleistocene that aren’t any longer here. It’s like going to Africa now and imagining that, suddenly, all the wildebeest, all the zebras, all the elephants and all the giraffes, everything, just disappeared. Their loss from the ecosystem would have a massive environmental impact.”

Modern relevance in a warming world

Naracoorte’s animal fossils and bone deposits allow palaeontologists to peel back layers of time and glimpse into prehistoric environments. Its plant fossils are equally revealing. Scientists can analyse pollen and charcoal deposits stored inside the cave to figure out the types of plants that have grown in the area since the Pleistocene. “Different types of plants have differently shaped pollen, so by studying fossil pollen you can reconstruct the vegetation,” Gavin says. “When you’ve got that, along with animal remains, you get a much better sense of the structure of ecosystems at particular slices of time.” 

Scientists can pair this with other geochemical records, such as stalagmites and stalactites, to understand past climate change. Researchers from The University of Melbourne and The University of Adelaide recently examined rainwater stored inside the caves’ 350,000-year-old stalagmites and stalactites, using uranium–lead dating to determine their age. Their findings, published in the journal Nature in February, revealed that Australia’s ice ages received more rainfall than previously thought, suggesting the continent’s glacial periods were more hospitable for plants and animals compared with those in the Northern Hemisphere.

At a time of global warming, these prehistoric climate data have modern relevance. Naracoorte’s ancient fossils and geochemical records provide insights into the ways animals and plants have responded to past climate change – and that might offer clues for the future.

“If we’re trying to make inferences about current global climate change and how that will affect our faunas, we can’t reliably extrapolate [ecological data] from five years or 10 years or 20 years or 50 years ago because it’s not long enough to make a decent inference,” Gavin says. “But that’s where records like those of the Naracoorte caves are really important for understanding what’s likely to happen if the temperature keeps increasing, and what’s going to happen in 100 years, or 500 years, or 1000 years.” 

For now, excavations continue inside the caves. Only four of Naracoorte Caves National Park’s 28 known caves are open; the rest are put aside for scientific research. “It’s pretty exciting because we’re discovering new things all the time, whether that’s in the lab or in the museum, or in the field. And it captures people’s attention,” Gavin says. “People are interested in palaentology because it expands their perspective on things and makes them realise that there’s a big picture out there. We certainly get so focused on our own little part of the world, sometimes it’s nice to take a step back and think about the bigger picture.”

The post The chronicles of Naracoorte appeared first on Australian Geographic.

A flock of yellow-tailed black-cockatoos glides lazily overhead, screaming their pterodactyl calls as a brown goshawk drifts across the cloudy sky. From somewhere in the dense wet sclerophyll forest nearby comes the whip-crack shriek of a lyrebird. 

And yes, his surname hints to a profound legacy. His great-great-grandfather was Charles Darwin, the British naturalist who, in 1831 while in his early 20s, set sail aboard HMS Beagle on its mission to chart South America’s coastline. On the voyage Charles collected a dazzling array of fossils, specimens, data and thoughts about how the extraordinary diversity of life he saw on his travels fitted together. 

The result of his analysis was a theory that evolution by natural selection – survival of the “fittest” – was the driving force behind the diversity of life on Earth, from bivalve molluscs to finches, and that all this wonderfully rich, vibrant diversity stemmed from a single common ancestor. It was such a profound scientific theory, backed by the reams of evidence he’d collected, that it made him one of the most famous scientists in history. His remains are interred in Westminster Abbey, alongside those of Isaac Newton.

The move to Sydney

Back in the bushy urban fringe of Sydney, Chris wrestles with a particularly stubborn weed, but takes care to preserve the native seedling just next to it – a sort of unnatural selection in which the weed’s superior fitness is no match for a determined gardener.

It’s a long way from the manicured grounds of the Georgian manor in Kent, south of London, where his ancestor Charles lived out his days with his wife, Emma, and their children. Chris did grow up in London but showed far more affinity for the creative arts than scientific pursuits, famously failing a biology exam (much to everyone’s shock). 

He began his working life as a photographer but found it a lonely profession. On someone’s suggestion, he got into advertising, and he loved it. “It was creative and kooky, lots of action and difficulty and storytelling,” Chris recalls. It brought him to Australia through pure serendipity – the need for a hot location to shoot an advertisement during the middle of a British winter. He was sent here to scout it out and report back, and simply never left.

His career and life in Sydney were going well until fate threw him a curve ball, and Chris fell apart. He had, he says, a “resilience problem”. “Nothing had ever really gone badly wrong in my life,” he says, “then something pretty minor went wrong and I had a nervous breakdown.” Chris spiralled into depression, which led to a suicide attempt.

While in that dark, dark place, he found a psychologist who challenged him to think about his values and purpose in life, to find a philosophy and reason for existing. “We ended up, long story short, with the values of ‘love myself, others and the planet’,” Chris says. 

And his purpose? To stop the mass extinction of species by stopping habitat destruction.

“If you’re going to solve something, you might as well solve something big,” Chris reflects. His goal is to stop habitat destruction by 2040 – a deadline he picked so he would have a chance of being alive to see it happen.

Ambitious? For sure. Achievable? Chris is less sure, but he’s giving it all he’s got, and he’s bringing both his advertising nous and famous surname to help solve the problem. 

Step one was for him to be the change he wanted to see in the world. “I discovered my ecological footprint was six planets, so that means that if everybody lived like me, we would have to tether six planets together,” he says. The global average is 1.75 planets, the Australian average is 4.5 planets, and the USA’s average is 5.1. “There I was, trying to be an environmentalist, and I was actually the problem.” So he set about transforming his lifestyle to achieve an ecological footprint of less than one planet. Recognising that meat and dairy are a major cause of habitat destruction, he became vegan, and also now eschews sugar and alcohol. He doesn’t fly, and drives an electric car. He buys second-hand goods as much as possible, and his house is powered by renewable energy. “I’m now down at 0.8 of a planet [the equivalent of India’s average],” he says. “I’ve been there for seven years now.”

At the beginning, he thought it would make him miserable. Instead, it’s had the opposite effect. “It turned out that not only did I feel good about it, but actually I’m happier,” Chris says, “because suddenly I’m aligning what I say, what I do and what I think.”

Step two was to encourage others to undertake a similar, if less radical, transformation. Along with communications consultant Plamena Slavcheva, Chris co-founded the Darwin Challenge charity, with the aim of raising awareness of the massive impact that consumption of meat and dairy has on deforestation rates, and hopefully inspiring others to reduce their impact through dietary change. 

Chris is realistic about the enormous psychological barriers he’s trying to overcome – in particular, our deep-seated aversion to loss. “One of the things about behavioural change is that you’ve got to allow people to have small changes and huge celebration instantly – short-term reward,” he notes. He’s not trying to inspire people to go vegetarian or vegan – although that would be the ideal. His goal is to achieve “peak meat and dairy” – the long-term decline in meat and dairy consumption following their extended period of growth.

But given humanity’s recalcitrance when it comes to acting swiftly on the existential threat of climate change, Chris also has what he calls a “rear-guard strategy”. In partnership with not-for-profit Bush Heritage Australia (BHA), he and Jacqueline donated funds to buy 68,000ha of a former grazing property north-east of Perth, Western Australia, on the traditional lands of the Badimaya people, to restore it as a biodiversity hotspot. 

“When we went there originally, it just looked unbelievably awful because it had been trashed by a combination of overgrazing, fire and drought,” Chris recalls. 

Twenty years later, it’s the Charles Darwin Reserve and home to flourishing woodlands that nurture mallee fowl, pink cockatoos, dunnarts, skinks and numerous rare insect species, including a pseudoscorpion – a scorpion-like arachnid – named after him: Synsphyronus christopherdarwini. “As long as you give nature half a chance, she will come back,” he says. Chris is now working on BHA plans to help purchase an even larger tract of land in South Australia. “You’ve got to buy big,” he says. “You’ve got to buy very big.” 

The moral path

While he may not have followed professionally in the footsteps of his great-great-grandfather Charles, Chris has certainly done so in the spiritual and moral sense. “Late in life, he [Charles] said, ‘I feel no remorse for having committed any great sin, but I have often regretted that I haven’t done more for our fellow creatures’,” Chris says. “Even 150 years ago, he could see the natural world was in trouble.”

Chris has also inherited a deep appreciation for the importance of data and his ancestor’s unique method of thinking through a problem by using relevant facts. “It’s like a big machine; you pour facts in the front of this thinking system, and you get results at the far end,” he says. 

That hunger for data and knowledge and understanding permeates his life, and imbues him with a sense of restless energy, as if there aren’t enough hours in the day or years in a life to achieve what he wants to achieve. 

He knows it’s a race against time, against deforestation, against greenhouse gas emissions, against human fallibility, but it’s a race we can’t afford to lose. “I’m not going to stand still, I’m not going to rest, I’m just going to keep going,” he says. “This is my life purpose.”

The post In the name of the great-great-grandfather appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The only caveat the university imposed was that he had to achieve at least credits in all subjects. No problem. “I’m an enthusiastic person,” Trevor explains. It’s an understatement that’s clearly evident after only an hour’s conversation with the lifelong resident of Broken Hill. 

That trademark enthusiasm did waver slightly, however, at the beginning of the course, when he had to introduce himself to his fellow students from around the world. “There was a guy in the USA and he commissioned nuclear submarines for the US Navy, and there was a guy in the UK who was an ex-British Airways captain; he’d flown the Concorde,” Trevor recalls. “And I said, ‘Well, I’m Trev, and I’m an ex-miner from Broken Hill.’”

Trevor frequently describes himself as such. It’s as if he’s reminding himself that, even though he receives international astronomy accolades and personal invitations to visit NASA, has had multiple co-authorships of papers in the most prestigious scientific journals, and is on a first-name basis with some of Australia’s – and the world’s – leading astronomers, he’s still also Trevor Barry, a fitter/machinist from the mines of outback New South Wales.

From mineworker to stargazer

Traditionally, a story like this would tell of a child captivated by the stars from an early age, and for whom fate had other ideas. But that’s not how Trevor tells it. 

“I wasn’t interested in astronomy at all,” he says. “Most of the population doesn’t look up.” The child of a mining father – a former Rat of Tobruk – and a housewife mother grew up in Broken Hill, but left high school after four years to become an apprentice machinist in a zinc mine, because “that’s what young people in Broken Hill did”.

For the next 34 years, he worked in the mines, making good use of the diversity of skills he’d learnt as an apprentice on rotation around the mine’s power station, engineering design office, and maintenance departments on the surface, underground and in the mills. The career taught him to be resourceful. 

“Often when something broke down, we wouldn’t have the specific necessary spare parts, but that machine had to work,” Trevor says. “There’s always a solution to just about any problem, but you have to think outside the square.”

One day, an apprentice in Trevor’s department asked him to take a look at a telescope he’d built from scratch. Trevor took some persuading – “why would I want to look at or through a telescope?” – but eventually, one cold winter night, he made his way to the apprentice’s house. The 1.5m long, 8″/203mm-aperture Newtonian telescope, set on a German equatorial mount, was on the back lawn. 

“He pointed out this nondescript star-like point of light, and said, ‘That’s what we’re going to look at’,” Trevor recalls. He looked through the telescope, and saw Saturn, its ring system and atmospheric banding, in full splendour. It was love at first sight, both with the planet and the idea that a homemade telescope could bring this celestial wonder into sharp focus. “I had to do something about that,” Trevor says. 

Armed with a book from Broken Hill City Library on how to build Newtonian telescopes, Trevor constructed a 10″/254mm-aperture telescope, with an equatorial mount – complete with counterweights – anchored to three concrete-filled holes in the back lawn carefully maintained by his wife, Cheryl (“I got in a bother with the missus over that,” he admits). 

A pair of lawnmower wheels enabled him to move and store the mount under the back veranda, while the telescope itself was deposited in a spare bedroom. That was all fine until one day, while extracting the mount from under the verandah, Trevor lifted one of the mount’s legs too high and, in accordance with the laws of physics, the counterweights did the rest. “Pulled me straight over the top and landed me in the ‘gorgeous-and -adorable’s’ rose garden,” he says.

With nothing seriously wounded except his pride, he set about building a permanent observatory and bigger telescope made from – among other items – a water tank, washing machine parts and a wire from Trevor’s catamaran. 

Taking on university study

When economics and a back injury brought his career in the mines to a close, Trevor was finally able to focus entirely on astronomy. He signed up for the Swinburne course, with encouragement from luminaries Fred Watson, AG’s longtime space writer, and British/Australian astronomer David Malin, who’d visited Trevor’s outback observatory a year or so earlier. 

Much to Trevor’s own surprise, he not only graduated from the course with straight high distinctions, but was awarded the prize for top student in the year. He’d loved the study, absorbing every bit of information “like a sponge”. So when a strange white spot appeared travelling across the vast swirling face of Saturn, Trevor recognised it from one of his textbooks as a rare electrical storm. 

At the time, NASA’s Cassini probe was orbiting Saturn, sharing the wonders of the ringed planet and its family of icy moons. However the probe had only limited ability to photograph and track the storm. 

With help from Watson and Malin, Trevor managed to get his telescope image in front of Georg Fischer, part of the radio- and plasma-wave science team with the Cassini mission…and thereby launched his second career as an astronomer.

Joining a worldwide network

Trevor is now an integral part of a global network of amateur-run observatories that regularly supply visual information to the world’s space agencies to help guide their missions and observations. 

His personal beat is Saturn, which was particularly handy for the Cassini team. “Whenever his [Georg Fischer’s] RPWS instrument detected [what] he called SEDs – Saturn Electrostatic Discharges – he’d contact our team, sending an email with the challenge to hunt down the optical counterpart to his radio source,” Trevor says. 

Since the planned demise of the Cassini probe in September 2017 – an event Trevor also managed to capture with his telescope – the outback starman has continued his observations of the ringed gas giant, working with astrophysicist Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, who heads up the planetary science and applied physics groups at at the University of the Basque Country
in Spain. 

“Whenever I think I’ve found something new, I fire right up and I harass the crap out of Agustín,” Trevor says. Agustín is the settling influence to Trevor’s excitable enthusiasm, right up until Trevor discovers something new, “then look out when you’ve got an excited Spanish astronomer”.

One of four scientific papers that Trevor has co-authored with Agustín describes an enduring storm in Saturn’s incredibly turbulent equatorial zone (see    nature.com/articles/ncomms13262), which Trevor first imaged as an odd white spot and brought to Agustín’s attention. It was so unusual that both the Calar Alto Observatory in Spain and the Hubble Space Telescope were used to take a closer look. The findings resulted in one of Trevor and Agustin’s co-authored Nature papers, coincidentally published on Trevor’s birthday. 

Another project used Trevor’s 3115 Earth-days-long study of Saturn’s ‘hexagon’ – the spinning six-sided jet-stream phenomenon around the planet’s north pole – and suggested the rotation rate of the hexagon might be connected to Saturn’s interior rotation.

Trevor’s extraordinary contributions were recognised in 2022 with the Astronomical Society of Australia’s Berenice and Arthur Page Medal for excellence in amateur astronomy), for which he was a joint award winner, then internationally in 2023 with the Walter H. Haas Observer’s Award from the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers. “How was that?” Trevor exclaims. “A mineworker from Broken Hill!”

Despite being in his 70s, Trevor shows no signs of slowing down in his new career. He’s feeding images of Jupiter to NASA’s Juno mission, helping the team to decide at where to point the spacecraft’s imaging equipment each time it does a flyby of the planet. He has also directed his telescopes at Mars and Venus.

When not tending to the grounds at his local lawn bowls club – Trevor is also an award-winning lawn bowler – he’s revisiting his fitter/machinist roots, and tweaking his telescopic set-up to improve its function and capture regime. “I’ve always been a tinkerer, but I took that to another level with astronomy,” he says. “I do nothing in half-measures.”

The post Outback starman appeared first on Australian Geographic.

It was a serendipitous moment that ultimately fuelled a revolutionary new Melbourne-based program now helping to save some of Australia’s most endangered creatures from extinction, by applying the scientific discipline of wildlife endocrinology. At the program’s helm are two reproductive biologists who were on that original team: Dr Marissa Parrott, Senior Conservation Biologist in the Wildlife Conservation and Science team at Zoos Victoria, and Dr Kerry Fanson, who leads the Wildlife Conservation and Reproductive Endocrinology Lab (WiCRE) at Melbourne’s La Trobe University.

Wildlife endocrinology is simply the study of hormones in wild animals, and during the past two decades it has successfully underpinned breeding programs for many exotic species – from tigers and elephants to pandas – in zoos around the world. But until now, it’s rarely been used in Australia to help recover declining populations of native species, and its potential is huge. 

To understand this, it’s necessary to appreciate the role played by hormones, which are chemical messages produced inside all animals and detectable in biofluids such as saliva and urine, and in faeces. “They underlie every part of animal health, behaviour and reproduction,” Marissa says. “Knowing what healthy baseline levels of hormones are allows us to identify [physiological] problems and look for solutions, which is important in endangered and critically endangered species.” 

That’s because when a species’ population falls to desperately low levels it usually means a captive breeding program is needed to save it, but this is unfortunately often viewed as a last resort. “But by the time a species is brought in to start a captive breeding program, it usually has low genetic diversity because its populations are so reduced, and that often leads to health and hormone issues that cause low fertility and low fecundity,” Marissa says. 

And that’s exactly what’s happened with a key population of the mountain pygmy-possum.

Pygmy-possum breeding success

With fewer than 2000 of the critically endangered possums now estimated to survive in the wild, inbreeding – which leads to a loss of genetic diversity – is a major issue. The species has a complex life history. The mountain pygmy-possum’s natural distribution range is limited to Australia’s alpine areas and it is the only Australian marsupial that hibernates for around six months a year beneath a thick layer of snow. Its survival is also closely tied to the life cycle of its major food source – the migratory bogong moth, which is also endangered.

When Zoos Victoria began its mountain pygmy-possum breeding program almost two decades ago, wild-caught females were brought in to mate with wild-caught males from a different population. The males were genetically robust and had already proven to be successful in the breeding stakes. But the new females came from an extremely small inbred wild population and some weren’t becoming pregnant.

“We looked at hormone levels in our breeding females that had successfully raised young and compared them with the females that hadn’t bred,” Marissa says.

Kerry elaborates: “We found that successfully breeding females had really nice clear cycles, whereas the unsuccessful breeders didn’t have any progesterone cycles – they didn’t seem to be ovulating when they should have been.” 

In response, the team refined the care and management of the possums, including their diet and social system. When further wild-caught females from genetically healthy populations were introduced to the breeding program, all of them successfully bred and raised young.

The zoo’s breeding success rate for mountain pygmy-possums is now up to 100 per cent. 

Building a database

Leadbeater’s possum is another critically endangered species that’s now having its hormones scrutinised and documented by the team. It has a vastly different reproductive strategy from the pygmy-possum. But there also appear to be treatable hormone imbalances in animals that have been failing to reproduce, and the team was able to breed the first Leadbeater’s babies in the new conservation breeding program last year. 

“At the moment we’re looking at what’s happening with females that are reproducing versus those not reproducing, as we did in the pygmy-possums,” Marissa says, explaining that for female Leadbeater’s the current focus is on the hormone progesterone. One of the major challenges is recognising and understanding individual differences in animals’ physiology –not all females are the same. “We found that female Leadbeater’s in this population have seasonal changes in reproduction. For some females, the window of reproductive activity is quite long, whereas other females have a restricted window of breeding opportunity. But our next step is working with male samples and looking at testosterone.” 

The Tasmanian devil is another endangered marsupial species that’s so far been a focus for the project, and the New Holland mouse, also known as the pookila, a native mouse that’s now extinct from large parts of its former range, is another. 

The project is still in its early stages. Currently it’s focused mainly on building a database of what are normal and abnormal hormone levels for some endangered and critically endangered species – mostly mammals, although some work has begun on frogs that, as a group globally, have suffered significant declines.

This work alone is of massive interest simply because it’s never been done before. It will help flesh out what makes our native animals function and inform conservation breeding programs. But what makes this project particularly exciting are the ways in which this vast bank of knowledge will ultimately be used in the field.

Non-invasive approach

Unlike a lot of animal research that requires live specimens to be captured and handled, endocrinology can be a non-invasive science. Hormone levels can be detected from biofluids, hair, feathers and scales, so urine and gland secretions used to scent-mark territories, and faeces left at regular latrine sites – like those used by devils – can be sampled in the field without even needing to see an animal. 

“Non-invasive hormone monitoring has a couple of unique benefits for understanding the physiology and behaviour of Australia’s unique endangered wildlife,” Kerry says. She explains that for mountain pygmy-possums, urine – which is easy to collect in captive populations – has so far been the preferred sample type for the project.“ But for Leadbeater’s possums, Tassie devils and pookila, we’re largely using faeces because it’s so much easier to collect without even seeing the animals.”

To collect hormone samples as non-invasively as possible in frogs, the team is developing special capabilities that involve placing a small patch of filter paper onto the frog’s back to pick up skin secretions without hurting it. “Yes, you would have to first find the frogs to do that,” Kerry says. “But for all these species, we’re currently using captive-based populations to establish a critical foundation of knowledge about what their normal reproductive physiology is, and from that we’ll be able to develop biomarkers.”

The sorts of physiological conditions for which researchers are hoping to develop biomarkers include, for example, reproductive health, pregnancy and lactation. Having this sort of capability would allow researchers to identify situations such as whether or not a wild population of an endangered animal was successfully breeding. This could be done without exposing animals, or mothers and offspring, to a potentially stressful experience. 

Taking this sort of application even further: Zoos Victoria already has a team of highly trained wildlife-detection dogs that can detect the presence (or absence) of particular species without the need for trapping or tagging. The dogs have also been trained to detect scents associated with reproductive status and cycling in Tasmanian devil faecal samples. It’s a world first using detection dogs to track reproductive cycles in a conservation breeding program and may be adaptable to wild populations. 

“It’s an exciting time in the field of wildlife endocrinology. Much of the groundwork has been laid, so now we can start applying these methods to generate meaningful insights for wildlife conservation,” Kerry says. “It’s revolutionising what we can do. That’s why this new partnership between my lab and Zoos Victoria is so important, because they are on the ground with the animals, either for captive breeding or in the field, and we are able to turn those samples they collect into meaningful insights about reproductive biology, how healthy a population is and how the animals perceive their environment.” 

Relevance to human reproduction

Perhaps, however, the most remarkable aspect of Kerry and Marissa’s work is how it’s informing our understanding of human reproduction and potential infertility issues. Their work together – first in mountain pygmy-possums, but now also in devils and Leadbeater’s – has, for example, revealed a new role for the group of hormones called glucocorticoids. These have widely and traditionally been thought of as stress hormones.

“But they’re not!” Kerry says. “They do so many different things to the body.” When Kerry and Marissa were studying mountain pygmy-possums, they found that cortisol, a type of glucocorticoid, consistently increased before ovulation. At first, this was counter-intuitive, because everyone thought that elevated glucocorticoid levels should inhibit reproduction.

“But we’ve been looking a lot more closely at reproduction and glucocorticoids in other species and found that they increase during important reproductive events: when females become reproductively mature, before they ovulate and throughout pregnancy,” Kerry says. These insights have come from the endocrinology studies done by her and Marissa.

“If glucocorticoids increase at all these critical stages in female reproduction and promote successful outcomes, we need to change our thinking about how glucocorticoids affect reproduction. We are really driving this paradigm change together,” Kerry says. “We found that in mountain pygmy-possums, cortisol [one of the glucocorticoids] increases just before the female ovulates and that it’s followed by an increase in progesterone. That will be really useful for giving us another tool to first diagnose and then potentially treat reproductive failure.”

And that is likely to not just be limited to these three mammal species, but to all mammals.

Not surprisingly, researchers in the areas of fertility and IVF have begun looking at how this might be relevant to treating infertility in humans.

The post Sex, stress and fertility in Australian wildlife appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The forested outskirts of the sea were home to dinosaurs and the skies above were filled with birds. But all of them would have been shaded by the largest flying creatures of the age – the pterosaurs.

In November 2021, an avocado farmer turned museum curator named Kevin Petersen discovered a fossilised skeleton near Richmond in Queensland. The previously unknown species turned out to be the most complete pterosaur fossil found in Australia. It comprises around 22 per cent of the skeleton of an animal with a wingspan of some 4.6m.

My colleagues and I have now described the fossil in the journal Scientific Reports. It represents a new species of pterosaur, and we’ve named it Haliskia peterseni, meaning Petersen’s sea phantom.

Pterosaur fossils are rare

Pterosaur fossils have been found on every continent. However, they are far less common than fossils of dinosaurs or ancient marine reptiles.

Pterosaurs had hollow, thin-walled bones. This was a great evolutionary adaptation for life in the air, but the lightweight skeletons are not easily fossilised.

Few complete pterosaur skeletons are known worldwide, and most come from a handful of sites with unusually excellent conditions for fossil preservation. When pterosaur bones have been found at other sites, they are often crushed and distorted.

As a result, many pterosaur fossils are the only one of their kind. This includes the oldest flying reptile fossils ever found in Australia.

Related: Australian fossil findings result in deep dive of whale evolution

What the skeleton tells us about how Haliskia lived

The newly described fossil is only the second partial pterosaur skeleton ever found in Australia. It preserves twice as many bones as Ferrodraco lentoni.

Haliskia preserves a complete lower jaw, the tip of the upper jaw, 43 teeth, vertebrae, ribs, bones from both wings, and a partial leg. Also preserved are delicate, spaghetti-thin hyoid bones which would have helped support a strong muscular tongue.

We can tell Haliskia was fully grown when it died because its shoulder bones, and others in the skeleton, have fused.

Almost all pterosaur fossils described from Australia (including Haliskia’s contemporaries Mythunga camara, Aussiedraco molnari and Thapunngaka shawi) have been placed in the same family. These species, collectively known as Anhangueria, have long been viewed as fish-eaters.

Although fish fossils are often found in rocks laid down in the Eromanga Sea, squid-like cephalopods called belemnites are even more common. Based on Haliskia‘s long hyoid bones and conical, interlocking teeth, it would have eaten a diet of fish and squid.

Related: Is the “echidnapus” the Rosetta Stone of early mammal evolution?

A labour of love

The Haliskia specimen was prepared by fossil enthusiast Kevin Petersen using a combination of pneumatic tools, the paleontological equivalent to a dentist’s drill, and a hand-wielded metal pin. The pterosaur bones are flattened, and although one surface has been exposed, they remain encased in rock to provide stability and support to the fossil.

Kevin spent many hours preparing the pterosaur fossil. However, when we asked if he would like to join the team of researchers studying this specimen, he politely declined, stating he was happy to simply be acknowledged for his efforts.

Without Kevin, this specimen wouldn’t be on public display or known to science. It seemed only fitting that this new species Haliskia peterseni be named in honour of its discoverer.

More fossils to be found

This was not the first pterosaur fossil Kevin had found. He uncovered his first flying reptile fossil a few years earlier, when he visited Richmond in Queensland as a tourist.

Since the discovery of the Haliskia specimen in 2021, even more pterosaur fossils have been found at the public dig pits outside Richmond.

Kevin is proof you do not need a degree to make significant contributions to science and the field of palaeontology. It takes dedication and determination – and it helps to be in the right spot at the right time.

Related: Near-complete 50,000-year-old kangaroo skeleton retrieved from underground cave

It requires some imagination to visualise pterosaurs at sea, hunting fish and squid-like creatures alongside massive marine reptiles millions of years ago, in what is now the dry Australian outback. But the process is made easier with the fossils in front of you.

Haliskia provides a tantalising glimpse into an ancient ecosystem, and provides hope we might find more complete skeletons of these winged reptiles.

Adele Pentland is a PhD candidate at Curtin University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post 100-million-year-old fossil find reveals huge flying reptile that patrolled Australia’s inland sea appeared first on Australian Geographic.

In many ways, it’s surprising the country hasn’t reached this milestone sooner. Australia was once a major player in the early days of the Space Race, partnering with the USA to build radio telescopes and tracking stations to support NASA’s Apollo programs during the Cold War. Australia was also only the third country to build and launch a satellite from its own soil. 

But by the early 1970s Australia’s space activities began to lose steam; rocket testing at the Woomera Prohibited Area in South Australia dwindled and there was little economic incentive to contribute to NASA’s post-Apollo missions. Australia’s political ties with the USA, Europe and Asia granted it access to foreign-owned space technology without any need to develop its own national space program. 

Government funding in space became sporadic; short-lived initiatives – such as the Australian Space Office – were bankrolled by one federal government and dissolved by the next. In 2023 the federal government terminated its $1.2 billion Australian satellite program and withdrew funding from three more space projects, including one to bankroll spaceports and launch sites across Australia. 

Jeremy Hallett, Executive Chair of the Space Industry Association of Australia (SIAA), says that the government’s lukewarm interest in funding its space sector – be it at a federal, state or territory level – makes Australia a bit of an international outlier. “When you compare [Australia] with the rest of the G20, for example, the other 19 countries are significantly increasing their investment into their space capability domestically, and Australia’s has been dropping, so it’s kind of counter to the international trend,” he says. 

The SIAA is Australia’s peak body for space. Its members represent all branches of the Aussie space sector, from fledgling 10-person startups to government departments, law firms, academia and manufacturers from every cog in the supply chain. These entities are forging Australia’s reputation in space and helping put Australia on the map. Next year the SIAA will host the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. The annual conference, which Jeremy describes as “the Olympics of space”, is expected to receive 6000 delegates from overseas. 

Despite these achievements, Australia has yet to achieve sovereign space capability. It’s the reason why Australia is regarded as an “emerging spacefaring nation” by the European Space Policy Institute, despite its Cold War space heritage. “A lot of the measure of the success of a space sector is the ability to put objects on orbit, which Australia can’t do alone yet,” Jeremy says. “Of course, the traditional space powers – the USA, Russia, China, Japan and Europe, through the European Space Agency – have led the charge there, which is unsurprising. But I don’t think we’re far behind. Australia’s capability to manufacture and launch spacecraft is still in the early stages of development, and that’s being solely driven, at this point, by commercial enterprise.”

Gilmour Space Technologies is no exception. Australia’s foremost rocket company is headed by civilians and funded by venture capitalists, not government. Adam Gilmour, CEO of Gilmour Space, founded the company in 2012 with his brother James after a 20-year career in banking. The self-taught rocket scientist had spent several years monitoring the emerging commercial space market before hanging up his gloves in the corporate world and pursuing his lifelong passion for space. 

Gilmour Space began building rockets in 2015 – three years before Australia even had a space agency. “You have to transition from ‘every single person you met just thought you were crazy’, to moving beyond ‘crazy’ to ‘impossible’,” Adam says. “We had to get so many different approvals to do what we’re doing, and you have to walk so many different people through the technology – what’s going on, what are the risks.” Today, Gilmour Space has 180 employees and is valued at more than $605 million.

Adam says the past several years have been an ongoing process of learning, building and rebuilding, with many hurdles thrown in along the way. In 2019 Gilmour Space’s first rocket – One Vision – failed its test launch after a pressure regulator in the oxidiser tank malfunctioned. But Adam was not deterred; to date, only one private space company has successfully launched a rocket on its first attempt. “Because we haven’t had a rocket business in the country, I can’t go and just poach people from other companies to start mine like you can in Europe, Japan, India and the USA,” Adam says. “We’ve had to build a lot of our knowledge from scratch.”

It’s never been more important to develop Australia’s sovereign capability in space. The meteoric rise of smartphone technology and on-demand internet means we rely on satellite technology more than ever before. “Space technology is an enabling technology; it’s one of those technologies that you use every day, every hour, every minute, but you can’t see it – so you don’t realise it,” Adam says. “But what people don’t know is we [Australia] pretty much 100 per cent rely on foreign companies in other countries for all of our space technology – communications, Earth observations, GPS – you name it, everything is foreign-owned. And I think it makes us very vulnerable to rely on other countries, because if they have a political clash or a regime change, or they don’t want to help anymore, you’re suddenly cut off.” 

Whether the Eris rocket launch proves successful or another learning curve, Adam says this is just the beginning for Gilmour Space. “The majority of the revenue is in low-Earth orbit, but we think the business is going to start expanding into lunar activities and we want to participate in that,” he says. He has his sights set on longer-range targets, too; one day he wants Gilmour Space to enter the human spaceflight market. “We want to develop a crew capsule and then build a rocket big enough to take people up into space,” he says.

Remote medicine supports life in space

This decade will see astronauts return to the Moon for the first time in 50 years, as part of NASA’s Artemis program. The Artemis mission intends to establish the first long-term human presence on the Moon and, ultimately, prepare for the first crewed missions to Mars. Australians will be helping every step of the way. 

Dr John Cherry is a rural doctor and Antarctic medical practitioner who specialises in providing healthcare to some of the most isolated people in the world – including astronauts. “Space medicine means supporting the healthcare of astronauts who are in an isolated condition, currently aboard the space station but soon to be in longer-duration flights as we look to go back to the Moon and onwards towards Mars,” John says. “Space medicine is narrow in a way, because it’s focused on space, but it’s also really broad because it covers all the different areas of medicine.”

John is a director of the Australasian Society of Aerospace Medicine. He’s worked with space agencies across the globe to provide medical training to astronauts and improve remote healthcare systems. He helped redesign the European Space Agency’s medical training curriculum and is currently prepping NASA astronauts for their return to the Moon. 

“Across Australia as a field, we’re looking at ways that we can support astronauts who are going to be further from Earth than we’ve been for more than 50 years,” he says. “That means the astronaut crews are further from medical assistance [so] they require an increased level of autonomy to deal with medical events that occur.” Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) can evacuate and return to Earth within 24 hours or less in the case of a medical emergency. But NASA’s Artemis mission has kicked things up a notch. “When we go to the Moon, the medical evacuation time could be a couple of weeks; when we go to Mars it might be nine months or more, depending on where we are at in the journey,” John says.

The isolation experienced by astronauts is one reason Australia is considered a world leader in space medicine. Our strengths lie in our unique remote medicine and telemedicine capabilities, alongside a long history of providing support to Antarctic expeditioners. “We have this huge body of knowledge when it comes to supporting communities and individuals living and working in really remote and extreme environments, be that outback Australia, the bush, supporting military deployments or teams in remote settings like Antarctica,” John says. “So, much like Antarctic expeditioners who are isolated for extended periods of time over the Antarctic winter, those are the same conditions that astronauts will soon experience in terms of isolation in these longer-duration space flight missions. That means the medical care, and the medical training they receive, needs to be adapted to suit those models.”

Innovations from space have a number of trickle-down technologies that could improve medical models here in Australia. “Rural and remote communities within Australia often struggle with the tyranny of distance, and have a worse healthcare disparity than our metropolitan colleagues,” John says. “Many of the medical solutions we’re developing are not only applicable to astronauts in a spacecraft many hundreds of thousands of kilometres away, but also rural and remote communities in Australia, be it advanced telemedicine developments, remote imaging, or remote monitoring of physiological markers by using wearable biosensors. All of these things can benefit rural and remote Australia and help breach that rural–metropolitan healthcare divide.”

Related: Back to the Moon: Australia’s mining expertise at forefront of new era of space exploration

Outback plants to feed astronauts

Australian plant scientists are also looking to support astronaut health by improving their diets with space-grown plants.Several groups across the world have successfully grown plants on the ISS under various mock conditions. But Lunaria One, a Victoria-based startup, will take this one step further and attempt to grow plants on the Moon’s surface. “Keeping astronauts healthy is really challenging,” says Professor Caitlin Byrt, a plant biologist at the Australian National University and science adviser to Lunaria One. “[An astronaut’s] diet affects their wellbeing, not just from a nutritional perspective, but also from a psychological perspective. Humans tend to be happier when they’re eating nice fresh food.” 

As for space biology, Caitlin says the research generated by the startup will have spin-off applications that will benefit Earth, especially at a time when food security is threatened by climate change. 

“Understanding how to support plant life in some of the most extreme kinds of conditions that you can imagine is useful for a range of reasons,” she says. “Being able to understand how to build systems that support rapid propagation of fresh foods can help in situations such as natural disasters here on Earth.”

Data collected from previous missions means scientists have a pretty good understanding of the Moon’s environmental conditions, from its fluctuating temperature extremes, radiation levels and day lengths. Lunaria Oneis using this data to design sealed growth chambers that will create a buffer against the harsh lunar environment and – hopefully – allow plants to thrive. 

Lunaria One is interested in “resurrection species” – plants that have evolved and adapted to survive in desert environments by entering a dormant state when water is scarce. Found in deserts across Australia, resurrection species, include five-minute grass (Tripogon loliiformis),which Lunaria One is experimenting with. “Some [resurrection species] have this ability to dry down to 10 per cent of their normal water content,” Caitlin says. “They have the capability to go into stasis – like putting their biology on pause – and then regrow again when water is resupplied.” 

This dormancy period can last for months, or even years, making them ideal for long-term space travel. “We’re wanting our plants to be in a little bit of a stasis for the journey,” Caitlin explains. “We have to control the moisture very closely, because moisture is a trigger for the plant to regrow. Applying humidity at the right time can kick off [plant growth] and will let those plants have a shot at growing on the Moon.”

Related: Aussie bush tucker could nourish NASA astronauts in space

Tracking space debris

The shift from government-funded national space programs to the private sector signifies a new era, popularly called NewSpace or Space 2.0. Each year a record number of satellites are put into orbit as the technology reduces in size and becomes cheaper to manufacture and launch. 

There are currently about 8300 satellites zipping around Earth. Nearly half of these are Starlink satellites, launched by Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2019. SpaceX plans to eventually put 42,000 satellites into orbit. Its competitors also have their own “mega constellations” in the works, including Amazon’s Project Kuiper and China’s Hongyan constellation, which are forecast to reach 3200 units and 13,000 units respectively. 

Associate Professor Alice Gorman, a Flinders University space archaeologist, says Earth might see as many as 100,000 new satellites launched in the coming decade. “The density of stuff – in low-Earth orbit particularly – is increasing exponentially,” she says. “We have more launches happening, so that means more rocket stages that are discarded will be falling back to Earth. It will mostly fall over the ocean, just because there’s a lot of it, and it will fall over unpopulated areas or low-population areas, because there’s more of that than densely populated areas, but the risk something might end up falling on a town or on someone’s house is going to increase.” 

As a space archaeologist, Alice studies material culture in space, from planetary landing sites to space junk. Space junk (also called orbital debris) is any human-made object in or from space that serves no purpose. It ranges from nuts and bolts to defunct satellites and discarded rocket stages. As more satellites are put into orbit, Alice says that falling space junk is likely to become a more regular occurrence. 

In 1979 debris from NASA’s first space station, Skylab, rained down over southern Western Australia. But there have been a few recent cases, too. On 9 July 2022 a farmer in the Snowy Mountains discovered a shard of space junk in his paddock, standing upright like a plinth. In the following weeks more pieces were found, later identified as fragments from a SpaceX rocket stage. 

Less than a year later, a mysterious, acorn-shaped metal cylinder washed ashore at Green Head Beach in WA and made international headlines. The ASA identified the mysterious object as debris from an Indian rocket involved in a satellite launch. 

Alice says Australia will be disproportionately impacted by falling space junk compared with the USA, Europe or Asia. She cites a study, published in 2022 by The University of British Columbia, Canada, that suggested the Southern Hemisphere is at greater risk of casualties from rocket body re-entries than the Northern Hemisphere. Atmospheric scientists are also worried about potential environmental impacts; trace metals from spacecraft, such as aluminium, copper and lithium, have been discovered in the stratosphere and might degrade the ozone layer. These satellites are also creating light pollution, blotting out starry skies and even interfering with astronomy observations and equipment. 

This doesn’t necessarily mean that Earth would be completely cut off from space, merely that certain regions of orbit would become unusable. “The debate is, how close are we to this event?” Alice says. “Some people say Kessler Syndrome will happen in 20 years; others say it’s hundreds of years off – there’s no consensus.”

Equally concerning is the risk of Kessler Syndrome – in which the debris from colliding space objects triggers a chain reaction of collisions. “When Kessler Syndrome is reached, you don’t have to launch anything new into orbit; the collisions would be a self-sustaining thing that would make the risk of launching incredibly great. You wouldn’t be able to stop it,” Alice explains. “Even if we put nothing else into orbit, Kessler Syndrome would still happen.” 

Vacuuming up space junk

It’s been nearly 50 years since astrophysicists Donald Kessler (USA) and Burton Cour-Palais (Britain) penned their seminal paper about the risks of Kessler Syndrome, and to date there’s been no successful removal of a piece of orbital debris. But startups have cropped up around the world looking to tackle this problem – including Adelaide-based startup Paladin Space. Paladin Space has engineered a satellite payload that can “hoover up” multiple fragments of small space junk in a single mission. 

Harrison Box, the creator and CEO of Paladin Space, likens the technology to Wall-E, the titular character in Pixar’s 2008 sci-fi film. “In the movie, Wall-E compacts all the trash into a block and ejects it – it honestly is very similar,” Harrison says. “[The re-usable debris removal satellite] ingests the debris, compresses it, and then we eject the container. We then re-slot the satellite bus with a new empty container and continue the mission. The differentiator of our technology is that it can capture multiple items in a single mission, including small items like fragments.” 

Space junk is generally divided into three size classes. The most numerous are the small pieces (anything less than 1mm in size). The medium-size class includes anything between 1mm and 10cm, and anything greater than 10cm is considered large. Paladin Space is going after the small fragments, some of which are too tiny to be tracked and monitored by radio telescopes such as the Space Surveillance Telescope in Exmouth, WA. Regardless of their size, these fragments are zooming above Earth at speeds of 7.5–8km per second, 10 times faster than a bullet. Even the tiniest piece of space junk can cause significant damage. In 2016, for example, a paint fleck famously cracked a window on the International Space Station. 

This problem is only going to grow as mega constellations launch more objects into orbit.“There’s about 9000t of [space junk] already in orbit, but in 5–10 years it could be double or triple that,” Harrison says. “We’re trying to get there and solve the problem, or remediate the problem, before Kessler Syndrome kicks in.” Harrison’s technology has yet to be deployed on its first mission, but he hopes it will be launched into orbit by 2026. “This is a very immature field,” he says. “It’s worth noting that nobody yet has actually removed a piece of debris from orbit. It’s never happened. There’s been a mission that’s gone up in the last couple of weeks from one of our competitors. They might capture [a piece of debris], and they might not, but that’s the sort of state we’re in at the moment. It’s really very unexplored.” 

Harrison is confident of the technology, but says securing funding is the biggest hurdle. “At the moment one of the challenges is raising enough money and convincing investors and government officials to get on board with the project,” he says. “Funding is tough, because Australia is emerging into the space market. We don’t have that heritage yet of multiple launches, multiple satellites for investors to fall back on and say, ‘Well, we’ve invested in that technology; it’s worked really well.’ 

“The Australian space industry focuses a lot at the moment on Earth observation, climate control technology, stuff that they can enable and use very quickly for commercial gain. And I think that’s probably partly the reason why we struggle to secure funding, because this is a global problem we’re solving, not just one for Australia.” 

Related: Top 10 Aussie space milestones

The post Australia’s space race: From red dirt to the stars appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Related: Awakening a sleeping language

Indigenous communities have disproportionate occurrences of many serious diseases and it’s hoped that, by exploring and understanding the uniqueness and diversity of Indigenous genetics, researchers can better address these health concerns.

“We have so many people now living with conditions like end-stage kidney disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, and we’ve got lots of people dying from cancers that are coming out of nowhere,” says NCIG’s Deputy Director, Associate Professor Azure Hermes, a Gimuy Walubara Yidinji woman from Cairns in far north Queensland (FNQ), and one of the lead researchers on the study.

NCIG Director, and another lead on the study, medical researcher Professor Alex Brown is a member of the Yuin Nation of the New South Wales South Coast, with family connections to Nowra, Wreck Bay and Wallaga Lake. “I think the critical bit from what’s been found in the genomics is that our diversity, our uniqueness, is very strong,” Alex says. “It is similar to the linguistic, cultural and geographical diversity that we see in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.”

The project faced significant challenges before it could commence due to the mistrust that years of cultural ignorance had created between medical science and First Nations people, which extended back to the first days of colonisation.

Overcoming mistrust

The strong bonds Traditional Owners developed with their surroundings during thousands of years have been constantly undermined since European colonisation. Early British colonisers, for example, identified Indigenous Australians as living in a state of “savagery”, as opposed to “civilisation”, leading to the assertion of terra nullius, that the continent was unoccupied. If the continent’s Indigenous inhabitants lived a largely nomadic existence, they couldn’t be regarded as having possession of the land they occupied. And if no-one owned it, it was free for the taking.

“Science, division and separatism have been used as a whitewash for the lie of terra nullius,” Alex says. “That historical context bleeds over into the way that science is viewed, trusted and accepted by Indigenous peoples even today…we’ve got to try to build trust in an environment where science has actually been used, not just poorly, but actively against Aboriginal people.”

Painful examples of medical mistreatment remain fresh in the hearts of many Indigenous communities. Before beginning its study, the NCIG team was given access to a historical collection of 7000 genetic samples collected from 35 different Indigenous communities throughout the 1960s and ’70s. That might seem like a boon for a research group looking at Indigenous DNA, but serious issues emerged regarding how the samples had been obtained.

“We don’t have any documentation to say that informed consent was given for [the collection of] those samples,” Azure says, explaining that without knowledge of the ethics of the collection process, NCIG couldn’t use the historical samples. “You’re starting on the back foot when you’re going to a community and saying, ‘Hey, I’ve got your dad’s sample that was collected from him back in the ’60s; he’s passed away, now I’d really like to talk to you about what to do next.’

“The first general question [asked] is ‘Did you ask permission?’ And then when we say, ‘I don’t know’, it’s: ‘Well, why are you keeping it?’; ‘What have you used it for?’; ‘How long have you had it?’; ‘Can I have it back?’; and ‘What are you doing here now?’”

The mistrust is understandable. Samples taken from the Yarrabah community, east of Cairns in FNQ, for example, were collected by researchers who would lie in wait on a corner and round up children as they walked home from school. “There were no parents [present], there was no consent, and there was no-one in the room to say, ‘No’,” Azure says.

Her team spent eight years working through the trauma of the past with these communities, allowing people to express their anger and grief, and decide if they were willing to put their trust in the NCIG study. The journey of rebuilding trust has been long and arduous, but Azure wouldn’t have it any other way. “I don’t want it to be easier,” she says. “I want to have those conversations because that’s the process. I think people need to feel those things, to be angry and to be upset, and to ask hard questions – and [they need] us to be accountable for what happened all those years ago.”

Azure’s work has allowed the study to happen in a way that fosters empowerment, inclusion and equity for the communities she’s dealing with. By consulting with participants at every stage, and ensuring informed consent was given, the project has empowered Indigenous people to actively take part in research that could benefit their health and wellbeing.

Improving First Nations health

Data gathered from the NCIG study could make an enormous difference to understanding how the genetics of First Nations people influence health. As well as highlighting that there is a great variance in the genetics across the cultures and communities of Indigenous Australians, it’s also clear that much of the variance is found nowhere else.

“It depends on how we measure it, but up to 25 per cent of the genetic variance is unique to Indigenous Australians,” Dr Hardip Patel, the Bioinformatics Lead at NCIG, says. “It’s well known that genomic databases are biased towards Europeans. There is pretty much no information that exists for Indigenous Australians, and that creates a blind spot in our understanding of genomics.”

If the wrong templates are used to build medicines, it runs the risk of driving inequality even further, because medical practices that are not suitable are applied to First Nations people. The NCIG research group viewed it as their job to make sure that what has happened in the past doesn’t occur again. “We started with very a simple goal. We have to create reference genomic databases so that we can start understanding health and clinical implications for Indigenous Australians,” Hardip says.

Related: Stories told by Aboriginal Tasmanians could be oldest recorded in the world

The Indigenous communities involved are passionate about and committed to providing a meaningful benefit for future generations, but the question still remains: Will this genomic research actually provide meaningful health outcomes? In short, we don’t know.

“Genomics analysis is a hard problem,” Hardip says. With the diversity demonstrated by a study of just four Indigenous communities, it’s very possible that genomic research will need to include many more communities across Australia before any comprehensive health benefits can be found.

For now, a major outcome of the study has been to demonstrate how research with Indigenous communities can be conducted in a more collaborative and respectful way. “We’ve managed to bring together a good group of collaborators who are working hard to say that this is now the standard that we should be expecting when we do research with Indigenous communities,” Azure says.

Perhaps even more importantly, the study represents a growing empowerment of Indigenous Australians. “The greatest shift has been [with] Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in positions of authority enabling communities to make their own decisions as autonomous agents in their future,” Alex says.

Curiosity, science and research have been integral to how Indigenous Australians have been interacting with their environment for tens of thousands of years, but that has been taken away during the past two centuries. Now there’s a strong move to restore that in a way that not only benefits their health and culture, but also the whole of Australian society.

The post Understanding Indigenous DNA appeared first on Australian Geographic.

In a paper published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of Australia, the researchers demonstrate the Huntsman’s ability to accurately measure stars, satellites and other targets when the Sun is high overhead, despite astronomers traditionally only observing at night.

“People have tried observing stars and satellites in optical wavelengths during the day for centuries, but it has been very difficult to do. Our tests show the Huntsman can achieve remarkable results in daylight hours,” says lead author and astrophysics PhD candidate Sarah Caddy, who helped design and build the Huntsman Telescope.

Ms Caddy worked with a team of PhD students and staff at Macquarie to deploy the Huntsman, which celebrated its official opening at Siding Springs Observatory in Coonabarabran last year.

The telescope combines an astronomy camera and astro-mechanical focusing equipment with an array of 10 highly sensitive 400mm Canon lenses, oriented to cover the same patch of sky.

Because the sun floods out most light from other celestial objects, astronomers rarely observe during the day, but Ms Caddy and her colleagues trialled special ‘broadband’ filters on a test version of the Huntsman telescope to block most daylight while still allowing specific wavelengths from celestial objects to pass through.

This test version, a mini-Huntsman single-lens pathfinder telescope installed at the University’s observatory, allowed the research team to assess various settings in a controlled environment without affecting the Huntsman telescope.

Supernova approaching

The Huntsman’s daytime capability allows continual monitoring of certain bright stars that can be unobservable at night for months at a time because they are too close to the Sun.

One example is the red supergiant Betelgeuse, a nearby star around 650 light-years away in the Orion constellation in our Milky Way galaxy.

Betelgeuse is of great interest to astronomers since the star dimmed substantially from late 2019 through 2020, likely due to a major ejection of gas and dust.

“Without this daytime mode, we’d have no idea if one of the brightest stars in the sky has gone supernova until a few months after its explosive light reached Earth,” says co-author Associate Professor Lee Spitler, Head of Space Projects at Macquarie’s Australian Astronomical Optics (AAO).

“We know Betelgeuse will blow up ‘soon’ [in astronomical terms this means anytime between now and millions of years into the future], but not exactly when it will happen.

“For about four months of the year, it’s only observable during the daytime because the Sun gets between Betelgeuse and the Earth at this time.”

Calibrating with Betelgeuse

The study confirmed the Huntsman’s daytime photometry data for Betelgeuse tallies with observations from observatories around the world, and even with space telescopes.

“This breakthrough paves the way for uninterrupted, long-term studies of stars like Betelgeuse as they undergo powerful eruptions near their end of life, expelling massive amounts of stellar material in the final stages of the cosmic cycle of rebirth,” says Associate Professor Spitler.

“Astronomers love when stars in the Milky Way go supernova because it can tell us so much about how elements are created in the universe.”

Unfortunately, he adds, supernova in the Milky Way are relatively rare – the last time it happened was in 1604.

“But when a supernova went off in a mini-galaxy next to our Milky Way galaxy in 1987, this was so useful for astronomers that they still observe the expanding supernova explosion almost 40 years later.”

Preventing collisions

Mastering daytime observation also delivers a big advantage in the rapidly expanding field of space situational awareness (SSA), which is the close monitoring of an ever-growing population of satellites, space debris and other artificial objects orbiting Earth.

More satellites will be launched in the next 10 years than in the entire history of human space exploration.

“With around 10,000 active satellites already circulating the planet and plans to launch a further 50,000 low Earth orbit satellites in the next decade, there’s a clear need for dedicated day and night telescope networks to continually detect and track satellites,” says Ms Caddy.

Potential satellite collisions have grave implications for communications, GPS, weather monitoring and other critical infrastructure.

Satellite photometry – an astronomy technique using optical telescopes to study changes in the brightness of celestial objects – can reveal valuable information, including the composition, age and condition of orbiting objects.

“Opening up to daytime observation of satellites allows us to monitor not just where they are, but also their orientation, and adds to the information we get from radar and other monitoring methods, protecting against potential collisions,” Ms Caddy says.

Astro treats

Ms Caddy’s team demonstrated the Huntsman’s potential for other astronomy observations requiring day and night coverage, including monitoring satellites.

The team used the mini-Huntsman to refine techniques over many months, systematically investigating such factors as optimal exposure times, observation timing and precise tracking of targets even through atmospheric turbulence.

“Daytime astronomy is an exciting field, and with advances in camera sensors, filters and other technologies, we saw dramatic improvements in the sensitivity and precision achievable under bright-sky conditions,” says Ms Caddy.

Adds Associate Professor Spitler: “We’ve refined a methodology for daytime observing and demonstrated it can be done on affordable, high-end equipment like the Canon lenses.”

The Huntsman has been constructed so the 10 lenses work in parallel, feeding 10 ultra-fast CMOS camera sensors that together can take thousands of short-exposure images per second.

The attached camera can process images and manage very large data streams in an instant, using robotic control to track and capture fast-moving objects, and delivering continuous 24-hour monitoring of objects.

“Being able to do accurate, round-the-clock observations shatters longstanding restrictions on when astronomers can scan the heavens,” says Associate Professor Spitler.

“Daytime astronomy will be increasingly critical as we enter the next Space Age.”

Associate Professor Lee Spitler is from the Australian Astronomical Optics and Astrophysics and Space Technologies Research Centre.

This article was first published on The Lighthouse – Macquarie University’s multi-media publishing platform – and republished here with permission.

Related: Spider eyes on the skies: Australia’s Huntsman Telescope

The post Stargazing in broad daylight appeared first on Australian Geographic.

If you were wading ashore in Australia in 1788 and walked into the forest, what would this forest have looked like? Would it have been an easy stroll because the forest was open and park-like with widely spaced trees and grassy ground cover? Or would the forest have been characterised by closely spaced tall trees and a dense, wet understorey of tree ferns and other mesic plants?

There has been much debate about the state of tall, wet forests when the British first arrived in Australia. This matters for several reasons.

First, the condition of forests 236 years ago is linked to how they were managed by First Nations people. An open and park-like forest would develop if it was subject to repeated, low-intensity cultural burns and “farmed” by First Nations people. Conversely, in the absence of repeated fire and farming, the forest would be dense and wet with many large trees.

Second, understanding what forests were like when the British first arrived provides crucial insights into how best to repair these ecosystems to their “natural state” and conserve the species dependent upon them.

My research team assembled different kinds of evidence to determine what tall, wet forests dominated by mountain ash – the world’s tallest flowering plant – were like 236 years ago.

We checked diaries of early British expeditioners such as Paul Edmund de Strzelecki, Hamilton Hume and William Hovell, and examined early paintings, photographs and the testimonies of First Nations Elders. We also compiled evidence from carbon dating, dendrochronology (the study of tree rings) and pollen cores taken from swamps and wetlands.

Finally, we assembled information on the basic biology and ecology of mountain ash and the other plants and animals found in these tall, wet forests. Our particular focus was on the mountain ash forests of Victoria’s Central Highlands, but our findings are highly likely to be relevant to other kinds of tall, wet forests elsewhere in eastern Australia.

The diaries, testimonies, paintings, photographs and ecological information all contained consistent evidence that tall, wet mountain ash forests were not open and park-like at the time of colonisation. These forests were not subjected to repeated and widespread cultural burning, nor was there any indication they were farmed by First Nations people.

Rather, the dense, wet condition of these forests is the natural state of mountain ash ecosystems. Bushfires did occur in mountain ash forests but were rare. Aboriginal people ventured into the forests to collect lyrebird feathers, harvest the pith of tree ferns and gather roots and leaves of key plants.

The forests also featured a number of sites of great cultural significance and contained pathways to helped facilitate journeys to the High Country to feast on bogong moths, for example.

Because the natural state of mountain ash forest is dense and wet, management activities such as repeated fires are inappropriate.

Thinning these forests could make them more fire-prone, generate more greenhouse gas emissions and destroy habitat for wildlife, including the critically endangered Leadbeater’s possum.

The management for mountain ash forests is to leave them alone. Let them mature and recover from the almost 120 years of logging that has dreadfully degraded them.

The post OPINION: The real natural history of our tall, wet forests appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The work was published this week in the journal Alcheringa.

The weird new species, dubbed the “echidnapus” (Opalios splendens), is just one of several remarkable creatures identified from a batch of previously overlooked fossils found in the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Also of note is evidence of a 100-million-year-old platypus that’s almost identical to the modern platypus, a species that was previously thought to have only arisen some 50 million years ago. It’s been assigned the new genus name of Dharragarra, which means platypus in the Gamilaraay, Yuwaalaraay and Yuwaalayaay languages of the First Nations people from the Lightning Ridge area of north-western New South Wales.

“There are a number of big takeaways from this work,” Tim told Australian Geographic. “One is that we hadn’t really suspected before that there was a period in Australia’s history where there was a great diversity of monotremes, [at a time] when there were no other mammals living on the continent.

“Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes. It’s like discovering a whole new civilisation.”

Monotremes are egg-laying mammals, and are only represented today by the echidna and the platypus. Most modern mammals, such as humans, are in the placental mammal group. Marsupials, which survive mostly in Australia and nearby islands, make up the third group of mammals.

Related: Discovery identifies Australia as birthplace of all modern mammals

This new work has now identified six monotreme genera surviving some 100 million years ago (mya), all roaming across the landmass that would ultimately become Australia.

The fossils have come from Lightning Ridge, which is well-known for its fish and reptile fossils.

“Lightning Ridge was then [100mya] at 60 degrees south, so it was a very polar environment,” Tim said. “The earliest monotremes we’ve got – which look like they are the beginning of the group – are about 126 million years old and are from southern Victoria.”

The “echidnapus” is just one of six remarkable monotremes identified to have been roaming 100 million years ago across the landmass that would ultimately become Australia.
Illustration credits: Peter Shouten

This new work shows that within 26 million years of when monotremes were thought to have arisen, the group was rapidly evolving.

“By 100mya the group had really started to diversify. We’ve got pig-sized species, rat-sized species, and everything in between – some terrestrial, some aquatic. There’s quite a diversity of types,” Tim explains.

It means that Australia experienced a kind of “Age of Monotremes” during the first part of the late Cretaceous, when dinosaurs ruled the Earth and placental mammals were lurking around in the form of tiny, shrew-like creatures. 

It’s a period referred to as the “Cenomanian” – the earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery,” Tim said. “In all the time that people have been looking at fossils from Lightning Ridge, previously they’ve only found four jawbones of mammals, and here we have five new jawbones – so, more than double the number of specimens, which is hugely enlightening.”

“[These fossils] came to the museum and were then somehow lost – no-one took much notice of them or realised how important they were. Then between lockdowns there was a period when the museum was open and I went in and accessed a particular drawer and there were these amazing fossils – they were kind of like a Rosetta Stone to understanding the past.”

The Rosetta Stone is considered one of the British Museum’s most important objects because it holds the key to understanding Egyptian hieroglyphs.

The prestigious team, led by Tim, which has been crucial to unlocking the meaning of the recent Australian Museum find, includes Dr Tom Rich, Senior Curator of Vertebrate Palaeontology at Museums Victoria Research Institute; Professor Kris Helgen, the Australian Museum’s Chief Scientist and Director; Professor Patricia Vickers-Rich, Honorary Researcher at Museums Victoria Research Institute; Dr Matthew McCurry, a vertebrate palaeontologist and functional morphologist and palaeontologist; and Dr Elizabeth Smith, a palaeontologist, author and artist.

Related: Stunning breakthrough: the platypus and echidnas came from the South Pole

The post Is the “echidnapus” the Rosetta Stone of early mammal evolution? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Daisy, a seven-year-old Italian water-dog from Zoos Victoria’s Wildlife Detection Dog Squad, was put to the test in a recent study comparing her ability to locate critically endangered tea-tree fingers (TTF) to that of highly skilled human surveyors.

The study, published in iScience in April 2024, revealed Daisy outperformed humans by detecting more TTF specimens in a shorter amount of time, while producing fewer false negatives in the process.

It’s the first time wildlife detection dogs have been used in fungi conservation.

Related: Bizarre mushrooms give Australian forests an otherworldly vibe

The fungus

Tea-tree fingers (Hypocreopsis amplectens) is a unique-looking fungus that resembles dark, chubby fingers clutching a piece of wood. The critically endangered species has been sighted in just six known locations in Victoria in the past decade, with populations varying from a single specimen to dozens.

Lead author Dr Michael Amor, from RGBV, describes TTF as a “very specialised species” that needs a precise recipe of environmental conditions in order to occur. This is partly because TTF is most likely a mycoparasite – a fungus that parasitises other fungi species.

“TTF obtains its food from another fungus,” Michael says. “That means the right plants have to be abundant to suit the wood-rotting host fungus.”

Host plants for TTF include flowering shrubs common in the region, such as prickly tea-tree (Leptospermum continentale), silky tea-tree (Leptospermum myrsinoides), prickly broom heath (Monotoca scoparia) and Yarra burgan (Kunzea leptospermoides), as well as other less-common species.

Michael says the presence of TTF in an area indicates the health of an environment. “TTF’s rarity speaks quite loudly about the degraded state of the entire east coastal ecosystem that we have in Victoria,” Michael says. “That means it’s incredibly vulnerable to the impacts that humans are having on the environment.”

It’s no coincidence that the largest-known population of TTF is found inside French Island National Park, about 60km south-east of Melbourne. It’s the only TTF population inside a national park, and the populations are healthier and more abundant compared to those seen on the mainland. 

“That’s a direct reflection of the habitat protection that are in place and the general health of the environment on French Island within that national park, compared to the relatively under-protected sites on the mainland,” Michael says.

Threats to TTF include urbanisation and habitat loss, sand mining and climate change. TTF’s small population size means a single extreme weather event such as a fire could wipe out an entire population.

“We also haven’t seen TTF anywhere there’s been fire in the past two decades,” Michael says. “So post-fire colonisation is very slow. That’s another thing to add to the list of what makes TTF so picky and potentially so rare.”

The fungus’s scarcity makes researching it a challenge – TTF remains a bit of an enigma to scientists. Researchers know certain types of moth larvae eat the fungus, for example, but are still speculating about the other animals that may feed on it.

“Things are eating it, potentially as a primary food source…but we don’t know if that’s helping or harming [the fungus],” Michael says. “It could be harmful if it’s removing the entire reproductive potential of that specimen, but it may be helping in that by doing that it’s ingesting all the fleshy material and helping to disperse the spores as it moves along. That’s a critical bit of information that would be very helpful for us to know.”

Related: Stinkhorns: the fungi that smell like rotting flesh on purpose

Call in the hounds

And that’s where wildlife detection dogs, like Daisy, come in. Italian water-dogs (also known as Lagotto Romagnolo) have historically been used to find truffles. Instead, Daisy was trained to detect TTF by her handler, Dr Nick Rutter, Zoos Victoria Wildlife Detection Dog Officer.

“All of Zoos Victoria’s wildlife detection dogs are trained to detect their target species using positive reinforcement, pairing the smell of the species with a reward,” Nick says. For some dogs, this might be a tennis ball or a tug toy, but Daisy is mostly motivated by praise, engagement and play. “During initial training, Daisy learnt that sniffing the unique odour of tea-tree fingers was exciting because it meant that she received lots of snacks, pats and cuddles from me.”

But sniffing out a mycoparasite is no easy feat; TTF’s sporing body is partially made from the tissue of its host, creating an “in-built scent contamination for Daisy to contend with,” says Michael. But Daisy proved capable of ignoring this host fungus.

“You can usually tell when Daisy has caught a whiff of TTF because she starts to get excited. Her happy tail wags, then her whole bum wiggles and her sniffing rate increases as she works to pinpoint the exact location of the fungus,” says Nick. “Once she’s confident she has found it, Daisy alerts by sitting and looking at me with a big grin on her face to let me know she’s found the special fungus and that it’s time for me to come over and have a party with her.”

Daisy’s skills extend beyond her nose. She’s able to move easily through fragile habitats and crawl through small gaps in vegetation without damaging the surrounding plants. “Daisy is a great TTF detection dog because she naturally moves carefully through fragile environments, she can search for a long time without giving up and she isn’t distracted by wildlife that we might come across while searching,” Nick says.

Related: Puff go the spores: this is what happens when you poke earthstar fungi

The post On the nose: wildlife detection dog successfully trained to find rare ‘finger’ fungus appeared first on Australian Geographic.

I’m not the only one who hasn’t seen this endangered shorebird; according to BirdLife Australia, the painted-snipe is one of the 10 most difficult-to-find bird species in Australia. That not only means it’s difficult for birdwatchers to find but, more importantly, it’s also a challenge for researchers. 

For most of the 20th century – up until the 1990s, when DNA testing confirmed the Australian painted-snipe (Rostratula australis) has been isolated on mainland Australia for millions of years – the bird was considered a subspecies of the greater painted-snipe (Rostratula benghalensis) of Africa and Asia. Although greater painted-snipe populations have declined markedly, it remains a widespread wetland species. In parts of Asia, for example, it’s reliably found in traditional rice paddy landscapes, where it nests in fallow fields.

In contrast, the Australian painted-snipe’s distribution is patchy and its presence at any particular location is unpredictable. “They can turn up in very isolated wetlands that have been dry for ages,” says Dr Danny Rogers, an ornithologist with the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action. “My guess is that [the] Australian birds are a lot more mobile than the greater painted-snipe. Their longer wings suggest that.” 

Australian painted-snipe inhabit ephemeral wetlands, temporary swamps and shallow lagoons that periodically dry up and refill after replenishing rains. They probe for insects, worms, molluscs and other invertebrates in shallow water and exposed mud on wetland margins, and nest on the ground, typically among grass tussocks and reeds on small islands left by receding floodwaters.

The species is thought to be polyandrous, meaning females mate with multiple males that then incubate eggs and care for chicks. If ephemeral wetlands aren’t available, the birds make use of altered habitats such as farm dams, town ponds, and even airport drainage ditches.

Like many Australian wetland birds, the species appears to be nomadic, but little is currently known about its migratory behaviour. With so few sightings recorded, the mysterious species seemingly vanishes for months at a time.

Rare sightings

Australian painted-snipe sightings are rare and becoming rarer. Reported sightings have been declining since at least the 1950s, especially in the Murray–Darling Basin, which was once a stronghold for the species. Researchers estimate there are now only a few hundred birds left. 

Concerned about a lack of sightings in 2021 and 2022, Dr Matt Herring brought together a team of shorebird experts that launched the Australian Painted-Snipe Tracking Project (APSTP). Matt, an ecologist at private conservation consultancy Murray Wildlife, and his colleagues launched the program with a crowdfunding campaign that raised more than $124,000 in only 40 days. Through the project, the team is also seeking help from the public in reporting sightings and, in a breakthrough for the species, to track the birds for the first time. 

By the end of last year, 58 birds across 23 locations had been reported to the APSTP. Matt is encouraged by the spate of sightings but isn’t complacent. “With so many people on the look-out, and such great conditions, the number of birds found nationally emphasises how rare the bird is,” he says. “We know its population has declined.”

Also, very little is known about this unpredictable, cryptic bird’s ecology. Researchers are in the dark on where the elusive birds go during winter and droughts – when they seemingly vanish for months or even years at a time – and whether their habitats are secure. “A real threat is our lack of knowledge,” Matt says. 

Matt, Danny and their wetland-loving colleagues plan to attach a dozen devices – a mix of satellite and mobile phone network transmitters – to individual birds to learn more about their habitat use and movements. Most sightings are in south-eastern Australia during spring and summer, and little is known about where the birds spend autumn and winter.

A smattering of sightings recorded in northern Queensland and along the coast of central Queensland suggests part of the population undertakes regular seasonal migration. Tracking may uncover their migration mysteries and, it’s hoped, reveal key sites and drought refuges. 

Recording the call

With so much information to be gained, the tracking team was thrilled when a group of 25 birds was reported in a private wetland on a farm near Balranald, in the New South Wales Riverina, in October 2023. One was promptly caught in a mist net and fitted with a satellite transmitter, and Gloria, as she’s known, became the first Australian painted-snipe to have her movements tracked. Her behaviour has surprised Matt. “Already we’ve learnt that she uses dry roosts far more than I would have anticipated,” he says.  

The tracking team plans to catch and track more birds at this and other sites. However, the species’ skulking behaviour, and habit of sheltering in dense vegetation during the heat of the day, means they can be hard to spot and are easily overlooked. 

The team also hopes to bag a potentially useful survey tool – an audio recording of the Australian painted-snipe’s call. The greater painted-snipe makes deep loud hoots to advertise for mates and the sound often reveals their presence to birdwatchers. But the Australian painted-snipe’s advertisement call has never been recorded and the species doesn’t respond to the greater painted-snipe’s call. Presumably, millions of years of separation means they now speak a different love language. 

The main threat to the Australian painted-snipe seems to be the loss of temporary wetland habitat, particularly for breeding and refuge from drought. Drainage and water diversion for irrigated agriculture have taken a toll. “Many temporary wetlands don’t exist anymore, or they have permanent water regimes that are too deep and just not suitable breeding habitat,” Danny says.

Compounding the problem, remaining wetlands are dry for longer periods due to extended droughts. “Climate change, with the increasing frequency and severity of droughts – that’s possibly their biggest threat,” Matt says. 

Armed with knowledge of which wetlands Australian painted-snipe are using, the trackers will be able to engage with landholders to help them manage their wetlands to support the endangered bird. Finding the birds is the first challenge, so the team is calling on citizen scientists across Australia to join the hunt and report sightings. “Get out there and find this wetland jewel,” Matt says. “You never know where it might turn up.”

Related: ‘Bunyip’ bird returns to restored Tasmanian wetlands

The post In search of our mysterious painted-snipe appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Others quipped on Twitter (now X) : “I’m hearing reports of wombats ushering forest creatures into their burrows, mixing them a killer mango daiquiri and asking them to ‘kick back and listen to a few tunes’”, and, “We’re seeing more leadership and empathy from these guys than the entire federal government”.

But if the idea of altruistic wombats sounds too good to be true, that’s because it was. The story was soon debunked. 

Accidental heroes

While wombats do not actively herd other animals into their fireproof homes, the burrows do provide refuge – and a food and water source – even if it’s not the wombat’s intention.

How do we know this? It’s been captured on camera.

Between 29 December 2019 and 18 February 2020, more than 18,000ha of bush burned in Woomargama National Park and Woomargama State Forest in southern New South Wales.

Following the fires, scientists set up sensor cameras to monitor the recovery of wildlife in the area, focusing on the role of wombat burrows.

In a collaborative project between Charles Sturt University’s Gulbali Institute and WWF-Australia, the team placed camera traps in front of 28 burrows of bare-nosed wombats (Vombatus ursinus), also known as common wombats. The locations were chosen to include areas of varying degrees of fire damage. Cameras were also placed at 28 nearby control locations – with the same levels of fire damage, but without burrows.

Food and water

The analysis of these camera recordings, published in the May 2024 issue of Journal of Mammalogy, reveals “wombat burrows play a valuable and underappreciated role in Australia’s fire-prone forests”.

“The burrow sites had higher native mammal species richness,” says the study’s lead author Grant Linley, an ecologist and PhD Candidate at Charles Sturt University. “Wombats alter the soil, topography and vegetation around their burrows. They turn over tonnes of soil [while] constructing a burrow and their scats increase nitrogen levels, which boosts herb cover.”

Grant and the team think these ground changes increase foraging opportunities for small insectivore and omnivore species, such as the bush rats, agile antechinus, grey shrike-thrush and painted button-quails captured on camera.

“More small vertebrates hanging around wombat burrows could then be drawing in larger native predators, such as lace monitors, so the impact of burrows may be cascading through the system,” Grant says.

Related: AI discovers bushfire-ravaged native species are bouncing back

Between June 2021 and April 2022, the cameras recorded more than 15,000 individual animals. Of the 56 species identified, 47 were native and nine introduced.

The cameras recorded 30 species inspecting a burrow, 11 foraging at a burrow and 10 entering or leaving a burrow.

During this time 19 burrows also filled with water at least once. Four species were recorded drinking from one of these flooded burrows, and one was seen bathing in another.

This suggests that in dry periods, wombat burrows could be providing a critical service, serving up an important water source.

Examples of animal species and behaviours observed at the wombat burrows.
Image credits: Grant Linley

Shelter

Then there’s the well-publicised service wombat burrows provide – shelter. The study found small animals not only seek refuge in burrows to escape an active fire, but also after a fire to avoid predators.

“Many resources critical for species survival, such as logs, were destroyed by severe fires,” says co-author Dale Nimmo, a Professor in Ecology at Charles Sturt University.

“We found associations between species and burrows were often strengthened in fire-impacted habitat. For example, agile antechinus, bush rats and painted button-quails – all smaller-sized animals – were most active at burrows subject to high-severity fire,” says Dale.

The study found smaller species benefit most, with larger species less active around the burrows because they are unable to take full advantage of the shelter and foraging potentials due to the size of the burrow openings.

Regardless, Dale says the study has certainly proven “wombat burrows are potentially aiding in the survival, persistence and recovery of animal populations following severe wildfire events”.

The post Wombat burrows provide refuge from fires appeared first on Australian Geographic.

As well as promoting backyard beekeeping, Flow now offers educational online courses for beekeepers and supports habitat regeneration projects worldwide. Through Flow, the Andersons have brought together a global community of like-minded people who support being kinder to bees and caring for local environments that support the flora bees need to thrive.

“Beekeeping is a gateway hobby and we’re finding people campaigning to turn neighbourhoods into safe havens where bees want to be,” Cedar says. Interest in beekeeping is growing, he adds, in part due to the influence of celebrities such as David Beckham. In the opening scene of his 2023 four-part Netflix documentary, Beckham, the soccer superstar proudly shows off honey harvested from one of his nine Flow Hives. 

“We were amazed to see our Flow Hives featured in one of the biggest documentaries the world is currently watching,” Cedar says. “That shows the connection we can have with bees on a global scale, and it helps spread the message about the importance of bees to our food chain.”

Because pollinators help plants – including farm crops – reproduce, they play a crucial role in healthy food chains. But to be effective, bees and other pollinators need access to the right type of flora. So Flow has partnered with conservation and reforestation projects across the globe to protect and regenerate crucial bee habitat – helping to change the landscape for pollinating species worldwide.

“To protect the pollinators, we must protect the plants, and to protect the plants, we have to protect entire ecosystems,” Cedar says, acknowledging that all bees – not only European honeybees – are crucial for pollination and the future of healthy ecosystems.

Cedar has been beekeeping beekeeping since he was six, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. He grew up in an intentional community in northern New South Wales, where there were no TVs or electronic gadgets, and he spent his childhood building things from spare parts, like go-karts, with his siblings and friends. His father actively encouraged creative thinking.

It’s no surprise, then, that during one honey harvest, Cedar wondered if there might be a way to retrieve honey from hives that would be gentler on the bees and also reduce his chance of being stung. In 2005 he and Stuart began working on an idea. It took the duo 10 years to refine their design and build their prototype. In 2015, when Flow Hive was ready to launch, they established a crowdfunding campaign to help set up the manufacturing supply chain. “It took us by surprise when we received US$12.2 million in presales within eight weeks,” Cedar says. With initial presale orders for 24,500 Flow Hive units from 130 countries, Flow became a global phenomenon overnight. “Life hasn’t been the same since,” Stuart says.

A penchant for environmental activism runs in the Anderson family. In 1979 Cedar’s parents joined anti-logging protestors at Terania Creek, in northern NSW. “My parents were part of a landmark piece of activism – the first recorded successful rainforest blockade in the world – and I was there, in my mum’s belly,” Cedar says, smiling. During his 20s, Cedar worked for Greenpeace, flying across the Sumatran jungle in a paramotor (a powered paraglider) to document the illegal burning of orangutan habitat. Fast-forward to today, and Cedar is still an activist at heart. He recognises Flow’s potential to make a big impact on the world by tackling a pressing issue: the pollination crisis. 

In a 2023 paper in the journal Ecology and Evolution entitled “Pollination crisis Down-Under: Has Australasia dodged the bullet?”, Australian native-bee scientist Dr Kit Prendergast and others raised concerns about a human-induced “pollination crisis”. Kit and her colleagues identify the major threats to plant pollinators as habitat loss, climate change, pesticide use, pathogen spread and introduced species. “Any threat to pollinators has potentially damaging consequences for human wellbeing and other biota on earth,” Kit says. 

Cedar and his team are committed to tackling this by returning some of the profits from Flow Hive to support bee conservation. In 2020 the company launched thebeekeeper.org, an online beekeeping course that funds habitat regeneration projects worldwide. “We identified a need for quality education for beekeepers and to bring the global beekeeping community together,” Cedar explains. The entry-level, self-paced course is designed to take new beekeepers to a stage where they’re confident in beekeeping and includes content contributed by experts from throughout the world. Members seeking a deeper scientific knowledge can opt in to further study. 

The creator of the training course was Flow’s strategy and key-projects manager, Niall Fahy. Originally from Ireland, Niall was an ecological activist in his youth. He moved to Byron Bay and approached Flow for work in 2016. “I like how Flow is a company using human ingenuity to solve problems to make the world a better place,” he says. Half the profits from the course are used to protect and create biodiverse habitats for pollinators. “We named the program Billions of Blossoms (BoB), because that’s what bees need to thrive,” Niall says. Through partnering with organisations across the globe, Flow supports projects doing quality regeneration work. “There are roughly 20,000 bee species in the world, and many may not be able to get to the next flowering space,” Cedar says. “If we plant flora to help the world’s pollinators, then we’re doing something to help save the planet.” 

Cedar, Stuart, Niall and the Flow team have detailed in-depth discussions about where to disburse funds. “When carrying out reforestation, you have to ensure you’re working with good partners, that they’re planting the right species in the right places, and looking after them appropriately,” Niall says. BoB first began supporting projects in July 2021. “From the outset we chose to support a range of organisations both big and small, locally and internationally,” Niall says. “This diversity allows us to work in countries where our customers are based and also where we are likely to get more impact per dollar in regions where costs are lower.”

For example, in Madagascar, BoB works with an organisation called Eden: People+Planet, which supports planned reforestation and landscape restoration schemes. In Ecuador, in the foothills of the Andes, BoB supports the YAKUM Project, working with Indigenous communities to reforest land that was cleared for cattle. Another Ecuador-based project BoB supports, the Rainforest Information Centre (RIC), has a family connection – Stuart’s brother, Patrick, is on the board. This grassroots, volunteer-based, not-for-profit organisation partners with Indigenous and local communities battling to save the rare and beautiful cloud forests that are under constant threat from mining. By 2023 BoB had helped plant 1.5 million trees and protect thousands of hectares of biodiverse habitat, which translates to billions of blossoms for bees and other native foragers. 

Flow launched a new product in 2017 called the Pollinator House, a “cosy home” for solitary bees made from upcycled timber offcuts. “Unlike European honeybees, which build hives, native bees are solitary nesting bees that need a wild space, a hole in a piece of wood or a tube of bamboo,” Stuart says. “Creating habitat in your backyard gives these bees a stepping-stone through the urban landscape. Our pollinator house may be the difference between these native pollinators being on the brink of extinction and connecting them to another wild space.” All of the profits from pollinator house sales go towards organisations working to improve pollinator health. “The funds are used to support research, charity, education and conservation projects in Australia, the USA, the UK and Africa,” Niall says. “It’s a lot of work vetting these projects, but it’s important that Flow utilises business for positive change.”

While studying for her PhD between 2016 and 2022, Kit Prendergast applied to Flow for a Pollinator Community Group Grant. She was successful and used the grant to work on a project barcoding the DNA of Australian native bees. “Australia has an estimated 2000-plus species of native bees, yet only 1660 species have been described, and it’s likely many that are described need to be revised,” Kit says. “I was able to resolve the taxonomy of two species through DNA barcoding.” She’s concerned about the future of native bees, “our unsung heroes”, and it’s not only because of habitat loss. “Another threat is the lack of investment into studying native bees and advancing their taxonomy,” she says. “Without adequate funding, some of Australia’s unique native bees will disappear before they are even recognised.”

With celebrities such as David Beckham, Jamie Oliver, Chris Hemsworth and Johanna Griggs espousing beekeeping using Flow Hives, the message about the importance of bees is being elevated. While Cedar appreciates the celebrity affirmations, it’s not what drives him and his team. “What gets us out of bed in the morning is that we are more than a business selling a product,” he says. “Inspiring beekeepers is wonderful, but what we want is to join the global community in making a difference and to repair our world.

Related: A photographic guide to Australia’s bees

The post Protecting our pollinators appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Turns out, it’s neither. It’s the chassis of Solar Spirit, a solar-powered car being constructed by the ANU Solar Racing team. It’s a frigid June evening in the nation’s capital, and this workshop seems an unlikely place to find a group of 40 students attempting to build a state-of-the-art vehicle that runs purely on energy from the sun. They’re not just driven to design and create a working car, but also to be competitive in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge (BWSC), an event that attracts entrants from all over the world. It sees teams drive custom-made solar-powered vehicles on a gruelling 3021km journey from Darwin, in the Northern Territory, to Adelaide, in South Australia. Internationally renowned, the event has been running since 1987 and is a genuine challenge for seasoned professionals, let alone a motley mob of undergraduates assembled from each of the university’s academic colleges, not just the engineering faculty.

Many of the European teams that compete in the challenge enjoy multimillion-dollar budgets and are backed by internationally renowned sponsors. The event is still months away, but the German team, Team Sonnenwagen Aachen, is already testing the aerodynamics of its ultra-sleek monohulled Covestro Adelie in the Mercedes-Benz wind tunnel in Stuttgart. Rumour has it the entire car exhibits the wind resistance of a standard car’s single side mirror. Talk about stiff competition.

But what these fresh-faced students lack in financial backing and cutting-edge know-how they more than make up for in enthusiasm and dedication. While many of their peers are bingeing on Netflix, these wannabe tech heads are devoting up to 40 hours per week on top of their studies to prepare for the challenge.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” says Isaac Martin, a strapping lad who’d look more at home on the basketball court than lying on his back twiddling wires under the chassis. A fourth-year engineering student specialising in renewable energy, he is the leader of the ANU Solar Racing team. It’s his job to ensure the fibreglass, tyres and wiring strewn across the workshop floor somehow make it to the start line in four months as a functioning car. 

“We still have a lot to do to make it to Darwin,” he says. Talk about an understatement.

Fast-forward to 22 October 2023, and although it’s only 8am, the streets of Darwin are already lined with throngs of Territorians who’ve come to cheer on the cavalcade of futuristic-looking cars about to embark on their epic journey south. Some are sitting on their eskies, others are in their eskies.

Akin to crowds at the Tour de France, most are here for the spectacle, rather than to closely follow the fortunes of a particular team. But there is one major difference: instead of popping bottles of champagne, Darwinians are uncapping bottles of amber fluid. Yes, even at this ungodly hour. 

Having qualified in pole position, Team Sonnenwagen Aachen leads the exodus out of State Square. Hot on their heels is the Innoptus Solar Team, consisting of Belgian engineering students. With no prize money up for grabs, the BWSC is officially a challenge, not a race, but try telling that to these two combatants who, along with several other European rivals, are expected to fiercely battle it out for a podium finish. 

Do the inexperienced students from Canberra have what it takes to rumble with the favourites? Having passed a rigorous scrutineering session and qualified 10th on the grid during a dazzling hot lap, they’ve given themselves every chance. 

“I’m just amazed they got their car to the start,” says photographer Thomas Wielecki, who has joined me for the journey south to Adelaide.

Maximising Sun exposure

More so than in most places in Australia, life in the Top End is dictated by the sun. At this time of year, most avoid the heat of the day, instead migrating en masse to the nearest air-conditioned space. And that doesn’t just apply to Homo sapiens; even the mounds of cathedral termites, which are reminiscent of elaborate medieval cathedrals and can reach up to several metres high, are aligned north–south to minimise exposure to the midday sun. 

In stark contrast, solar arrays are plastered on every available surface of every entrant’s vehicle. Without exposure to the sun, there’d be no race – we’d be left to dodge crocodiles at Nightcliff Beach. While cloud cover is enemy number one, there are countless hazards the spirited drivers of these futuristic-looking vehicles need to be ready for, including those diesel-belching big bullies of the outback – road trains. 

“You’d want to have your wits about you if you are sitting at ground level in a tiny 200kg solar car and a 50m-long, 200-tonne truck pulling three trailers roars past you,” says Thomas from the passenger seat of our motorhome. Then there’s roadkill. It’s at the forefront of the minds of the ANU Solar Racing team. In the last challenge, held in 2019, part of a partially decomposed kangaroo was sucked up into their car’s cockpit. Not wanting to lose precious time, they didn’t extract the putrid carcass until the next control stop 100km down the track. Eww!

Not wanting a repeat, this year ANU Solar Racing has a scout in one of its support vehicles whose main job is to look out for roadkill. They are also on watch for debris on the road and the ubiquitous cattle grids, both of which can send the solar car airborne if unexpectedly approached at the wrong angle or speed. 

However, it’s not a rancid roo or a yawning pothole that rocks the ANU team less than an hour out of Darwin. The electrics on the trailer of their hired support vehicle have failed. By itself, this isn’t the end of the world. It can be readily fixed. However, when combined with a tyre blow-out on Solar Spirit, it’s a recipe for disaster. “Our equipment to fix the tyre is in our support vehicles,” Isaac says, his cursing voice crackling over the team radio.

Giving Solar Spirit every chance to catch up to us, Thomas and I pull over at the first compulsory driver-change control stop, adjacent to the abandoned Emerald Springs Roadhouse, about 190km south of Darwin. It’s here we get our first glimpse of Sunswift 7, the pride and joy of Sunswift Racing, the University of New South Wales team. They are favourites for the coveted Cruiser Class, in which participants design and create practical, multi-seater vehicles that test ideas that could one day come to market.

The control stop is like a Formula One pit stop, if it were on the set of Revenge of the Nerds. As bags of ballast (each car has a minimum weight requirement) are tossed into the gutter, each car’s new driver sprints out of a support vehicle carrying a seat under their arm. “Each seat is perfectly moulded to fit their body,” explains a race official.

While there are 23 competitors in the Challenger Class (the classic solar car class, where vehicles, including Solar Spirit, compete for the title of world’s fastest), there are just eight entries in the Cruiser Class. These cars, which look much more like standard sedans, are judged on energy efficiency, passenger kilometres travelled, and design criteria that include interior comfort, features and desirability. Most importantly, unlike the Challenger Class vehicles, which are powered 100 per cent by solar, Cruiser Class vehicles are also allowed two electrical charges along the route – one at Tennant Creek and one at Coober Pedy. 

In early 2023, Sunswift 7 set a record for being the fastest electric vehicle to complete 1000km on a single charge. Elon Musk knows the vehicle by name. How could he not. If one day partially solar-powered vehicles start to appear at Tesla showrooms, this is probably what they’ll look like.

Pub talk

With Solar Spirit still floundering back in the field, Thomas and I face a difficult decision. Do we wait, or try to keep pace with the front-runners? We choose the latter, and by late afternoon, we’ve caught up to the leaders spread out along a 66km section of the Stuart Highway near Daly Waters, jostling for the best overnight camp spots.

Parched after a long day on the road, Thomas and I make a beeline for the iconic Daly Waters Pub. With the onset of the wet season imminent, it’s usually quiet at this time of year, but not tonight. It’s abuzz with chat about the race. Oops, challenge.

Perched on bar stools next to us are several “red shirts” – the nickname given to the army of volunteers who help make the BWSC run like a well-oiled machine. 

“Ben Lexcen, eat your heart out!” says one red shirt, referring to the innovative, swivelling, retractable fin/sail on Infinite, the Belgian team’s car. Apparently, it’s designed to harness the crosswinds that howl across the Central Desert. And it seems just about everyone has an opinion on the fin, whether they’ve seen it or not. 

“How is that even allowed?” asks a member of the bar staff.

“There’s nothing in the regulations to say you can’t use the wind,” answers Dr Thomas Schmidt. He’s one of the only thirsty patrons not in red, but he does have a close connection with one of the teams, albeit an unusual one. He designed the shoes worn by the German team. Really! 

“Being able to prove sustainability credentials is important for all the European teams,” he says, adding that the shoes are made from a recycled material and coated with a bio-based resin. “The greenhouse gas emissions for each pair produced in this way are about 260g of CO₂ equivalent, less than a pair of standard shoes,” he says, concluding that while it may not sound like much, if you multiply it by 50 pairs of shoes, it makes a difference. 

The pub isn’t the only distraction in Daly Waters. One of the outback outpost’s biggest claims to fame is a tree that European explorer John McDouall Stuart camped near on his third and successful attempt to reach Darwin in 1862. Apparently, he carved the initial “S” into it. While the route from Port Augusta to Darwin now bears his name, the S seems to have faded into oblivion over time. That’s if he did carve it, because there’s no mention of it in his diary. 

Sunstruck onlookers

Of course, the solar car teams aren’t stopping for any sightseeing. During permitted driving times of 8am–5pm, they only stop driving for compulsory control stops, one of the few places members of the public can gawk at (but not touch) the cars up close.

Among the small posse of sunstruck onlookers at the Tennant Creek control stop is Ruth Furber. She’s feverishly snapping photos with her smartphone. “It looks so claustrophobic,” she says as the driver of the slick red-and-white car of Japan’s Kogakuin University Solar Team clambers on all fours out of the cockpit, enough sweat dripping off him to make the Todd River flow again. 

Hailing from Mparntwe (Alice Springs), Ruth reveals she’s been an ardent fan of the solar challenge since its inception in 1987. “My friends down in the Alice will be so jealous that I got to see the cars first this year,” she boasts as she quickly uploads selfies onto Facebook.

The Alice is another 500km south. That’s a long way cooped up in an air-conditioned motorhome, let alone in a solar car where the cockpit temperature can soar to higher than 50°C. 

Out here, the heat haze can also play tricks with your mind. It makes objects in the distance look bigger than they are, and just on sunset, we spot what appears to be six giant statues rising above the mulga beside the highway. It’s only as we get closer that we realise they’re the support crew from the Japanese team Ruth had photographed earlier in Tennant Creek. Having already set up camp for the night, they’re tilting the top of their solar car towards the sun.

I jump out for a closer look. Expecting a hello, I’m somewhat taken aback by a flurry of furious arm movements and stern words hollered in my direction. Oops, my shadow passed over their solar arrays, albeit for just a few fleeting seconds. Talk about squeezing every last bit of energy out of the sun!

Making tough calls

Further down “the track”, as many colloquially refer to the Stuart Highway, the Dutch team, Top Dutch Solar Racing, with its sleek monohulled vehicle, Green Thunder, has pitched its tents adjacent to the Barrow Creek Hotel. 

You’d think 50 famished solar racers bunking down on your doorstep would be an economic boom for a far-flung roadhouse/pub, but due to the BWSC’s strict driving times, Top Dutch Solar, like all the other teams, is completely self-sufficient. It’s just a fluke that as the clock ticked over to 5pm they happened to be passing the roadhouse.

Not wanting to leave the Barrow Creek economy in an unduly suppressed state, Thomas and I poke our noses into the front bar. Rick Szoboszali, bottle of beer in one hand and half-eaten sausage in the other (apparently, it’s gourmet barbecue night at the pub), ambles over to say g’day. And while he’s not a local, he may as well be. After a couple of decades roaming from Darwin to Kalgoorlie “and everywhere in between”, salvaging wrecked or bogged cars, Rick has rightly earned the moniker “the strolling scrappy”. When work is slow, he picks up odd jobs along the way.

“I’ve been guarding the fuel pumps to make sure no-one drives off without paying,” he says. “It happens far too often here, and a full tank of diesel can be hundreds of dollars.”

Although the solar cars don’t need fuel, the support vehicles do. “And they’ve been filling up,” Rick says. “I think we will need internal combustion engines out this way for some time to come.” 

While we’re chatting, my phone rings. It’s the ANU team, and the news isn’t good. They failed to reach a control stop in time. “We are out,” Isaac says, the disappointment in his voice palpable. But their outback adventure isn’t necessarily over; teams forced to retire from the challenge can continue in the non-competitive Adventure Class. “We’ll reassess overnight,” he says.

The morning’s focus

The next morning, we’re up with the pink cockatoos, but not as early as the Top Dutch who, resplendent in team kit, are huddled in a perfect circle for a sunrise briefing. Keen to gain insight into what makes them tick, we creep to within eavesdropping distance. They don’t appear to notice us. They’re too focused. Either that or they think we’re spies. When we first heard about spies, we thought it was a gee-up. But it’s true. All the top teams have spy cars that brazenly tail their rivals and report back on their speeds and strategy. Who’d have thought?

“It’s likely we won’t see another solar car all day, so we need to imagine there is a team just behind and just in front of us,” says the Top Dutch team leader to his drivers. It’s only the third day of the challenge, but already the field has spread out that far. “It’s critical we don’t lose our competitive edge,” he adds, before a procession of experts report on a range of complex technical and logistical details that would likely make Mission Control’s briefing for the 1969 Moon landing seem like child’s play. 

Last to step up is the team meteorologist, digital weather station in one hand, laptop in the other. “Halfway through the day a cold change will hit us,” he says.

“Aha, finally the fabled cross winds,” I whisper to Thomas. 

However, the most concerning peril today isn’t the predicted wind, but rather a bushfire front burning along a 200km stretch of highway between here and the Alice. “Not only is there a chance that leaping flames will close the highway, but also that the smoke will block the sun, meaning we will lose speed,” says the meteorologist.

When Green Thunder eventually rolls back from the rest-stop bulldust and onto the bitumen of the Stuart Highway, it starts from the exact spot where it stopped the night before. The driver makes sure of it. If not, an independent observer embedded in their team would impose a time penalty, and no-one wants that.

All the colour and characters of the Australian Outback along the route cutting straight through the continent.

Outpacing a storm front

Ahead, the air is laden with thick smoke and the sides of the Stuart are blackened, but at least the road is open. For now. 

Fortunately, the threat of road closures and smoke lifts as we cross the Tropic of Capricorn, travel through the Alice, and back into the wilds of the desert. Phew. We’ve dodged a bullet. Or at least we think we have. 

Approaching Stuarts Well, about 90km south of Alice Springs, the sky west of us grows dark again. Only this time it’s not smoke, it’s a desert storm. Raindrops hiss and fizz as they splash onto the scorching bitumen. The temperature plummets, and, as if on cue, a mini tornado almost blows our motorhome off the road. The Top Dutch weather boffin was spot on.

“I hope the Green Thunder dodged that or they’ll end up blowing from here to Timbuktu,” I bellow to Thomas while still grappling with the steering wheel, trying to keep our overbalanced rig from toppling over.

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone came to grief along this stretch of highway,” Thomas replies. 

He’s right. In May 1994 a Japanese driver and his co-driver competing in the Northern Territory Cannonball Run car race were killed instantly when their Ferrari F40 careened into a checkpoint just south of here. Two officials were also killed in the incident.

Thankfully, Green Thunder has outpaced the storm front but the driving conditions are still far from ideal. To escape the wailing westerly, we bunker down overnight at Kulgera. At the entrance to our campsite is a clothesline whizzing around with dozens of old shoes hanging from it – an outback take on the Aussie thong tree common in coastal areas. It began after a dog developed an unhealthy penchant for pilfering campers’ shoes.

 “There are lots of boots, but no sign of any shoes from the German team,” Thomas says. Nor should there be; along with other race leaders, they’re several hundred kilometres ahead of us, having already crossed the SA border.

In the morning, we receive news Solar Spirit is back on the road and with the wind still howling we head for Coober Pedy, in outback SA, where we hope to reunite with the ANU team. At the pre-event briefing, we were told to watch out for outback constabulary in this part of SA. Apparently, they like to swoop on lead-footers heading from the Territory where the speed limit is higher. They’ll even book the solar cars if they’re speeding.

“A solar car pulled over by a cop – now, that would be a great photo,” says Thomas, his zoom lens already half-poked out the window looking for the money shot. Unfortunately for him, all we find patrolling the outskirts of Coober Pedy are willy-willies fuelled by dust and the broken dreams of the prospectors whose abandoned mines pockmark the desert as far as the eye can see.

Meanwhile, in town it appears as if someone forgot to circulate the memo about the solar challenge to locals. One woman trying to single-handedly change that is Sue Britt, who has hand-painted welcome messages on old pizza boxes. Some are tied to cyclone fencing at the Coober Pedy control stop but the largest of all, which screams “Go with the Sun!”, is proudly strapped to the front of her Subaru Brumby.

“Our town needs to be more welcoming to events like this,” she says. “We need to find alternate sources of energy, and solar is one of those.”

Our ponderings about future energy sources are cut short by one of the red shirts. “Here comes ANU!” he yells, as Solar Spirit arrives in a cloud of dust.

“No need for an ice vest today,” says Harrison Oates, the team’s operations manager, as driver Rachel Porter emerges from the cockpit. She smiles and, wait for it… asks for a blanket. With the mercury barely at 11°C and the wind chill in the single digits, it feels almost like a Canberra winter. No wonder Team ANU have regained their mojo.

The red shirts have breaking news. Due to a combination of smoke and strong winds, not one of the vehicles in the Cruiser Class, including the seemingly invincible Sunswift 7, have successfully finished the second stage. It’s just the second time this has happened in the history of the class.

The blustery conditions have also wreaked havoc with the Challenger field, except for the Belgian team, whose vehicle sports the futuristic fin. In fact, while we’re dodging dirt-encrusted tumbleweeds between Coober Pedy and Woomera, we hear on the race radio that the Belgians have crossed the finish line, after just over 34 hours of driving, claiming back-to-back BWSC titles. Remarkable.

Finishing without mishap

South of Port Augusta, where a maze of roadworks and lower speed limits renders overtaking near impossible, the focus for all teams turns to finishing without any mishaps. However, disaster strikes the German team when their car is blown off the highway. Their driver is lucky, escaping with a few scratches, but it’s tough luck for the team, whose car also flipped in the 2019 challenge.

It’s also far from smooth sailing for ANU Solar Racing, who come to the aid of another team after one of their support vehicles T-bars a galloping emu.

Meanwhile, in Adelaide’s Victoria Square, perched on a pedestal in the shadow of the chequered flag is the Belgian team’s winning car. Several of the team’s tech heads are showing off their car’s daring design to a crowd of captivated bystanders. “It not only made us faster, but also improved our stability,” says team manager Cedric Verlingen, after having crunched the numbers on the impact of that fin.

In contrast, hidden in the marquee on the far side of the square, Niklas Taphorn, electrical engineer with retired rival Sonnenwagen Aachen, cuts a lonely figure as he stands forlornly over his team’s patched-up entry. He recalls the incident that forced his team to bow out of the event. “It’s all a blur, but two road trains passing in either direction created a vortex, flipping the car,” he says, revealing that the rest of his team are licking their wounds, enjoying some saltwater therapy at Glenelg Beach. “We’re devastated,” he says, “but we’ll be back even faster for the next race.”

A raucous cheer erupts as ANU’s Solar Spirit crosses the finish line. Supporters have travelled in numbers across the Hay Plain from Canberra to see their family and friends reach the end.

I’d like to report that the loudest applause is from their biggest fans, but Thomas and I are exhausted. We travelled and camped in air-conditioned luxury, and we can barely rustle up enough energy to clap. I can only imagine how Isaac and the team must feel.

“It really is a life-changing experience,” Isaac says. “In the face of adversity, we’ve bonded incredibly well as a team and have learnt so much,” he adds, appearing to wipe something out of the corner of his left eye. 

“Are they tears?” asks Thomas.

“No, it’s just a speck of dust from the Central Desert,” I reply.

Of course, it’s probably both.

The Bridgestone World Solar Challenge is a biennial event. The next challenge is scheduled for October 2025. Find updates at worldsolarchallenge.org/

The post Chasing the Sun appeared first on Australian Geographic.

This phenomenon – called stranding or beaching – isn’t new. It’s been happening for thousands of years, at least.

Even Aristotle wrote about it back in the 4th century BCE. “It is not known why they sometimes run aground on the seashore: for it is asserted that this happens rather frequently when the fancy takes them, and without any apparent reason,” he wrote in Historia Animalium.

A stranding occurs when one or more cetacean species (whale, dolphin or porpoise) becomes marooned on land, usually on a beach.

Most scientists agree on the cause of single strandings – the individual has become ill, and either died at sea (its carcass then floating and washing ashore) or it has stranded because illness has led to weakness, distress or disorientation. Mother/calf pairs are also classified as single strandings.

But when it comes to multiple strandings, more commonly known as mass strandings, scientists don’t have a definite answer.

Why pilot whales?

While we don’t know why cetaceans strand en masse, we do know which species are most susceptible.

Mysticetes (baleen/toothless) species rarely mass-strand. It is the odontocete (toothed) whales and dolphins that beach themselves in large numbers. In Australia and New Zealand, pilot whales strand in greater numbers than any other species.

But why?

Theories

Scientists have been studying the cause of strandings for centuries. In that time many theories have emerged – some popular and some extremely contentious among experts.

When it comes to pilot whales, specifically, there are several prominent modern theories.

The answer is most likely a combination of these:

Natural causes:

Strong social bonds

Pilot whales, like most toothed-whale species, form pods with extremely strong social cohesion. This means if one member of the group heads towards shore, the rest could follow, their herding instinct kicking in. Similarly, if one becomes stranded, the group will hear that individual’s distress calls and could strand themselves alongside them in solidarity.

Navigational errors

Toothed whale species use echolocation to navigate their underwater world, sending out pulses of high-frequency sound and using the sound’s reflections to map their surroundings.

But sometimes these sonar signals fail, and could do so for a number of reasons.

Bad weather, rough seas and/or dirty water could reduce sonar effectiveness. Echolocation also works best in deep water. This means the whales can run into problems when they encounter a sloping sea floor as masses of sand can absorb the sonar signals too fast. This could make it hard for the whales to realise the sloping sand is there until they are very close. By this time the whales may have already strayed too close to shore, or be trapped.

Confusing tidal patterns

Coastal regions with shallow topography and unexpected tidal ranges could also confuse the pilot whales. In these types of locations, sometimes called ‘whale traps’, the animals may not only have lost their navigational skills due to the shallow water, but can be caught in a race against the confusing outgoing tides.

Chasing prey

Pilot whales could easily make mistakes while hunting, most likely not realising they are entering shallower waters in pursuit of prey, until it is too late.

Food shortages could also be to blame, forcing the whales to travel into less familiar waters to chase animals they wouldn’t usually prey on.

Fleeing predators

Just as pilot whales are themselves hunters, they are also hunted by larger and more aggressive species, such as orcas.

When being chased by these predators, pilot whales might strand themselves in a panic to avoid being caught.

Spooked

It’s not just predators that pilot whales could be fleeing. They could also swim in the wrong direction or even strand themselves after being frightened by a loud sound or strange movement.

Human-made causes:

Although whale strandings have been occurring long before human activities could be to blame, they may now be happening more often, due to human-made disturbances in our oceans.

Noise pollution

This could be the cause of some modern-day strandings.

Loud vessel and other human-made noises might not only spook the whales, but they might also interfere with the effectiveness of their echolocation systems.

Other, more extreme human-made noises, such as those emitted from military sonar activities and seismic surveys, might also cause acoustic trauma in pilot whales, causing long-term hearing problems and, again, affecting their echolocation systems.

Injury

Other human activities, including fishing, boating, underwater construction and polluting, are responsible for many injuries or illlnesses that can cause a pilot whale to strand.

Overfishing also deprives pilot whales of their main sources of food, leading them to hunt different animals closer to shore.

Silver linings

While scientists haven’t yet reached a shared conclusion as to what causes pilot whales to strand, one thing they can all agree on is that every stranding brings them a step closer to discovering the reason.

As distressing as each stranding is, scientists are able to collect invaluable data from each one. This comes from both physical samples taken from the deceased animals, and observations made about the behaviour exhibited by the whales before, during and after each stranding event.

With scientific technologies constantly advancing, and everyday citizens now able to capture footage of mass strandings from every angle, one day soon the mystery could very well be solved, and with it, hopefully, a solution found to prevent them.

Related: Scientists begin studying bodies of whales from recent WA mass stranding  

The post What causes pilot whale strandings? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

However, the protestors at the “Rally Against Reckless Renewables” (held outside Federal Parliament House in February 2024) claimed that we couldn’t have both renewables and agriculture. They may have based their concerns on a media release from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) claiming that about one-third of Australia’s “prime agricultural land” would have to be “taken over” to accommodate these renewables.

Actually, the real figure is closer to 0.027 per cent, rather than 33 per cent! That’s the estimate by the Clean Energy Council on the specific assumption of replacing all the coal electricity in Australia with solar farms.

It takes very “creative” assumptions to get such a wild discrepancy, but the IPA obliged. It overestimated the amount of electricity we would need in 2050 by a factor of 30 (according to the Australian Energy Market Operator). Also, it’s long been known that more than half the energy in coal is wasted as heat. So the IPA applied the same weighting factor to the electricity coming out of a renewable source(!). Next, the IPA excluded any rooftop solar electricity (even though it’s the biggest single contributor of renewable energy to the National Energy Market). Other sources of renewables that the IPA ignored were wind and offshore wind. Furthermore, the land under onshore wind turbines is not a barren apocalyptic wasteland – instead, about 97 per cent is either cropped or grazed. This is just part of how you turn 0.027 per cent into 33 per cent.

But with electricity and agriculture it’s not an either/or situation. Depending on the habitat, and what the farmer is growing, the result can be a small improvement, or a small deficit.

Near Wellington, in central western New South Wales, Tony Inder has 1700 merino sheep grazing under hundreds of hectares of solar panels. He has seen improvement in both the quality of the grass, and therefore the wool. 

But if agricultural yield drops, it can usually be compensated for by income from renewables. In NSW and Victoria, farmers get $200,000 per kilometre of transmission line over 10 years. Solar farms can generate $1500 per hectare per year, while wind turbines pay about $40,000 per turbine per year.

This new hybrid agriculture can bring benefits for all – with good national planning and regulation.

The post Dr Karl: Renewables and agriculture can coexist appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Within 24 hours we received 160 reports of sick and dying frogs, sometimes in their dozens, from across the country. That winter, we received more than 1,600 reports of more than 40 frog species.

We needed help to investigate these deaths. We asked people across New South Wales to collect any dead frogs and store them frozen until travel restrictions eased and we could pick them up for testing. Hundreds of people stepped up to assist.

What could be causing these deaths? Aside from the obvious suspect, disease, many people wondered about pesticides and other chemicals. One email we received pondered:

Maybe a lot of these green frogs that are turning up dead have in fact died from chemicals.

Another asked:

Is there any relationship between chemicals being used to control the current mice plague in eastern Australia and effects on frogs?

In our newly published research, we detected pesticides in more than one in three frogs we tested. We found a rodenticide in one in six frogs.

Pesticides have been shown to be a major cause of worldwide declines in amphibians, including frogs and toads. In the case of the mass deaths in Australia, we don’t believe pesticides were the main cause, for reasons we’ll explain.

What did the research find?

As soon as travel restrictions eased, we drove around the state with a portable freezer collecting these dead frogs. We began investigating the role of disease, pesticides and other potential factors in this awful event.

We tested liver samples of 77 frogs of six species from across New South Wales for more than 600 different pesticides. We detected at least one pesticide in 36 per cent of these frogs.

Our most significant discovery was the rodenticide Brodifacoum in 17 per cent of the frogs. This is the first report of rodenticides – chemicals meant to poison only rodents – in wild frogs.

We found it in four species: the eastern banjo frog (Limnodynastes dumerilii), green tree frog (Litoria caerulea), Peron’s tree frog (Litoria peronii) and the introduced cane toad (Rhinella marina).

How did these poisons get into frogs?

How were frogs exposed to a rodenticide? And what harm is it likely to be causing? Unfortunately, we don’t know.

Until now, frogs weren’t known to be exposed to rodenticides. They now join the list of non-rodent animals shown to be exposed – invertebrates, birds, small mammals, reptiles and even fish.

It’s possible large frogs are eating rodents that have eaten a bait. Or frogs could be eating contaminated invertebrates or coming into contact with bait stations or contaminated water. Whatever the impact, and the route, our findings show we may need to think about how we use rodenticides.

Two pesticides detected in frogs were organochlorine compounds dieldrin and heptachlor. A third, DDE, is a breakdown product of the notorious organochlorine, DDT.

These pesticides have been banned in Australia for decades, so how did they get into the frogs? Unfortunately, these legacy pesticides are very stable chemicals and take a long time to break down. They usually bind to organic material such as soils and sediments and can wash into waterways after rain.

As a result, these pesticides can accumulate in plants and animals. It’s why they have been banned around the world.

We also found the herbicide MCPA and fipronil sulfone, a breakdown product of the insecticide fipronil. Fipronil is registered for use in agriculture, home veterinary products (for flea and tick control) and around the house for control of termites, cockroaches and ants. MCPA has both agricultural and household uses, including lawn treatments.

What are the impacts on frogs?

There’s very little research on the impact of pesticides on frogs in general, particularly adult frogs and particularly in Australia.

However, from research overseas, we know pesticides could kill frogs, or cause sub-lethal impacts such as suppressing the immune system or malformations, or changes in growth, development and reproduction. Pesticides are considered a threat to almost 700 amphibian species.

Unfortunately for them, frogs do have characteristics that make them highly likely to come into contact with pesticides.

Most frog species spend time in both freshwater systems, such as wetlands, ponds and streams (particularly at the egg and tadpole stage), and on the land. This increases their opportunities for exposure.

Second, frogs have highly permeable skin, which is likely a major route for pesticides to enter the body. Frogs obtain water through their skin – you’ll never see a frog drinking – and also breathe through their skin.

Our findings are a reminder that frogs are sensitive indicators of environmental health. Their recognition as bioindicators, or “canaries in the coalmine”, is warranted.

Frogs and other amphibians are the most threatened group of vertebrates on the planet. More research is needed to determine just how our use of pesticides is contributing to ongoing population declines in frogs.

So, were pesticides the major driver of the mass frog deaths in 2021? We don’t believe so.

We didn’t detect pesticides in most frogs and the five pesticides detected were not consistently found across all samples. It’s certainly possible they contributed to this event, along with other factors such as disease and climatic conditions, but it’s not the smoking gun.

Our investigation, with the help of the public, is ongoing.

Chris Doyle, from the NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, contributed to this article.

Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney and Damian Lettoof, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Wildlife Ecotoxicology, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Are pesticides to blame for recent mass deaths of frogs? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

It might seem obvious, but the fact that nature does not, and cannot, align itself with national and international jurisdictions proves a huge challenge for migratory species conservation. A world-first report into the State of the World’s Migratory Species, launched at COP14, reveals the extent of these challenges. 

Populations are declining in close to half (44 per cent) of the almost 1200 species tracked by the convention. The problem is much worse underwater: fish species listed under the convention have declined, on average, 90 per cent since 1970. A further challenge is that not all migratory species are listed. Australia’s regional responsibility should be brought into sharp focus by the finding that unlisted migratory species in Oceania are experiencing the fastest rate of decline of any group, in any region.

Related: Hunters kill migrating birds on their 10,000km journey to Australia

Unfortunately for migratory species, efforts from a single country simply cannot halt their dramatic population declines. Even if, for example, Australia effectively protects albatross breeding colonies on every island in our jurisdiction, populations will keep declining if adults and juveniles continue to die as bycatch in commercial fisheries when the birds migrate around Antarctica. Coordinated threat management is required among all countries whose waters overlap the birds’ migratory range, along with effective management of fisheries in the high seas.

Though it may seem a daunting task, it is possible to reverse population declines. Species such as the humpback whale and Latham’s snipe (a migratory shorebird) have seen population growth after multiple countries agreed to stop hunting. In addition to stopping intentional (and unintentional) killing of migratory animals, we must also ensure that key habitat areas are identified, protected and well connected.

The collaborative agreements required to undertake coordinated protection are well defined in some parts of the globe. For example, the East Asian-Australasian Flyway Partnership (EAAFP) brings together governments, inter-governmental organisations and NGOs to conserve migratory waterbirds throughout our region.

Many key stopover sites in the EAAF are intertidal wetlands, located on or near hubs of human activity such as ports. Although these sites are highly visible, more research is required to understand how they are connected. Do all migratory waterbirds attend all sites? Do some sites support single populations, while others support individuals of different origins? Recovery requires protection of a continuous migratory path, and our efforts will fail if we accidentally protect disconnected habitats.

Related: Flying for their lives

The impact of animal migrations extends far beyond the species themselves. Migratory animals transfer essential nutrients and energy from one place to another. The pulse of mass arrival and departure is a phenomenon not only critical to ecosystem function but also of great cultural significance. National governments, international organisations, NGOs, local communities and First Nations groups all have important roles to play – but no-one can do it alone. While nature knows no borders, humans do. It is our responsibility to see – and then act across – anthropogenic divisions if we wish to preserve great migrations for generations to come.

Dr Lily Bentley is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow within the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at The University of Queensland. She attended COP14.

Related: OPINION: Leading by example

The post OPINION: Moving on migration appeared first on Australian Geographic.

The ‘incredible’ specimen Tim is referring to is the fossil of an extinct short-faced kangaroo from the Pleistocene (Ice Age) epoch.

And he’s not wrong when he says there isn’t much a palaeontologist like himself wouldn’t do to get their hands on something like this.

It was Tim who recently led a team deep underground to retrieve the fossil skeleton from a cave system on Gunaikurnai Country near Buchan in East Gippsland, Victoria.

In total, the team – including Tim’s Museums Victoria Research Institute colleagues, other palaeontologists and scientists, Parks Victoria rangers and recreational cavers – spent a total of 58 hours underground (over a two-year period) to painstakingly bring the precious specimen safely to the surface.

Rigged up with harnesses and other safety equipment, the team entered the cave by “squeezing down through a hole about the width of my shoulders across,” Tim explains.

From there, things only get trickier.

“We then abseiled for 8m through a constricted passage to reach the bottom.

“Then we went through a u-bend on our bellies to corkscrew into the cave proper.”

From that point it was another 20m to the site where the specimen lay – on a protected ledge within a vertical shaft. All up, just getting to the fossil took a full hour each time.

Then, the work began to cautiously extract each bone, piece by piece.

At one stage Tim even took the shirt off his own back to wrap the precious skull bones in to ensure they made it – unharmed – to the surface.

‘Extremely rare’

So, why is this specimen so special?

The near-complete skeleton is one of the most complete fossils ever found in Australia, and the most complete fossil skeleton ever discovered in a Victorian cave.

The exceptionally well preserved 150 bones, amounting to 71 per cent of the original skeleton, include a near-complete skull. They belong to an extinct short-faced kangaroo (Simosthenurus occidentalis).

Radiocarbon dating of closely-associated sediment indicates the skeleton is at least 49,400 years old.

‘Fossils of this quality and completeness are extremely rare in Australia. This skeleton has lain in a pitch-black cave for 50,000 years!” adds Tim.

Discovery

The fossil was first sighted in 2011 by local recreational cavers. “They were the ones who first laid eyes on its skull,” explains Tim.

“When I first visited the cave 10 years later I saw what looked like a whole skeleton with its bones in life position even after tens of thousands of years.”

On a return visit over a decade later, Tim saw the condition of the fossil had begun to degrade, so hastily began planning a way to retrieve and conserve it.

“It’s been a privilege to bring it back to the light,” he says.

The fossil will be on public display at Melbourne Museum from June 24

The post Near-complete 50,000-year-old kangaroo skeleton retrieved from underground cave appeared first on Australian Geographic.

“In this case, we’re not catching the parrot as a criminal,” he hastens to add. “The parrot is the victim.”

Parrots are, by number, among the most trafficked bird in the illegal wildlife trade, motivating Olah, from the Fenner School of Environment and Society at The Australian National University (ANU), to develop a project bringing together criminology and conservation.

Olah is creating a forensic genomic toolkit which will help authorities to track illegal trade routes. 

As its first test-case, the project is starting in Indonesia, which has been identified as the highest priority country for parrot conservation.

“If you want to focus on research which makes an impact, this is it,” says Olah. 

The toolkit will consist of cutting-edge, but low-cost, sequencing technology which can be used in the field. Samples will be collected from threatened species, via a feather or a drop of blood taken from a chick, and then fed into a genetic database which authorities can consult when investigating parrots they believe have been taken illegally from the wild. 

“For traded wildlife, we don’t yet have a DNA database like the one Interpol is using, for instance, to identify missing persons through international police cooperation. Once we have it, we can do network analysis, showing which birds are coming from which islands.

“We hope that after a few years, we would have a map which shows the main trade routes so law authorities can focus on those islands and work with communities there to see who is behind the poaching, and why. 

“The database will tell us about the whole dynamics of the trade, and help authorities to make a global case.”

The toolkit will also facilitate the reintroduction of confiscated parrots, helping depleted wild populations to recover.

“Currently, there might be a confiscation of parrots in Java, but no one knows where in the wild they were taken from, so they end up in rescue centres. I visited a few of these centres and often they’re really crowded. 

“But if we can prove to the authorities that the birds come from a particular island, then after health screening and disease testing, we can facilitate them being moved back to this origin.”

As well as being a threat to biodiversity, wildlife trafficking is increasingly a global public health issue because of its role in spreading zoonotic diseases. This is a “huge issue” for the region, Olah says.

“So if we know more about the illegal wildlife market, we can safeguard not only the animal species but humans too.”

Olah, who has worked on several nature documentaries including BBC’s Seven Worlds One Planet, hopes the project will increase awareness about the reality of the wildlife trade.

“There’s not much information out there about the parrot trade and lots of people assume that it’s all legal. I hope to make a film which can show what’s actually going on under the table, which is that often parrots bought as legal birds are coming from the wild. 

“We can show the suffering associated with the trade, which is really horrible for the animals, and also a direct link to how the poaching is negatively influencing the wild population.”

Olah says that people are naturally attracted to the beauty and intelligence of parrots, and feel a strong connection to them as pets, but having observed them closely in the wild, he believes this is where birds belong.

“I was working with macaws in the Amazon, and when you are on top of these huge tree canopies and you see the immense, endless rainforest from, literally, the birds-eye perspective, it’s just such freedom. 

“They belong to that wide open space.”

Tabitha Carvan is a Senior Writer at the ANU College of Science. This article was first published by ANU Reporter.

Related: Tortoiseshell database a ‘game-changer’ for critically endangered marine turtles

The post ‘Interpol’ database for parrots caught in illegal wildlife trade appeared first on Australian Geographic.

Before you get too excited, let me quash your hopes. Comet Pons–Brooks is visible to the naked eye, but only if you know where to look. It will look like a fuzzy glowing patch, but nonetheless promises some amazing photo opportunities for the coming weeks.

Even better, it may serve as a celestial warm-up act for an even more special comet later in the year.

Here’s everything you need to know about Pons–Brooks, and how to get the best view.

Related: How to see the Eta Aquariid meteor shower from Australia

Why do people call it the ‘devil comet’?

Named after two astronomers who independently discovered it in the 19th century, Comet 12P/Pons–Brooks (its full, official name) was last visible in 1954.

It takes around 71 years to orbit the Sun, making the comet’s visits to the inner Solar System a rare treat for us here on Earth.

At its heart (its nucleus), Pons–Brooks is a dirty snowball around 34 kilometres in diameter. As the comet came swinging back towards us in its orbit, astronomers spotted it back in 2020. At that time, the comet was almost 1.8 billion kilometres from the Sun, and lay dormant.

As the comet kept falling inwards toward the Sun, its surface temperature began to rise, making it “active”. Exposed ices started to sublime, turning directly from solid to gas. This activity is how a comet gets its tail: the nucleus becomes shrouded in a diaphanous “coma” of dust and debris from its sublimated surface, which is then blown away from the Sun by the solar wind.

But comet 12P/Pons–Brooks didn’t activate gently and smoothly. Instead, it produces several large outbursts of activity, each time, emitting vast amounts of gas and dust in a very short period of time before settling down again.

In the first of those significant outbursts, on July 20, 2023, the comet brightened by a factor of a hundred times, shedding an estimated ten million metric tons of dust and ice.

The solar wind pushed the resulting dust, gas and debris away from the Sun, giving the comet an unusual appearance. To some, the comet looked like the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars. To others, it looked vaguely demonic – sporting the cometary equivalent of horns.

The moniker of ‘devil comet’ took hold in media articles and appears to have stuck – even though the comet’s horned appearance is now a thing of the past.

Where (and when) should I look?

Over the last few days, the first confirmed sightings of 12P/Pons–Brooks have come in from around Australia. It is currently visible low in the western sky after sunset, albeit almost lost in the glow of twilight.

In the next few weeks, the comet will slowly climb higher in the evening sky. The two videos below show the location of the comet’s head at 6:30pm from mid-April through to mid-June, as seen from Toowoomba and Melbourne.

Remember, the comet is a diffuse object, rather than a single point of light. The head is where the comet is brightest (centred on its nucleus). The comet’s tails point away from the Sun – so will rise upwards from the western horizon in the evening sky.

While the comet is visible with the naked eye, you really need to know where to look. The best bet is to search with binoculars. Make sure to wait until the Sun is well below the horizon. Once you find the telltale blur of the comet, you will know where to look, and can switch to see if you can spot it with the naked eye.

For me, the most exciting time with Pons–Brooks will come during the first two weeks of May. At that point, the comet will be passing underneath the constellation Orion, which will serve as a signpost.

That period will be prime astrophotography season, so I expect to see many spectacular images of the comet’s tails cutting through the celestial hunter, shining next to the spectacular nebulae dotted throughout Orion’s body.

But wait… there’s more!

While comet 12P/Pons–Brooks currently basks in the limelight, a potentially great comet is currently moving sunward, promising a spectacular show later this year.

That comet, C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), was discovered in January 2023, and astronomers soon realised it has the potential to become truly dazzling.

Comet behaviour is hard to predict, so take the following with a pinch of salt, but things still look really promising.

Current predictions suggest Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will be at least as bright as the brightest stars in late September and early October this year. During that time, it will pass almost directly between Earth and the Sun. It might even briefly become visible in broad daylight at that time.

In the days following that chance alignment, the comet will gradually become visible in the evening sky and could be an incredible sight, up to a hundred times brighter than Pons–Brooks at its best.

So, with any luck, the current apparition of 12P/Pons–Brooks is merely the warm-up act, with an even greater spectacle to come later this year. Fingers crossed!

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A post shared by Anthony Lopez Photography (@anthonynightscapes)

Jonti Horner, Professor (Astrophysics), University of Southern Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related: When is Australia’s next total solar eclipse?

The post How to see the ‘devil comet’ from Australia appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 356141 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024/04/bunyip-bird-returns-to-restored-tasmanian-wetlands/ Thu, 18 Apr 2024 21:37:53 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355936 For the first time in more than 40 years, the distinctive booming call of the endangered Australasian bittern once again rings out across the waters of Tasmania’s Lagoon of Islands.

The post ‘Bunyip’ bird returns to restored Tasmanian wetlands appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The Australasian bittern was once so common throughout Australia that it is thought to have inspired the great mighty mythical legend, the Bunyip.

The bird’s knack for camouflaging itself in reeds on the banks of wetlands, combined with its deep booming call, meant the bird was more often heard than seen. This provided the perfect opportunity to tell scary stories to children, to keep them away from the water.

Native to mainland Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, and New Caledonia, Australasian bitterns (Botaurus poiciloptilus) are now listed as endangered within Australia, and vulnerable on the global IUCN Red List, with numbers continuing to fall.

Scientists believe there could be fewer than 1000 mature Australasian bitterns remaining in Australia.

This is why birder Geoff Shannon was so excited when he recently spotted not only one bittern, but a pair with four chicks at the Lagoon of Islands on Tasmania’s Central Plateau.

“I came up the hill and looked down, and I saw this lovely lagoon,” Geoff recalls. “It was full of rushes, reeds – typical bittern habitat. I stopped, got the binoculars out, and I saw a head poking above the reeds – the big bill, the eye, the neck… I’d had enough experience to be able to pick it up [that it was a bittern] very easily.

“It’s one of my most exciting birding views ever, in my whole birding life – a magnificent sight.”

Unfortunately, Geoff wasn’t able to verify his sighting with a photograph, but an audio recording now proves that Australasian bitterns are indeed living in the Lagoon of Islands.

Related: Just add water: Australia’s wetlands are thriving. Here’s why.

It’s been 40-odd years since the species has been recorded at the lagoon. It was flooded in 1964 to create a dam to provide irrigation for farms along the Ouse River, and while the bitterns initially held on, none have been recorded living in the area since the early 1980s.

“It was a privilege hearing that booming call,” says Bec Sheldon, an environmental scientist and part of the Hydro Tasmania team working on the restoration of the lagoon since the dam was decommissioned in 2013.

“We’re now reaping the fruits of our rehabilitation efforts,” says Bec. “We set about recreating the natural hydrology in the lake, which has in turn brought back the native vegetation. Now we’re seeing this fantastic species move back, and the site is becoming a self-sustaining and productive natural wetland.”

The audio of the bitterns was recorded thanks to citizen science program, Call Trackers, which seeks to find and monitor ‘noisy but elusive’ species in the wild.

“I had already started to wonder about the return of the bittern here when, in 2022, I was contacted by a member of the Call Tracker team,” says Bec. “They wanted to tell me about the program and suggested the Lagoon of Islands was a high-priority site to be monitored, and asked whether we’d be interested in taking part.”

It wasn’t long before the team captured the audio recording, much to the delight of Bec and the rest of the Hydro Tasmania team.

“The bittern call is very distinctive. It’s a very loud deep booming sound, often in two to four calls in a row. I can liken it to blowing gently on the top of a glass bottle – that is what a bittern boom sounds like,” says Bec.

“Now, we’ve been lucky enough to hear it call a few times, which is a privilege.”

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Related: Australasian bittern known as the Bunyip bird

The post ‘Bunyip’ bird returns to restored Tasmanian wetlands appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355936 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/history-culture/2024/04/indigenous-rock-art-sites-chosen-for-vantage/ Wed, 17 Apr 2024 22:14:40 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355864 Researchers have discovered internationally significant rock-art sites in Arnhem Land were far from random and instead 'chosen' for the critical vantage points they provided.

The post Indigenous rock-art sites ‘chosen’ for vantage appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The rock-art sites in Arnhem Land’s Red Lily Lagoon were ‘chosen’ for their critical vantage points, research from South Australia’s Flinders University has revealed.

The Flinders University research team, working in collaboration with Njanjma Rangers and Erre Traditional Owners, used aerial and drone surveys, subsurface imaging, and elevation data to model the lagoon’s environmental conditions 28–15,000 years ago, and discovered the floodplain floor was 7–15m lower than it is today. This indicates that environmental changes influenced the accessibility, visibility, and function of the sites over time. 

Related: Pilbara’s Karinji NP: Culture etched in stone

“When archaeologists interpret rock art, they often assume the landscape hasn’t changed since the
art was first inscribed, which certainly isn’t the case at Red Lily Lagoon,” explains Ian Moffat, Associate Professor at Flinders University. “This landscape has changed dramatically from being on the coast, a swamp, woodlands and freshwater.”

“Modelling the changes in environmental conditions over time sheds new light on the locations, where they were in in these landscapes, how they were selected and used, and the roles they held in community and clan life.”

The research also identifies that during the period when the sea level was rising, after the ice age, rock art was preferentially made in areas with long distance views over open woodlands, says Flinders College of Humanities Research Associate Dr Jarrad Kowlessar.

“So we can suggest these views may have helped facilitate hunting, or even to more closely watch areas at a time when many people were being displaced by the rising water,” Dr Kowlessar says.

“Without doubt the research demonstrates rock art site locations were intentionally selected, with nuanced relationships to the local landscape, and there is potential to use our modelling into the future to tell us much more about the rich and significant archaeology of Arnhem Land.”

The research paper, ‘A Changing perspective: the impact of landscape evolution on rock art viewsheds’, has been published in the Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences journal.

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Related: GALLERY: Rock art of the Kimberley, WA

The post Indigenous rock-art sites ‘chosen’ for vantage appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355864 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/04/fishing-for-answers-in-menindee-lakes/ Mon, 15 Apr 2024 03:59:17 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355861 A New South Wales-first oxygenation trial aims to address dissolved oxygen levels in the Darling River that have contributed to large-scale fish deaths in recent years.

The post Fishing for answers in Menindee Lakes appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> WaterNSW recently commenced its oxygenation trial at Menindee Lakes in western New South Wales, about 200km upstream of the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers, following a spate of mass fish-kill events in recent years.

The trial, which began in February, will pump highly oxygenated water into the Darling River in a bid to improve the lakes’ water quality, which has been steadily declining for a number of years due to poor management, drought, over irrigation and reduced water flow.

In March 2023 an estimated 30 million fish suffocated after the Darling River’s oxygen levels plummeted during a heatwave. This fish-kill event was preceded by toxic blue-green algal blooms in 2018 and 2019, which killed about 10,000 fish and 1 million fish respectively.

If the trial is successful, the technology will be used to prevent and mitigate future fish-kill events at Menindee Lakes, and possibly elsewhere.

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Related: OPINION: Getting the Murray–Darling Basin Plan back on track

The post Fishing for answers in Menindee Lakes appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355861 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/04/saving-wildlife-against-cane-toads/ Wed, 10 Apr 2024 00:57:07 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355745 Australia can claim more than its fair share of environmental blunders, but the introduction of cane toads (Rhinella marina) in 1935 surely ranks as one of the worst.

The post Teaching toads: how we can save native species from cane toads appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The toads were imported from Hawaii and released in Queensland, purportedly to manage pest beetles in sugar cane crops. The toads failed to control the pests and instead spread westwards at an ever-increasing pace. They are expected to reach Broome on Western Australia’s coast within a few years.

Along the way, cane toads have created havoc. Any predator that tries to eat an adult cane toad is likely to die a quick and painful death. In particular, monitor lizards – once abundant across the Australian tropics – have virtually been wiped out.

Cane toads have so far proven unstoppable. But research suggests even if we can’t eradicate the toads, we may still be able to reduce the damage they cause. By exposing native animals to less toxic baby cane toads, we can teach them not to eat the deadly adults.

‘Teacher toads’

Many threats imperilling ecosystems worldwide are virtually impossible to eradicate. In some cases, the only way to reduce the impacts of such invaders may be to build the resilience of native species.

This can be achieved through a method known as “conditioned taste aversion” – a learned association between the taste of a particular food and illness. One approach involves exposing native predators to small individuals of a toxic prey type, in the hope the predator will fall ill but not die, and learn to avoid eating that species in future.

Our previous lab and field research provided encouraging results. It suggested if we expose wild predators to small, non-lethal cane toads they learnt to delete cane toads from their diets, increasing their chance of survival after the larger toads invade.

Related: Toad sausages are saving our quolls

We wanted to test this approach at a bigger scale – in the Kimberley region of northwestern Australia – to help protect yellow-spotted monitors (a type of goanna). Across Australia’s tropics, many populations of this species have declined more than 90 per cent due to ingestion of cane toads.

The loss has affected the entire food web. Smaller predators have become more abundant and have access to more food, which means they can have larger impacts on prey species.

As well as their ecological role, yellow-spotted monitors are also an important cultural species and traditional food source for Indigenous people.

Our project set out to teach wild yellow-spotted monitors to leave the toxic amphibian alone, by exposing them to “teacher toads”: young individuals less poisonous than adult toads.

The results were clear

Rolling out a conservation strategy in an area as huge and rugged as the Kimberly wilderness is no easy task. To take on this challenge, we assembled a coalition of stakeholders including researchers, wildlife management agencies, non-government organisations, private landowners and Indigenous groups.

We worked with the Bunuba Rangers and the WA Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions. First, we captured adult female toads that were about to lay their eggs. Once the eggs were laid we transported them, or the tadpoles, to places we knew would be invaded by the toads within a few months.

Related: Swamphens have learnt how to make a meal of cane toads

It might seem unusual to release many thousands of baby pest toads into the environment. But we knew vast numbers of adult toads would soon reach the area anyway. And importantly, we didn’t add any more cane toads into the landscape – we took female toads that were about to lay their eggs from one place, and released those eggs and babies into another place not too far away.

To monitor goanna populations, we used trail cameras set up to record any animal that approached our bait – a punctured tin of sardines. Goannas are strongly attracted to that smelly stimulus, so the method worked well. It also allowed us to work out how many goannas lived in each site before toads arrived.

The results of our intervention were clear. In three sites where we deployed our “teacher toads”, goannas remained abundant even after toads invaded. But in four nearby sites where goannas were equally abundant beforehand, their numbers plummeted.

Lessons for the future

It will never be possible to deploy “teacher toads” across all of tropical Australia. But our results suggest strategic use of this method can help maintain pockets with healthy predator populations. Over time, the offspring of those survivors may repopulate other areas.

We’re optimistic that even a single deployment of baby toads may have long-term effects. That’s because once adult cane toads invade an area and begin breeding, it creates plenty of baby toads to “train” the next generation of goannas, without us having to keep adding more toads to the system.

Related: Baby cane toads to teach goannas important lesson

Our study is a good example of bringing research results through to actual on-ground management. It also shows the benefits of academics working with Indigenous communities and government authorities to achieve real outcomes for wildlife conservation.

We have also demonstrated the promise of our technique for conservation challenges globally. If we can’t eliminate a threat to native wildlife, we might at least teach individual animals how to deal with it.

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Georgia Ward-Fear, Post doctoral fellow and Conservation Ecologist , Macquarie University and Rick Shine, Professor in Evolutionary Biology, Macquarie University

The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of the Bunuba Rangers to the research underpinning this article.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related: Defining Moments in Australian History: Introduction of cane toads

The post Teaching toads: how we can save native species from cane toads appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355745 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/04/southern-ocean-cleanest-air/ Mon, 08 Apr 2024 04:38:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355648 The Southern Ocean is renowned for having the cleanest air on Earth. But the precise reasons why have remained a mystery, until now.

The post Honeycomb clouds give the Southern Ocean the Earth’s sweetest air appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> There’s more to it than just a lack of human activity. Yes, there are fewer people down there using industrial chemicals and burning fossil fuels. But there are natural sources of fine particles too, such as salt from sea spray or dust whipped up by the wind.

Regardless of origin, fine solid particles or liquid droplets suspended in air are known as “aerosols”. We consider clean air to have low levels of aerosols, without discriminating between natural or industrial sources.

Our recent research discovered clouds and rain play a crucial role in scrubbing the atmosphere clean.

Related: An ocean like no other: the Southern Ocean’s ecological richness and significance for global climate

Understanding the role of clouds and rain

Aerosol levels over the Southern Ocean are influenced by a range of factors. These include the amount of salt spray and seasonal variation in the growth of tiny plant-like organisms called phytoplankton, which are a source of airborne sulphate particles.

Fewer sulphates are produced during winter, which is when the air over the Southern Ocean is most pristine.

But that’s not the full story. The Southern Ocean is also the cloudiest place on Earth. It experiences short-lived, sporadic showers like nowhere else. We wanted to understand the role of clouds and rain in cleaning the air.

The biggest barrier to understanding these processes has always been the lack of high-quality observations of clouds, rainfall and aerosols in this poorly observed region of the world.

Thankfully, a new generation of satellites allows us to study images of clouds in unprecedented detail. We developed a computer program to recognise different cloud patterns over a vast area of the Southern Ocean.

In particular we were on the lookout for distinctive honeycomb-shaped patterns in the cloud field. These honeycomb-like clouds are of great interest because they have a major role in regulating the climate.

When the honeycomb cell is filled with cloud or “closed” it is whiter and brighter, reflecting more sunlight back to space. So these clouds help keep the Earth cool.

Empty or “open” honeycomb cells, on the other hand, let more sunlight in.

These intricacies remain a source of error in modelling the Earth’s climate because they are not being properly included. It’s important to get the balance of open and closed cells right, or the results can be way off.

Whether the honeycomb cells are open or closed also relates to the amount of rainfall they can produce.

The cells are big enough to be seen from space, around 40-60km in diameter. So we can study them using satellite images.

Our research is particularly timely given this month’s launch of a cloud and precipitation experiment at Kennaook/Cape Grim in Tasmania. It aims to get higher resolution data on clouds, rain and sunlight.

Scrubbing aerosols out of the sky

We compared the honeycomb cloud patterns with measurements of aerosols from the kennaook/Cape Grim observatory and also with the Bureau of Meteorology’s rainfall observations from a nearby rain gauge.

Our results showed days with the cleanest air were associated with the presence of open honeycomb cloud. We think this is because these clouds generate sporadic but intense rain showers, which seem to “wash” the aerosol particles out of the air.

It’s somewhat counter-intuitive, but it turns out the open cells contain more moisture and produce more rain than the fluffy white closed cells filled with cloud. We found the open honeycomb clouds produce six times as much rain as the closed ones.

So what looks like less cloudy weather by satellite actually triggers the most effective rain showers for washing the aerosols out. Whereas the filled or closed honeycomb pattern, which looks cloudier, is less effective. That was one of the more surprising aspects of our findings.

We found the empty honeycombs to be far more common during the winter months, when the air is cleanest.

We also wanted to know what makes cloud fields look the way they do. Our analysis suggests large-scale weather systems control the pattern of the cloud field. As unruly storms track across the Southern Ocean, they produce these open and closed cells.

Fresh air and better climate models

Our research has added a new piece to the puzzle of why the Southern Ocean has the world’s cleanest air. Rainfall is the key, especially rain from these clear, open honeycomb cell-type clouds. We were first to discover they are truly responsible for cleaning up all the air flowing over the Southern Ocean.

These honeycomb patterns are also found in both the North Atlantic and North Pacific regions during winter. So our work will also help explain how these clouds remove aerosols including dust and pollution in these locations. And our findings will help improve climate models, enabling more accurate predictions.

Rain scrubs the aerosols out of the sky in much the same way as a washing machine acts to clean clothes.

After the cold front comes through, the air is clean. If you’re wintering on the south coast of Australia, you can breathe in the benefits as this fresh air comes in off the Southern Ocean.

Related: Where there’s upwelling, there’s whales

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The author would like to acknowledge the valuable contributions of CSIRO, ANSTO and the Bureau of Meteorology to this research.

Tahereh Alinejadtabrizi, PhD student, Monash University; Steven Siems, Professor in Cloud Microphysics, Monash University, and Yi Huang, Senior Lecturer in Climate Science, The University of Melbourne.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Honeycomb clouds give the Southern Ocean the Earth’s sweetest air appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355648 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/04/a-puzzle-in-the-infant-universe/ Fri, 05 Apr 2024 10:35:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354635 If astronomers ever needed something to gloat about with scientific colleagues in other fields, their ability to look directly backwards in time is an obvious candidate.

The post A puzzle in the infant universe appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Because of the finite speed of light and radiation, the further into space you look, the further back in time you’re seeing. Such is astronomers’ prowess with this cosmic capacity that they are able to see back to an era when the universe was still glowing brilliantly after its birth during the Big Bang.

That glow is in the microwave spectrum and covers the whole sky, providing a background against which everything else is seen. It’s the oldest light we can detect and is one of the reasons astronomers are so confident in their estimate of the universe’s age – some 13.8 billion years. 

Another remarkable consequence of looking back in time is our ability to see how the universe has evolved throughout its history. After the Big Bang came the “Dark Ages”, during which no stars shone for the first hundred million years or so. When the first stars formed, gravity assembled them by the billions into infant galaxies. The stars were fuelled by hydrogen formed in the Big Bang. But the nuclear processes within them created elements heavier than hydrogen – carbon, oxygen, iron and so on – that were eventually dispersed into their surroundings at the end of the stars’ short lives. That enriched gas formed the raw material of the next generation of stars, and successive generations continued the process as the universe evolved.

Related: A short history of the universe

When today’s astronomers look back through time, they expect to see this process in reverse: the further back we look, the lower the levels of those heavier elements should be. 

But here’s the puzzle that’s brought this issue into the media spotlight. Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has observed a faint galaxy that can be seen only 350 million years after the Big Bang. Unexpectedly, they found evidence for significant amounts of carbon, which is not expected to be as abundant so early in the universe’s history. Like any discovery that defies our understanding, this has prompted a search for likely explanations, including a rethink of the carbon production in exploding first-generation stars. It will also spur on astronomers to observe other infant galaxies, to see if they share this unexpected carbon enrichment. 

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Related: First images from James Webb Space Telescope reveal distant galaxies in mind-blowing detail

The post A puzzle in the infant universe appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354635 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/04/pollution-trapping-seagrass-stores-dangerous-heavy-metals/ Sun, 31 Mar 2024 22:51:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354979 In Australia’s largest estuary, humble seagrass is the thin green line between safety and heavy-metal contamination.

The post Pollution-trapping seagrass stores dangerous heavy metals appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The mud along a stretch of the upper Spencer Gulf, Australia’s largest estuary, is a toxic slurry of heavy metals. Zinc, cadmium, and lead permeate the seafloor, a hazardous legacy of buried contamination tracing back to 1889 when one of the world’s largest ore smelters started operating nearby.

People in the neighbouring industrial town of Port Pirie, in South Australia, are well aware that they live surrounded by dangerous heavy-metal pollution. Previous monitoring has found contamination from the still-operating plant in the air, on playground surfaces, in children’s blood, and in mangroves’ mud. But a new discovery made by Anna Lafratta and her colleagues while mapping a submarine deposit of heavy metals has created a whole new worry.

Based on core samples of the muddy seafloor, research led by Lafratta, a marine ecologist at Australia’s Edith Cowan University, shows that seagrass in a 110-square-kilometer area off Port Pirie has trapped a few thousand tonnes of heavy metals in its soil since smelting began. The expansive meadow of Posidonia australis seagrass now holds those heavily polluted sediments in place with its matted roots.

The seagrass looks healthy and appears to be tolerating the heavy metals, Lafratta says. But if something were to happen to the seagrass—a marine heatwave, maybe, or a big enough storm—it could die, exposing the contaminated soils to erosion and releasing truckloads of heavy metals back into the sea.

“It’s an environment we cannot lose,” Lafratta says. “As long as the seagrasses are there, the metals are safe and trapped in the sediments.”

But as the climate warms, the seagrass meadow’s safety is not assured. For one thing, the upper Spencer Gulf has been hit by extreme heat before. In the summer of 1993, a torturous marine heatwave killed more than 120 square kilometers of seagrass across a long stretch of coastline south from Port Pirie. The heatwave completely killed off the seagrasses in shallow intertidal areas, though P. australis in deeper waters survived. Scientists can’t say if any pollutants were released with this dieback because they had only just begun looking at the relationship between seagrasses and heavy metals trapped in the soil. At the time, they didn’t take the measurements that could have shown if any heavy metals leeched out of the sediment.

Research suggests, though, that even temperatures that aren’t quite hot enough to kill seagrass outright can still be a problem. A series of excessively hot days could cause seagrass canopies to thin, potentially loosening the plants’ grip on the sediments below.

Related: Meet the world’s largest plant: a single seagrass clone stretching 180 km in Western Australia’s Shark Bay

Pollution-trapping seagrasses face other climate-related risks, too, says Alice Jones, a marine ecologist at the University of Adelaide in Australia who wasn’t involved in the study. Although the coastline near Port Pirie is relatively sheltered, Jones says storm surges can tear up seagrass beds. Rising seas could also submerge seagrasses in deep water that cuts off their access to sunlight.

Any process that damages vegetation or causes erosion “would lead to the pollutants that are stored in the soils to be released into the water,” Jones says. “And not only the pollution, but also the carbon.”

For now, the toxic metals lie dormant. Jones says that by identifying clear hotspots of contamination in the seagrass meadows that have built up over time and measuring the extent of the pollution problem, this new study provides solid evidence that regulators can lean on to enforce environmental protections.

Sam Gaylard, a marine scientist at the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) of South Australia and a collaborator on the study, says the findings reinforce the need for the government, industry, and local communities to prioritize protecting seagrass.

For Nyrstar, the business that owns the smelter, its recently renewed operating license is conditional on the company meeting stricter lead emission reduction targets and improving wastewater treatment, Gaylard says.

“Nyrstar’s discharges of lead and other heavy metals to the marine environment have reduced substantially and are a fraction of historical emissions,” Gaylard says. “However, ongoing improvements are required, and the EPA has imposed progressively stricter limits and greater expectations for environmental improvements.”

As Nyrstar works to cut down on how much heavy-metal pollution it’s dumping into the sea, Jones says the best way to protect Port Pirie’s seagrass is by trying to minimize damage of other kinds, such as from dredging, trawling, and the runoff of excess nutrients from land. Unlike the creeping rate of marine heatwaves, these, she says, are local threats “that we can actually manage and control” to reduce seagrass losses and keep the heavy metals in the ground.

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine – an online publication about science and society in coastal ecosystems – and is republished here with permission.

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Related: Help for kelp: saving the Great Southern Reef

The post Pollution-trapping seagrass stores dangerous heavy metals appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354979 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/electric-car-prices-lower-australia/ Fri, 29 Mar 2024 06:45:27 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355065 The main cost of an electric vehicle (EV) is its battery. The high cost of energy-dense batteries has meant EVs have long been more expensive than their fossil fuel equivalents.

The post Electric cars could soon be cheaper as a battery price war begins appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> But this could change faster than we thought. The world’s largest maker of batteries for electric cars, China’s CATL, claims it will slash the cost of its batteries by up to 50 per cent this year, as a price war kicks off with the second largest maker in China, BYD subsidiary FinDreams.

What’s behind this? After the electric vehicle industry experienced a huge surge in 2022, it has hit headwinds. It ramped up faster than demand, triggering efforts to cut costs.

But the promised price cuts are also a sign of progress. Researchers have made great strides in finding new battery chemistries. CATL and BYD now make EV batteries without any cobalt, an expensive, scarce metal linked to child labor and dangerous mining practices in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Economies of scale and new supplies of lithium make it possible to sell batteries more cheaply. And the world’s largest carmaker, Toyota, is pinning its hopes on solid-state batteries in the hope these energy-dense, all but fireproof batteries will make possible EVs with a range of more than 1,200km per charge.

LITHIUM BATTERY PRICE WAR!

CATL and BYD pushing battery costs of Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) batteries down further than considered realistic just a short while ago
(ht @mzjacobson)

– Feb 2023 €110/kWh
– Aug €77
– Oct €64
– Feb 2024 €51
– Soon €40!https://t.co/xRresn7jVf

— AukeHoekstra (@AukeHoekstra) February 25, 2024

How are battery makers cutting costs?

The largest market for electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles is China. But demand for EVs here has eased off, dropping from a 96 per cent surge in demand in 2022 to a 36 per cent rise in 2023.

As a result, battery giant CATL has seen its profits fall for the first time in almost two years.

One of the best ways to create more demand is to make your products cheaper. That’s what’s behind the cost-cutting promises from CATL and BYD.

You might wonder how that’s possible. One of the key challenges in shifting to battery-electric cars is where to get the raw materials. The electric future rests on viable supply chains for critical minerals such as lithium, nickel, copper, cobalt and rare earth elements.

Until recently, the main EV battery chemistry has been built on four of these, lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt. These are also known as NMC batteries.

If you can avoid or minimise the use of expensive or controversial minerals, you can cut costs. That’s why Chinese companies such as CATL have all but monopolised the market on another chemistry, lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. These batteries are cheaper, as they have no cobalt. They have other benefits too: a longer usable life and less risk of fire than traditional lithium battery chemistries. The downside is they have lower capacity and voltage.

The recent price cuts come from a deliberate decision to use abundant earth materials such as iron and phosphorus wherever possible.

What about lithium? Prices of lithium carbonate, the salt form of the ultra light silvery-white metal, shot up sixfold between 2020 and 2022 in China before falling last year.

Despite this, battery prices have kept falling – just not by as much as they otherwise would have.

The world’s huge demand for lithium has led to strong growth in supply, as miners scramble to find new sources. CATL, for instance, is spending A$2.1 billion on lithium extraction plants in Bolivia.

Growth in lithium supply is projected to outpace demand by 34 per cent both this year and next, which should help stabilise battery prices.

Battery options are multiplying

China’s battery makers have cornered the market in lithium iron phosphate batteries. But they aren’t the only game in town.

Tesla electric cars have long been powered by batteries from Japan’s Panasonic and South Korea LG. These batteries are built on the older but well established NMC and lithium nickel cobalt aluminate oxide (NCA) chemistries. Even so, the American carmaker is now using CATL’s LFP batteries in its more affordable cars.

The world’s largest carmaker, Toyota, has long been sceptical of lithium-ion batteries and has focused on hybrid and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles instead.

But this is changing. Toyota is now focused heavily on making solid-state batteries a reality. These do away with liquid electrolytes to transport electricity in favour of a solid battery. In September last year, the company announced a breakthrough which it claims will enable faster recharging times and a range of 1,200km before recharge. If these claims are true, these batteries would effectively double the range of today’s topline EVs.

In response, China’s battery manufacturers and government are working to catch up with Toyota on solid-state batteries.

Which battery chemistry will win out? It’s too early to say for electric vehicles. But as the green transition continues, it’s likely we’ll need not just one but many options.

After all, the energy needs of a prime mover truck will be different to city runabout EVs. And as electric aircraft go from dream to reality, these will need different batteries again. To get battery-electric aircraft off the ground, you need batteries with a huge power density.

Related: Planes, trains, automobiles: Here’s how electrifying all our transport options will help tackle climate change

The good news? These are engineering challenges which can be overcome. Just last year, CATL announced a pioneering “condensed matter” battery for electric aircraft, with up to three times the energy density of an average electric car battery.

All the while, researchers are pushing the envelope even further. A good electric car might have a battery with an energy density of 150–250 watt-hours per kilogram. But the record in the lab is now over 700 watt-hours/kg.

This is to say nothing of the research going into still other battery chemistries, from sodium-ion to iron-air to liquid metal batteries.

We are, in short, still at the beginning of the battery revolution.

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Muhammad Rizwan Azhar, Lecturer, Edith Cowan University; Waqas Uzair, Research associate, Edith Cowan University, and Yasir Arafat, Senior research associate, Edith Cowan University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Electric cars could soon be cheaper as a battery price war begins appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355065 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/australias-major-satellite-program/ Thu, 28 Mar 2024 04:15:28 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=355029 The federal minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Madeleine King, signed a A$207 million commitment with the United States to support “Landsat Next”.

The post Out of this world: Australia’s $207 million commitment to space appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Aptly named, this is the next generation of an Earth observation satellite program from which Australia has benefited for over 40 years.

The commitment means we will make a critical contribution to global Earth observation efforts with our cutting-edge data management. In essence, we will be the custodians of data downloaded from new Landsat satellites – a major role.

What is Earth observation?

Earth observation satellites provide the world with more than half of all climate change data – and some of that data can come from nowhere else but space. They also provide over 90 per cent of weather data, which the Bureau of Meteorology uses to give us our daily forecasts.

In Australia, Earth observation data is also critical for supporting agriculture, fisheries, mining, land and water policies, bushfire response, and national security needs. In 2020, the economic benefits of Earth observation data were estimated at over A$2.4 billion.

Furthermore, such data brings immense benefits to First Nations people, particularly in northern Australia. Indigenous rangers use Earth observation data to augment their traditional land and water management practices.

Importantly, Geoscience Australia and CSIRO work closely with the Centre for Appropriate Technology, an Indigenous business in Alice Springs. This business owns a satellite dish that receives data from Landsat and other Earth observation satellites.

Related: GALLERY: Remarkable satellite images of Australia

What is Landsat?

Landsat is a program led by NASA and the US Geological Survey. For more than 50 years it has provided the “longest continuous space-based record of Earth’s land in existence”.

This means since 1972 we’ve had continuous data on ice melts, weather and temperature changes, and changes in the planet’s landscapes and freshwater sources.

Australia has been a Landsat beneficiary and partner since the early 1970s. Just earlier this year, emergency services in Queensland facing Cyclone Kirilly depended on Landsat data to help mitigate potential flooding. Geoscience Australia has also used Landsat data gathered over decades to map changes in Australia’s shorelines.

And during the Black Summer megafires of 2019–20, the worst bushfire season New South Wales has ever recorded, Landsat images were critical in predicting where the bushfires would be worst, and assisting in real-time response.

The new agreement places us at the centre of data management for the next generation of Landsat.

What is Landsat Next?

There have been nine Landsat satellites since 1972, of which eight are operational today. Landsat Next will add three more satellites to this, with new capabilities. As a result, we will get more data more often, and at a higher resolution.

Landsat Next will significantly improve image resolution of some of the original satellites. This means, for example, that 40 per cent more detail can be captured for agricultural sowing, irrigation and harvesting needs.

The current Landsat satellites cover 11 spectral bands. These are wavelengths of light captured by satellite sensors, ranging from visible light which we can see with the naked eye to invisible wavelengths like infrared and ultraviolet.

Landsat Next will increase this to up to 26 bands, which makes it possible to track water quality at much greater accuracy. This is helpful, for example, in detecting harmful algal blooms.

Landsat satellites also sense thermal bands. This is a measurement of surface temperatures so we can understand soil health and water levels, and track bushfires.

Landsat Next will improve the resolution of temperature measurements, providing improved climate change data and more accurate information for farmers and sustainable urban planning.

Related: ‘A year of opposites’: Australia’s 2023 environment scorecard details mixed results

Australia is great at satellite data

The new commitment builds on what Australia already does, and is really good at – the ground and data segments of Earth observation satellite systems. In fact, we are a world leader in Earth observation data management.

We have excellent geography for collecting data from the satellites via large satellite dishes in Alice Springs. We also have a longstanding tradition of being the data custodians and stewards for our US and European partners.

The Landsat Next agreement fulfils one aspect of the planned National Space Mission for Earth Observation (NSMEO) which was cancelled last year due to major budget cuts. This was a disappointment to many people in Australia, and to our international partners.

This new commitment to Landsat Next puts in place part of what we were already planning to do through the NSMEO, and will make us a more important partner in global Earth observation infrastructure.

With our unique geography, Australia is a heavy user of Earth observation data, and this agreement means we can be bigger contributors, as well.

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Cassandra Steer, Deputy Director, Institute for Space (InSpace), Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Out of this world: Australia’s $207 million commitment to space appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 355029 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/what-is-a-lunar-eclipse/ Mon, 25 Mar 2024 23:43:23 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354856 Total, partial, and penumbral – the different types of lunar eclipses can be confusing. Find out what each means, and how the phenomenon occurs in the first place.

The post What is a lunar eclipse? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> There are two types of eclipse that occur on Earth – solar and lunar.

During a solar eclipse, the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth, casting a shadow on the Earth.

During a lunar eclipse, Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon, casting a shadow on the Moon.

There are three types of lunar eclipse: total, partial, and penumbral, depending on the portion of the Moon in shadow.

Total lunar eclipse

A total lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon completely enters Earth’s umbra.

The umbra is the complete shadow caused by the blocking of the Sun’s light.

During a total lunar eclipse, the Moon can appear to darken and flare different colours. This is due to ‘Rayleigh scattering’ – a phenomenon described by NASA as “the scattering of light by particles smaller than the wavelength of the light, resulting in separation of colours.”

Rayleigh scattering also causes the hues of sunsets and sunrises, and the blue hue of the daylight sky.

It is difficult to predict what colour the Moon may appear ahead of each lunar eclipse.

“The shadow will be very dark, it could redden, and could also have a bluish turquoise hue to it too, it all depends on the Earth’s atmosphere,” explains Dr Tanya Hill, Astronomer for the Melbourne Planetarium.

The most dramatic example of this is when the Moon appears a deep red. This is also known as a Blood Moon.

According to NASA, the more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the total lunar eclipse, the redder the moon will appear.   

“Just as sunrise and sunset are an orange or reddish colour, so is this light that skims through the Earth’s atmosphere and out into space,” explains Dr Brad Tucker, an astrophysicist from The Australian National University. “When you look at the moon during the total lunar eclipse, you are seeing the sunrise and sunset of the Earth lighting up the Moon.” 

Australia’s Astronomer at Large, Fred Watson, explains this further: “Even though the Moon is deep within the Earth’s shadow during the eclipse, scattered red light finds its way onto the lunar surface to give the appearance of a ‘Blood Moon’.”

Partial lunar eclipse

A partial lunar eclipse occurs when a portion – but not all – of the Moon enters Earth’s umbra.

Partial lunar eclipses can also sometimes make the Moon appear a red colour.

“Partial lunar eclipses occur when the Sun, Earth and Moon don’t completely align, so only part of the Moon passes into shadow – but where the Earth blocks the Sun’s light from reaching the lunar surface, the Moon’s surface will appear to turn reddish,” explains Astronomer Professor Richard de Grijs from Macquarie University.

Penumbral lunar eclipse

A penumbral lunar eclipse occurs when the Moon enters the penumbra of Earth’s shadow.

The penumbra is the part of the shadow – caused by the blocking of the Sun’s light – that is only partially blocked from view (see diagram above).

Astronomer Professor Richard de Grijs from Macquarie University describes the penumbra as “the faint, outer part of Earth’s shadow”.

“A penumbral lunar eclipse is a subtle-looking lunar eclipse, making the Moon appear darker and somewhat redder than usual,” de Grijs says.

Stages of a lunar eclipse

During a lunar eclipse the Earth’s shadow slowly creeps across the face of the Moon until the Moon is fully (or partially) covered, before continuing to move across and off the Moon’s opposite surface.

Earth’s circular shadow on the Moon spans about 2⅔ lunar diameters, so it takes a while for the Moon to enter, cross, and exit that shadow. Exactly how long depends on the Moon’s path during any specific eclipse.

How common are lunar eclipses?

While lunar eclipses can only occur at a full Moon, they do not occur every full Moon.

“This is because the moon’s orbit is not always in perfect alignment with the Sun and the Earth,” explains Dr Tucker.

“The moon wobbles by about five degrees as it orbits around the Earth. For the moon to move perfectly into Earth’s shadow, it needs to be aligned with the Earth. Sometimes it just skims the shadow,” he says.

How to view a lunar eclipse

Dr Stephen Hughes, a physicist at Queensland University of Technology, says the best time to see a lunar eclipse in Australia is during the winter months of June and July, “when the Moon is higher up in the sky and easier to see.”

Unlike solar eclipses, which can only be seen briefly from specific locations, lunar eclipses are visible anywhere on the night side of the Earth. They can also last for hours, instead of the brief few minutes of a solar eclipse.

“Lunar eclipses are nice leisurely events; you can take your time and enjoy them… and view them from anywhere – provided it is during the night,” says Dr Hill.

Also, unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are safe to view by the naked eye, through a telescope, or through binoculars.

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Related: ‘The ghost has taken the spirit of the Moon’: how Torres Strait Islanders predict eclipses

The post What is a lunar eclipse? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354856 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/the-trees-that-wept-cider/ Fri, 22 Mar 2024 13:00:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=338649 The battle is on to save what’s left of
one of Tasmania’s most endangered
and intriguing eucalypts.

The post The trees that wept cider appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Australian Geographic is eager to present The Weeping Tree, a series of films that see the collision of art, science, palawa connection to Country, and intimate storytelling through an iconic and charismatic Tasmanian tree that is critically threatened by the effects of climate change, the Miena cider gum (Eucalyptus gunnii divaricata).

“I’m super excited to be bringing this series of films to Australian Geographic,” says director Matthew Newton. “Film making is always a journey, and this one has been a ripper. Our small crew has stumbled through blizzards lugging heavy camera gear around the Central Highlands of Tasmania. Together we have climbed trees, fallen out of trees, crunched through iced-over puddles, spent nights sleeping in the frost and running away from feisty tiger snakes. We have witnessed stunning sunrises and sublime sunsets and been lost in the fog – always chasing the light and the stories that swirl around these magical trees.

“These films are about how individuals relate to a charismatic tree that only exists on the fringes of a few frost hollows on a heart-shaped island at the bottom of the world, lutruwita/Tasmania. I Hope The Weeping Tree will take you on a journey into the hearts and minds of people who care deeply about our world as they come to grips with big questions brought into focus by a gnarled tree that is critically threatened by the effects of climate change.”

Watch The Weeping Tree films via a playlist from Australian Geographic’s YouTube channel, and read our original story on the cider gum below.

SCREEN AUSTRALIA PRESENTS IN ASSOCIATION WITH SCREEN TASMANIA
WITH SUPPORT FROM
PURVES ENVIRONMENTAL FUND
AND
PURRYBURRY TRUST
WITH
TASMANIAN LAND CONSERVANCY AND AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC
A RUMMIN PRODUCTION

Director – Matthew Newton
Producer – Catherine Pettman
Writer – Danielle Wood, Jane Rawson (Episode 6 only)
Executive Producer – Andry Sculthorpe
Editor – Nic Venettacci
Director of Photography/Drone/Stills – Matthew Newton
Directors Attachment/Additional Cinematography/Drone/Stills – Anna Brozek
Director of Photography – Gabriel Morrison (Episode 2 only)
Camera Assistant – Rob Giudici
Color Grade / Sound Design – Michael Gissing
Graphics – Manderlee Anstice
Voice Over Recording – George Goerss, Michael Shelley, Cameron Heit

Two weeks into summer, one doesn’t expect to see snow falling in thick drifts, but in the central highlands of lutruwita/Tasmania, snow, sleet and bone-chilling gales should never be ruled out. It was this inhospitable weather that greeted us when we visited the Miena cider gums (Eucalyptus gunnii divaricata), an endangered subspecies of eucalypt endemic to the Great Lakes region. 

Found up to 1050m above sea level, at the exposed edges of treeless flats or in freezing hollows, the cider gum is as hardy as they come. They prefer their feet cold and damp, favouring soil that is frost-prone and reluctant to drain. When high-altitude winds come screaming over the highlands – southerlies from Antarctica, north-westerlies from the mainland’s central deserts – the trees face them down with barely a shrug. A fringe-dweller to its core, this tree resides in the kinds of trying conditions that few can suffer. Indeed, it’s in these conditions that the cider gum thrives. This is not to say that the trees stand alone; despite the brutal conditions, a staggering degree of biodiversity encircles the gums. As we’re approaching a stand, I see huge numbers of wallabies, magpies and currawongs going about their business. A tiger snake snatching a rare moment of sun slinks under a rock, and the ground is riddled with marsupial scat. The plant life is equally impressive. Every square metre is tightly packed with colourful mosaics, plant communities made of too many species to count in passing. But where their neighbours have discovered resilience in staying small and scrubby, hunched against the bleak climate, the cider gums tower above other life forms, growing up to 20m in height. In the right conditions, these slow-growing trees should comfortably live to 100 years, although recent research has suggested that they might actually live to five times that age. 

I’ve heard this species referred to as the Weeping Trees. One reason for the name is rather obvious. During the warmer months, the trees weep a sugary sap, and when the sap hits the yeasts in the air, or pools at the base of the tree, it begins to naturally ferment. This microbial event results in a lightly alcoholic sap that tastes like cider and smells like a brewery. You can catch that scent from quite a distance. It has a significant pulling effect.

The other reason they may be called the Weeping Trees is their affective impact. When I meet my first cider gum, I find I’m completely overawed by it, even close to tears. Apparently, this is a common response. The tree is magnificent. From under its tangled boughs, I can understand the old cliche: that standing beneath the canopy of a tree can feel like standing in a cathedral. The limbs diverge wildly, the timber creases and folds like flesh. The bark is spellbinding, distinctively stained in warm streaks suggestive of honeycomb, black coffee, or a river steeped in tannin. This is a tree that demands reverence. 

The Miena cider gums might appear indomitable, but in truth, these trees are facing an uphill battle. Among the living trees dead and dying specimens abound, their forms resembling the bleached skeletons of beached whales. Even the dead trees are breathtaking. There are only eight small stands currently known, occupying in total just a few hundred hectares, and their numbers are in decline. The stands are remote from one another and so genetically diverse fertilisation is increasingly unlikely, leading to a gradual decline in plant fitness. 

Threats are numerous and persistent. Introduced deer move about the landscape in large herds. Bucks rub their antlers against the trunks of trees to remove the velvet they have grown over summer. For a young tree, this rubbing can be fatal, preventing the movement of water from roots to leaves. Although invasive species cause significant damage, the chief culprit in the decimation of these trees is climate change, generating a complex ricochet of challenges. It threatens the frosty conditions the trees rely on, increases the numbers of voracious boring insects, and heightens the probability of drought and fire. In 2019 large numbers were lost in the Great Pine Tier blaze that ripped through the area – a huge blow for the species’ conservation. Last, without active management, possum browsing is an escalating concern. For a possum, the leaves of the Miena cider gum are exceptional and their bottomless appetites can quickly strip a tree. Convincing them to go easy on these trees is one of the biggest challenges faced by conservationists. 

Eve Lazarus, conservation program manager for the Derwent Catchment Project, takes us to the healthiest stand of protected cider gums. The fencing is intense. It takes some effort to simply open the gate. Inside, about 20 mature, leafy trees are standing tall and steady. Innumerable saplings are dotted about, many ringed with wallaby wire. Fences inside fences suggest a precious assembly. That these trees are widely valued for their ecological and cultural significance can be seen in the active land management practised, not only by First Nations leaders and conservationists, but by landholders and businesses across the region that also play a crucial role in the survival of this species. The cider gums, it would appear, have an energising effect. Here, they have brought together otherwise unconnected groups, working together to reinstate balance to a distressed environment. The connection these people feel towards the trees is evidently a potent one. 

Eve discovers one of the trees is weeping. I have a quick taste of the sap and instantly understand what all the fuss is about. The stuff is moreish. I notice every tree boasts a handful of hollows that offer shelter for many different types of life. Striated pardalotes dart about in the branches, peeping loudly, asking us to scram. In terms of the local ecology, the gums are essential. But threat is evident all around. Outside the fence, I see deer hoofprints spread out like a rash. The fence has been breached in spots and wombat burrows have appeared. There is some marsupial scat. As we’re leaving, I come face to face with a chunky possum. It has broken into the enclosure via the wombat holes, and looks well fed. We stare at each other, the possum and I, before it turns and ducks into a cider gum hollow. Eve is relatively unfazed; she even seems entertained by the marsupial’s audacity. After years on the project, she’s accustomed to setbacks. The enclosures will need wombat gates. More funding is needed. But I feel a weight in my chest. The possum has rattled me. I already feel attached to these trees, and I can’t help but take the intrusion to heart.

It’s often the case that the value of a species is not considered until its numbers are in decline, but when it comes to the Miena cider gum, the cultural and ecological value of these trees has been recognised by the palawa (Tasmanian First Nations people) for millennia. Some trees even bear the marks of ancestors having tapped into the trunk. It stands to reason then that palawa care will lead the charge in protecting these trees. pakana/trawlwoolway man Andry Sculthorpe is the land and heritage coordinator for the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre (TAC) and leads the ranger program. “They’re like wise old Elders, so they carry a lot of respect,” Andry says of the trees. At trawtha makuminya, a property owned by the TAC, it’s understood that the value of the Miena cider gum sits entirely outside the dollar, and the current vulnerability of the trees indicates a broader sickness, namely a colonial value system that ignores the innate worth of the natural world and continues to assess it primarily in terms of its economic value – either as a resource to be extracted or as an encumbrance to be eradicated. The harm caused by this mindset is directly evident in the health of the cider gums. “They’re calling out to us in some way; it’s an alarm going off when we see these trees,” Andry says. 

Through cultural practice and the passing down of inherited knowledge, it’s a call the rangers are heeding. That the Miena cider gums at trawtha makuminya are beginning to bounce back under the care of pakana rangers indicates vital ecological improvement and reaffirms the need for land-return initiatives and a decolonising approach. In lutruwita, these initiatives have proven not only to repair the disconnect enforced under colonial rule, they also help restore the living systems that existed before colonisation. Andry points out that a colonial value system is not only detrimental to the natural environment, but also to humans. Only in care for Country is human wellbeing ensured. “Even if we’re not aware of it, that actually underpins our existence.”

Efforts to conserve the Miena cider gums prove that assigning value to a species is not useful without acknowledging the larger system within which they exist. The pakana approach acknowledges this essential entanglement. Placing traditional knowledges and value systems at the heart of conservation appears increasingly necessary. For the Miena cider gums, and for the multi-species community with which they connect, such an approach will undoubtedly prove invaluable. 

The post The trees that wept cider appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 338649 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/the-storytellers-of-the-great-barrier-reef/ Thu, 21 Mar 2024 20:32:44 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354658 More than 100 dedicated Master Reef Guides are sharing the GBR’s most important stories with visitors in a bid to inspire its greater protection.

The post The storytellers of the Great Barrier Reef appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Scientists say the future of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (GBRMP) will depend on whether it can adapt to climate change, but admit their message can be misinterpreted as a death knell rather than an alarm bell. That’s where storytelling comes in.

“We’re scientists, not storytellers,” says Dr David Wachenfeld, Research Program Director of the Australian Institute of Marine Science and former Chief Scientist for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA) for more than 25 years. He says storytelling plays a pivotal role in reef protection.

“Learning is an important part of the visitor reef experience and when science is explained in a relatable, relevant and honest context by local guides trained to understand, manage and protect the reef, it can lead to a deeper connection that can inspire a commitment to do more to protect it,” David says.

Storytelling was the catalyst for science, tourism and government to partner in 2019, launching the first-of-its-kind Master Reef Guides Program, explains GBRMPA Director for Reef Education and Engagement, Fiona Merida.

Turtle nesting grounds have increased by as much as 125% since the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Reef Islands Initiative commenced on Lady Elliot Island.

Working in tourism as a marine biologist and guide before joining the GBRMPA in 2003, Fiona recognised local guides were the bellwethers of reef education, but found limited training and development opportunities were available to them to enable them to add to their credentials.

Initially taking reference from the highly successful Savannah Guides program – launched in Queensland in 1988 to inspire visitor interpretation of the natural and cultural histories of Gulf-Savannah Country – Fiona says the Master Reef Guides (MRG) program was adapted to suit the Great Barrier Reef’s unique environments and is evolving in readiness for what scientists say will be the biggest challenge facing the reef – climate change.

“Since inception, MRGs have become the gold standard in reef tourism, playing both a critical role in sharing the GBR’s myriad wonders, but also educating visitors about its threats, challenges and fragilities,” Fiona says.

Master Reef Guides take visitors on reef ecology walks at Lady Elliot Island and share facts about all species, including terrestrial strawberry hermit crabs (Coenobiita perlatus), left, and Giant clams (Tridacna gigas), right.

As the program enters its sixth year, hot on the heels of the planet recording its highest global temperature in 2023, Fiona says it’s more important than ever for MRGs to navigate climate change as part of the greater reef conversation.

To find out how storytelling is making a difference, I join Fiona, program mentors and 20 new recruits on Queensland’s Lady Elliot Island, 85km north-east of Bundaberg on the southern-most tip of the planet’s largest coral-reef ecosystem.

En route, I discover my pilot is Peter Gash, the current custodian of Lady Elliot Island, and an esteemed MRG alum and mentor. This isn’t the first time I’ve met Peter, visited Lady Elliot Island, or revelled in the depths of his knowledge as an MRG.

In the moments between pointing out dugongs grazing on lush sea-grass meadows in Moreton Bay and dolphins cavorting in the cerulean waters circling K’gari, Peter says: “MRGs are the most profound thing to happen to the Great Barrier Reef.

“Being part of the first cohort on Lady Elliot Island in 2019 was an exciting experiment at first, but the initiative served as a ‘supercharge’ for the greater reef community to collaborate our knowledge and forge ways to work better together across the entire reef.”

Custodian of Lady Elliot Island and pilot Peter Gash was selected as part of the first cohort of MRG’s with training taking place on the small coral cay that rises only two metres from the sea.

As a return holiday guest, I’ve snorkelled beside Peter previously on what I consider to be Queensland’s most abundant reefs, and have made the most of his intricate knowledge of the rich biodiversity they support. But I’ve been equally spellbound by his own story, resurrecting the once-barren 44ha, sphere-shaped coral cay of Lady Elliot Island – stripped bare by mining for its phosphate-rich guano – into one of Australia’s leading eco-resorts.

Fiona says passion is the essential hallmark of any MRG and places Peter at its pinnacle.

This visit he is mentoring recruits, demonstrating both his relatable storytelling and passion for sustainability while on a walking tour of the island. Peter shares how he’s replaced fossil fuels with renewable energies and runs the resort on solar power. He captivates MRGs by explaining his processes for desalinating seawater and converting island waste into useable resources. He shows them his plant nursery and shares his plans for re-vegetating the island.

“The future of how tourism operates is a vital part of the future management plan for the GBRMP,” Peter says.

The importance of plants on The Great Barrier Reef is highlighted by MRG Mentor Peter Gash when demonstrating his storytelling technique with recruits on Lady Elliot Island. Recruits also tour his plant nursery, and learn from a team of horticulturalists who are nurturing endemic plant species how the 110 acre island is being revegetated post phosphate mining that stripped it bare.

In 2018, Lady Elliot Island was selected as the first ‘climate change ark’ via the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Reef Islands Initiative. A large-scale, seven-year regenerative program shared between the resort, Traditional Owners, local businesses, community and government followed. Invasive plants are removed and endemic species are returned, with the aim of restoring the natural coral-cay ecosystem.

Peter leads us into an avenue of re-vegetated pisonia trees to demonstrate the positive changes already occurring. A cacophony erupts from a colony of migratory nesting seabirds as we approach. “We’ve seen bird species return to the island in their thousands already,” he shouts above the ruckus, “and our turtle habitat has increased by as much as 125 per cent.”

Field training forms a valuable touchpoint for recruits who’ve already completed three months of online learning, sharing up-to-date information on reef science, cultural heritage, and responsible and sustainable tourism practices.

“To see it up close like this leaves me in awe of the nature that lives here, but also knowing it wasn’t always like this gives me hope for the future too,” says youngest MRG recruit Heath Robinson.

“Regeneration, like everything else on the reef, is optimised when the natural cycle finds balance. But we need to work hard to leave places better than we found them if we are to realise that potential,” Peter says.

A small population of Noddy terns (Anous minutus) call Lady Eliot Island home, but come summer during breeding season, thousands visit the island to nest, contributing to the symbiotic life cycle of the Great Barrier Reef.

But Peter is also learning a thing or two about storytelling from recruits. Alumni like Lady Elliot’s Jacinta Shackleton, a marine biologist BSc (Hons) and dually talented photographer and videographer who spotlights the reef’s myriad curious inhabitants and discusses the challenges they face in real time via Instagram (@jacintashackleton).

Jacinta credits Peter and the MRGs for empowering her to step outside a more traditional marine biology role – and in doing so, use her voice and vision to promote reef advocacy. “Introducing people to the reef and watching them take home a greater respect and appreciation for it has always been my primary mission. But sharing reef love with people who may not have the opportunity to visit personally is a valuable bonus when they can learn to love and protect it from afar,” she says.

In stepping into the future of guiding, Sean Ulm – MRG mentor, Distinguished Professor at James Cook University (Cairns) and Director of ARC Centre of Excellence for Indigenous and Environmental Histories and Futures (Cairns) – reminds recruits how important it is to also examine the past.

Taking us on a metaphorical deep dive into the reef’s geological creation story, he says First Nations and Torres Strait Island peoples hold an estimated 9000 year–plus history with the most modern version of the GBR. Via this custodianship, they are acknowledged as the reef’s first storytellers, but also its first scientists and innovators…essentially the first MRGs.

“We should be collaborating with Traditional Owners when on Country – land or sea – and if you don’t know who they are, ask, find out and seek collaboration,” Sean encourages recruits.

Lady Elliot Island was selected in 2018 as the first ‘climate change ark’ via the Great Barrier Reef Foundation’s Reef Islands Initiative. The lighthouse is not just a beacon but is the first lighthouse built in Australia using a timber frame and cast iron external cladding. Accommodation on the island is in synergy with nature.

Fiona says Traditional Owners co-managing the reef has been a long-held goal of the GBRMPA, and through the MRG program, this pathway is being fostered.

Five Traditional Owners are part of the 123 specialist MRGs operating across a network of High Standard Tourism Operators spanning 348,000sq.km of the GBRMP.

Joining the latest cohort are Blake Angus-Cedar, representing Wunyami Cultural Tours and Great Adventures, and Brian Connolly from Dreamtime Dive and Snorkel in Cairns.

For both men, storytelling is deeply rooted in their spiritual and cultural connection to the reef as passed down by their Elders, from whom they respectfully seek permission before sharing cultural stories.

Related: New Great Barrier Reef fish species discovered living ‘in plain sight’

When recruits give a final presentation to demonstrate their story-telling prowess, Blake simply asks us to close our eyes and quietly draws our attention to the sounds of our surroundings.

Like a guided meditation, he says the melody of waves gently washing over coral-encrusted shores tells us where it’s safe to shelter, while the waves crashing further out on the reef warn of ever-present dangers. He describes the sound of the wind moving through the trees, carrying with them the murmur of thousands of noddy terns nurturing and guiding their chicks, as learning language. And he asks us to consider every one of the sounds we hear as being connected and contributing in some way to the health and balance of this ecosystem.

He reminds us that these songs of Country are always here, playing on repeat every moment we live. He poses a simple question: Could it be that we are simply forgetting how to listen to this story?

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The post The storytellers of the Great Barrier Reef appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354658 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/new-fluffy-longhorn-beetle-discovered-in-gold-coast-rainforest/ Wed, 20 Mar 2024 19:00:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354607 Meet the new beetle on the block.

The post ‘White and hairy from the camp’: New fluffy longhorn beetle discovered in Gold Coast rainforest appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> ‘White and hairy from the camp’ – that’s the translation of the scientific name given to a new species of longhorn beetle found in the Gold Coast hinterland.

The name makes perfect sense when you know the backstory.

Excastra albopilosa was discovered by James Tweed – a PhD candidate in The University of Queensland’s School of the Environment – while on a camping trip in Lamington National Park.

“I was walking through the campsite at Binna Burra Lodge one morning and something on a lomandra leaf caught my eye,” recalls James, who goes on to explain he initially mistook the beetle for bird droppings!

“To my amazement, I saw the fluffiest, most extraordinary longhorn beetle I had ever seen. Measuring 9.7mm, it was a striking red and black beauty covered in long white hairs.”

When James returned from the trip, he tried to identify the creature, searching through books, scientific papers and online resources and forums, but he could not find a match. In fact, he says, nothing looked even remotely similar.

The next step was an email to the Australian National Insect Collection (ANIC) in Canberra, whose experts confirmed the beetle was a completely new species.

Later, after examining the specimen itself, the ANIC team determined it was not only a new species, but a new genus (family of species) as well.

“So we chose the name Excastra for the genus, which is Latin for ‘from the camp’,” explains James, “and for the species name, we decided on albopilosa which translates to ‘white and hairy’.”

Why so hairy?

“We don’t yet know what these hairs are for, but our primary theory is that they make the insect look like it’s been killed by an insect-killing fungus,” James says. The purpose of this would be to deter birds and other predators from eating it.

“But until someone can find more specimens and study this species further, we won’t be able to say for sure why this beetle is so hairy,” he says.

However, this may not happen anytime soon, because Excastra albopilosa continues to remain very elusive.

“The area has been popular with entomologists for more than 100 years so it’s puzzling that it hasn’t been found until now,” says James. “I’ve been back several times to look for more of them, but haven’t had any luck.”

‘Underappreciated and understudied’

“Best estimates suggest there may be 5.5 million insect species worldwide and only one-fifth of these have been named and described,” James says. “Insects are the most diverse group of animals on the planet, but they are also the most underappreciated and understudied.”

Chance finds like James’s highlight how many unknown species of insects could be out there. And many of these could be under threat from extinction before even being discovered.

“We’re experiencing rapid declines in biodiversity globally, and it’s difficult to conserve species if we don’t even know they exist,” James says.

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Related: Why we need to start naming as many species as possible

The post ‘White and hairy from the camp’: New fluffy longhorn beetle discovered in Gold Coast rainforest appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354607 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/australias-2023-environment-scorecard-details-mixed-results/ Mon, 18 Mar 2024 22:43:11 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354520 The Australian National University has released its annual Environment Report, assessing the health of the country's land-based ecosystems. So, how did Australia fare in 2023?

The post ‘A year of opposites’: Australia’s 2023 environment scorecard details mixed results appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year and numerous weather disasters occurred as climate change reared its head.

How did Australia’s environment fare against this onslaught? In short, 2023 was a year of opposites.

Related: A dangerous 2023: how the hottest year unfolded

For the past nine years, we have trawled through huge volumes of data collected by satellites, measurement stations and surveys by individuals and agencies. We include data on global change, oceans, people, weather, water, soils, vegetation, fire and biodiversity.

Each year, we analyse those data, summarising them in an annual report that includes an overall Environmental Condition Score and regional scorecards. These scores provide a relative measure of conditions for agriculture and ecosystems. Scores declined across the country, except in the Northern Territory, but were still relatively good.

However, the updated Threatened Species Index shows the abundance of listed bird, mammal and plant species has continued to decline at a rate of about 3% a year since the turn of the century.

Riding a climate rollercoaster in 2023

Worldwide, 77 countries broke temperature records. Australia was not one of them. Our annual average temperature was 0.53°C below the horror year 2019. Temperatures in the seas around us were below the records of 2022.

Even so, 2023 was among Australia’s eight warmest years in both cases. All eight came after 2005.

However, those numbers are averaged over the year. Dig a bit deeper and it becomes clear 2023 was a climate rollercoaster.

Related: Five Australian species at immediate risk of extinction

The year started as wet as the previous year ended, but dry and unseasonably warm weather set in from May to October. Soils and wetlands across much of the country started drying rapidly. In the eastern states, the fire season started as early as August.

Nonetheless, there was generally still enough water to support good vegetation growth throughout the unusually warm and sunny winter months.

Fears of a severe fire season were not realised as El Niño’s influence waned in November and rainfall returned, in part due to the warm oceans. Combined with relatively high temperatures, it made for a hot and humid summer. A tropical cyclone and several severe storms caused flooding in Queensland and Victoria in December.

As always, there were regional differences. Northern Australia experienced the best rainfall and growth conditions in several years. This contributed to more grass fires than average during the dry season. On the other hand, the rain did not return to Western Australia and Tasmania, which ended the year dry.

Related: State of the Environment report shows ‘shocking’ decline of Australia’s wildlife and natural ecosystems

So how did scores change?

Every year we calculate an Environmental Condition Score that combines weather, water and vegetation data.

The national score was 7.5 (out of 10). That was 1.2 points lower than for 2022, but still the second-highest score since 2011.

Scores declined across the country except for the Northern Territory, which chalked up a score of 8.8 thanks to a strong monsoon season. With signs of drought developing in parts of Western Australia, it had the lowest score of 5.5.

Related: Will we at last get the environment laws we need?

The Environmental Condition Score reflects environmental conditions, but does not measure the long-term health of natural ecosystems and biodiversity.

Firstly, it relates only to the land and not our oceans. Marine heatwaves damaged ecosystems along the eastern coast. Surveys in the first half of 2023 suggested the recovery of the Great Barrier Reef plateaued.

However, a cyclone and rising ocean temperatures occurred later in the year. In early 2024, another mass coral bleaching event developed.

Secondly, the score does not capture important processes affecting our many threatened species. Among the greatest dangers are invasive pests and diseases, habitat destruction and damage from severe weather events such as heatwaves and megafires.

Related: Has Australia reached its environmental tipping point?

Threatened species’ declines continued

The Threatened Species Index captures data from long-term threatened species monitoring. The index is updated annually with a three-year lag, largely due to delays in data processing and sharing. This means the 2023 index includes data up to 2020.

The index showed an unrelenting decline of about 3% in the abundance of Australia’s threatened bird, mammal and plant species each year. This amounts to an overall decline of 61% from 2000 to 2020.

The index for birds in 2023 revealed declines were most severe for terrestrial birds (62%), followed by migratory shorebirds (47%) and marine birds (24%).

A record 130 species were added to Australia’s threatened species lists in 2023. That’s many more than the annual average of 29 species over previous years. The 2019–2020 Black Summer bushfires had direct impacts on half the newly listed species.

Population boom adds to pressures

Australia’s population passed 27 million in 2023, a stunning increase of 8 million, or 41%, since 2000. Those extra people all needed living space, food, electricity and transport.

Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions have risen by 18% since 2000. Despite small declines in the previous four years, emissions increased again in 2023, mostly due to air travel rebounding after COVID-19.

Our emissions per person are the tenth-highest in the world and more than three times those of the average global citizen. The main reasons are our coal-fired power stations, inefficient road vehicles and large cattle herd.

Related: World population milestone: the impact of 8 billion people explained

Nonetheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Many other countries have dramatically reduced emissions without compromising economic growth or quality of life. All we have to do is to finally follow their lead.

Our governments have an obvious role to play, but we can do a lot as individuals. We can even save money, by switching to renewable energy and electric vehicles and by eating less beef.

Changing our behaviour will not stop climate change in its tracks, but will slow it down over the next decades and ultimately reverse it. We cannot reverse or even stop all damage to our environment, but we can certainly do much better.

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Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University; Shoshana Rapley, Research Assistant, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, and Tayla Lawrie, Project Manager, Threatened Species Index, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post ‘A year of opposites’: Australia’s 2023 environment scorecard details mixed results appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354520 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/pythons-found-to-be-highly-sustainable-food-source/ Sun, 17 Mar 2024 20:49:13 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354455 Pythons are a low-emission, climate-resilient food source, converting feed to protein better than chickens or cattle, new research has found.

The post Pythons found to be highly-sustainable food source appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Farmed pythons may offer a sustainable and efficient new form of livestock to boost food security, according to new research from Macquarie University.

A study in two South-East Asian commercial python farms led by Honorary Research Fellow Dr Daniel Natusch from the School of Natural Sciences, found pythons convert feed into weight gain remarkably efficiently compared to conventional livestock such as chickens and cattle.

“In terms of food and protein conversion ratios, pythons outperform all mainstream agricultural species studied to date,” Dr Natusch says.

“We found pythons grew rapidly to reach ‘slaughter weight’ within their first year after hatching.”

Snake meat is white and very high in protein, Dr Natusch says.

The multi-institutional research team included scientists from Macquarie University, the UK’s University of Oxford, the University of Adelaide, Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand and the Vietnamese Academy of Science and Technology in Hanoi.

The researchers compared reticulated pythons (Malayopython reticulatus) and Burmese pythons (Python bivittatus) farmed at commercial python farms in Thailand and Vietnam, testing the effects of different food regimes.

Flexible solution for food insecurity

“Climate change, disease and diminishing natural resources are all ramping up pressure on conventional livestock and plant crops, with dire effects on many people in low-income countries already suffering acute protein deficiency,” says Dr Natusch.

Failures in conventional agrifood systems leading to widespread food insecurity is driving interest in alternative food sources, he says.

Snake meat is a sustainable, high protein, low-saturated fat food source already widely consumed across South East Asia and China.

Related: From zesty tree ants to peanut-buttery bogong moths: 4 reasons insects could become a staple

“However, while large-scale python farming is well established in Asia, it has received little attention from mainstream agricultural scientists,” says Dr Natusch.

“Snakes require minimal water and can even live off the dew that settles on their scales in the morning. They need very little food and will eat rodents and other pests attacking food crops. And they were a delicacy, historically, in many places.

“Our study suggests python farming complementing existing livestock systems may offer a flexible and efficient response to global food insecurity.”

Costs and benefits

Co-author Professor Rick Shine, from Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences says this is the first study taking an in-depth look at the inputs and outputs, costs and benefits of commercial snake farms.

“There are clear economic and adaptability benefits to farmers who raise pythons rather than raising pigs,” Professor Shine says.

Snake farms are typically large barns surrounded by ‘sun traps’ for basking, which escape most of the complex animal welfare issues surrounding caged mammals and birds.

“Birds and mammals waste about 90 per cent of the energy from the food they eat, simply maintaining a constant body temperature,” says Professor Shine.

“But cold-blooded animals like reptiles just find a spot in the sun to get warm. They are hugely more efficient at turning the food they eat into more flesh and body tissue than any warm-blooded creature ever could.”

A diet of agricultural waste

The research team trialed groups of pythons on different ‘sausages’ of waste protein from meat and fish off-cuts, and found intensive feeding of juveniles prompted fast growth rates with no apparent welfare impacts.

Despite pythons being solely carnivorous in the wild, they could digest soy and other vegetable protein, and some sausages included around ten per cent vegetable protein, hidden among the meat.

“It’s a bit like hiding broccoli in the meatballs to get your kids to eat their veggies,” Dr Natusch says.

“We showed that snake farms can effectively convert a lot of agricultural waste into protein, while producing relatively little waste of their own.”

When processed, around 82 per cent of a python’s live weight yields usable products, including the high protein dressed carcass for meat, the valuable skin for leather, and the fat (snake oil) and gall bladder (snake bile) which both have medicinal uses.

Kilo for kilo, reptiles produce far fewer greenhouse gases than mammals. Their sturdy digestive systems, which can even break down bone, produce almost no water waste and far less solid waste than mammals.

Pythons can fast more than four months without losing much weight, and rapidly resume growth as soon as feed restarts, so consistent production can continue even when food is scarce,” says Dr Natusch.

“We also found some farms outsource baby pythons to local villagers, often retired people who make extra income by feeding them on local rodents and scraps, then selling them back to the farm in a year.”

Professor Shine says this study shows the extraordinary efficiency of reptiles in turning waste into useable products, highlighting big opportunities in countries where there is already a cultural precedent for snake meat.

However, it’s unlikely that Australia or Europe will adopt python farming, he says.

“I think it will be a long time before you see Python burgers served up at your favourite local restaurant here.”

Dr Dan Natusch is an Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University.

Rick Shine is a Professor in the School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University.

This article was first published on The Lighthouse, Macquarie University’s multi-media publishing platform. 

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Related: A simple guide to eating insects

The post Pythons found to be highly-sustainable food source appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354455 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/nature-versus-nurture-the-key-to-magpie-intelligence/ Fri, 15 Mar 2024 06:26:10 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354376 Researchers have found the surprising key to magpie intelligence, and it’s not genetics.

The post Nature versus nurture: the key to magpie intelligence appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> If you’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering Australia’s iconic magpies, you know these birds are intelligent creatures. With their striking black and white plumage, loud warbling voices and complex social behaviours, magpies possess a level of avian brilliance that fascinates birders and scientists alike.

But what enables these clever birds to thrive? Are their sharp cognitive abilities innate – something coded into their genetic makeup? Or are magpie smarts more a product of their environment and social experiences?

In a new study, we shed light on the “nature versus nurture” debate – at least when it comes to avian intelligence.

Bigger social groups, smarter birds

Our study focused on Western Australian magpies, which unlike their eastern counterparts live in large, cooperative social groups all year round. We put young fledglings – and their mothers – through a test of their learning abilities.

We made wooden “puzzle boards” with holes covered by different-coloured lids. For each bird, we hid a tasty food reward under the lid of one particular colour. We also tested each bird alone, so it couldn’t copy the answer from its friends.

Through trial and error, the magpies had to figure out which colour was associated with the food prize. We knew the birds had mastered the puzzle when they picked the rewarded colour in 10 out of 12 consecutive attempts.

We tested fledglings at 100, 200 and 300 days after leaving the nest. While they improved at solving the puzzle as they developed, the cognitive performance of the young magpies showed little connection to the problem-solving prowess of their mothers.

Instead, the key factor influencing how quickly the fledglings learned to pick the correct colour was the size of their social group. Birds raised in larger groups solved the test significantly faster than those growing up in smaller social groups.

Fledglings living in groups of ten or more birds needed only about a dozen tries to consistently pick the rewarded colour. But a youngster growing up in a group of three took more than 30 attempts to learn the link between colour and food.

Related: Magpies with more friends a lot smarter, scientists find

How the social environment shapes cognition

Why would living in a larger social group boost cognitive abilities? We think it probably comes down to the mental demands that social animals face on a daily basis, such as recognising and remembering group members, and keeping track of different relationships within a complex group.

Magpies can learn to recognise and remember humans, too. The bird populations we work with live in the wild, but they recognise us by our appearance and a specific whistle we make.

A young magpie living in a group gets plenty of mental exercise recognising and remembering numerous individuals and relationships. Working to make sense of this stream of social information may boost their ability to learn and solve problems.

Our findings go against the idea that intelligence is something innately “set” within an animal at birth, based solely on genetic inheritance. Instead, we show how cognition can be shaped by the environment, especially in the first year after leaving the nest when young magpies’ minds are still developing.

While we focused specifically on Australian magpies, the implications of our research could extend to other highly social and intelligent species.

Related: Here are 4 things you definitely didn’t know about Aussie magpies

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Lizzie Speechley, Behavioural Ecologist, The University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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]]> 354376 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/creating-refuge-for-our-native-animals-after-fires/ Thu, 14 Mar 2024 06:00:36 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354349 Our native animals are easy prey after a fire. Could artificial refuges save them?

The post Creating refuge for our native animals after fires appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Australia is home to some of the most spectacular and enigmatic wildlife on Earth. Much of it, however, is being eaten by two incredibly damaging invasive predators: the feral cat and the red fox.

Each year in Australia, cats and foxes kill an estimated 697 million reptiles, 510 million birds, and 1.4 billion mammals, totalling a staggering 2.6 billion animals. Since the predators were introduced more than 150 years ago, they have contributed to the extinction of more than 25 species – and are pushing many more to the brink.

Research suggests cats and foxes can be more active in areas recently burnt by fire. This is a real concern, especially as climate change increases the frequency and severity of fire in south-eastern Australia.

We urgently need new ways to protect wildlife after fires. Our study trialled one such tool: building artificial refuges across burnt landscapes. The results are promising, but researchers need to find out more.

Triple threat: cats, foxes and fire

Many native animals are well-adapted to fire. But the changing frequency and intensity of fire is posing a considerable threat to much of Australia’s wildlife.

Fire removes vegetation such as grass, leaf litter and shrubs. This leaves fewer places for native animals to shelter and hide, making it easier for cats and foxes to catch them.

We conducted our experiment in three Australian ecosystems: the forests of the Otway Ranges (Victoria), the sand dunes of the Simpson Desert (Queensland) and the woodlands of Kangaroo Island (South Australia). Each had recently been burnt by fire.

We built 76 refuges across these study areas. They were 90cm wide and up to 50m long – and backbreaking to install! They were made from wire mesh, mostly covered by shade cloth. Spacing in the mesh of 50mm allowed small animals to enter and exit from any point, while completely excluding cats, foxes and other larger animals. The shade cloth obstructed the vision of predators.

We then placed remote-sensing camera traps both inside and away from each refuge, and monitored them for periods ranging from four months to four years.

The placement of the cameras meant we could compare the effect of the refuges with what occurred outside them.

What we found

Across the three study areas, the artificial refuges were used by 56 species or species groups. This included the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart, the threatened white-footed dunnart and the threatened southern emu-wren.

For around half the species, we detected more individuals inside the refuges than outside. As we predicted, the activity of small birds and reptiles, in particular, was much higher inside the refuges.

But surprisingly, reptile activity was also generally higher inside the refuges, particularly among skinks. We had not predicted that, because the shade cloth likely made conditions inside the refuges cooler than outside, and reptiles require warmth to regulate their body temperature.

Over time, the number of animals detected inside the refuges generally increased. This was also a surprise. We expected detections inside the refuges to decline through time as the vegetation recovered and the risk of being seen by predators fell.

But there were also a few complicating factors. For example, in the Otway Ranges and Simpson Desert, similar numbers of the mammals were detected inside and away from the refuges. This suggests the species didn’t consider the refuges as particularly safe places, which means the structures may not reduce the risk of these animals becoming prey.

So what’s the upshot of all this? Our findings suggest that establishing artificial refuges after fire may help some small vertebrates, especially small birds and skinks, avoid predators across a range of ecosystems. However, more research is required before this strategy is adopted as a widespread management tool.

Important next steps

Almost all evidence for an increase in cat and fox activity after fire comes from Australia, particularly the tropical north. But cats are an invasive species in more than 120 countries and islands.

That means there’s real potential for post-fire damage to wildlife to worsen globally, especially as fire risk increases with climate change.

Our results suggest artificial refuges may be a way to help animals survive after fire. But there are still important questions to answer, such as:

• can artificial refuges improve the overall abundance and survival of individuals and species?
• if so, how many refuges would be required to achieve this?
• in the presence of natural refuges – such as rocks, logs, burrows, and unburnt patches – are artificial refuges needed?
• does their effectiveness vary between low-severity planned burns and high-severity bushfires?

These questions must be answered. Conservation budgets are tight. After fires, funds must be directed towards actions that we know will work. That evidence is not yet there for artificial refuges.

Our team is busy trying to find out more. We urge other ecologists and conservationists to do so as well. We also encourage collaboration with designers and technologists to improve on our refuge design. For example, can such large refuges be made biodegradable and easier to deploy?

Solving these problems is important. It’s almost impossible to rid the entire Australian continent of cats and foxes. So land managers need all the help they can get to stop these predators from decimating Australia’s incredible wildlife.

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Darcy Watchorn, PhD Candidate, Deakin University; Chris Dickman, Professor Emeritus in Terrestrial Ecology, University of Sydney, and Don Driscoll, Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post Creating refuge for our native animals after fires appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354349 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/indigenous-fire-management-began-more-than-11000-years-ago-new-research-shows/ Tue, 12 Mar 2024 21:07:18 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354186 Modern scientific techniques have provided unprecedented insights into how an Indigenous fire regime reduced risk and increased resources.

The post Indigenous fire management began more than 11,000 years ago, new research shows appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Wildfire burns between 3.94 million and 5.19 million square kilometres of land every year worldwide. If that area were a single country, it would be the seventh largest in the world.

In Australia, most fire occurs in the vast tropical savannas of the country’s north. In new research published in Nature Geoscience, we show Indigenous management of fire in these regions began at least 11,000 years ago – and possibly as long as 40,000 years ago.

Fire and humans

In most parts of the planet, fire has always affected the carbon cycle, the distribution of plants, how ecosystems function, and biodiversity patterns more generally.

But climate change and other effects of human activity are making wildfires more common and more severe in many regions, often with catastrophic results. In Australia, fires have caused major economic, environmental and personal losses, most recently in the south of the country.

One likely reason for the increase of catastrophic fires in Australia is the end of Indigenous fire management after Europeans arrived. This change has caused a decline in biodiversity and the buildup of burnable material, or “fuel load”.

While southern fires have been particularly damaging in recent years, more than two-thirds of all Australia’s wildfires happen during the dry season in the tropical savannas of the north. These grasslands cover about 2 million square kilometres, or around a quarter of the country.

When Europeans first saw these tropical savannas, they believed they were seeing a “natural” environment. However, we now think these landscapes were maintained by Indigenous fire management (dubbed “firestick farming” in the 1960s).

Indigenous fire management is a complex process that involves strategically burning small areas throughout the dry season. In its absence, savannas have seen the kind of larger, higher-intensity fires occurring late in the dry season that likely existed before people, when lightning was the sole source of ignition.

We know fire was one of the main tools Indigenous people used to manipulate fuel loads, maintain vegetation and enhance biodiversity. We do not know the time frames over which the “natural” fire regime was transformed into one managed by humans.

Related: Recognising Indigenous knowledges is not just culturally sound, it’s good science

A 150,000-year record of fire and climate

To understand this transformation better, we took an 18-metre core sample from sediment at Girraween Lagoon on the outskirts of Darwin. Using this sample, we developed detailed pollen records of vegetation and charcoal, and paired them with geochemical records of climate and fire to reveal how fire patterns have changed over the past 150,000 years.

Now surrounded by suburbs, Girraween Lagoon (the “Place of Flowers”) is a significant site to the Larrakia and Wulna peoples. It is also where the crocodile-attack scene in the movie Crocodile Dundee was filmed.

The lagoon was created after a sinkhole formed, and has contained permanent water ever since. The sediment core we took contains a unique 150,000-year record of environmental change in Australia’s northern savannas.

The core records revealed a dynamic, changing environment. The vegetation around Girraween Lagoon today has a tall and relatively dense tree canopy with a thick grass understory in the wet season.

However, during the last ice age 20,000–30,000 years ago, the site where Darwin sits now was more than 300 km from the coast due to the sea level dropping as the polar ice caps expanded. At that time, the lagoon shrank into its sinkhole and it was surrounded by open, grassy savanna with fewer, shorter trees.

Around 115,000 years ago, and again around 90,000 years ago, Australia was dotted with gigantic inland “megalakes”. At those times, the lagoon expanded into a large, shallow depression surrounded by lush monsoon forest, with almost no grass.

When human fire management began

The Girraween record is one of the few long-term climate records that covers the period before people arrived in Australia some 65,000 years ago, as well as after. This unique coverage provides us with the hard data indicating when the natural fire regime (infrequent, high-intensity fires) switched to a human-managed one (frequent, low-intensity fires).

The data show that by at least 11,000 years ago, as the climate began to resemble the modern climate that established itself after the last ice age, fires became more frequent but less intense.

Frequent, low-intensity fire is the hallmark of Indigenous fire regimes that were observed across northern Australia at European arrival. Our data also showed tantalising indications that this change from a natural to human-dominated fire regime occurred progressively from as early as 40,000 years ago, but it certainly did not occur instantaneously.

Unlocking Girraween’s secrets with modern scientific techniques has provided unprecedented insights into how the tropical savannas of Australia, and their attendant biodiversity, coevolved over millennia under this new Indigenous fire regime that reduced risk and increased resources.

The rapid change to a European fire regime – with large, intense fires occurring late in the dry season – abruptly regressed patterns to the pre-human norm. This ecosystem-scale shock altered a carefully nurtured biodiversity established over tens of thousands of years and simultaneously increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Reversing these dangerous trends in Australia’s tropical savanna requires re-establishing an Indigenous fire regime through projects such as the West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement managed by Indigenous land managers. By implication, the reintroduction of Indigenous land management in other parts of the world could help reduce the impacts of catastrophic fires and increase carbon sequestration in the future.

Cassandra Rowe, Research Fellow, James Cook University; Corey J. A. Bradshaw, Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University, and Michael Bird, JCU Distinguished Professor, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, James Cook University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: ‘Nice and clean’: Not all blackened landscapes are bad

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]]> 354186 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/another-summer-another-mass-coral-bleaching-event-hits-gbr/ Tue, 12 Mar 2024 02:57:13 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354141 The fifth mass coral bleaching event in eight years has been confirmed on the Great Barrier Reef (GBR).

The post Another summer, another mass coral bleaching event hits GBR appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> “Surveys confirm a widespread, often called mass, coral bleaching event is unfolding across the Great Barrier Reef.” 

This was the announcement made late last week by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA), confirming the reef’s fifth mass coral bleaching event in just eight summers.

The conclusion was drawn from aerial surveys encompassing two-thirds of the World Heritage Site, including on more than 300 inshore, midshelf and offshore reefs.

Related: Little lives lost

The GBRMPA stated the surveys – spanning as far north as Cape Melville and as far south as Bundaberg – “revealed prevalent shallow water coral bleaching on most surveyed reefs and results are consistent with patterns of heat stress that has built up over summer.

“While aerial surveys show that this coral bleaching event is widespread, the severity and depth of coral bleaching can only be assessed through in-water surveys. We are continuing to conduct in-water observations with research partners and extended observer network,” the statement said.

Breaking the wrong records 

Huge swathes of the GBR also experienced mass coral bleaching in the summers of 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2022, making this year’s event the fifth in eight summers, with other events occurring in 1998 and 2002.

“Five mass bleaching events in eight years shows that climate change is putting tremendous pressure on the reef,” says WWF-Australia’s Head of Oceans, Richard Leck.

He says the current underwater heatwave is most intense in the reef’s southern regions, raising concerns for unprecedented coral deaths: “Since 2016, this area has largely escaped the severe impacts caused by bleaching as previous events have occurred further north. 

“WWF is very concerned that this bleaching event is unfolding in an area where corals have not been previously exposed to these extreme temperatures. Unless we see a significant drop off in temperatures in the next few weeks, the risk of significant coral mortality is high.”

Related: ‘Heat-proofing’ coral: Aussie discovery throws a lifeline to world’s dying reefs

‘I have never felt the water as warm as this’

Indications that another mass coral bleaching event was looming were recorded late last month by scientists at Queensland’s James Cook University.

The university’s Tropical Water and Aquatic Ecosystem Research (TropWATER) team observed moderate to severe coral bleaching throughout The Keppels, a group of islands offshore from Yeppoon, during routine surveys.

At the time, TropWATER scientist Dr Maya Srinivasan said the water temperatures at The Keppels were well above the summer average, reaching 29°C during multiple days of surveys.

“I have been working on these reefs for nearly 20 years and I have never felt the water as warm as this,” she said.

The post Another summer, another mass coral bleaching event hits GBR appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 354141 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/discovering-a-botanical-pompeii/ Fri, 08 Mar 2024 05:28:53 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=354056 The Australian continent is now geologically stable. But volcanic rocks, lava flows and a contemporary landscape dotted with extinct volcanoes show this wasn’t always the case.

The post Discovering a botanical Pompeii appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Between 40 and 20 million years ago – during the Eocene to Miocene epochs – there was widespread volcano activity across eastern Australia. In places such as western Victoria and the Atherton Tablelands in Queensland, it was even more recent.

Erupting volcanoes can have devastating consequences for human settlements, as we know from Pompeii in Italy, which was buried by ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE. But ash falls and lava flows can also entomb entire forests, or at least many of the plants within them.

Related: The world’s 10 most devastating volcanic eruptions

Our studies of these rare and unique plant time capsules are revealing exquisitely preserved fossil floras and new insights into Australia’s botanical history. This new work is published in the journal Gondwana Research.

Remarkable preservation

The most common volcanic rocks are basalts. The rich red soils derived from them are among the most fertile in Australia.

But the rocks in which fossils occur are buried under basalts or other volcanic rock, and are called silcretes – the name indicates their origins are from silica-rich groundwaters. Silica is the major constituent of sand, and familiar to most of us as quartz.

What makes the silcrete plant fossils so fascinating is the superfine preservation of plant material. This includes fine roots and root nodules, uncurling fern fronds and their underground stems, the soft outer bark of wood, feeding traces and frass (powdery droppings) of insects, and even the delicate tissues and anatomy of fruits and seeds.

For this fine preservation to occur, first there needs to be a rapid burial, like that from a volcanic eruption. Then, there has to be an abundant source of silica — a condition met when the volcanic rocks began to weather.

The process where silica infills and preserves plant structures is referred to as “silicification” or “permineralisation”. When plant material is buried, it provides acidic conditions that are ideal for this to happen.

And the process need not take millions of years. Overseas studies of plants in hot springs or undertaken in the laboratory have shown that some types of silica will quickly infiltrate wood and plant tissues.

Why are these plant fossils significant?

Because of their rapid entombment by the volcanoes, we can be sure the plants were in situ (that is, their original location) and were actively growing. This means we can gain detailed information about the make-up of these past plant communities.

In other areas where plant fossils might accumulate – such as river deltas – we can never be sure how far the bits of plants were carried, and whether they were from different types of vegetation.

Silicification not only preserves plants, but also leaf litter on the forest floor and even the underlying soil containing roots and root nodules. The fossil plants that are preserved at different sites varies, indicating the presence of distinct plant communities.

The abundance of seeds and fruits at one site near Capella, in central Queensland, even indicated to us that the local volcanic eruptions are likely to have occurred in summer or early autumn during the fruiting season.

The extraordinary preservation of these fossils allows us to compare them with modern plants. In turn, this means we can accurately identify them.

The ferns include fronds and underground stems (rhizomes) of the familiar bracken fern (Pteridium). We have also found the distinctive seeds and lianas of the grape family (Vitaceae), along with evidence of insect damage in the wood. Two sites also had evidence of palms.

While there have been few previous studies on silcrete plants, we have revealed new insights into the history of the modern Australian flora.

Volcanoes shaped plant communities

Volcanic activity both destroys and modifies existing plant communities. It also provides new substrates for plants to colonise.

Several sites contained ferns – this may be because they are among the first living plants to colonise new volcanic terrains via their tiny wind-borne spores. For instance, it has been documented that bracken ferns were pioneer plants of the barren cone of the famous Krakatoa volcano after its eruption in 1883.

But the diversity of seeds and fruits at another site suggests that an existing forest was buried by volcanic activity.

Researchers have suggested that the key factors responsible for the evolution of the Australian fauna and flora during the Cenozoic period (the last 66 million years) were predominantly climate and environmental change. It happened, in part, due to the movement of the Australian continental plate northwards.

But the broad-scale volcano activity that occurred in eastern Australia during the Cenozoic has rarely been invoked as a key driver of such changes.

So remarkably preserved, the silcrete plant fossils are now providing startling new insights into the history of some groups of Australian plants and the vegetation types in which they grew.

Related: Time capsules: Australia’s remarkable native seeds have an ancient and intriguing legacy

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The author would like to acknowledge co-author Raymond Carpenter from the University of Adelaide who contributed to this article.

Andrew Rozefelds, Adjunct Assoc Professor Central Queensland University and Principal Curator Geosciences Queensland Museum, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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]]> 354056 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/03/help-honey-bees-against-varroa-mites/ Thu, 07 Mar 2024 04:35:09 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353862 A tiny foe threatens Australian beekeepers’ livelihood, our food supply and the national economy.

The post How you can fight for Australia’s honey bees in the war against Varroa mites appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> First detected in New South Wales in 2022, the Varroa mite (Varroa destructor) is now established in Australia.

The parasitic mite, which feeds on honey bees and transmits bee viruses, has since spread across New South Wales.

It is expected to kill virtually all unmanaged honey bees living in the bush (also known as “feral” honey bees), which provide ecosystem-wide pollination. Honey bees managed by beekeepers will survive only with constant and costly use of pesticides.

As the last holdout against Varroa, Australia has a key advantage – we can still take action that was impossible elsewhere. We know Varroa-resistant bees would be the silver bullet.

Despite decades of research, no fully resistant strains exist, largely because the genetics of Varroa resistance are complex and remain poorly understood.

A recently released national management plan places a heavy focus on beekeeper education, aiming to transition the industry to self-management in two years. This leaves research gaps that need to be urgently filled – and we can all work together to help tackle these.

Related: Australia gives up on eradicating varroa mites

Unlocking the genetic key to resistance

Without human intervention, Varroa kills around 95 per cent of the honey bees it infects, but the survivors can evolve resistance. However, losing almost all bees would decimate Australia’s agriculture.

Our feral honey bees will have no choice but to evolve resistance, as they have in other countries. However, feral honey bees are not suited for beekeeping as they are too aggressive, don’t stay with the hive and don’t produce enough honey.

In principle, we could breed for a combination of feral resistance and domestic docility. But figuring out the genetics of how feral bees resist Varroa has been a challenge. As most bees exposed to the parasite will die, the survivors will be genetically different.

Some of these differences will be due to natural selection, but most will be due to chance. Identifying the genes responsible for resistance in this scenario is difficult. The best way to find them is to measure genetic changes before and after Varroa infestation. But to do that, we need bee populations largely unaffected by Varroa.

This is where our unique Australian opportunity comes in. We have a small and vanishing window to collect bees before the inevitable rapid spread of the mites, and the mass die-offs, occur.

We are collecting information… and bees

My lab at the Australian National University’s Research School of Biology has started collecting data on feral bee populations around New South Wales to identify pre-Varroa genetic diversity.

We will also monitor changes in bee population size and the spread of viruses and mites.

The most efficient way to collect bees is to go to a local clearing, such as a sports oval surrounded by forest. Unbeknownst to the cricket players, honey bee males (that is, drones) congregate at these sites by the thousands on sunny afternoons looking for mates.

You can lure them with some queen pheromone suspended from a balloon, and sweep them up with a butterfly net. Bee drones have no stinger and only come out for a couple of hours when the weather is fantastic, making collecting them literally a walk in the park, suitable for nature enthusiasts of all ages.

Anyone can help

You can help this effort by collecting some drones in your local area – this would save us time and carbon emissions from driving all over the country. We will provide pheromone lures, instructions, and materials for sending the bees back via mail. By sacrificing a few drones for the research now, we might save millions of bees in the future.

If you can spare just a couple of summer afternoons, this would give two timepoints at your location, and we can monitor any changes as the Varroa infestation progresses. More information can be found on our website.

Apart from our project, there are also other urgent research questions. For example, how will native forests respond to the loss of their dominant pollinators? Will honey bee viruses spread into other insects?

Work on these and other projects also requires pre-Varroa data. Unfortunately, Varroa falls through our research infrastructure net. Most of Australia’s agricultural funding is industry-led, however, the beekeeping industry is small and lacks the resources to tackle Varroa research while also reeling from its impacts.

Other industries that rely on honey bees for pollination, including most fruit, nut and berry growers, have diverse research needs and are one step removed from the actual problem.

Together, we can take action to save Australia’s honey bees and assure security for our key pollinators.

Alexander Mikheyev, Professor, ANU Bee lab, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: 200 years since the honey bee came to our shores, it’s hard to imagine an Australia without it

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]]> 353862 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024/03/recreational-fishing-killing-platypuses/ Tue, 05 Mar 2024 06:05:04 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353942 Recreational fishing is a popular pastime in Australia’s inland rivers and streams. Unfortunately, in the process, many people are unwittingly killing platypuses.

The post Hook, line and sinker: the much-needed changes to recreational fishing to prevent more platypus deaths appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> CONTENT WARNING: This article contains images of deceased platypuses that some readers may find distressing.

Platypuses can become trapped in nets commonly used to catch yabbies such as “Opera House traps” (so-called because their shape resembles the sails of the Sydney Opera House). The enclosed structure stops platypuses swimming back to the surface to breathe, causing them to drown in minutes.

Enclosed traps are banned in most states, but they are still being used. They are sold online and can be shipped across Australia.

During our field research, we frequently encounter these traps and clumps of discarded fishing line. We have also conducted research on the bodies of platypuses killed by these hazards.

It’s time for a national ban on these inhumane traps. And recreational fishing waste should be kept out of our waterways. We must save our platypuses, before it’s too late.

A natural wonder

The platypus is one of Australia’s most loved and iconic species. These semi-aquatic, air breathing monotremes (egg-laying mammals) can be naturally found in waterways of the east coast, Tasmania and Kangaroo Island.

But there are growing concerns for the species’ survival. Platypuses are becoming scarce and in some areas, completely disappearing from waterways.

The animals spend most of their time foraging in freshwater creeks and rivers. They have very poor eyesight underwater and use special sensors in their duck-shaped bill to locate prey.

A trap full of live yabbies can attract platypuses, but this tempting feast may be their last meal.

Related: How to rebuild a platypus population

Closing in on enclosed traps

Closed-top traps are baited then submerged in a river or stream for hours or a day, before being hauled out.

The traps funnel creatures into an enclosed space where they can’t escape. They are designed to catch freshwater crayfish (known as yabbies or marron). But they also inadvertently trap aquatic animals such as platypuses, freshwater turtles and the native water rat, rakali.

But there are wildlife-friendly alternatives. For example, some nets are open at the top while others have a hinged lid that can be pushed open by a larger animal, such as a platypus, as it tries to escape.

Opera House style, closed-top yabby traps are now banned in Tasmania, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales and South Australia.

Queensland allows use west of the Dividing Range, where platypuses are not thought to exist, or on private property. Restrictions around the size of trap entrance holes were introduced in 2015.

A litany of platypus deaths

The Australian Platypus Conservancy found 41% of reported platypus deaths from 1980 to 2009 were caused by drowning in enclosed nets.

Meanwhile platypuses have continued to drown in closed-top traps. In 2022, four reportedly died in one trap at Dorrigo on the mid-north coast of New South Wales. In 2021, a platypus died in Queensland’s Broken River and in 2018, one trap drowned seven in Victoria’s Werribee River.

Aside from deaths by closed-top traps, many platypuses become entangled in abandoned fishing line as they search for food along the bottom of waterways.

The animal’s tapered shape, duck-shaped bill and short webbed feet make it hard to free themselves. They are prone to getting wrapped in rings or loops of plastic, rubber or metal rubbish.

Related: Platypuses thrive in new habitat within Sydney’s Royal National Park 

In 2021 a Victorian study of 54 cases of platypus entanglement found litter commonly encircled the neck (68%). Almost one in five were wrapped “from in front of a shoulder to behind the opposite foreleg” (22%). Others had plastic around their torso or jaw.

That study also found platypuses in greater Melbourne were up to eight times more likely to become tangled in litter than those in regional Victoria. That’s because urban areas tend to be more polluted.

Fishing line can cut through skin and muscle, causing a slow painful death. Entangled platypuses can also drown after they become caught on underwater debris.

We study how heavy metals and other emerging contaminants accumulate in platypuses. Together with the community, local and state governments and wildlife organisations such as Taronga Zoo, we collect dead platypuses to examine their organs and body tissues.

On a trip this month to regional NSW for water quality testing and sampling, we found multiple instances of tangled fishing line and an abandoned submerged Opera House trap.

Swapping traps and binning trash

Between December 2018 and February 2019, when the Victorian Fisheries Authority invited people to swap their old closed top nets for a free “wildlife friendly” net, 20,000 traps were exchanged.

OzFish is currently running a Yabby Trap Round Up in NSW and SA. The Opera House traps are recycled and turned into useful fishing products.

Recreational fishers should also round up their used fishing line and hooks. The “TAngler bin” initiative encourages safe disposal. Since 2006, more than 350 TAngler bins have been installed at fishing hotspots in Victoria, NSW and Queensland, collecting more than ten tonnes of discarded fishing line.

A study in known platypus habitat on the Hawkesbury-Nepean River in Greater Sydney found more than 2.5km of fishing line was disposed of correctly in the bins in just three years.

Related: Rare white platypus spotted in northern NSW

Save our platypuses

Closed-top nets should be banned nationwide. This would ensure recreational fishers can no longer buy these traps and then use them in banned areas, as is happening now.

Net exchange programs should continue, in conjunction with a national awareness campaign, so the closed-top traps already sold are all handed in.

And both fishers and the wider community can take action by collecting discarded fishing line and nets.

Platypuses need all the help they can get. With our support, these beloved iconic animals can live on in Australian waterways.

Katherine Warwick, PhD Candidate, Western Sydney University; Ian A. Wright, Associate Professor in Environmental Science, Western Sydney University, and Michelle Ryan, Senior lecturer, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: Hobart community rallies around rivulet platypus

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]]> 353942 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/03/australians-arent-equal-when-it-comes-to-climate-change-vulnerability/ Sun, 03 Mar 2024 21:09:26 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353641 Across Australia, our communities have different characteristics that make them either more susceptible or more resilient to harms from climate change and extreme weather events. Now, researchers have developed a new index to identify the areas and people most at risk.

The post Australians aren’t equal when it comes to climate change vulnerability appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> It feels like Australia is in a never-ending cycle of climate-related disasters. In December 2023 alone we saw flooding inundate Northern Queensland, bushfires blaze through north-west New South Wales, and forecasts of thunderstorms and bushfires put South Australian residents on alert.

Extreme weather and climate events are becoming more frequent and intense in Australia. So much so that in 2020 Australia was in the top ten regions globally for economic losses resulting from climate-related disasters.

The risk of harm from climate change and extreme weather events is not just a function of the intensity of the hazard or exposure. Communities and their residents have characteristics that make them either more susceptible or more resilient.

This is why we created a new Social Vulnerability Index – to describe the nature of the social vulnerability some communities face in preparing for climate change in Australia.

This can be used with climate hazard maps to identify areas most at risk of health harms.

Understanding a community’s vulnerabilities and capacity to adapt is critical for adaptation planning and building the resilience of communities. The most recent assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted that the inability to identify social vulnerability at a local and urban level is a critical barrier to climate adaptation planning.

Our Index is designed to help communities, emergency response planners and public health officials identify strategies that best support communities before, during and after climate and weather disaster events.

For example, is a community’s population older than average for Australia and therefore requires specific forms of support? Are more people in the community employed in occupations which would be directly affected by climate-related disasters? Do people have access to the vehicles, communication facilities and health services that support them through disasters?

This information can be used to create targeted adaptation plans and efforts to increase climate resilience.

Our index is based on international evidence. We first conducted a large scoping review of social vulnerability indicators linked to the health impact of climate change and extreme weather events like heatwaves, heavy rains, storms and bushfires.

We focused on 230 studies covering 15 themes – having assessed 2,115 articles in total. We identified 113 indicators of social vulnerability to the health effects of climate change.

Our team selected indicators from this set with good data to generate an Australian index of social vulnerability by area (using Australian Bureau of Statistics – Statistical Area Level 2).

The map shows an area’s composite Social Vulnerability Index as well as individual vulnerability domains which include:

• Demographics,
• household composition,
• socioeconomics (income, employment, education and social development),
• language and literacy,
• natural and built environment,
• access to services,
• infrastructure (communication, transportation, emergency services, health services and government services),
• existing health condition and care needs,
• social connection,
• housing precarity,
• dwelling condition and
• livelihood or occupation.

Higher scores indicate higher vulnerabilities.

Related: ‘We can’t play when our fields are flooded’: How climate change will impact sport in Australia

Social vulnerabilities and disaster resilience capacities differ within communities, across societies and through time. Similarly, the exact composition of social vulnerabilities in each domain differ across areas.

While remote areas have relatively higher social vulnerability, many metropolitan regions are also susceptible to climate risks. Each area’s risk is driven by different social domains and disasters.

Social vulnerability in remote areas is largely driven by socioeconomic factors like higher unemployment rate, lower household income, lack of internet access, homelessness and area socioeconomic disadvantages.

Pockets of high social vulnerability in metropolitan centres are often due to demographic and housing factors – like having a greater proportion of older people, more single or group households, more artificial surfaces, greater housing affordability stress and older building stock.

Which communities are more vulnerable?

We identified 113 factors through our scoping review, but a lack of data precludes many of these social vulnerability measures from our index.

Our team is doing further work to include more factors and verify their links to Australian population health; but by way of example here are six factors that have strong evidence and good national data about their impact on vulnerability.

Demographics

Communities with larger populations of older people and children face increased risk of climate impacts.

Some of the more vulnerable areas are in the Central and Hills regions of Adelaide, the Central Coast and Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Latrobe in Gippsland, Victoria, and Moreton Bay North in southern Queensland.

Socioeconomic vulnerability

Areas with low rates of employment and labour participation, lower household income, lower area socioeconomic status and greater income inequality have less capacity to cope and adapt.

The Northern Territory outback, Wide Bay in Queensland, and northern and western Tasmania are noticeably susceptible.

Health

Areas are more vulnerable in terms of their care needs when there are larger populations of people with disability and activity limitation.

Some of those areas are located in Australia’s north west, Mid North Coast, and the South West of Sydney in NSW, the Australian Capital Territory, as well as Logan and Beaudesert, south of Brisbane.

Related: Doctors warn Australian health system not prepared for climate change

Livelihood

When considering livelihood vulnerability, sensitive areas are more dependent on primary production and construction, like the Darling Downs-Maranoa region of southern Queensland, the South East region of South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.

Housing

Housing insecurity has reduced resilience in areas including the Australian Capital Territory, parts of Sydney (the City and Inner South, the Outer West and the Blue Mountains) and Inner Melbourne.

Service access

Areas where vulnerabilities are high due to poor access to services and facilities like State Emergency Service (SES) provisions, hospital beds, access to vehicles and the distance to main roads include Northern Territory outback, South Australian outback, as well as the City and Inner South of Sydney.

The aim of our index is to help understand Australia’s vulnerabilities when it comes to climate change – providing information to help us adapt, plan and build resilience for the future.

The Social Vulnerability Index is freely available to communities to identify what support they need for climate resilience.

This article was first published on Pursuit, and reproduced here with permission. Read the original article.

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Related: Could climate change make Darwin unliveable in 50 years?

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]]> 353641 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/02/were-going-to-see-some-haunting-images-bird-flu-has-reached-antarctica/ Wed, 28 Feb 2024 01:50:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353687 It’s the news conservationists have been expecting, but dreading. The avian influenza H5N1 virus has reached mainland Antarctica.

The post ‘We’re going to see some haunting images’: Bird flu has reached Antarctica appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The highly contagious and deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza has not only killed millions of birds around the world, but has jumped to mammals. Thousands of deaths have been recorded globally, including a mass mortality event of elephant and fur seals during the disease’s recent spread across South America.

Scientists tracked its path as it moved down the west coast of South America, reaching Antarctica’s subantarctic islands in October last year.

Now, it has officially reached mainland Antarctica. The disease has been confirmed in two brown skuas (Stercorarius antarcticus) – also known as Antarctic skuas – on the western tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

Argentinian researchers found and collected the two deceased birds in early February, before handing them over to scientists at Spain’s Severo Ochoa Molecular Biology Center of the Higher Council for Scientific Research (CSIC) for testing.

This week the Spanish government released a statement, announcing that, indeed, the two skuas were infected with the disease.

“The presence of the virus, confirmed on February 24, has been found in samples of two dead skuas, which were found by Argentine scientists near the Primavera Antarctic base,” the statement reads.

“Analysis has conclusively shown that the birds were infected with the H5 subtype of avian influenza, and that at least one of the dead birds contained the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus. These analyses consisted of specific PCRs for the influenza virus and the H5 subtype, followed by sequencing of the protease cutting region, which defines with 100 per cent certainty the presence of the Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza virus.

“The virus has recently been described in the subantarctic islands, but to date, although significant deaths of some birds had been reported in the Antarctic territory, no country had demonstrated the presence of said virus in Antarctic territory.”

‘Absolutely terrifying’

The confirmation is a realisation of the Antarctic scientific community’s worst fears, many of whom relayed these concerns to AUSTRALIAN GEOGRAPHIC late last year.

“Bird flu is absolutely terrifying because it’s so deadly and it doesn’t just affect birds,” said
Professor Dana Bergstrom, the former lead of Biodiversity Conservation with the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD).

AAD seabird ecologist Dr Louise Emmerson echoed this, adding the seabird research community was anticipating a massive loss of life among Antarctica’s wildlife when the disease inevitably reached mainland colonies.

“[We are all] feeling like an existential crisis is bearing down on us and our study ecosystems,” said Louise. “We’re all incredibly attached to our study species, and it feels horrendous that there’s very little we can do, apart from monitor the impacts, avoid spreading it [bird flu] further, and maintain the resilience of the wildlife through other management actions.”

Emily Grilly, WWF-Australia’s Antarctic conservation manager, predicted, “I think we’re going to see some haunting images… And it’s the last thing that Antarctic wildlife needs right now, when it’s trying to adapt to this changing climate.”

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Related: Antarctica: a continent in crisis

The post ‘We’re going to see some haunting images’: Bird flu has reached Antarctica appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353687 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/why-eucalypts-are-survival-experts/ Tue, 27 Feb 2024 01:25:14 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353633 They can recover from fire, grow back from a bare stump, shrug aside bark loss that would kill a lesser tree, and endure drought and floods.

The post Why eucalypts are survival experts appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Eucalypts are not interested in dying. They’re survivors. The world’s 800-plus species are almost all found in Australia, a continent with old, degraded soils and frequent fires and droughts.

In the fossil record, they first appear about 34 million years ago. As the Australian continent dried out, eucalypts gradually emerged as the dominant trees in all but the most arid and tropical areas.

But what is it about eucalypts that makes them survivors?

It’s a combination. Leathery leaves. Fire-resistant bark. Dormant buds under bark, waiting for fire. Mallee roots (lignotubers) at ground level to let them regrow. Roots which put out special chemicals to unlock scarce nutrients. And gumnuts which use fire to germinate and get a head-start on any rivals.

In a difficult place to survive, they thrive. Here’s how they do it.

Leaves

Many gum species have leaves which hang vertically. These adaptations are about water. Water in Australia is often scarce, and it makes sense for trees to hold onto it when they have it. Vertical leaves means less direct sun, which means less evaporation. Their dry, leathery leaves also keep the water inside. It also improves their tolerance to bushfire.

Bark

Stringybark, ironbark, candlebark – the bark of eucalypts is used to identify them. But it’s also one of their great adaptations. The bark is often an excellent insulator against hot, dry summers as well as a protective barrier against fire.

Stringy bark is so fibrous that despite singeing and looking black on the surface, it often doesn’t burn, meaning buds beneath it are protected from damage.

Related: Eucalyptus and the ancient kingdom of fire

Buds

Underneath the bark of a normal-looking eucalypt lie thousands of dormant buds. These invisible “epicormic” buds are a remarkable adaptation, letting the tree rapidly regrow after bushfires, severe insect and animal grazing, storms, droughts or floods.

You can spot epicormic shoots sprouting up and down the trunks of gum trees after a fire, making them look like “toothbrush trees”.

Epicormic shoots can grow 27cm in a single day, or up to 6 metres in a year. When epicormic buds touch soil, they can sometimes develop as roots. This allows fallen trees or even large branches to re-establish and anchor after storms and floods.

You can sometimes see hundreds of woody spines on the trunks of old dead trees. These are a pointy reminder of how many undeveloped epicormic buds lurk under the bark.

Mallee roots (lignotubers)

As remarkable as epicormic buds are, they’re not the recovery mechanism of last resort. That job falls to the bulge at the bottom of many eucalypt trunks, which we often call “mallee roots”.

These are lignotubers, remarkable adaptations possessed by most eucalypts.

To appreciate the complexity and biological beauty of a lignotuber, imagine the trunk of a eucalypt with all its epicormic buds scrunched into a ball at the base of the trunk. The buds have direct access to a large root system able to supply water, nutrients and carbohydrates.

This is a gum tree’s emergency reboot option. Even when the tree above is falling apart, the lignotuber can rapidly regrow the tree at a rate of 6 metres or more in a year.

Roots

The roots of species such as river red gums drive deep into the soil along water courses, searching for subterranean water supplies as a backup in case the river dries up.

For other species, the solution to limited water is to send roots far and wide, often many times further than the tree’s height. In many species, the lignotuber and roots are buried under an insulating layer of soil. This acts as protection against fire.

That’s not all. Many eucalypt species produce “exudates” from their roots – chemicals which leach into the soil and free any locked-up nutrients in poor soils.

Still other exudates seep out to help feed mycorrhizal fungi in the soil. The gum trees do this as part of a wonderful symbiosis, allowing both tree and fungus to thrive. The gum gives sugar, the fungi give water and nutrients.

This underground exchange greatly improves soil quality and lets other species grow in difficult conditions.

Gumnuts

Gumnuts – woody fruits of eucalypts – are familiar to many of us from May Gibbs’ famous Snugglepot and Cuddlepie stories.

These capsules protect the tiny seeds inside from desiccation and fire. After a fire, eucalyptus fruit may be damaged or dry out. This frees the fine seeds, which sprinkle over the soil like pepper over dinner.

Some eucalypts rely not on lignotubers or epicormic buds but on the seeds contained and protected in those woody gumnuts. The seeds fall to the ground and germinate when conditions are right renewing the forest.

Survivors – but not immortal

In the years ahead, we’ll see natural disasters occurring more often and with greater ferocity as the climate changes. And in the aftermath, we will also see the spectacular and rapid responses of eucalypts – one of the world’s great families of survivors.

But we will also see dead forests. Gum trees do perish, despite their abilities to regenerate. Some species such as mountain ash are not coping with pressures such as logging and climate change, while thin-barked snow gums are struggling to cope with new fire regimes.

Every living thing has limits.

Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: Are eucalyptus trees really ‘widow makers’?

The post Why eucalypts are survival experts appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353633 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/help-for-kelp-saving-the-great-southern-reef/ Mon, 26 Feb 2024 00:46:03 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353508 The Great Southern Reef is losing its most valuable asset, the Tasmanian giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera), but a group of researchers and partners are collaborating to save this vital habitat.

The post Help for kelp: saving the Great Southern Reef appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The Great Southern Reef (GSR) is an intricate system of interconnected temperate rocky reefs, extending from Western Australia’s coast along the southern coast of continental Australia and lutruwita/Tasmania, to as far north as Brisbane to the east and Kalbarri to the west. It covers 71,000sq.km of ocean, meeting five states and running along the coast for 8000km.

It is also a global biodiversity hotspot. “There are more species in the GSR than anywhere else in the world,” says Dr Scott Bennett, a senior researcher and marine ecologist at Tasmania’s Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies (IMAS) and co-founder of the Great Southern Reef Foundation (GSRF).

“Between 70 and 80 per cent of the thousands of species found in the GSR are unique to that reef, which is truly remarkable,” he says. “To put this into perspective, only 3 per cent of species in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) are unique to the area.”

The GSR is also home to most Australians, with 70 per cent of the population living along its shores and many using it daily for swimming, surfing, fishing or other recreation.

It injects an average of $11.5 billion into the Australian economy each year, compared to the GBR’s average of $6 billion. However, due to a lack of awareness, the GSR receives only 1 per cent of the federal funding that the GBR receives each year.

Once a vast and productive ecosystem, the GSR is losing its most valuable asset – the Tasmanian giant kelp (Macrocystis pyrifera). 

Giant kelp forests are vital to ocean productivity because, like land forests, they support a vast range of life. These undersea forests create a unique ecosystem that is home to some of the world’s rarest creatures, such as the weedy seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus), giant cuttlefish (Sepia apama) and Tasmania’s red handfish (Thymichthys politus). 

Giant kelp forests were once superabundant throughout south-eastern Australia, leading to a hugely productive harvest industry in the early 1970s.

“Boats would go up and down the coast of Tasmania harvesting giant kelp, and harvesters removed hundreds of tonnes of biomass annually, but that wasn’t an issue because giant kelp forests are immensely productive,” says Dr Bennett.

For example, 1ha of giant kelp forest produces 1–2t of fresh kelp daily. In comparison, other kelp species – such as golden kelp (Ecklonia radiata) – that are now replacing the giant kelp produce an average of 70kg daily.

“It’s a massive difference in daily production, impacting the entire food web,” Dr Bennett says. “Going from 2t of fresh kelp daily to only 70kg is a huge loss, and these other kelp species simply cannot sustain the same amount of life as giant kelp forests.”

Once a vast and thick underwater forest, only 5 per cent of giant kelp forests remain. “We attribute this loss to climate change,” says Dr Bennett.

Because of shifts in wind and ocean circulation patterns, caused by warming water, the East Australian Current is getting stronger. It’s sending warm, nutrient-poor water further south than it previously did, displacing the cool, nutrient-rich water from the Southern Ocean.

“Giant kelp grows so fast and is so productive that it needs all this energy to grow, and if the nutrients aren’t in the water column, it doesn’t have the necessary fuel. The kelp is starving – it’s literally wilting off at the root,” Dr Bennett says.

Related: The Great Southern Reef is in more trouble than the Great Barrier Reef

Climate change is also causing the redistribution of some ocean species, proving dire for ecosystems like the GSR. 

“The long-spined sea urchin (Diadema savignyi), which is native to New South Wales, is now found in Tasmania, and it is devastating kelp forests because the large populations overgraze,” Dr Bennett says. “The result is barren areas of bare rock where the urchins have destroyed giant kelp forests by nipping kelp off at its start, and the rest of the kelp floats away.”

Without giant kelp forests, the GSR will be unable to sustain the enormous biodiversity it has maintained for millions of years.

Using AI to track restoration

Scientists must be able to locate remaining canopies before the giant kelp forests can be protected and restored. Manually identifying and tracking canopies can be challenging, costly and cumbersome – imagine trying to identify a particular tree in 70,000sq.km of forest that is also underwater.

Google Earth Engine and Google Cloud’s AI platform, Vertex AI, are being used to locate and analyse kelp forests in more than 7000sq.km of satellite imagery to provide researchers with geospatial maps of the reef ecosystems, allowing them to document how they change yearly.

The AI kelp monitoring provides a complete picture of these ecosystems so researchers can create an efficient and reliable long-term monitoring strategy.

“To address the biggest challenges of climate change, we need to fully understand them,” says Melanie Silva, Managing Director of Google Australia and New Zealand.

“Using Google AI for this project we can – for the first time – find and analyse Australia’s disappearing giant kelp forests and support our partners to restore this critical habitat and protect the ecosystem of the GSR.”

Providing a ‘kelping’ hand

Although 95 per cent of giant kelp forests are gone, all hope has not been lost.

Dr Anusuya Willis, director of the Australian National Algae Culture Collection at CSIRO, is analysing the surviving giant kelp to uncover genetic patterns leading to heat tolerance.

“Some of the remaining kelp is showing resilience to heat waves, so those populations should be able to survive in the oceans as they are now,” Dr Willis says.

“By identifying the specific genetic patterns that make some kelp resistant to heat, we can take significant steps towards restoring our magnificent kelp forests by allowing scientists to grow these varieties and reintroduce them to the GSR.”

With 500 million base pairs of kelp to analyse, Dr Willis’s team is using Google AI to uncover patterns in their data.

The tool DeepConsensus helps enable genome sequencing data by spotting errors through multiple readings – something that would take humans much longer to achieve given the millions of data points.

Another tool, DeepVariant, then analyses the data and identifies any inconsistencies that may allow scientists to find the genetic abnormalities that result in heat resistance.

Related: Underwater health check shows kelp forests are declining around the world

At the IMAS laboratory, scientists then take the giant kelp that demonstrate heat tolerance and breed it for out-planting on the GSR.

When selected baby giant kelp is ready to be seeded in the ocean, divers spray twine with fertilised kelp spores and unravel it along the seafloor, where it begins growing.

The baby kelp goes into the ocean measuring 1mm, but with a growing rate of up to 50cm per day in ideal conditions, the restoration efforts could see the establishment of ‘forest-scale’ giant kelp within 12 months of out-planting if the samples demonstrate heat tolerance.

Craig Johnson, Professor of Marine Ecology at IMAS, says the rest of the world is watching Australia closely to see how restoration progresses.

“Warming in eastern Tasmania is four times the global average rate, so the impacts here are a bellwether warning for what might occur in other parts of the world,” he says.

“So there’s a lot of interest in little old Tassie right now, because of the amount of science being done here around what may become a global issue.”

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Related: GALLERY: The kelp forests of the Great Southern Reef

The post Help for kelp: saving the Great Southern Reef appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353508 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/opinion-and-analysis/2024/02/even-solar-panels-cant-handle-the-increasing-heat/ Wed, 21 Feb 2024 12:03:24 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353212 As the world heats up, solar panels will degrade faster – especially in hot, humid areas. What can we do?

The post Even solar panels can’t handle the increasing heat appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> To reach the goal of 82 per cent renewable energy in Australia’s grid by 2030, we’ll need to build a lot more solar.

But even as we accelerate the rate at which we install solar on our rooftops and in grid-scale farms, the world keeps getting hotter and extreme weather arrives more often.

Solar panels have to be outside, exposed to all weather. They’re built to endure heat, snow, rain and wind. But they have limits. Climate change will mean many panels can degrade faster.

Our new research examines which areas of Australia will have the worst conditions for solar degradation out to 2059 – and what it will do to the cost of energy. We found solar in Australia’s hot, humid north will degrade fastest, while solar in the arid interior and more moderate climates down south will fare better.

Related: These megatrends will shape Australia’s future

What makes solar panels degrade?

When you’re looking to install solar on your rooftop, the warranty will likely be a factor in your eventual choice. Most solar manufacturers offer a 25 to 30 year warranty, where they guarantee power output will drop by less than 20 per cent over that time.

The reason the power output drops at all is that solar panels slowly degrade over time. But different climates, different materials and different manufacturing techniques can lead to faster or slower degradation.

At present, the dominant solar technology is silicon. Silicon modules degrade due to stress from the environment, voltage changes and mechanical stresses, as silicon wafers are quite stiff and brittle. Environmentally, humidity, ultraviolet radiation and temperature are the main causes of damage.

Hotter, more humid conditions can accelerate degradation in several ways. The map below combines four types of degradation we predict will worsen under climate change. These are:

1. delamination: heat and humidity can cause the bonds holding the different layers of the cell together to lose adhesion

2. discoloured encapsulant: intense sunlight and extra moisture can damage or discolour the encapsulant, the polymer used to adhere layers within the solar cell together

3. ribbon corrosion: if it’s more humid more often, it increases the chances moisture can accumulate and begin corroding the internal ribbon connections of the cell

4. internal circuit failure: solar cells experience regular temperature fluctuations, daily and seasonally. These temperature changes can over time cause circuits to fail. A hotter world will add extra stress to internal circuits, leading to a higher chance of failure.

What will climate change do?

Our results predict degradation rates will increase across Australia out to 2059 under both high and low emissions scenarios laid out by the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change.

Under a high emissions scenario, solar would degrade twice as fast as it would under a lower emission scenario due to the extra heat. Solar farms would be able to produce less power and might have to replace panels due to failure more often. On average, this would mean losing about eight point five per cent of output due solely to extra degradation by 2059. Under a high emissions scenario, this would mean energy could cost 10 to 12 per cent more.

But the effects wouldn’t be felt equally. Our results show solar built across the hot and humid north of Australia will degrade at especially high rates in the future compared to the arid centre, where conditions are hot but dry.

What should we do?

Heat is the main way solar panels degrade and break in Australia. As the world heats up, it will go from annoyance to very real problem.

At present, very few solar developers are taking climate change into account when they buy their panels. They should, especially those operating in humid areas. They can be more careful while selecting a new solar farm location to ensure their modules have lower chances of failure due to degradation.

To fix the problem, we’ll need to incorporate new ways of cooling panels and improve the materials used. We also need to improve manufacturing processes and materials so we can stop moisture from accumulating inside the panels.

These issues can be fixed. The first step is to understand there is a problem.

Shukla Poddar, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Photovoltaics and Renewable Energy Engineering, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: Climate change summit ends with deal to move away from fossil fuels

The post Even solar panels can’t handle the increasing heat appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353212 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/02/wa-museum-now-home-to-worlds-best-night-parrot-specimen/ Wed, 21 Feb 2024 01:28:05 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353011 The best specimen ever recovered of the extremely rare night parrot is now on public display at Western Australian Museum – and it’s already led to a scientific breakthrough that can help save the species.

The post World’s best night parrot specimen leads to first genome sequence of the elusive species appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Once thought to be extinct (for 100 years!) – and currently listed as Critically Endangered – the night parrot (Pezoporus occidentalis) is one of modern Australia’s most elusive creatures.

Sightings of the bird are rare, for a number of reasons: there are so few of them; they are nocturnal; they inhabit some of the harshest climates in the country; and, they are well-camouflaged – their yellow and green markings allow them to hide in their spinifex habitat.

First discovered by Europeans in 1845, night parrots were once widespread throughout arid Australia, but numbers soon plummeted with the introduction of predators such as cats and foxes.

The species is now known to only inhabit very localised parts of south-western Queensland and Western Australia, explains Dr Leo Joseph, Director of CSIRO’s Australian National Wildlife Collection.

“A couple of dozen scientific specimens were collected during the 19th century, and one more in 1912. Then a specimen was found in 1990, in south-western Queensland.

“Live birds were reported from the same area in 2013, and a live parrot was finally caught and tagged in 2015,” he says.

Related: New footage of the night parrot

But despite these, and a string of other recent sightings, the estimated number of night parrots in the wild remains a staggeringly low 40-500 individuals, says Dr Kenny Travouillon, Western Australia Museum’s Acting Curator of Ornithology.

“Even though there is a [confirmed] population in Queensland, and one in WA, the number of individuals sighted is relatively low. So those estimates are still standing today, and it is hard to be able to challenge these estimates until further populations are found in other parts of Australia,” he says.

So, with the chances of ever finding a night parrot in the wild so incredibly rare, the best chance of seeing one up close is to view a specimen.

And now, WA Museum Boola Bardip, opened in 2020, is home to the best-preserved whole specimen on display anywhere in the world. It’s also only the fourth complete specimen ever collected in WA, with the other three all in overseas museums.

“This is very exciting for us,” says Dr Travouillon.

The specimen was found last year by Traditional Owners in the east Pilbara. The bird was found alive, but it was caught on a fence. Unfortunately, although retrieved, the parrot died from its injuries. The Traditional Owners then notified the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, who soon confirmed that it was indeed a night parrot.

“We are so grateful for the assistance given from Traditional Owners in delivering it to us and giving us permission to put it on display,” says Dr Travouillon.

“Having a specimen of this quality, and its preservation, is incredibly important for research and education. We still know little about this elusive bird’s habitat and biology.”

Incredibly, the specimen has already led to a scientific breakthrough that will help conservation efforts of the species.

Researchers at CSIRO have sequenced the first genome of the night parrot, using tissue taken from the specimen and donated by WA Museum.

Dr Joseph says this genetic blueprint will enable him, and fellow researchers, to explore the genetic basis of why night parrots are nocturnal, a very unusual feature in parrots.

“We’ll also investigate faculties like navigation, smell, beak shape and its less-than-optimal night vision,” he says.

“Statistical analyses can also be run on the genome of this individual to estimate past population sizes of night parrots in Australia …we have the capability to compare this annotated genome with other, closely related parrots, shedding light on the reasons behind its scarcity and limited distribution compared to many of its relatives.”

Senior research scientist Dr Gunjan Pandey, who led the genomics project, adds that the genetic data can be used to ensure that conservation programs maximise diversity, so the species is resilient and has the best chance of long-term survival.

“The night parrot genome will open up numerous opportunities for further research to help conserve this species,” says Dr Pandey. “This will empower scientists to develop a plan for saving the night parrot, which is the ultimate goal of sequencing the genome and making it publicly available.”

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Related: Night parrot’s wonky skull could be its superpower

The post World’s best night parrot specimen leads to first genome sequence of the elusive species appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353011 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/the-most-hellish-place-in-the-universe-this-black-hole-eats-a-star-a-day/ Wed, 21 Feb 2024 00:15:20 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353300 Thanks to a huge astronomical survey of the entire sky, we have now found what may be the most hellish place in the universe.

The post ‘The most hellish place in the universe’: this black hole eats a star a day appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> In a new paper in Nature Astronomy, we describe a black hole surrounded by the largest and brightest disc of captive matter ever discovered. The object, called J0529-4351, is therefore also the brightest object found so far in the universe.

Supermassive black holes

Astronomers have already found around one million fast-growing supermassive black holes across the universe, the kind that sit at the centres of galaxies and are as massive as millions or billions of Suns.

To grow rapidly, they pull stars and gas clouds out of stable orbits and drag them into a ring of orbiting material called an accretion disc. Once there, very little material escapes; the disc is a mere holding pattern for material that will soon be devoured by the black hole.

The disc is heated by friction as the material in it rubs together. Pack in enough material and the glow of the heat gets so bright that it outshines thousands of galaxies and makes the black hole’s feeding frenzy visible to us on Earth, more than 12 billion light years away.

The fastest-growing black hole in the universe

The accretion disc of J0529-4351 emits light that is 500 trillion times more intense than that of our Sun. Such a staggering amount of energy can only be released if the black hole eats about a Sun worth of material every day.

It must also have a large mass already. Our data indicate J0529-4351 is 15 to 20 billion times the mass of our Sun.

There is no need to be afraid of such black holes. The light from this monster has taken more than 12 billion years to reach us, which means it would have stopped growing long ago.

In the nearby universe, we see that supermassive black holes these days are mostly sleeping giants.

Black holes losing their grip

The age of the black hole feeding frenzy is over because the gas floating around in galaxies has mostly been turned into stars. And after billions of years the stars have sorted themselves into orderly patterns: they are mostly on long, neat orbits around the black holes that sleep in the cores of their galaxies.

Even if a star dove suddenly down towards the black hole, it would most likely carry out a slingshot manoeuvre and escape again in a different direction.

Space probes use slingshot manoeuvres like this to get a boost from Jupiter to access hard-to-reach parts of the Solar System. But imagine if space were more crowded, and our probe ran into one coming the other way: the two would crash together and explode into a cloud of debris that would rapidly fall into Jupiter’s atmosphere.

Such collisions between stars were commonplace in the disorder of the young universe, and black holes were the early beneficiaries of the chaos.

Related: Black hole caught swallowing red giant star

Accretion discs – a no-go zone for space travellers

Accretion discs are gateways to a place whence nothing returns, but they are also profoundly unfriendly to life in themselves. They are like giant storm cells, whose clouds glow at temperatures reaching several tens of thousands of degrees Celsius.

The clouds are moving faster and faster as we get closer to the hole, and speeds can reach 100,000 kilometres per second. They move as far in a second as the Earth moves in an hour.

The disc around J0529-4351 is seven light years across. That is one and a half times the distance from the Sun to its nearest neighbour, Alpha Centauri.

Why only now?

If this is the brightest thing in the universe, why has it only been spotted now? In short, it’s because the universe is full of glowing black holes.

The world’s telescopes produce so much data that astronomers use sophisticated machine learning tools to sift through it all. Machine learning, by its nature, tends to find things that are similar to what has been found before.

This makes machine learning excellent at finding run-of-the-mill accretion discs around black holes – roughly a million have been detected so far – but not so good at spotting rare outliers like J0529-4351. In 2015, a Chinese team almost missed a remarkably fast-growing black hole picked out by an algorithm because it seemed too extreme to be real.

In our recent work, we were aiming to find all the most extreme objects, the most luminous and most rapidly growing black holes, so we avoided using machine learning tools that were guided by too much prior knowledge. Instead we used more old-fashioned methods to search through new data covering the entire sky, with excellent results.

Our work also depended on Australia’s current 10-year partnership with the European Southern Observatory, an organisation funded by several European countries with a huge array of astronomical facilities.

Christian Wolf, Associate Professor, Astronomy & Astrophysics, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related: Black holes grow faster than first thought

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]]> 353300 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024/02/cane-toads-parasitic-lungworms/ Fri, 16 Feb 2024 23:00:34 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353090 When the first cane toads were brought from South America to Queensland in 1935, many of the parasites that troubled them were left behind. But deep inside the lungs of at least one of those pioneer toads lurked small nematode lungworms.

The post A secret war between cane toads and parasitic lungworms is raging across Australia appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Almost a century later, the toads are evolving and spreading across the Australian continent. In new research published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, we show that the lungworms too are evolving: for reasons we do not yet understand, worms taken from the toad invasion front in Western Australia are better at infecting toads than their Queensland cousins.

Related: Defining Moments in Australian History: Introduction of cane toads

An eternal arms race

Nematode lungworms are tiny threadlike creatures that live in the lining of a toad’s lung, suck its blood, and release their eggs through the host’s digestive tract. The larva that hatch in the toad’s droppings lie in wait for a new host to pass by, then penetrate through its skin and migrate through the amphibian’s body to find the lungs and settle into a comfortable life, and begin the cycle anew.

Parasites and their hosts are locked into an eternal arms race. Any characteristic that makes a parasite better at finding a new host, setting up an infection, and defeating the host’s attempts to destroy it, will be favoured by natural selection.

Over generations, parasites get better and better at infecting their hosts. But at the same time, any new trick that enables a host to detect, avoid or repel the parasites is favoured as well.

So it’s a case of parasites evolving to infect, and hosts evolving to defeat that new tactic. Mostly, parasites win because they have so many offspring and each generation is very short. As a result, they can evolve new tricks faster than the host can evolve to fight them.

The march of the toads

The co-evolution between hosts and parasites is most in sync among the ones in the same location, because they encounter each other most regularly. A parasite is usually better able to infect hosts from the local population it encounters regularly than those from a distant population.

But when hosts invade new territory, it can play havoc with the evolutionary matching between local hosts and parasites.

Since cane toads were released into the fields around Cairns in 1935, the toxic amphibians have hopped some 2,500 kilometres westwards and are currently on the doorstep of Broome. And they have changed dramatically along the way.

The Queensland toads are homebodies and spend their lives in a small area, often reusing the same shelter night after night. As a result, their populations can build up to high densities.

For a lungworm larva, having lots of toads in a small area, reusing and sharing shelter sites, makes it simple to find a new host. But at the invasion front (currently in Western Australia), toads are highly mobile, moving over a kilometre per night when conditions permit, and rarely spending two nights in the same place.

At the forefront of the invasion, toads are few and far between. A lungworm larva at the invasion front, waiting in the soil for a toad to pass by, will have few opportunities to encounter and infect a new host.

Lungworms from the invasion front

When hosts are rare, we expect the parasite will evolve to get better at infecting the ones it does encounter, because it is unlikely to get a second chance.

To understand how this co-evolution is playing out between cane toads and their lungworms, we did some experiments pairing hosts and parasites from different locations in Australia. What would happen when toad and lungworm strains that had been separated by 90 years of invasion were reintroduced to each other?

Related: Cane toads help spread parasites to frogs

To study this we collected toads from different locations, bred them in captivity and reared the offspring in the lab under common conditions. We then exposed them to 50 lungworm larvae from a different area of the range, waited four months for infections to develop, then killed the toads and counted how many adult worms had successfully established in their lungs.

As expected, worms from the invasion front were best at infecting toads, not just their local ones. Behind the invasion front, in intermediate and old populations we found that hosts were able to fight their local parasites better than those from distant populations.

While we saw dramatic differences in infection outcomes, we have yet to determine what biochemical mechanisms caused the differences and how changes in genetic variation of host and parasite populations might have shaped them.

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Greg Brown, Postdoctoral researcher, Macquarie University; Lee A Rollins, Scientia Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney, and Rick Shine, Professor in Evolutionary Biology, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The post A secret war between cane toads and parasitic lungworms is raging across Australia appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353090 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/02/from-the-sky-to-the-sea-using-satellites-to-map-the-worlds-unidentified-reefs/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 04:29:46 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=353077 Detailed satellite mapping of the world's reefs has revealed there is more coral reef area across the globe than previously thought - information that's aiding conservation efforts of these environments.

The post From the sky to the sea: using satellites to map the world’s unidentified reefs appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Scientists have identified 348,000sq.km of shallow coral reefs up to 20-30m deep thanks to new technology.

“The total area of coral reef ecosystems is more extensive than previously thought,” said Dr Mitchell Lyons from the University of Queensland’s School of the Environment, working as part of the Allen Coral Atlas project.

“We can now confidently say there are almost 350,000 square kilometres of coral reef, which is about 50,000-100,000 kilometres more than previous estimations.”

Dr Mitchell said researchers also found that about 80,000sq.km of reefs have a hard bottom, where coral tends to grow, as opposed to soft bottoms like sand, rubble or seagrass.

“This specialised data on area and composition will allow scientists, conservationists and policymakers to better understand and manage reef systems,” he said.

Making the map

The map, known as the Allen Coral Atlas, was developed by the late Paul Allen’s Vulcan Inc. and is managed by Arizona State University and the University of Queensland along with partners Planet and Coral Reef Alliance.

Using fine-scale, high-resolution pictures from Planet Dove cubesat satellites and scientific-grade information from the Sentinel-2 satellite, scientists processed 100 trillion pixels to produce a global map of coral reefs.

The satellite images were then put through a machine-learning algorithm along with more than 1.5 million training samples curated from data collected by over 480 contributors identifying types of reefs, and the system then predicted any unmapped information to fill in data gaps.

Conserving coral

According to Dr Mitchell, although coral reefs account for only a small proportion of the ocean, they provide tremendous biodiversity that humans rely on for culture, commerce, scientific output and medicine.

“Coral reefs possess a quarter of all marine life and contribute to the wellbeing and livelihoods of a billion people worldwide,” Dr Mitchell said.

“Maps of ecosystems underpin many science and conservation activities, but until recently, there were no consistent high-resolution maps of the world’s coral reefs.

“Hundreds of thousands of people have already accessed the maps, and they are already being used directly around the world for marine spatial planning, marine protected areas, environmental accounting and assessments, restoration, and education.”

In 2022, more than 80,000 people accessed the Allen Coral Atlas, including conservation groups using the technology to advance their initiatives.

Related: World first: trials begin to seed the threatened Great Barrier Reef with thousands of healthy baby corals

Groups include the Coral Reef Rescue Initiative, a global programme of scientists, NGOs and partners working in collaboration with governments and communities to safeguard reefs, food security and livelihoods against climate change; and the Philippine Reef and Rainforest Conservation Foundation, a non-profit organisation focused on environmental conservation on Danjugan Island.

The Coral Triangle Initiative, a multilateral partnership between Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor-Leste working to sustain marine and coastal resources by addressing food security, climate change and marine biodiversity, is also accessing the Allen Coral Atlas.

The information provided by the map will also have broader uses for Australian researchers and conservationists.

“We tend to be really interested in coral bleaching, so the map can help target locations where we know the reefs have hard substrate for coral to grow,” Dr Mitchell said.

“The Allen Coral Atlas also has a tool that allows pinpointing of areas affected by coral bleaching to help alert to the potentially growing issue.

“It’s more than just maps,” he said. “It’s a tool for positive change for coral reefs, and coastal and marine environments at large.”

The post From the sky to the sea: using satellites to map the world’s unidentified reefs appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 353077 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024/02/building-a-future-for-our-birds-what-we-are-doing-right-and-wrong/ Wed, 14 Feb 2024 23:00:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352925 The good news: 25 Australian birds are now at less risk of extinction. The bad news: 29 are gone and four more might be.

The post Building a future for our birds: what we are doing right, and wrong appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> What does it mean to save threatened species? How often do we achieve it? And how often do we fail? Our new research answers these questions for Australian birds.

One of the goals of conservation is to reduce the risk of a species becoming extinct. While this might be seen as a low bar for conservation managers, it is seldom achieved. A new set of research papers on the conservation of Australian birds looks at cases of success over the past 30 years and where we have failed over the past 200.

We found extinction risks had reduced for 25 bird species and subspecies in at least one of the decades between 1990 and 2020. Nine of these would have gone extinct if not for hard work and expertise to prevent it happening.

The most effective action has been eradicating invasive species from islands. This work benefited 13 birds.

Most Australians approve of killing invasive species to save threatened species. They have good reason: it works.

What were the successes?

Nine of these successes are seabirds nesting on Macquarie Island. The program there was so successful it had a significant positive impact on Australia’s Red List Index for birds, a way of measuring overall progress on threatened species status.

This success also changed the average characteristics of Australian threatened birds. Before the pest eradications on Macquarie Island, large seabirds dominated the profile of the threatened Australian birds. Now the average threatened bird is smaller and lives on land.

Further programs have the potential to have a similar impact. The likely huge benefits from eradicating rodents from Lord Howe Island, for example, are yet to show up in these figures.

Another four birds benefited simply from having their habitat protected. Protection of rainforest reduced extinction risk for the southern cassowary (Casuarius casuarius) and Albert’s lyrebird (Menura alberti). One of the largest national parks in New South Wales was acquired for the Bulloo grey grasswren (Amytornis barbatus barbatus). The Tasmanian wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax fleayi) also had more of its nesting habitat protected.

Related: Rescuing the goddess of the grasslands

For another species, simply enforcing the law reduced the threat. In south-western Australia, culling of Muir’s corella (Cacatua pastinator pastinator) for agriculture threatened it with extinction. Now, with better protection, there are thousands.

Some threatened birds have benefited from intensive interventions by dedicated conservation agencies, non-government organisations and individuals.

Translocations of Gould’s petrels to new breeding islands and of eastern bristlebirds (Dasyornis brachypterus) to heathlands were exemplary.

Very few glossy black-cockatoos (Calyptorhynchus lathami halmaturinus) on Kangaroo Island were nesting successfully before their nests were protected from predatory possums.

Rats twice almost wiped out Norfolk Island green parrots Cyanoramphus novaezelandiae cookii. Their population has increased ten-fold since nests have been better protected.

These examples show our society can make changes that help to prevent extinctions.

There have also been setbacks

Our stories contain salutary lessons too. The pathway to recovery can have reversals.

In the past decade, Gould’s petrel and the bristlebird have suffered setbacks due to new or escalating threats. A new report suggests Tasmanian wind farms are killing and injuring significant numbers of eagles – and many more wind farms are planned.

Our analysis of improvements in the conservation outlook for Australian birds was complemented with an assessment of Australian bird extinctions. Sadly, we found extinctions are continuing.

Even with the conservation effort of the past 30 years since Australia’s first endangered species legislation, three birds are gone forever. The Mount Lofty Ranges spotted quail-thrush (Cinclosoma punctatum anachoreta), white-chested white-eye (Zosterops albogularis) and southern star finch (Neochmia ruficauda ruficauda) were still surviving in the 1990s, but were extinct by 2010.

The number of extinct birds has risen steadily since Australia was colonised in 1788. There was an initial burst of extinctions on islands, particularly big birds that were good to eat and probably had small populations. More recent losses have tended to be small birds whose mainland habitat has been cleared or modified.

29 birds are gone, but we can halt the losses

At present, 29 Australian birds are known to have become extinct. It’s a lower percentage than for mammals, but still far too high.

Grave fears are held for another four – the Tiwi hooded robin (Melanodryas cucullata melvillensis), buff-breasted button-quail (Turnix olivii), Coxen’s fig-parrot (Cyclopsitta diophthalma coxeni) and Cape Range rufous grasswren (Amytornis striatus parvus). We don’t know whether they persist or not.

For the 29 extinct birds, we can do nothing. The important lesson is that this number of losses need grow no more. We have the resources and skills to prevent extinction.

A recent court order halting forestry activity in swift parrot (Lathamus discolor) habitat suggests at least some environmental laws are making a difference.

Other judgments expose legal shortcomings and show how much more needs to be done. The revisions of national environmental laws now being negotiated provide an opportunity to fill loopholes through which threatened species might fall.

Extinctions are neither accidental nor deliberate. They are a failure of policy and people.

However, the examples of birds whose risk of extinction has declined show what can be achieved. While some of these improvements were mostly a matter of good luck, many were the result of hard work, advocacy, investment and well-judged interventions. And they give the world hope.

John Woinarski, Professor of Conservation Biology, Charles Darwin University; Sarah Legge, Professor of Wildlife Ecology, Australian National University, and Stephen Garnett, Professor of Conservation and Sustainable Livelihoods, Charles Darwin University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: Endangered western whipbird returns to Kangaroo Island after bushfires

The post Building a future for our birds: what we are doing right, and wrong appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 352925 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024/02/swimming-with-a-living-fossil/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 21:36:25 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=351636 A manufactured lake at the site of the famous Woodford Folk Festival, north-west of Brisbane, is the perfect environment for some rather odd native fish.

The post Swimming with a ‘living fossil’ appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> As crowds of festival goers cooled off in Woodfordia’s Lake Gkula during this summer’s event, most were unaware they were sharing the water with one of our country’s most fascinating species – the lungfish.

Known as Australia’s ‘living fossil’, the Queensland lungfish (Neoceratodus forsteri) is our closest living fish relative and is considered to be a surviving link in the evolutionary chain between fishes and amphibians. Not only does the lungfish have gills, but it can also breath air using one fully functioning lung.

The species are believed to have existed for around 400 million years, and fossils indicate the Queensland variety has changed very little over the last 100 million years.

Native to south-eastern Queensland’s Mary and Burnett River systems, the once abundant species is now listed federally as vulnerable.

So how did these remarkable creatures come to be living in a man-made lake created on one of the biggest festival sites in Australia?

The 202ha Woodfordia site in Queensland’s Moreton Bay region may host more than 120,000 people every year during the famous Woodford Folk Festival (and other events), but the organisers also have a strong commitment to the environment.

Managed by Woodfordia Inc. (a not-for-profit organisation and recognised charity) the land – once a degraded rural property – has been restored and regenerated over the last three decades. With more than 100,000 trees, plus understorey, now providing habitat for local wildlife, it is now also a registered Land for Wildlife site.

The latest edition to Woodfordia is Lake Gkula, named after one of the Traditional Owners’ principal spokespersons. Uncle Noel Blair is a Jinibara man whose name in language is gkula, meaning ‘koala’. The lake was completed three years ago, after feedback from festival patrons indicated a need for somewhere to swim to escape Queensland’s summer heat.

“It gets extremely hot, it’s oppressive, people need a place to cool off,” explains Patrick Handley, the lake’s creator.

But, being Woodfordia, this was never going to end up being just any ordinary swimming spot, which is why Patrick was chosen for the task. A horticulturist with a passion for ecology and ecosystems, Patrick’s goal was to build a fully endemic ecosystem, “as native as we could get it,” he says.

The result is a lake with natural wetland filtration. Powerful pumps and nanobubble technology also maintain a constant flow and high levels of oxygen, which purify the water like kidneys, while beneficial bacteria and microorganisms keep pathogens at bay. All this means the lake is completely chemical-free.

This makes Lake Gkula not only a natural setting to swim in, but a great place for animal and plant species to thrive. It was, as Patrick says, “a no-brainer” that the habitat would be made home to native and endemic species only.

To achieve this, Patrick consulted experts and self-researched the environmental conditions needed by certain native and endemic species, then he set about making conditions just right. Soon, the lake was home to an ecosystem of more than 18 native fish and crustaceans, as well as a host of other animals – including turtles, frogs, lizards and water birds – living among more than 8000 plants, including native water lilies.

The lake’s fish species include Pacific blue-eye, Agassiz’s perchlet, gudgeon, tandanus catfish, rainbowfish and Mary River cod.

And, of course, lungfish.

Being a protected species, it is illegal to take lungfish from the wild, so three were donated to Woodfordia by a licenced local breeder.

“The release of the lungfish was so incredible, it was such a fantastic day,” says Patrick. “It’s been a real dream to have this happen – I’ve always wanted to do this.”

For the lungfish to thrive in their new environment, Patrick designed habitat space specific to their needs. Not only do they prefer to inhabit deep water, and need plenty of room to move and hunt, they also need places to hide when the lake is full of people.

“I created a habitat zone for the fish. They can enter it and be safe from predators and people. There are hollow logs to lie in, and we do see them get up in there,” he says.

“My main concern was making sure we had enough to feed them – but they’ve got plenty of food. They eat the snails in there, and they ambush prey when they can, so there’s a few smaller species – like the shrimp – they can get hold of. They also feed on the eelgrass.”

Three years on from the introduction of the lungfish into Lake Gkula, Patrick says they’re doing well. “I go and look at them every three to four months and they’re really healthy. They’re growing really, really quickly. They went in at 25cm, and they’re at least a good 75cm now.

“I identify them by their tail patterns, and I know there’s definitely two still there. When you look at them, they’re just so fat and happy.”

Looking to the future, Patrick says the ideal scenario would be for the lungfish to breed. However it’s too soon to identify the gender of the lungfish.

“We have to wait and see,” says Patrick. “If we had a breeding pair in there it would be incredible. But even if we do, it will be up to 15 years before they get to breeding size.”

In the meantime, Patrick just wants people to appreciate these unique animals.

“A lot of people still don’t know that they’re there,” he says. “So for people to go and appreciate the fact that they’re swimming with lungfish in semi-wild conditions would be incredible.

“I’ve had some great experiences with these lungfish. I think it’s going to be a wonderful thing to see and hear them at night time. When they’re older they will come up to the surface and suck at the air – apparently they sound like dolphins.

“That would be amazing. Absolutely amazing.”

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Related: New brain-warp technique helps reconstruct fossil brains

The post Swimming with a ‘living fossil’ appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 351636 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/new-spaces-for-ocean-life/ Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:53:16 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352904 In an alliance between Australian marine ecologists and industrial designers, science and art meet to restore ecological function at some of the world’s most altered coastal landscapes.

The post New spaces for ocean life appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Most of the bathers sprawled during sunny weekends along the seawall at the Fairy Bower ocean pool, in the coastal Sydney suburb of Manly, wouldn’t be aware of the life surviving below their dangling feet…or how it’s impacted by this concrete structure. The wall, built in the early 20th century, is a small example of the mostly cement edifices that have been built along, and out from, the world’s coastlines. Globally, an estimated 32,000sq.km of seawalls, pontoons, pilings and marinas now stretch into the ocean from various locations. In Australia, where 85 per cent of the population famously lives within 50km of the sea and properties with water views are among the highest-priced real estate in the world, the impact is thought to be huge.

“More than 50 per cent of the Sydney Harbour shoreline has been modified by coastal ‘hardening’ through the building of constructions like seawalls and jetties,” Macquarie University coastal ecologist Professor Melanie Bishop says, offering one local example. “And that’s increasingly being driven by the need for stabilisation and protection of the coast. It’s a common occurrence around the world.”

Melanie and others began looking, almost two decades ago, at what impact the structures were having on coastal organisms. They found much evidence that the diversity of life associated with marine constructions was not only reduced, but also vastly altered in terms of composition. “The biodiversity was not the same as is usually found along the natural shoreline. It was often characterised by more pest species and non-native species,” Melanie explains. “So we began researching why this was the case. And – alongside things like the difference in material type from which constructions are made versus natural rock type – one thing that really jumped out was that, if you walk along a natural rock platform at low tide, you notice all the life is found in places like rock pools, crevices and depressions. So the problem with these built structures is that they have flat, featureless surfaces.”

Looking for answers, Melanie and her team began small-scale experiments in Sydney Harbour and at about two dozen similar locations around the world. They found that if you add 3D geometries such as those seen along natural shorelines, the biodiversity of marine life around built structures could be increased and enhanced. Armed with that scientific evidence, the researchers approached Alex Goad – a Melbourne-based, award-winning industrial designer with a deep love for the ocean – to help find a solution. 

The result is Living Seawalls, a flagship program of the Sydney Institute of Marine Science that works in collaboration with Alex’s company, Reef Design Lab, to create marine life–friendly substrates that blend “ecological concepts and engineering in creative design”. Living Seawalls’ components are constructed from hexagonal concrete panels, each about 55cm in diameter, that mimic the lumps, bumps, nooks and crannies you’d see along a natural rocky shoreline. The modular design fits together like ceramic tiles.

“A key design criterion was that they be not only functional from an ecological perspective, but also look good,” Melanie says. “When you’re talking about public spaces, unless it’s an attractive solution, it’s not going to be palatable. So a big part of our success has been the ‘science meets art’ approach, and the fact that these things are visually appealing and sculptural.”

Living Seawalls’ panels were incorporated into recent renovations at the Fairy Bower ocean pool, and their surfaces are coming to life as algae and invertebrate larvae have been settling out of the water to grow on the structure. Seawalls like this have now been installed around the world at 20 different locations, including Gibraltar, Singapore, England, Wales and soon in Boston, in the USA. 

Fairy Bower ocean pool’s Living Seawalls – developed by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science – are concrete tiles made using 3D printers that mimic different types of habitat commonly found on natural shorelines. Image credit: Michaela Skovranova/Australian Geographic

The first Living Seawalls structure was installed in 2018 at Sawmillers Reserve, in the Sydney harbourside suburb of McMahons Point. Two years later a study found that 115 species of seaweeds and invertebrates had moved in to live on the panels. “There were 36 species of fish that were either feeding on what was growing on the panels, or sheltering in and around the panels,” Melanie says. “We are relying on natural colonisation – when all of the larvae and propagules [juveniles] floating around in the water settle and attach.”

The problem with the flat, featureless surfaces of old-school seawalls and jetties is that anything that settles on them is easily picked off and eaten by something bigger, or they’re exposed to the sun at low tide and killed by UV radiation. “The idea is that we’re providing protective spaces, these nooks and crannies, that allow species to survive,” Melanie says. “What we’ve found is that, in some instances, inside these rock pools and crevices, the temperatures are 10°C cooler than on an exposed surface. This can mean the difference between life and death for some of these species, particularly in a hot summer.”

With time, the invertebrates and seaweeds attach, survive and grow and then form their own habitats. “Initially, what you see is the sculptural design, but in time the panels are completely covered in marine life, so you can’t see the panels at all,” Melanie says. “You eventually get a lush self-sustaining marine habitat growing on top of them.”

A variety of marine organisms readily settle and grow in the  protected nooks and crannies on a Living Seawall, as pictured on this wall at Sawmillers Reserve, in the Sydney harbourside suburb of McMahons Point. Image credit: Leah Wood

The innovation in Living Seawalls is certainly about their nature-mimicking designs. But the material they’re made from is also important. They’re currently being fabricated using an ecoblend cement containing materials recycled from industrial waste products. “The hope is that, with so much innovation occurring in the materials space and in low-carbon and carbon-negative concrete, we will be able to use those innovations in our panels,” Melanie says. “That would really turn this into a carbon-negative solution. If we can build from low-carbon concrete, then encourage the growth of things like kelp that might be taking carbon dioxide out of the water, then we have a win-win solution.”

As the panels become covered with organisms, it seems they’ve been turning into their own self-perpetuating environment and won’t need any ongoing maintenance. “From an engineering perspective, the panels were initially designed so that they would last for at least 20 years in a harbour environment that’s exposed to sun, wind, waves and ferry wake, but we now think that’s massively conservative. As the creatures colonise, they are actually reinforcing the panels.” Another serious environmental issue for which the Living Seawalls project might offer a solution relates to the booming “blue economy” presently underway world-wide, partly driven by the quest for more renewable energy generation. Projects involving developments such as wind energy and aquaculture are being built in the ocean. 

“We are projecting that, if you combine everything – seawalls and coastal protection structures, along with new blue-economy offshore infrastructure and construction – that over the next 10 years we are going to see a 70 per cent increase globally in the area of sea floor impacted by the structures,” Melanie says. “What we are already seeing when we add it all up is an area of sea floor being impacted that is greater than the area occupied by the world’s seagrass beds and mangroves combined. It’s a significant issue and it’s growing, and the ideal time to combat this is not as an afterthought, but at the beginning.” 

As a result, the Living Seawalls team is now having conversations with a variety of offshore and coastal industries about how its innovative design solutions can be incorporated in marine construction projects from the very start.

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Related: Two year study shows living seawalls promote regeneration in Sydney Harbour

The post New spaces for ocean life appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 352904 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/new-life-for-ancient-predatory-fish-from-the-red-centre/ Wed, 07 Feb 2024 04:47:01 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352706 A bizarre large-fanged, air-breathing, lobe-finned fish that once swam in the rivers of central Australia has been described by Adelaide researchers.

The post New life for ancient predatory fish from the Red Centre appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Meet Harajicadectes zhumini, a newly described predatory fish species that prowled the rivers of Central Australia during the Middle-Late Devonian period, about 380 million years ago. Harajicadectes was a lobe-finned fish with bony scales and sharp teeth. It was part of the ancient Tetrapodomorph lineage – the not-so-distant evolutionary ancestors of the first land-walking tetrapods. 

The nearly complete Harajicadectes skeleton was discovered in 2016 inside Harajica Sandstone, roughly 200km west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory.

(Left to right) The type specimen of Harajicadectes zhumini as found in the field in 2016 (an almost complete fish seen in dorsal view), a latex peel of the fossil, and an interpretative diagram; Skull of Harajicadectes zhumini in dorsal view alongside a reconstructed head, plus the location of the Harajica fish beds. Image credits: courtesy Flinders University

Harajicadectes’s most distinctive features are the large openings on the top of its skull, which scientists explain as an air-breathing adaptation. “These spiracular structures are thought to facilitate surface air-breathing, with modern-day African bichir fish having similar structures for taking in air at the water’s surface,” says Dr Brian Choo, a researcher from Flinders University’s Palaeontology Lab.

Palaeontologists have discovered this air-breathing adaptation in other Tetrapomodorph species from the Middle-Late Devonian period. “Large spiracles also appeared in Gogonasus from Western Australia and elpistostegalians like Tiktaalik – the closest relatives to limbed tetrapods,” Brian says. “It also appears in the unrelated Pickeringius, a ray-finned fish from Western Australia, first described in 2018.”

Related: New brain-warp technique helps reconstruct fossil brains

This air-breathing adaptations enabled fish to supplement gill respiration with oxygen from the air – a useful advantage during the atmospheric changes of the mid-Devonian period, which triggered mass extinctions of marine communities.

Fragmentary specimens of Harajicadectes were first discovered in 1973, followed by later discoveries by Melbourne Museum and Geosciences Australia in the 1990s. “This fossil [found in 2016] demonstrated that all the isolated bits and pieces collected over the years belonged to a single new type of ancient fish,” says Brian.

(Left to right) Flinders University palaeontologist Dr Brian Choo with the Harajicadectes zhumini fossil; A life reconstruction of Harajicadectes zhumini in central Australia 380 million years ago. Image credits: courtesy Flinders University

Its name Harajicadectes zhumini derives from the location where the fossil was found – Harajica Sandstone – and “dēktēs”, the ancient Greek word for “biter”. Zhumini was chosen in recognition of Professor Min Zhu, a Chinese palaeontologist who has made significant contributions to the evolutionary history of early vertebrates.

The study was published in the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology.

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Related: Scientists discover mass extinction event that heralded dawn of the dinosaurs

The post New life for ancient predatory fish from the Red Centre appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 352706 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/smell-misinformation-used-to-stop-animals-eating-threatened-plant-species/ Wed, 07 Feb 2024 01:16:44 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352690 In places where we need to protect valuable plants – whether for ecological or economic reasons – local herbivores can cause significant damage.

The post ‘Smell misinformation’ used to stop animals eating threatened plant species appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Current solutions often involve killing the problem animals. But this is increasingly unacceptable due to animal welfare concerns and social pressures. Physical barriers such as fences can be expensive, and aren’t always practical. We need other options.

Recently, our team discovered that herbivores – plant-eating mammals – primarily use their sense of smell to tell which plants they want to eat or avoid.

In our study published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, we show how we can use this reliance on smell to nudge wallabies away from vulnerable native tree seedlings. We artificially created and deployed the key smells of a shrub wallabies avoid.

Herbivore-induced headaches

Hungry plant eaters are a concern for conservationists, farmers and foresters alike. They can devastate revegetation efforts and post-fire recovery, destroying more than half the seedlings in these areas.

Every year, they cause billions of dollars of damage in forestry and agriculture. Herbivores also pose a risk to the long-term survival of many threatened plant species.

The most effective control strategies will likely work with a herbivore’s natural motivations – understanding and harnessing what drives the animal to find or avoid certain plants.

Previously, research had primarily focused on what herbivores were eating, but had never really asked how they find the food in the first place.

Our approach puts a new twist on “olfactory (smell) misinformation” or “chemical camouflage” approaches. In recent studies, these methods have substantially reduced invasive predators eating threatened bird eggs in New Zealand, and house mice eating agricultural wheat grain in Australia.

A landscape of smells

In navigating a scent landscape, herbivores use odour to recognise and select among plants and plant patches. Odour is key in guiding the foraging of marsupials in Australia, elephants in Africa and Asia, and deer in the United States.

With this in mind, we explored whether the smell of a plant they don’t like could be enough to nudge animals away from highly palatable native tree seedlings.

To test this idea, we focused on swamp wallabies foraging in a eucalypt woodland in eastern Australia. Studies have shown having too many swamp wallabies around can limit the number of eucalypt seedlings that survive to become trees. Swamp wallabies also have a fantastic sense of smell – they can find just a few eucalypt leaves buried underground among complex vegetation.

Using an approach we recently developed, we found the key scent compounds of a plant we know wallabies avoid – the native shrub Boronia pinnata.

We then mixed these compounds together to create “informative virtual neighbours”. They were “informative” as our mix of compounds mimicked what a wallaby would recognise as Boronia pinnata, “virtual” as we were not actually deploying the real shrub, and “neighbours” as we placed these smells in the bush next to eucalypt seedlings we were trying to protect.

In our study, a virtual neighbour was a small glass vial with a few millilitres of the mixture, with a tube pierced through the lid so the smell could waft out.

Using odours instead of real plants is a type of olfactory misinformation – it sends a deceptive message to the animals.

Real and virtual neighbours

We also compared if virtual neighbours were as good as the real thing in protecting eucalypt seedlings from being eaten by wallabies.

Five virtual neighbour vials or real Boronia pinnata plants were spaced evenly around single eucalypt seedlings the wallabies would find highly palatable. (We also had two types of controls: a seedling with nothing around it, and a seedling surrounded by five empty vials.)

Using remote cameras for 40 days, we recorded how long it took wallabies to find and munch on the eucalypt seedlings.

The results were staggering. Seedlings were 20 times less likely to be eaten when surrounded by virtual neighbours than for both controls. This was equivalent to using real B. pinnata plants, but better because vials don’t compete with seedlings for water and other resources.

A highly effective approach

The success of our study indicates we could use this approach as a new management tool – one that works by influencing the animals’ behaviour rather than trying to get rid of them.

We believe the concept behind developing virtual neighbours is directly transferable to any herbivore, mammal or otherwise, that uses plant odour to forage.

All herbivores avoid some plant species. With future development, we can deploy smelly virtual neighbours as a non-deadly and cost-effective tool to reduce the problems caused by overzealous herbivores.

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We acknowledge all other co-authors who contributed to this work: Catherine Price, Malcolm Possell and Cristian Gabriel Orlando from the University of Sydney, and Adrian Shrader from the University of Pretoria. We thank Paul Finnerty for assistance in designing and constructing virtual neighbour holders.

Patrick Finnerty, PhD candidate – Behavioural Ecology and Conservation Research, University of Sydney; Clare McArthur, Professor of Behavioural Ecology, University of Sydney, and Peter Banks, Professor of Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Related: Stinkhorns: the fungi that smell like rotting flesh on purpose

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]]> 352690 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/02/can-animals-evolve-fast-enough-to-keep-up-with-climate-change/ Wed, 31 Jan 2024 23:00:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352373 The answer is 'maybe'.

The post Can animals evolve fast enough to keep up with climate change? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The world is always changing, leaving plants and animals everywhere to adapt to new habitats and living conditions. Evolution offers a pathway for life to adapt to these changes, but it takes time. So as human-caused climate change increases the rate at which the environment is changing, the big question is, can evolution keep up?

Fortunately, at least for some lucky species, the answer may be yes. “Many creatures have a surprising capacity to cope,” says Sarah Diamond, an evolutionary ecologist at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) in Ohio.

The traditional conception of evolution presents it as a gradual process, slowly shaping organisms over hundreds or thousands of years. In some cases, however, species can adapt much more quickly.

Research conducted over the past couple of decades has shown that evolution can occur on timescales similar to those of climate change. By figuring out what factors set the speed of evolution, scientists are hoping to identify what conditions give animals the best chances of keeping pace with the rapidly changing world.

In a new comprehensive review, Diamond and her colleagues pull together existing research on how quickly species can evolve climate-relevant traits, such as the ability to withstand high temperatures, dry conditions, or ocean acidification. Their sweep of the literature reveals plenty of good news. One of the laboratory experiments they consider, for example, shows that a species of green algae, Chlorella vulgaris, can rapidly evolve to tolerate temperatures 3 ^oC higher than its usual optimum.

Andrew Whitehead, who studies evolution and genomics at the University of California, Davis, says the species with the best chances of navigating the changes to come are those with large and genetically diverse populations. “Genetic variation is fuel for evolutionary change, and some [species] have more of that fuel than others,” he says.

Big, diverse populations can harbor more of the traits that might help a species adapt to new conditions. That, along with blisteringly fast reproduction, is why bacteria can develop resistance to antibiotics so quickly.

Yet quick adaptation isn’t limited to microbes. In his own research, Whitehead has shown that Atlantic killifish, a small silvery fish found off eastern Canada and the United States, has adapted to live comfortably in estuaries plagued by heavy industrial pollution. They pulled off this feat by having plenty of genetic variability to work with, says Whitehead. Killifish have the highest known levels of genetic diversity of any vertebrate. Combine that with a huge population and short generations, and you get a species stuffed with genetic mutations. Some of these mutations are helpful and give at least some individuals what they need to survive.

And that right there is the trick. When it comes to fast-moving challenges like climate change, “species can’t wait for new mutations to arise,” says Whitehead. “They need to hold those cards in their hand now.” It’s a situation where more is more. A species is “more likely to hold lucky cards if they’re playing with a big deck,” he says.

Australian scientist says hybridisation is the key

Most species are holding fewer cards than the killifish. But there are things animals can do to stack their decks—and people can help. Luciano Beheregaray, a molecular ecologist at Flinders University in Australia, says the key is hybridization; by mating with closely related species, an animal’s offspring could pick up the traits they need.

That’s how several closely related species of rainbowfish have navigated changing conditions in the Australian rivers they inhabit. The rainbowfish that dwell at higher elevations are adapted to the colder temperatures found there. As temperatures rise, warm-adapted fish from lower down are beginning to colonize the higher reaches of the rivers, often mating with their cold-adapted relatives. Beheregaray and his colleagues show that these new hybrid populations are less vulnerable to future warming than the cold-adapted ones.

“Hybridisation can bring greater adaptability to some species,” Beheregaray says. Crucially, he adds, hybridisation is also an area where people can get involved. “We could manage populations at risk by actively bringing in genetic material that might help them adapt,” he says. “It would be better than to sit and watch extinction take place before our eyes.”

Even if animals don’t have the genetic diversity or hybridization potential to weather the coming warming, there are other ways they can adapt, says Ryan Martin, one of Diamond’s CWRU colleagues who also studies evolutionary responses to climate change. Some animals can move, seeking out microhabitats that remain in their preferred temperature range, he says. Or they can adjust their behavior to be more active at cooler times of the day, which might buffer them against the effects of climate change.

But behavioral changes can only be pushed so far, says Martin. An animal that retreats up a mountain to stay cool will eventually run out of mountain, and by then, it may be too late for them to evolve better heat tolerance.

Winners and losers

Ultimately, as the climate continues to warm and species scramble to keep pace, there is going to be a seismic shift in the animal community, says Diamond. Big marine animals like whales, with their small populations and long life spans, will be vulnerable to extinction—as will creatures with temperature-dependent sex ratios, like sea turtles. These animals may not survive a period of rapid warming. But squid and tiny, fast-living copepods will probably manage just fine—they may even thrive.

“There are going to be winners and losers, and some of the losers will be very noticeable,” says Martin.

Beyond anticipating the fates of individual species, though, the really tricky part is knowing what these changes might mean for the ecosystems of the future. “We can make general predictions,” says Diamond, but “we don’t know what the butterfly effect of losing key ecosystem services will be.”

This article first appeared in Hakai Magazine, and is republished here with permission.

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]]> 352373 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2024/01/megalodon-more-slender-than-previously-thought/ Tue, 30 Jan 2024 23:08:10 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352401 Scientists have challenged the previous interpretations of the megalodon’s body shape.

The post Megalodon more ‘slender’ than previously thought appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The Otodus megalodon has been extinct for roughly 3.5 million years, but now prowls the silver screen in Hollywood blockbusters. Palaeoart and popular culture typically portray the megalodon as a 15m version of a great white shark – despite no complete skeletons ever having been discovered.

But new fossil analysis offers fresh insight into what this prehistoric predator might have looked like. Palaeontologists measured a fossilised megalodon vertebral column taken from an individual shark from the Miocene epoch (23.03–5.333mya). The vertebral column had a smaller diameter than expected, suggesting megalodon had a proportionally slimmer build and longer body than that of a great white shark.

“The species had an unusually slender vertebral column, which is at odds with previous reconstructions depicting megalodon as a girthy shark,” said Dr Mikael Siversson, Head of Earth and Planetary Sciences at the Western Australian Museum. 

Mikael was part of an international team of scientists that challenged the previous interpretations of the megalodon’s body shape, in a new scientific paper in the journal Palaeontologia Electronica. Similar to modern-day sharks, the megalodon had a cartilaginous body that doesn’t fossilise (apart from a few, exceptionally rare cases). Instead, the prehistoric predator left behind a robust fossil record of teeth and vertebrae – leaving the palaeontologists to fill in the blanks. Palaeontologists studying megalodon have looked to great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) as an approximate blueprint for what this prehistoric shark might have once looked like. But now, Mikael is urging for a “more strictly evidence-based view” on this extinct shark’s anatomy.

“Although we have a very good idea about the size of the mouth from associated dentitions seemingly including all tooth positions, other anatomical features, such as the shape of the fins and tail, are unknown,” he said. “Going forward, any meaningful discussion on the anatomy of this shark other than the size and robustness of the jaws would require the discovery of more-or-less complete skeletons.”

The megalodon was the largest predatory shark to have ever existed. It lived approximately 16–3.5 million years ago, from the mid-Miocene through to the Pliocene.

RELATED STORY: Megalodon: fact from fiction

RELATED STORY: Megalodon could swallow a great white shark whole, research shows

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]]> 352401 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2024/01/just-what-does-a-honeybee-see/ Mon, 29 Jan 2024 23:55:41 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352128 What the world looks like differs from species to species. Now researchers have developed a way for us to see through the eyes of animals.

The post Just what does a honeybee see? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Did you know that some animals – including honeybees and some birds – can see ultraviolet (UV) light?

This is due to the capabilities of the photoreceptors in their eyes, which are far beyond the range of human eyes.

What animals see has been replicated before, but never in motion. Traditional methods such as spectrophotometry are often extremely time consuming, and require specific lighting.

But researchers have developed a ground-breaking camera and software system that captures animal-view videos of moving objects under natural lighting conditions.

“Our new approach allows researchers and filmmakers to record animal-view videos that capture the interplay of colours over time,” says Dr Vera Vasas, research fellow in Ecology and Evolution at the University of Sussex in England.

“Now we can fully appreciate how much information we missed when we were photographing immobile objects in the lab. This new-found ability to accurately record animal-specific colours in motion is a crucial step towards our understanding of how animals see the world.”

How does it work?

The camera simultaneously records video in four separate colour channels: blue, green, red and UV. Based on existing knowledge of the different photoreceptors in the eyes of different animals, this data can be processed into “perceptual units” to produce an accurate video representation of a particular animal’s unique vision.

“The system works by splitting light between two cameras,” Vera says. “One camera has been modified to be sensitive to UV light, while the other is just a regular stock camera, sensitive to visible light. This separation of UV from visible light is achieved with a piece of optical glass, called a beam splitter. This optical component reflects UV light in a mirror-like fashion, but allows visible light to pass through just the same way as clear glass does. In this way the system can capture light simultaneously from the four distinct wavelength regions. We then use a series of algorithms to standardise our footage and transform it to representations of animal vision.”

The results

Here’s just a sample of the incredible videos already created with this new technology:

Just the beginning

The result is vision that is not only fascinating to look at, but that also has multiple real-world applications.

“We have a number of ideas that we are planning to address with our camera,” says Vera. “You could image the iridescent mating displays of birds, and how they appear to the intended audience of females. The camera can also be used for fast digitisation of museum specimens.

“We are also excited about some welfare aspects,” she adds. “We can evaluate the visibility of UV-absorbing stickers on windows, for example, that are intended to be visible for birds, reducing the number being injured or killed from accidentally striking glass.

“But the most exciting questions will be those we have yet to consider. Only now that we have started taking videos of the natural world, we are beginning to see how much information is out there.”

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Related: The science behind ant vision

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]]> 352128 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/01/how-rising-sea-levels-will-affect-our-coastal-cities-and-towns/ Tue, 23 Jan 2024 00:28:14 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=352055 Sea-level rise – along with increasing temperatures – is one of the clearest signals of man-made global warming. Yet exactly how rising water levels affect the coast is often misunderstood.

The post How rising sea levels will affect our coastal cities and towns appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> A new coastal hazard assessment for Victoria’s Port Phillip Bay has again thrown the spotlight on the impact of sea-level rise on coastal communities in Australia. Should we be worried? Or is the reality more nuanced?

While there are still many uncertainties, even a small change in sea level can have big impacts. We should be doing all we can to limit sea-level rise to protect our coastal cities and towns. And because sea levels will continue to rise for centuries after we cut emissions to net zero, planning decisions for coastal areas must factor this in.

RELATED ARTICLE: Australian scientist urges world to “slam the brakes” as report reveals climate change tipping point now closer

Why are sea levels rising?

Global sea levels are rising for two main reasons: the oceans are getting warmer, and land-based ice sheets and glaciers are melting.

As ocean water warms, it expands. Because the ocean basins are finite (like a bathtub), this results in a rise in water levels.

Since the 1970s, thermal expansion of the oceans has accounted for roughly half of measured global sea-level rise. The other half is due to land-based ice melt from ice sheets and glaciers. Together, these make up what is known as “eustatic” sea level.

The Port Phillip Bay coastal hazard assessment, released on Thursday, found that Docklands and Southbank in the Melbourne city council area could face inundation in the scenario of a 1.1-metre sea level rise, during a one-in-100-chance storm-tide event.https://t.co/6YvDR7O4wA

— Gary Buckley™ (@myrddenbuckley) January 11, 2024

The rate of sea-level rise experienced at the coast also depends on whether the land is moving up or down. “Relative” or “isostatic” sea level is the sum of “eustatic” sea level plus local vertical land movement.

Australia is rising by about 0.3-0.4 millimetres a year due to glacial isostatic adjustment. This is the result of the land continuing to move upward following the loss of ice on land during previous glaciations. The land subsided under the weight of this ice and is now rebounding as the ice is gone. This slow rebound of the land provides a small offset to eustatic sea levels around Australia.

Sea-level rise is accelerating

From 1900 to 2018, global sea levels rose by about 20cm (a long-term average of 1.7mm/yr), but almost everywhere the rate of rise is increasing. Measurements since 1993, when global satellite data became available, show the rate of global mean sea-level rise over the past decade has more than doubled to more than 4mm/yr.

Around Australia, sea levels are rising at or above this global average. Tide gauges indicate the rate of rise in northern Australia since the early 1990s is around 4–6mm/yr. Along the south-east coast of Australia, it’s about 2–4mm/yr. Rates of sea-level rise are not uniform around Australia because of local effects like ocean circulation and tidal processes.

Even if greenhouse gas emissions reached zero tomorrow, sea levels will continue to rise for several centuries because of the slow response of the ocean to warming. It’s a long-term trend that we must live with.

This is why is it important to factor in sea-level rise when we make planning decisions along the coast. Unfortunately, the rate of sea-level rise over the coming century remains highly uncertain, making it difficult to include in coastal planning.

The “likely” range of the most recent projections by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a rise of between 0.4 metres and 0.8m by 2100. However, a rise of nearly 2m by 2100 and 5m by 2150 cannot be ruled out. This is due to deep uncertainty about ice-sheet processes – so much so, that in 2021 the IPCC introduced a new high-end risk scenario to describe this.

What is glacial isostatic adjustment? #iceontheland @TeachitGeog @AntarcticGlacie http://t.co/mfTX0N2Rib pic.twitter.com/Lw95Mu0ZWR

— Prof Jamie Woodward (@Jamie_Woodward_) March 24, 2015

Small rises have big impacts

The impact of sea-level rise at the coast is not just a gradual increase in water lapping at the shore. An increase in tide heights (both higher high tides and higher low tides) increases the probability of coastal flooding and erosion when storms come along.

As a rule of thumb, every 10cm of sea-level rise triples the frequency of a given coastal flood. Another rule of thumb, known as the Bruun Rule, suggests a 1cm rise in sea level leads to a 1m retreat of the coastline.

While these back-of-the-envelope estimates are often significantly reduced when local conditions are accounted for, it explains why a small shift in the mean sea level can have big impacts at the coast.

Shoreline #erosion on a #Qld beach. Beaches are dynamic and they often gain and lose sand. Erosion will outpace deposition with #sealevelrise (Bruun Rule: 100m erosion for every 1 m SLR). Protecting or restoring dune plants is important for beaches and nearby infrastructure. #NbS pic.twitter.com/pkBAyrumao

— Megan Saunders (@saunders_meg) September 12, 2022

Storms aren’t always bad for the beach

Most of the impacts of sea-level rise around Australia’s coast will be felt in combination with storm events, such as east coast lows or tropical cyclones. A high water level plus a storm surge on top leads to a storm or “king” tide. In combination with storm waves, it can cause significant coastal erosion and flooding.

However, storms also bring sand from deeper water towards the beach. Over the long term, this process can help beaches keep pace with sea-level rise. Fortunately for eastern Australia, we have a lot of sand sitting offshore which is slowly making its way back to our beaches. Other naturally regressive coastlines, such as many in Northern Europe, are not so lucky.

All eyes on Antarctica

Sea-level rise is here to stay and gathering pace, but the rate of future increase remains uncertain. It largely depends on what happens in Antarctica over the coming decades.

This in turn depends on land and sea temperatures around the southern continent, which are directly linked to our efforts to limiting global warming to 1.5°C in line with the Paris Agreement.

RELATED ARTICLE: Antarctica: a continent in crisis

A heatwave in Antarctica totally blew the minds of scientists.

They set out to decipher it, and @DanaMBergstrom (@UOW) discusses the results.https://t.co/RsntSKksbL

— The Conversation – Australia + New Zealand (@ConversationEDU) January 10, 2024

With over 250 million people now living on land less than 2m above sea level, most in Asia, it is imperative we do everything we can to limit future sea-level rise.

Thomas Mortlock, Adjunct Fellow, Climate Change Research Centre, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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]]> 352055 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/01/a-curious-mind/ Sat, 20 Jan 2024 21:00:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=351871 Could this brilliant South Australian physicist be Australia’s next Nobel Prize winner?

The post A curious mind appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Six-year-old Matthew Bailes waits on the edge of Adelaide’s Glynburn Road for a gap in the busy traffic. He sees an oncoming car and wonders why he can see it.

Later he asks his parents, “Why can we see cars? Why can we see anything?” – deceptively simple questions that his parents’ high-school education hadn’t equipped them to answer. “It just made me wonder how the universe worked,” he now explains simply.

About a billion years before that suburban Adelaide scene, in a galaxy far, far away, a cataclysmic event occurs, releasing an unimaginably powerful burst of energy. It’s gone in the blink of an eye, but sends a blast of radiation that ripples out through the vast, cold vacuum of space. At some point in its billions-of- light-years journey, this wave washes over a small blue planet in one arm of a spiral galaxy, and its radio shriek is picked up by an antenna on a dry red continent.

Yet again, Matthew Bailes – now working as an astrophysicist at Melbourne’s Swinburne University of Technology – finds himself asking, “Why can we see this?”

The answer was so astounding, its cosmological implications so profound, that Matthew and his colleagues are now being whispered about as contenders for a Nobel Prize in Physics.

The boy who asked the right questions

Between those two events, Matthew – now Professor Bailes, director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery – has done a lot of asking and answering of questions about the universe.

The precocious child who could add and subtract before starting school grew into a talented student nicknamed ‘The Professor’. He loved the rules and logic of mathematics, and consistently excelled in it. Then, in Year 10, he discovered physics.

“We learnt about force equals mass times acceleration, and I went home and stripped my bike of every bit of extraneous weight so it would be easier to ride home,” Matthew recalls.

It was love at first lesson: the discovery that equations could describe how things – from cars to planets – moved. It captured his imagination and set him on the career path he still walks today.

Matthew’s father wanted him to study engineering. But a charismatic first-year university lecturer opened his eyes to the possibility of a career in physics. He changed degrees and moved out of home, determined to make a career as a scientist.

For his honours project at the University of Adelaide, Matthew chose to study pulsars. These spinning neutron stars have magnetic fields that focus their energetic radiation into two polar beams of such intensity that they can be seen more than 100,000 light-years away as they rhythmically sweep past with the star’s rotation.

“That aspect of physics I really found exciting; the black holes and neutron stars and relativistic gravity,” Matthew explains.

Head in the stars

The chance to delve deeper into these cosmological phenomena came in 1985 at a national astronomy meeting, where he bumped into antipodean astrophysicist Richard (Dick) Manchester, a world authority on pulsars.

“He was surprised that I knew so much about pulsars, but I was kind of in love with them,” Matthew says. He began a PhD at CSIRO and the Australian National University (ANU), with Dick, and Ken Freeman, another astrophysicist, as his advisers.

The high-achieving, hard-working Dick and the politically astute and knowledgeable Ken set the tone for Matthew’s career. When he was considering who to ask to referee his thesis, Ken told him to send it to scientists with the most fame and influence in the field.

So he sent it to Venkatraman Radhakrishnan, then head of the Raman Research Institute in India. At that time, Venkatraman and Matthew had been locked in a major scientific dispute.

“Even though we were on opposite sides of the debate, I sent my thesis to him to mark, almost as a challenge,” Matthew says. It was a ballsy move, but it paid off. “He recommended me for the prize for the best PhD at ANU, and the next time I saw him, he said, ‘You kicked my arse.’”

The PhD won the university’s Crawford medal, which led to a job at the University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Observatory. Matthew moved with his wife – a medical doctor – to the UK to work with another of the “pulsar gods”: Andrew Lyne.

Matthew particularly enjoyed intellectual jousting with Andrew. “[He] and I got on very well, although my PhD was arguing against his favourite model of how neutron stars evolve,” Matthew says. “I remember I gave my first talk when I arrived here, basically slamming Andrew’s theories on magnetic field decay in neutron stars.”

Matthew also took it upon himself to add graphical interfaces to Andrew Lyne’s data software. At the time, Andrew’s team had been studying an odd pulsar, the rotation of which was proving hard to decipher.

Matthew’s new tools suggested there was a wobble that could be explained if there was a planet about 10 times the size of Earth orbiting the pulsar. “We thought we’d discovered the first planet outside the solar system, which is one of the holy grails of science,” Matthew says.

With great excitement, they published a paper in Nature in 1991 announcing their discovery, with Matthew as lead author. It made global headlines, and for six months they were feted at astronomy conferences around the world.

Then, a week before Andrew was scheduled to give a talk on the planet at an international astronomy conference, he discovered a flaw in their processing. When it was corrected, the planet disappeared.

“Andrew turned up at my house at 7am and said, ‘I think you know why I’m here,’” Matthew says. “I said, ‘The planet?’, and he said, ‘Yes’. I said, ‘It’s gone?’. He said, ‘I’m afraid so.’”

That moment has haunted Matthew ever since. The groundbreaking discovery was retracted, and Matthew seriously considered leaving science altogether. “For a week or so I was thinking, I’ll never get a job, I’ll never get a grant, everybody’s going to review our papers much more harshly,” he says. “I was pretty devastated.”

But his love of pulsars wouldn’t let him quit. He got back to work at Jodrell Bank, then returned with his wife and child to Australia to work, first at CSIRO, then the University of Melbourne, and finally Swinburne University. He brought with him two substantial research grants from the Australian Research Council that enabled him to establish what is now the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing.

During a visit to the Parkes telescope, a conversation with his former student Duncan Lorimer, now a professor of physics and astronomy at West Virginia University, involved an unusually bright one-off burst of radiation first spotted by Lorimer’s student David Narkovic. A new class of rarely repeating pulsars had previously been discovered by Maura McLaughlin, who was also Duncan’s wife. But this one was very different.

Duncan and Matthew analysed the data of this strange flash, looking at the characteristics that would indicate how far away the burst had occurred – in particular, how much the lower frequencies of radio waves were delayed by encountering random electrons in their journey through a near-vacuum.

Their conclusions were astounding: the source was a billion light-years away, which would make it both mind-bogglingly distant, and powerful. They checked, and rechecked, Matthew’s phantom extra-solar planet lurking in the back of his mind. Then they decided to publish. “We just thought, if this is real, this is so enormous that it’s worth the risk,” he says.

The “Lorimer Burst” paper, published in Science in 2007, blew open a whole new astronomical phenomenon. Hundreds of these so-called fast radio bursts have since been discovered by astronomers around the world. A repeating fast radio burst detected by the giant Arecibo telescope in Chile “proved that the distance was cosmological, and then it was like, ‘Oh, there’s a whole new area of science now.’”

That discovery earned Lorimer, McLaughlin and Bailes the prestigious Shaw Prize in Astronomy in 2023, earmarking them – as a Shaw Prize often does – for a possible Nobel Prize.

It was a confidence boost, Bailes says, acknowledging that it’s ironic that an astrophysicist who’s generated more than $75 million worth of research grants should lack confidence. It also finally banished the spectre of the nearly career-ending error of the phantom planet.

While the Shaw Prize brings considerable scientific fame, prestige and validation of a worthy career, Bailes cares far more about the relationships and careers he’s nurtured along the way.

“Every year there’s a Shaw Prize winner, but the relationships I have with my former students are very important to me,” he says. He continues to invest so much of himself in being a mentor and the kind of leader he looked up to when he was a student. And that brings rewards that no prize can ever match.

“It’s those little moments where you get with a group of people, when you’ve got a team and you’ve made some breakthroughs, and it’s like, ‘This is awesome.’”

The post A curious mind appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 351871 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/01/is-the-truth-still-out-there/ Tue, 16 Jan 2024 05:37:50 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=351841 A detailed analysis of more than 1200 sightings suggests the Tasmanian tiger survived until the 1980s, and that there’s a slim chance a few are still around.

The post Is the truth still out there? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> In the autumn of 1982, Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service (PWS) ranger Hans Naarding was birdwatching near Togari in the state’s far north-west.

After a tiring day in the field, he parked his LandCruiser near a crossroads to sleep. At about 2am, with rain thrumming on the thickly forested landscape, something woke him, and he pointed his torch out into the night.

“When I opened the window, the rain just poured in, and I shone the spotlight around at the end of the [torch] beam. Sure enough, it was a thylacine, right in front of the car, ” Hans told The Mercury newspaper, many years later.

Hans’s camera was out of reach, so he instead focused his efforts – and channelled his many years of experience observing wildlife in Africa and Australia – on mentally documenting the encounter, which lasted for about three minutes. He described a full-grown male, 6–7m from the vehicle, which for a period even held his gaze before it slipped off into the inky blackness.

“He was sopping wet…I estimated his weight, counted his stripes on his back, and I could see it was a very healthy male,” Hans recounted to the newspaper.

Given his extensive wildlife experience and expertise as a ranger, his sighting is regarded as one of the most credible of the past 40 years, with the then director of the PWS, Peter Murrell, describing it as “irrefutable and conclusive”.

It would lead to a year-long, but ultimately fruitless, search by PWS rangers in the region for any further hints of the presence of the marsupial carnivore.

“This was someone who knew Tasmanian wildlife and was unlikely to have made an error,” says Barry Brook, professor of environmental sustainability at the University of Tasmania (UTAS) in Hobart. “So no-one ever really knew what to make of that sighting.”

While Hans’s account seemed highly credible, the popular consensus on the topic of the Tasmanian tiger has been that it went extinct in the wild at some point in the decades following the demise of the last captive individual at Beaumaris Zoo in Hobart on 7 September 1936.

That date is when we observe Threatened Species Day in Australia, and the thylacine was officially declared extinct by the IUCN 50 years later, in 1986.

The thylacine’s story didn’t, however, end in 1936. Although reports of it in the wild had dwindled since the early 1920s, other credible sightings continued to be reported by fur trappers, bushmen, scientists and other reliable experts well into the 1960s.

There has been no hard evidence to corroborate all these sightings. But a new, incredibly thorough, statistical analysis of more than 1200 reported sightings and other data has, for the first time, mapped the decline and extinction of the species, concluding that the thylacine likely did survive in tiny numbers in wilderness areas until the 1980s.

The study, led by Barry and his team at UTAS – and including co-authors from the UK, USA and France – was published in the journal Science of the Total Environment in March 2023. The rigour of the work has been widely lauded by conservation scientists.

This remarkable proposal not only gives credence to Hans’s 1982 account, but also leads to an inescapable truth, that, albeit at very low numbers, the thylacine may have continued to pace a few cool, damp patches of the wilderness during the lifetimes of many people who are alive today.

“That [1982] sighting sparked a massive search. Everyone who heard it was convinced it was true, so the results of this new study seem perfectly plausible to me,” says Jack Ashby, who conducts research on Australian mammals and is the assistant director of the University of Cambridge Museum of Zoology in the UK.

Jack, who was not one of the study authors, says that, until recently, remote areas of lutruwitra/Tasmania’s wilderness were largely unstudied, so could have harboured unrecorded species.

He adds, “On a personal level, the idea that I was alive, and could have been in Tasmania while the last thylacines were still alive, kind of furthers the blow of their extinction.”

A compelling case

To make the finding, Barry, UTAS research fellow Jessie Buettel and their co-authors spent five years compiling an exhaustive database of recorded thylacine sightings since 1910, when it was already becoming very rare.

Following the period from 1888 to 1909, when government bounties were offered for dead thylacines, the authors found the species’ distribution shrank very rapidly, with the final surviving subpopulation likely to have been in the island’s South West region.

The thylacine was never present at high densities on the island, and had an estimated population of just 2000–4000 animals before European colonisation.

Between the 1830s and 1920s at least 3500 were killed by hunters, illustrating the devastating impact that human persecution had.This database includes 1237 observational records and 99 physical records, such as carcasses and skins (all of which were collected before 1936).

Barry says the number of reported sightings is vast. Many of these are likely to be misidentifications or are otherwise false. “[But] with more than half of them, you can’t just wave your hand and say ‘this is nonsense’,” he says. “You have to give them some level of credibility.”

To treat the question in a rigorous and scientific manner, the team invented a new method to deal with uncertain sightings, ranking them according to their plausibility.

“A lot of science is about measuring uncertainties, trying to narrow those uncertainties,” Barry says. “It’s a matter of looking at that whole record and saying, ‘Well, some things have high probability of being the correct observation, and some things very low probabilities.’”

The relative likelihood of sightings being accurate was ranked based on factors such as the expertise and past knowledge of the observer, and the credibility of their reports; 429 of the sightings were expert sightings, with 709 other sightings assigned less weight in the analysis.

“As you move further and further away in time from people who had actually killed those things, or captured them and sold them to zoos, or sold skins during the bounty period, you’re getting more disconnected from evidence of direct contact with the species,” Barry adds.

His team used a statistical method called “uncertainty modelling” to attempt to map out the decline and eventual extinction following 1910. This initially suggested that the species met its demise in the decades after the final individual was caught, so somewhere between the 1940s and the 1970s.

But further analysis hinted at an extinction as recent as the 1980s to early 2000s, with a small possibility that the species remains in the remote South West wilderness today.

“If I had to guess, I would say the extinction was in the late 1980s,” Barry says. “But there are plausible sightings in the ’90s and some in the 2000s. So it’s hard to know for sure, but scientifically, based on the analysis, I would say the sweet spot for those probabilities is the late 1980s.”

As the authors have noted, the modelling points to the species having persisted in “the remote wilderness of the South West and central highlands regions of the island for decades after the last confirmed specimen”.

The research is also significant because it establishes a method for estimating when other rare species have gone extinct in the wild, and for predicting the future decline of animals that are in dire straits.

“[There’s] great value in the development of this model that can now be applied to other species,” Jack says. As well as the research providing “the best answer so far of when the thylacine went extinct”, it has led to the compilation of the database of sightings and other evidence, which is free to access.

Gone, but not forgotten

In addition to the 1982 sightings by Hans Naarding, the 429 sightings that the study authors regarded as highly credible also include other fascinating anecdotes.

The last confirmed direct evidence of thylacines in the wild was one captured in 1931, but from 1936 there are reports of a corpse on the beach at Wynyard in Tasmania’s north- west.

While no photographs are known to exist, Barry says that perhaps 100 people saw the body, so it’s likely to be a true account. In 1936 thylacine footprints were recorded on an expedition to the Jane River in western Tasmania.

“There continued to be credible reports, especially from fur trappers, of people coming across them through the 1940s and ’50s,” Barry says. “One of the most interesting was Herb Pearce, who had captured specimens in the 1920s and ’30s.”

In the 1950s Pearce had told a researcher who was interviewing him that he had flushed a female and cubs out from a patch of tree ferns “about five years ago”, in an area today flooded by Lake King William. He added – heartbreakingly – that “he turned his dogs on them”.

All of these reports are pretty good evidence that the thylacine persisted in small numbers throughout this period, with “the last famous one, really, of this genre”, being the 1982 sighting.

Given that the new study has changed the calculus over the estimations of until when the thylacine persisted, could it yet remain in isolated pockets of South West Tasmania today?

The team’s statistical analysis suggested a 5 per cent probability, but unfortunately scientists have a very good reason for suspecting it really has disappeared.

“That 5 per cent – that’s not nothing, is it,” says Jack. “But the reason I don’t think they are still around – and I’m sure Barry would say the same thing – is that now there are so many camera traps in Tasmania, many of which Barry put there himself.

Literally every spot in Tasmania will have been surveyed at some point. And the odds of one not turning up on a wildlife camera, or a dashcam or a smartphone, I think is pretty convincing evidence that they’re no longer around.”

Barry concurs that his team has conducted a huge amount of camera trapping as technology has improved – more than half a million “camera trap nights” across the state – “and we never saw anything like the thylacine over four years of surveying.

So again, that’s hard scientific evidence that we’ve got every other animal you can imagine that’s been recorded in Tasmania, except those things.”

But that “doesn’t stop you from imagining or dreaming about them”, adds Jack wistfully. “Anytime I’m in Tasmania, I still turn my head whenever I drive past a firebreak. It’s extraordinarily unlikely that they’re still around. But there’s nothing you can do to stop yourself looking for them.”

Back to the future

Rather than pin any hopes on finding a live thylacine, Barry’s team is now expanding the database to include all thylacine records right back to European colonisation.

They will use this to map out habitat suitability across Tasmania, which could be useful if the thylacine is ever successfully ‘de- extincted’ through future genetic technologies, and added back to a rewilded landscape.

“Even if it is extinct, and we can never bring it back, which is likely, it was still an important element of the vertebrate community that was removed,” Barry says. “And understanding the consequences of that is really important, including how resilient or otherwise Tasmanian communities might be to invasive species, such as foxes or cats, today.”

As the new study notes poignantly in its conclusion, the fate of the final remaining wild individuals of a species that is about to vanish is very rarely witnessed by people.

“This is especially true for species like the thylacine, which ranged widely but sparsely across large swathes of the Tasmanian wilderness,” the authors write.

“The last survivors were probably increasingly difficult to detect as they became ever more wary of potentially fatal interactions with people.”

The post Is the truth still out there? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 351841 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/01/mans-best-friend-is-also-an-important-conservation-ally/ Tue, 09 Jan 2024 21:20:34 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=351624 Dogs have been working with people for centuries. Think hunting dogs, herding dogs, police dogs or search and rescue dogs. But have you heard of conservation dogs?

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]]> Conservation dogs fall mainly into two categories: guardian dogs and sniffer dogs (also called scent, detection or detector dogs).

Guardian dogs protect vulnerable species from predators, while sniffer dogs locate targets of interest using their powerful sense of smell.

In the past 15 years, dogs have begun to play a crucial role in conservation around the world. So let’s take a closer look at them, with a focus on their work in Australia.

The nose that knows

Guardian dogs were made famous by the 2015 movie Oddball. The film is based on the true story of Maremma dogs, trained to protect little penguins from foxes on Middle Island near Warrnambool in southwest Victoria. The penguin population had dwindled to fewer than ten before the Maremma dogs got involved. The breed was chosen for its long association with guarding sheep in Europe.

Related: A complete guide to Warrnambool, VIC

But most conservation dogs are sniffer dogs, because there are so many uses for them. They can be trained to find animals or plants, or “indirect” signs animals have left behind such as poo or feathers.

Dogs can detect anything with an odour – and everything has an odour. Sniffer dogs are trained to detect a target scent and point it out to their human coworker (sometimes referred to as handler or bounder).

Sniffer dogs have been trained for various missions such as:

• finding rare and endangered species
• detecting invasive animals during eradication or containment such as fire ants or snakes
• locating pest plants
• supporting wildlife surveys by detecting scats (poo), urine, vomit, nests, carcasses and even diseases.

They have worked in extreme conditions on land (including on sub-Antarctic islands) and at sea, and can even detect scent located underground. Sniffer dogs have also trained to recognise individual animals such as tigers by scent.

The ultimate scent detection machine

A dog’s nose is estimated to be 100,000 to 100 million times more sensitive than a human nose (depending on the dog breed). A much larger proportion (seven to 40 times larger) of the dog’s brain is dedicated to decoding scent.

That means dogs can detect very low scent concentrations – the equivalent of a teaspoon of sugar in five million litres of water (or two Olympic-sized swimming pools). They can also differentiate between very similar odours.

Related: Meet Bear, the koala detection dog

Dogs analyse the air from each of their nostrils independently, detecting tiny variations in scent concentration. This gives them a directional sense of smell that can guide them left or right until they’ve honed in on the origin of the scent.

Thanks to very sophisticated nostrils, dogs can avoid contaminating an odour with their own breath (exhaling air through the nostrils’ sides). They also can analyse odours continuously regardless of whether they are inhaling or exhaling.

Besides being the ultimate scent detection machine, dogs are great ambassadors for conservation – melting hearts all the way to Hollywood.

Finding the right candidate for the job

Some organisations rescue their dogs. They look for the toy-obsessed kind – those dogs that never stop playing.

In many cases these dogs were abandoned for that very reason. They require constant entertainment and become difficult to care for in a normal family setting, where people have to leave for work and devote time to activities other than entertaining their dog.

Related: Meet Eddy –Australia’s latest young eco-warrior

A sniffer dog gets to be with their handlers almost every day of the week. That work consists of long walks with lots of play.

Trainers use toys and play as a reward, so dogs learn to associate this reward with the target scent.

Learning through association – called classical or pavlovian conditioning – is very easy for dogs. It’s so easy that the scent-learning part of the job is usually the quickest. Training a dog to feel confident and be safe in the natural environment is more challenging. And if the dog had a troubled background before being rescued, rehabilitation is the most time-consuming and difficult component of the training.

What type of dog can become a sniffer dog?

The most important aspect of the association learning process is having the right dog – one with obsessive behaviour. And any breed, sex and age of dog can present this personality type.

Some breeds might tend to have higher proportions of obsessed and toy-focused dogs, but all breeds, including crossbreeds, have been successfully deployed as sniffer dogs.

Some breeds do have better sniffers – the bloodhound is the champion of olfactory performance – but depending on the target scent, most dogs’ noses are still extremely efficient and more than capable of the task.

Robust, agile and high-energy breeds are better suited to working outdoors. Medium-sized breeds are usually better able to crawl under and jump over obstacles, while also light enough to be easily carried by their human coworker as needed.

Top jobs for conservation dogs

Meet dogs working in conservation around the world:

–Detecting orca poo
–Making and keeping World Heritage-listed islands and Antarctica pristine
–Wildlife search and rescue
-Working as guardians
-Containing fire ants
-Leading weed eradication on land or water
–Monitoring wind farms
–Finding vomit (rejected owl pellets, to be precise)
–Supporting environmental assessments
–Helping Tasmanian devils find mates
–Detecting diseases

These are just a few of the dogs making a difference in our fight to protect biodiversity. But we have barely scratched the surface of their potential!

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Romane H Cristescu is a researcher in koalas, detection dogs, conservation genetics and ecology at the University of the Sunshine Coast

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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]]> 351624 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/01/running-rings-around-galaxies/ Tue, 09 Jan 2024 02:24:46 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=351609 When someone mentions a galaxy, odds are you’ll imagine a disc-like whirlpool of stars rotating majestically in space. If you grew up in Britain, you’d probably imagine a chocolate bar, but that’s a different story.

The post Running rings around galaxies appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Like chocolate bars, however, galaxies come in different shapes and sizes, and not all have a spiral structure. Some are featureless blobs shaped like rugby balls; others are ragtag objects, fittingly known as irregulars. But spirals constitute some 60 per cent of the universe’s estimated 2 trillion galaxies, so what you’ve pictured is fairly accurate. Astronomers think they understand why galaxies have spiral arms. That’s because computer simulations of the gravitational processes that shape them in the early universe also produce spirals. 

But once in a while they come across a galaxy with features that simply aren’t predicted by theoretical number-crunching. One example is the so-called backward galaxy, more formally known by its catalogue name, NGC 4622. This intriguing object has two sets of spiral arms that point in opposite directions, giving the impression that it rotates backwards. Theoretical astronomers are still struggling to understand why this should be so. 

Now they have another headache. Enter NGC 4632, a spiral galaxy that’s relatively close to us – just 56 million light-years away. New radioastronomy observations, made with CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) in Wajarri Yamaji Country at Murchison, Western Australia, reveal that NGC 4632 is bedecked with a huge ribbon of cold hydrogen. It encircles the galaxy at right angles to its disc, forming what’s known as a polar ring. And it’s the first time such an unusual feature has been observed with ASKAP. 

Ribbons of stars and gas around galaxies are not unknown and are thought to be formed when a dwarf galaxy is being digested by a larger spiral galaxy. Indeed, our own Milky Way has an incomplete polar ring called the Magellanic Stream in its southern hemisphere. 

The new radiotelescope observations suggest polar rings of cold hydrogen might be more common than expected, since visible light telescopes are blind to them. But they challenge our understanding of their formation. Disturbances by other galaxies passing by is one suggestion. Another is smoke ring–like swirls, spun off streams of hydrogen that run along the invisible cosmic framework that connects galaxies. Either way, new insights are sure to come from NGC 4632’s cosmic ribbon. 

Fred Watson is Australia’s Astronomer-at-Large. Find him on ABC Radio, the weekly Space Nuts podcast and on @StargazerFred. His latest book for young people (and the young-at-heart) is Spacewarp: Colliding Comets and Other Cosmic Catastrophes (NewSouth, 2021).

The post Running rings around galaxies appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 351609 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2024/01/people-power-offensive/ Mon, 01 Jan 2024 21:30:00 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=350406 Each year, experts and citizen scientists come together in the Walpole Wilderness BioBlitz to survey the natural wonders of the South West region of Western Australia.

The post People power offensive appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> A crowd is gathering along a wide dirt road in the wilderness. Cars, trucks and mud-splashed four-wheel-drives park in a long line, one behind another. Families with young children emerge, kitted out in bright jumpers and gumboots, then backpackers and grey-haired couples wearing matching hiking boots appear. The lively throng – reaching a headcount of 170 – has signed up to take part in the Walpole Wilderness BioBlitz, a two-day event held annually in the South West region of Western Australia. People have driven to the tiny south coast hamlet of Walpole from near and far – a few have even flown interstate to learn about the Walpole Wilderness. 

“We’re going to split up into groups of about 10 and survey a whole range of different ecosystems, from the forests down to granite outcrops and peatlands,” says BioBlitz coordinator Dr David Edmonds, a local vet and cattle farmer, as he addresses the crowd. “We’re looking for a whole range of different things – we’ve got expert botanists to talk plants, we’ve got invertebrate specialists for the insects, and frog experts. We’ve got all sorts of people here.”

Later, David tells me he loves watching the animated conversations between experts and citizen scientists: “These are people who just want to participate and get out there and learn more about the Walpole Wilderness.”

By the end of the BioBlitz, these citizen scientists will have uploaded 3000 images onto iNaturalist, an app that helps image takers and researchers identify a flower, bird, frog, or bit of moss. 

In total, the BioBlitz images will capture more than 600 species, many of which reside nowhere else on the planet. There will be thrilling sightings of rare species, and a few images that capture devastating loss. 

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The BioBlitz occurs in wilderness that’s as untamed as nature gets. Walpole boasts the only designated Wilderness Area in Australia’s western third, consisting of seven national parks and several conservation reserves, and covering a total expanse of 3630sq.km. Driving down from Perth, many participants will sense its qualities when they enter dense forests of jarrah, giant red tingle and karri trees growing tall in a high rainfall area, or pass through a brilliant floral understorey around granite peaks, and along pristine rivers and in peat wetlands. 

There’s a frisson of excitement, a contagious sense of adventure as we head out. There’s been talk of finding 40 plant species in a single tiny moss carpet on the granite rocks, locating the strange salamanderfish – a Gondwanan relic living somewhere out in ink-black lakes – and uncovering the garishly coloured sunset frog, the rarest of rare local amphibians with a technicolour tummy. But first come the practicalities. We get a lesson in treating the soles of our shoes with bacteria-killing spray – a disease called Phytophthora dieback can be carried into pristine places by the footfall of hordes. “We make sure that we have good disease control and try not to disturb the bush too much,” David says. 

Our group heads off to scale a granite outcrop, only to find ourselves first trekking through a glade full of dainty flowers. Prue Anderson, one of the BioBlitz organisers, stands in the leafy copse at the foot of the rock and marks off each flower type she knows. “This is karri wattle or Acacia pentadenia; that’s bush crowea, Crowea angustifolia, the granite form, which smells incredible. There’s Taxandria parviceps, a kind of tea-tree, and a Grevillea linearifolia behind us that has another incredible scent.” She points to a low shrub covered in pretty, bright pink flowers. “That’s Boronia gracilipes, and there’s still just dozens that I don’t know.” Prue spent her childhood in this bush, even living in a tent by the Frankland River while her parents were building their home. “I left for a while but the pull was too strong,” she says, “and I had to move back with my daughter.”

It’s hardly surprising; we’re told we’re standing in a place with possibly the biggest concentration of botanical diversity in Australia; three-quarters of the South West’s 7000 plant species grow nowhere else. If any one of those species is lost from this landscape, it’s extinct. 

As we walk up to the granite slope, a tiger snake is spotted by an eagle-eyed hiker. Prue calmly directs the group to let it slither out of harm’s way. The BioBlitz is aimed at inspiring the kind of curiosity and common sense that Prue exudes. “We want people who aren’t comfortable going out into the bush on their own to be immersed in it,” she explains. “[To be] comfortable being in the wild. I just think it’s the best gift that we can give ourselves, and the more you know about it, the more you’ll care about it.”

Her five-year-old daughter, Erica, has skipped up the rock face, where Professor Stephen Hopper is pointing out lizard traps and stone arrangements created and mined by Noongar people. The traps are easily spotted – metre-square rocks about 10cm thick that are propped up at one end with a fist-sized stone to attract reptiles inside. “Noongars created them to provide extra habitat for kaarda, or goannas, in particular, which are their favourite lizard food,” Stephen says. A former director of Perth’s Kings Park and Botanic Garden and the UK’s Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, he’s now working closely with First Nations people to document plant and habitat use. “We’re so lucky here in the South West,” he says. “We’re 20m off the road and up into another world with plants and animals that have been here a very long time. And here there’s evidence of Aboriginal culture that would normally amaze people.”

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As we pose for a group shot on the summit, Walpole’s seemingly pristine wilderness below reveals itself to be crisscrossed by dirt roads. “Historically, this area was used for logging, since the 1950s,” David says. “So most of these tracks are logging roads and they break the landscape up into what we call forest blocks. Here, we’re right on the corner of Soho block to the south, London to the east, Crossing to the west and, further on, Thames block.” The forest blocks hark back to an era when this wilderness was viewed largely as a timber resource to be exploited. Walpole’s Wilderness Area has been free of logging for decades, and last year the WA government announced it would stop logging in all the South West’s native forests. “These roads are now used as management access predominantly, and for us to access the wilderness and get out there,” David says. “And for managing fire.”

Our group heads out to survey one particular habitat most affected by fire. Peatlands are dotted throughout the Walpole Wilderness, waterlogged patches no more than an average 4–5ha in size. The peat itself is relatively shallow, perhaps no more than 1–2m deep, but it’s estimated to have taken 6000 years to accumulate. Handsome reed thickets of Empodisma gracillimum grow across the peatlands. Pushing through the reeds, I sense that it’s spongy underfoot; looking down, I realise I’m stepping my way over hundreds of Albany pitcher plants growing out of the dark, peaty surface. Their massed appearance is extraordinary, speckled jug-like flowers lying at our feet that trap and dissolve insects in their “pitchers” to obtain nutrients otherwise lacking in nitrogen-poor soil. 

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Our guide this time is Professor Pierre Horwitz, a wetland ecologist from Edith Cowan University (ECU). He wades into a shallow lake with a large net and lets out a triumphant shout when a salamanderfish is wriggling in his net. This ancient lineage of fish has not been found in these parts for 50 years. It burrows into the peat to survive summer but could disappear if dire predictions of rainfall loss in this region – a 15 per cent decline by 2030 alone – come true. 

The salamanderfish would not be the only casualty. Nearly 30 years ago, Pierre was exploring a peat heathland like this one when he discovered the sunset frog (see below). Considered one of WA’s oldest frogs, the species diverged from its closest relatives 30 million years ago to form its own genus, with a unique colour scheme. Pierre was astonished by the frog’s vivid orange hands and feet and spectacular orange and blue-grey underbelly. 

Like a western sunset

It was a hot summer’s day in January 1994 when Pierre Horwitz had his first memorable encounter with a sunset frog.

“I was with my research assistant Kim and we were finishing our year-long survey of peatlands in the South West,” he recalls.

They were holidaying with their families near Walpole when the pair decided on an impromptu field trip to a site they’d already surveyed three times.

“I thought I’d have a final look to make sure I hadn’t missed anything,” Pierre says.

“I reached down and put my hand into the peat, which I don’t do often. Under a peat ledge I felt something wet walk onto my hand. Instead of flicking it off, I gently cupped my hand – I don’t really know why – and brought it up.”

When Pierre unfurled his fingers, a small, dark frog lay on his palm. “Then it fell over on its back, and suddenly there was this extraordinary amount of colour.” Deep blue lower torso, light cerulean blue mid-belly, and bright orange covering its upper body. Even the frog’s hands and feet were a gold-orange hue.

“I’d never seen anything like it. I called out to Kim and said, ‘Come and have a look at this.’ We were both quite stunned.”

The researchers gingerly carried the frog back to the car, opened all the text books they’d brought along and tried to identify it.

The chance of an audience with this dapper frog is low, we’re told – viable populations have been found in only 15 local sites. Yet our luck is in again – someone hears a rapid da duk call. University of Western Australia (UWA) researcher Emily Hoffmann and Northern Territory Museum curator Danielle Edwards excitedly pinpoint the call’s location and spy a mating pair sitting in a puddle. The BioBlitz has just added another dot on the sunset frog’s survival map. 

Holding the precious pair delicately in her palm, Danielle explains the two frogs are “in amplexus” – a polite word for bonking. She describes how the male glues himself to the female to prevent other males getting access while she lays her eggs. “From this part of the thumb here they secrete some kind of sticky substance,” she says. “It takes a while to bond, but once he’s stuck on, he’s impossible to dislodge. He’ll stay there for days.” We restore the sunset frogs’ privacy by retreating, but we come away with a keen sense of the importance of Walpole’s peatlands. Two weeks before the BioBlitz, these peatlands were placed in the endangered category on the federal government’s list of threatened ecological communities. The assessors listed three threats: climate change, marauding feral pigs and, at the top, “fire regimes that cause declines in biodiversity”. 

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The Walpole BioBlitz organisers recently launched a five-year research program with UWA and ECU to be funded by a $1.3 million grant from the philanthropic Ian Potter Foundation. Called PEAT: Protecting Peatland Ecosystems and Addressing Threats in Southwestern Australia, the aim is to pull together all information that will protect peatlands. Co-designed with Noongar Traditional Owners, it will also ascertain how cultural burning was used around peatlands in the past.

Peat expert Dr Samantha Grover, from RMIT, has flown in from Melbourne for the BioBlitz. Samantha has studied peat swamps worldwide, and says they’re incredibly rare in Australia. Walpole’s peatlands are rich and nurturing, yet nobody has mapped them all. Samantha picks up a handful of wet, black decaying matter and squeezes it; peat like this covers only 3 per cent of Earth’s surface but stores 30 per cent of the world’s soil carbon, which is twice the amount stored in the entire global forest biomass. Our group moves further into the peatlands to encounter a shocking sight. A short distance from the mating sunset frogs, Samantha confronts the aftermath of a prescribed burn that escaped control a few months earlier. The flames smouldered for days under the surface, leaving blackened pillars, or pedestals, that stick out a metre or more above the once spongy peat surface. “I nearly burst into tears,” Samantha admits. “It’s such a shock to see. Peatlands are quite resilient to fire when they’re very wet, but 50cm or so of peat has been dry enough to catch on fire. The habitat that is left shrinks. So we’re not going to find sunset frogs here.” Ironically the burn has been conducted as a fire reduction measure by the state’s Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions, which is responsible for conserving and managing the Walpole Wilderness. Pierre scoops up a handful of the dry remnants that crumble in his hand. “Peat should be spongy and moist, but after a fire you’re left with this crystalline, crunchy material. So you’ve actually done permanent damage to the structure of the soil.”

As we drive out, someone points over the steering wheel to a pristine patch of tangled wildflowers and reeds growing out of an untouched peat wetland. “They plan to do a prescribed burn through 5000ha of that in a couple of weeks,” the driver says. “They held back because we were holding the BioBlitz.”

The science exercise is coming to an end, and back at the dirt road meeting point, the different parties merge into one noisy crowd. They’re animatedly swapping stories and comparing images of threatened plants, rare mosses, an odd fish and a garish little frog. During a community curry-night dinner, photos from two previous BioBlitzes are shared on a large screen. One scientist sums up his feelings about it and the point of it all: “I still pinch myself driving along and looking at a landscape like this,” he tells the crowd. “If we document these places, they get noticed and we might just hang on to them.” 

“It didn’t look like anything anybody had written about or photographed before,” Pierre says. “So it was really quite a fortuitous moment that you don’t really plan for.”

It took several more weeks before they could confirm Pierre had discovered a species new to science. “We were trying to keep the frog alive in quite warm weather over a couple of weeks while on holiday, in a hessian bag with some moss. By keeping it cool and wet, it survived happily until we got it back to Perth,” Pierre says. He was keen to consult his senior colleague, Grant Wardell-Johnson. “One very hot day, Grant came out to the university and as soon as he saw it he said, ‘This is amazing.’ We thought we really needed to take it down to the Department of Conservation staff. So we went down there and a crowd gathered! We realised this was something pretty special.” Pierre had not only discovered a new species, but a new genus – since named Spicospina after unusual spines on the frog’s central vertebrae. The species name flammocaerulea means orange-blue. Another two years passed before the sunset frog was formally described, and almost immediately classified as a species under threat. “We were able to demonstrate it had a limited range and faced declining rainfall and potentially drying and burning peats. We nominated it for listing at state and federal level, where it’s been regarded as vulnerable.” A recovery plan was drawn up, “but there’s still [much] more we need to know about how it’s going to be affected by declining rainfall and fire”.

For the common name, Pierre first thought of harlequin frog, but that was already claimed by a South American species. “It occurred to me the orange upper part and the blue of the bottom part were [just] like the western sunset. So we called it the sunset frog.” 

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Related: Bogs are beautiful

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]]> 350406 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2023/12/australian-fossil-findings-result-in-deep-dive-of-whale-evolution/ Wed, 20 Dec 2023 02:54:43 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=351028 A 19-million-year-old whale fossil recovered from a cliff face on the banks of the Murray River in South Australia has scientists rethinking how and when the world's largest animals first developed their colossal size.

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]]> New research into the fossil, which has been cared for in the Museums Victoria collection since its discovery in 1921 by palaeontologist Francis Cudmore, reveals it to be far older than previously believed and from an animal that would have been 9m long.

Scientists previously believed baleen whales (Mysticeti), such as the blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus), evolved to an enormous size about 3 million years ago at the beginning of the Ice Age in the Northern Hemisphere.

The new findings from the Museums Victoria Research Institute reveal that this evolutionary leap in size happened as early as 20 million years ago – and in the Southern Hemisphere.

Palaeontologists Dr James Rule of Monash University and Natural History Museum London and Dr Erich Fitzgerald of Museums Victoria Research Institute co-authored the paper ‘Giant baleen whales emerged from a cold southern cradle’, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The fossil – the front end of the lower jaw of an unusually large and ancient whale aged between 21 and 16 million years old – went unrecognised in the museum’s collection until about a decade ago when Dr Fitzgerald realised its significance as the largest baleen whale known to be alive during the Early Miocene period (between 23.3 and 16.3 million years ago).

Related: 22 years and counting – the two whale sharks calling Ningaloo home

According to Dr Fitzgerald, the new findings underscore the importance of Southern Hemisphere fossil records for understanding whale evolution, with previous ruling hypotheses being based on fossils primarily found in the Northern Hemisphere.

“A lot of what we know about the evolution of animals is based on fossils from the Northern Hemisphere, and what we are finding is that if you include just one fossil from the Southern Hemisphere, it completely ruins some of the long-held theories and stories,” he said.

“The Southern Hemisphere, and Australia in particular, have always been over-looked frontiers for fossil whale discovery. Fossil whale finds in the South, like the Murray River whale, are shaking up the evolution of whales into a more accurate, truly global picture of what was going on in the oceans long ago.

“This fossil from Australia, as well as some fossils from Peru and other parts of South America, show us that whenever you get a large whale on the fossil record, it was always in the Southern Hemisphere, and it wasn’t until later in the evolution that whales became big in the Northern Hemisphere.”

Through their research, Dr Rule and Dr Fitzgerald discovered that the tip of the baleen whale’s jaw is scalable with its body size, which is how they estimated the length of their fossil baleen whale to be about nine metres.

“The largest whales alive today, such as the blue whale, reach the length of a basketball court,” Dr Rule said. “Around 19 million years ago, the Murray River whale, at nine metres long, was already a third of this length. So, baleen whales were well on their way to evolving into ocean giants.”

Dr Rule said the next step is understanding why baleen whales evolved to their colossal size in the Southern Hemisphere.

“Our results don’t directly reveal the answers to that, but we can make some educated speculations,” he said. “We know that the Southern Ocean is the most productive part of the world’s oceans and is therefore home to the greatest biomass of what we call ‘marine megafauna’.”

According to Dr Rule, this productivity is driven by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which creates a supercooled and salty environment, allowing an upwelling of nutrients and, therefore, the emergence of potential prey such as krill.

“Whales have perhaps evolved to be huge to enable them to get to those hugely productive patches of plankton and then evolve larger and larger in size to consume vast quantities of krill and other zooplankton efficiently,” he explained.

Related: 10 of the best Australian wildlife experiences

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]]> 351028 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2023/12/climate-change-summit-ends-with-deal-to-move-away-from-fossil-fuels/ Thu, 14 Dec 2023 04:44:40 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=350706 The end of the COP28 climate summit has seen representatives from nearly 200 countries agree to start reducing global consumption of fossil fuels to avert the worst of climate change, signalling the eventual end of the oil age.

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]]> Related: Australian scientist urges world to “slam the brakes” as report reveals climate change tipping point now closer

A deal has been struck in Dubai after two weeks of negotiations and uncertainty over whether fossil fuels would be mentioned in the final agreement.

The deal to “transition away from fossil fuels” represents the first time oil, coal and gas have been mentioned in COP agreements since the annual summits began almost three decades ago, with COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber saying the agreement represented “a paradigm shift that has the potential to redefine our economies.”

More than 100 countries lobbied for strong language in the COP28 agreement to “phase out” oil, gas and coal use but came up against strong opposition from the Saudi Arabia-led oil producer group, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which said the world could cut emissions without shunning specific fuels.

Small climate-vulnerable island states were among the most vocal supporters of language to phase out fossil fuels. They had the backing of major oil and gas producers such as the United States, Canada and Norway, as well as the European Union and other governments.

That battle pushed the summit a full day into overtime on Wednesday and had some observers worried the negotiations would end at an impasse.

Related: Australia’s emissions policies savaged by experts ahead of COP28 climate summit

To some extent, the language to “transition away” describes what has already begun to happen, with some governments enacting policies in recent years to transition to a greener economy.

The deal calls on governments to accelerate their transition to a green economy by tripling renewable energy capacity globally by 2030, increasing efforts to reduce coal use, and accelerating technologies such as carbon capture and storage to clean up hard-to-decarbonise industries.

Now the deal is formalised, countries are responsible for delivering these objectives through national policies and investments.

“Understandably, most of the critical commentary on the final COP28 decision has focused on the compromise text on fossil fuels,” said Professor Robyn Barry, a Distinguished Professor in Political Science at the University of Melbourne.

“The last-minute amendments provided a modest improvement but remain disappointing and predictable given the strong opposition to a fossil fuel phase down by the petrostates.”

“What is more interesting, and potentially productive, are the surprises. The first is that ‘just transition’ was mentioned no less than eight times in the text. For example, the parties acknowledged that just transition strategies ‘support more robust and equitable mitigation outcomes’. The parties are also urged to communicate or revise, by the next COP, their long-term mitigation strategies ‘towards just transitions to net zero emissions,'” Professor Robyn said.

“The second is that climate minister Chris Bowen demonstrated solidarity with Australia’s Pacific neighbours in calling for a fossil fuel phase-out. Bowen’s support for the Pacific will certainly help the Labor government in its bid to host COP31 in 2026. However, it also means that domestic climate and energy politics are set to become more interesting, given Australia’s status as a major fossil fuel exporter.”

Amanda McKenzie, CEO and co-founder of the Climate Council, Australia’s leading climate science communications organisation, said the agreement was “significant”.

“This is a huge moment,” she said. “For the first time, nations have collectively agreed to tackle pollution – from burning coal, oil and gas – that is overheating our planet and harming people all over the world.

“This is the death knell for fossil fuels. This agreement sets us on a clear path to embrace clean energy technology like wind, solar and batteries, and move beyond fossil fuels.”

Related: Antarctica: a continent in crisis

Greens leader Adam Bandt said the statement from the summit did not go far enough but said the message for the federal government was clear.

“The weak word salad from the global climate summit proves one thing – Australia can’t wait for other countries before stopping new coal and gas mines,” he said on social media platform X.

The weak word salad from the global climate summit proves one thing: Australia can’t wait for other countries before stopping new coal and gas mines.

Limiting global heating to 1.5C means no new coal & gas at a minimum, yet Labor still wants more & the other petrostates do too.

— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) December 13, 2023

The Australian Government states in its climate change strategy that it is currently working to reduce emissions by upgrading the electricity grid to support more renewable power, reducing the price of electric vehicles, encouraging businesses and consumers to reduce emissions through government-backed incentives, and reporting on greenhouse gas emissions to increase accountability.

It also states that it is partnering with its Indo-Pacific neighbours to reduce emissions, helping negotiate and meet Australia’s obligations under the Paris Agreement and reducing baselines under the Safeguard Mechanism.

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]]> 350706 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2023/12/where-did-the-geminid-meteors-come-from/ Mon, 11 Dec 2023 20:38:42 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=350339 Every year, I receive a celestial birthday present. No, it’s not because of any secret insider connection with the universe, but a simple coincidence that on the day in question – 14 December – Earth ploughs through a swarm of dusty particles, which results in a shower of bright meteors.

The post Where did the Geminid meteors come from? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> This is the Geminid shower, named after the constellation from which the meteors seem to come as they flash across the sky, vaporised by their rapid entry into our planet’s atmosphere.

Their origin from a single point in the sky is just an illusion of perspective, because the meteors are actually moving on parallel tracks. What is more interesting is their true origin – where did the Geminid meteors come from? And that has been an enduring mystery for astronomers. 

Throughout each year, we experience several meteor showers as Earth passes through other trails of dust, which are left behind by comets – mountain-sized objects made of ice and embedded dust particles. These “dirty icebergs” move around the solar system in very elongated orbits, and as they approach the Sun, the ice turns into vapour and releases the dust, which trails behind the comet to become a meteor shower when Earth passes through it. Straightforward space geometry allows us to identify which comet causes each shower.

But the Geminids are different. The object from which they come is not an icy comet, but a rocky asteroid called Phaethon, discovered in 1983. The puzzle is that asteroids don’t normally give off dust when they are heated by the Sun, so why should Phaethon? 

Now a group of researchers based at Princeton University in the USA have come up with an answer based on new data from a NASA Sun-orbiting spacecraft called the Parker Solar Probe. This intrepid robot swoops closer to the Sun than any other satellite, and can detect grains of space dust with its various sensors. 

The scientists have found that, close to the Sun, the dust particles associated with the Geminid meteor shower travel slightly off the track of Phaethon, whose orbit they match in other respects. The scientists say the most likely explanation for this is that sometime in the past, Phaethon suffered a violent impact from another asteroid. The resulting dust cloud gradually spread around Phaethon’s orbit, mimicking the dust trails left behind by comets and creating the remarkable Geminid shower.

Track this year’s Geminids in Australian skies here.

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Related: A stargazer’s guide to 2023

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]]> 350339 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2023/12/celebrating-natures-underground-architects/ Sun, 10 Dec 2023 19:54:08 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=350308 Weighing in at around 130kg, with shining silver tentacles reaching almost 2m across, is the star of the Queensland Museum exhibition, Insect Agency.

The post Celebrating nature’s underground architects appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> This incredible structure, hanging from the museum’s ceiling, is an aluminium casting of the internal structure of a giant bull-ant nest.

“I’d estimate the nest was created by a colony of two to three thousand ants,” says entomologist Dr Chris Burwell, the museum’s senior scientist and curator of insects.

Chris hopes it will help people understand just how impressive ants are, and the important role they – and insects like them – play in the environment.

“The whole central tenet of the exhibition is that it is a celebration of the good things insects do for the environment, and for us,” Chris explains. “While many of us are quick to swat away a fly, slap a mosquito or flee from a wasp in the outside world, it is these very insects that have fascinating tales to tell.”

But unfortunately, the stories aren’t always easy to convey to the public in a good light. 

“Insects are difficult things to display. We’ve got some displays of lots of insects, all packed in together and things like that…but we don’t have big objects. So a casting of an underground structure of an ant nest – first, it’s really big so it provides a really big sculptural feature in the display, and second, it also illustrates that there’s stuff going on underneath the ground that you don’t realise is happening – just beneath your feet.”

The giant bull-ant (Myrmecia brevinoda) nest casting, on display at Queensland. Image credits: Jim A. Barker

One giant ‘single organism’ 

While the casting shows an ant nest once inhabited by hundreds of thousands of giant bull-ants (Myrmecia brevinoda), Chris likens such ant colonies to single individual animals.

“The fact that ants and termites act as colonies, not just as individuals – you can regard the nest as being like a single organism, in a way,” he says. “For example, the big termite mounds you see out in the savannas of Africa are the equivalent of a big grazing mammal – it’s working as one unit. And it’s a similar example here. So little individual insects are burrowing in the soil and they all contribute, but operate as one.”

Long live the queen

For an ant nest to grow to the size of the one on display, Chris says it must be decades old. 

“Different species of ants work differently but for these ants, one queen would have founded the colony and would have given birth to all of the worker ants over the years,” he explains. 

“Many worker ants would have come and gone, but the queen is very long lived. The colony lives for as long as the queen does. When the queen dies the colony is dead – and she can live for decades.”

Giant bull-ants (Myrmecia brevinoda). Image credits: Chris Burwell/Queensland Museum 

The elephant in the room is, of course, that the queen of this particular nest was killed to create the casting – as was the colony. 

So is the destruction of an ant colony justified for the greater good of public education and the contribution to science?

“Unfortunately killing the ants is part of the process,” says Chris. “It is a sacrifice of the lives of many ants, but these ants aren’t scarce, and they’re not endangered. The nest is also taken from private property, so it’s not from any protected area or conservation reserve.

“I guess the ‘greater good’ is that, as part of this display as a whole, it is helping to provide the narrative that we are trying to get across to the general public – that insects do so many good things for the environment, and for us as well.

“Our central educational message is that we need insects on the planet to keep up the ecological processes that maintain the health of the environment,” he adds.

Related: Face off: Bull ant goes head-to-head with echidna in evolutionary battle

How was it made?

The Queensland Museum team reached out to hobbyist duo Australian Ant Art (AAA) to make the casting, who created it from a giant bull-ant nest found near Armidale, New South Wales. 

It took the AAA team five days to create three nests of various sizes, one of which was chosen for the exhibition. 

It’s a complicated, messy and exhausting process, which is explained in detail in a series of videos on the AAA’s YouTube channel.  

Aluminium is melted and poured into the ant nest. Image credits: Jim A. Barker

After the molten aluminium has cooled, the ant nest casting is excavated. Image credits: Jim A. Barker

“I’m not the science guy, I’m the guy who builds stuff,” says one half of the AAA duo, Stephen East. “But I’ve learnt heaps by looking at different ant species, the different ways they build, and the way they store things.”

Stephen and his cousin, Chris East, have been creating ant-nest castings for almost a decade, using both aluminium and resin.

“From the aluminium castings, you can see imprints of the ants and what’s in some of the different galleries, but in the resin castings you learn a lot more. You can actually physically see what was in each gallery, and you can see the different soil types at different levels, and what the galleries were used for,” explains Stephen. “It’s always really interesting to wait to see what we are going to find.”

“The stuff they can build underground is phenomenal,” he says. “It’s amazing how a tiny little hole with a little mound that you can just walk past leads to an entire structure these ants have created below the ground. And they’ve done it in the dark, with no power and no navigation tools!”

Queensland Museum’s Insect Agency exhibition is open now, closing 7 July 2024. 

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Related: This scientist deliberately subjects himself to the world’s most painful stingers

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]]> 350308 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2023/12/report-reveals-climate-change-tipping-point-now-closer/ Fri, 08 Dec 2023 01:43:04 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=350466 The world isn’t doing enough to tackle climate change which could increase catastrophic weather conditions, experts warn following this year’s annual insight into how fossil fuel use is tracking globally.

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]]> A record 36.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels are projected to be released into the atmosphere this year, as outlined in the 2023 Global Carbon Budget presented at the United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP28) held in Dubai.

The annual report calculates how much greenhouse gas can be produced through human activity to keep below specified global warming trajectories, set in the Paris Agreement that was adopted in 2015.

The report states that while many countries are reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions – 26 over the past year – progress is not on a fast enough downward trajectory to reach global net zero. It says there is a 50 per cent chance the world’s average temperature will rise by 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2031 – a year earlier than 2022’s projections.

On the rise

“We are on a slippery slope, and we want to slam the brakes as hard as possible so we can come to a stop as soon as possible,” said Dr Pep Canadell, Executive Director of the Global Carbon Project and a Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO.

“We are currently sliding quite fast. We want to slam as hard as we can so we can prevent as much climate change as we can, but right now the slope goes for at least the next 30 years.”

Even with goals to decrease global CO₂ output, emissions from all fossil sources – including coal, oil and gas – are projected to increase in coming years. The highest growth is expected from oil at a projected rise of 1.5 per cent. Coal emissions, which represent 41 per cent of global emissions, are projected to increase 1.1 per cent. Furthermore, emissions from permanent forest loss due to deforestation currently remain too high to be offset by reforestation or afforestation.

The mean global temperature remains 1.2°C above pre-industrial levels.

“We are going to cross 1.5°C,” Pep said. “We will overshoot beyond 1.5°C by early next decade – how much we overshoot depends on what we do globally.

“Many countries around the world that agreed to net zero emissions by 2050 are realising that a lot of the emissions will not be that easy to get rid of. We will have to have negative emissions just to offset the emissions that we cannot completely get rid of – that means sucking in more emissions than we are putting out.

“Faster, larger, and sustained efforts are needed to avoid significant negative impacts of climate change on human health, the economy, and the environment.”

Related: Australia’s emissions policies savaged by experts ahead of COP28 climate summit

How Australia compares

Australia currently contributes one per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions globally, which makes it one of the top 10 highest contributors worldwide. Comparing Australia’s emissions output with a population of about 26 million to India’s seven per cent output with a population of more than 1.4 billion demonstrates just how high the country’s contribution to global warming is.

Wild weather warning

The current impacts of global warming are clear: heatwaves, droughts, flooding and extreme weather events. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology says records reveal every decade since 1950 has been warmer than preceding decades.

“This is all happening at a 1.2°C mean state change – we have seen dramatic changes in both this country and globally,” Pep said. “Imagine what will occur when we reach 3°C or 4°C mean change?

“Heatwaves will be hotter and longer; marine heatwaves will be hotter and longer; droughts will be worse because more moisture will be getting sucked up; we will be getting worse flooding simply because the atmosphere will contain more water than before; and these super El Niño storms will have more water coming down per hour with each occurrence.”

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]]> 350466 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2023/12/antarctica-a-continent-in-crisis/ Fri, 01 Dec 2023 02:46:55 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=350072 As world leaders gather for the COP28 climate summit, we bring you a special report on how Antarctica is already responding to a warming world.

The post Antarctica: a continent in crisis appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Even the most remote place on Earth is beginning to crumble as the planet’s warming woes continue.

When British Antarctic survey scientist Peter Fretwell spoke at the SCAR biology symposium in Christchurch, New Zealand, in July–August 2023, his words drew gasps of despair that later rippled around the world. SCAR – the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research – represents scientists working on research involving Earth’s great frozen southern continent. The Christchurch gathering was their first face-to-face conference since the COVID pandemic began. Peter, a cartographer renowned for monitoring wildlife at the planet’s remote poles by using high-resolution satellite imagery, was there to present some alarming news – evidence of catastrophic breeding failure in emperor penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula due to record low levels of sea ice.

Sea ice is frozen sea water, and it forms, metres deep, around Antarctica each winter. It floats on top of the ocean, clinging to the continent’s edge while stretching across the water for many kilometres. It retreats in summer, although never completely, and its seasonal fluctuations influence the global climate. It also profoundly and directly affects the Antarctic environment, where it influences ocean circulation, weather and the local climate. The rhythmic coming and going of sea ice is critical to all Antarctic life, from crabeater, Weddell and leopard seals, to humpback whales, Adélie and chinstrap penguins, and Antarctic skuas. But it’s particularly important to emperor penguins because it’s the place where most of them breed.

In the depths of winter, when the sea ice is at its greatest, these penguins congregate in their hundreds or thousands in noisy colonies, buffeted by the coldest and strongest winds on the planet. Here they find partners, court, mate, and produce no more than one chick per pair each year. The fluffy down of the chicks isn’t waterproof, but the sleek plumage of adult penguins is, allowing them to ‘fly’ at extraordinary speeds with great agility through freezing waters, hunting prey such as fish and the tiny prawn-like crustaceans called krill. About 60 emperor colonies form on Antarctic sea ice every year.

The extreme remoteness and conditions mean satellite imagery is often the only way of locating these colonies and estimating emperor numbers. “Peter got up [at the SCAR meeting] and put up these satellite images [from the 2022 winter] and said, ‘Well, this colony went, and this colony, and this one’,” recalls Professor Dana Bergstrom, the former lead of Biodiversity Conservation with the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD), who was in attendance to deliver a keynote address. “The whole room was stricken, and our hearts just sank collectively.”

Everyone knew what the distant imagery would have meant for penguin life at sea level. And that, says Dr Barbara Wienecke, a seabird ecologist with AAD and one of the world’s leading emperor penguin experts, would have been fluffy chicks tumbling en masse into the water. “They wouldn’t have had any chance of surviving,” she says. “Their breeding platform didn’t exist anymore. This event happened when the chicks were not yet waterproof, so when they fell into the water, they might have been able to swim but their plumage would have got waterlogged and they all would have died – thousands of them – of hypothermia.”

Related: An ocean like no other: the Southern Ocean’s ecological richness and significance for global climate

The grim observations made by Peter and his team were published weeks later in the Nature journal Communications Earth & Environment, bringing them to the world’s attention. The despair they generated at the Christchurch conference spread across the planet – notably in the Northern Hemisphere, which only has the Galápagos penguin, just north of the Equator – indicating the global appeal of these seabirds.

“Our addiction to fossil fuels is killing baby penguins,” lamented The Japan Times.
“Shocking! Low ice levels leads to the death of thousands of emperor penguin chicks,” cried The Times of India.
“Record sea-ice melt in Antarctica doomed thousands of penguin chicks to a watery grave,” wailed the Los Angeles Times.

There have been isolated reports of emperor penguin colonies collapsing during the past decade: the notoriously dynamic and ever-changing Antarctic environment is, after all, one of the toughest places in which to survive on the planet. So this hardy seabird species has probably been dealing with colony losses for millennia. But the total collapse of so many colonies at one time that was documented by Peter seems unprecedented. It was the most confronting of many accounts of recent change in Antarctica presented at the 2023 SCAR conference, and it prompted the drafting of the “Christchurch Communique”. That document, signed by hundreds of scientists from 20 different countries, called for urgent and immediate action to stem what’s occurring at Earth’s remote, most southerly region.

“Antarctica,” it begins, “is currently experiencing dramatic changes at unprecedented rates, marked by repeated extreme events. These include circum-Antarctic heatwaves and an autumn heatwave last year [2022], with temperatures soaring up to 40ºC above the average…both last summer and this winter, sea-ice extent has reached record lows. These changes have happened even faster than scientists predicted.

“This,” the SCAR scientists warned the world as they delivered the communique, “is a critical moment, impacting our wellbeing, future generations and ecosystems globally. Confronted by this evidence, we urgently call on nations to intensify and exceed their current commitments to greenhouse gas emissions reductions.”

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Ringing alarm bells

It’s not as if the current situation in Antarctica hasn’t been predicted. The continent has been like the proverbial canary in the coalmine for more than the past decade, making alarm chirps that have seen the world’s climate scientists becoming increasingly concerned.

When it comes to metaphors though, it now seems the canary is close to falling off its perch. Dana is a member of a growing group that now likens Antarctica to a charging grey rhino. It’s been poked and prodded so much that it’s not just showing warning signs, but has turned around to rage right back at the rest of the planet.

Antarctica might be many thousands of kilometres from most countries, but it affects us all like none of the other six continents do. What happens in Antarctica doesn’t stay in Antarctica.

Related: The ‘moss forests’ of Antarctica are dying

Most significantly, the continent is a key driver of the planet’s climate. A warming of waters around the continent in the Southern Ocean, for example, will slow ocean circulation globally and can drive extreme weather events, not only in its neighbouring continent of Australia, but also at the planet’s other end. Likewise, melting Antarctic ice will raise sea levels globally. And we’re not talking now about sea ice, but the massive Antarctic ice sheet that covers the continent.

At 14 million square kilometres in area and holding some 30 million cubic kilometres of fresh water – 30 per cent of the planet’s fresh water – it’s easy to comprehend how the melting of this massive ice block, Earth’s largest, would raise sea levels globally. And that’s exactly what appears to be happening.

The dynamics of this huge chunk of ice are complex. It grows with each winter snowfall and diminishes with summer melts. But surveys have now confirmed that the amount of bulk it’s losing outweighs the snowfall that replenishes it. Put simply, the Antarctic ice sheet is becoming thinner, and has been for several decades. The upshot of that, of course, is rising sea levels – globally.

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Melting ice issues

Undoubtably caused by the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet is another worrying phenomenon that’s recently been documented by a team led by Dr Kathy Gunn, an oceanographer and climate scientist with CSIRO. In a landmark paper published in May 2023, in Nature Climate Change, Kathy and her team reported that the circulation of what’s known as Antarctic Bottom Water (AABW) has slowed down significantly, “by as much as 30 per cent since the 1990s,” Kathy says. “This slowdown locks in decades of impacts.”

What’s the significance of this? AABW is rich in oxygen and very salty, which makes it dense and heavy. There’s a massive amount of it – about 250 trillion tonnes – and it sinks through the ocean near Antarctica each year. This sinking process ultimately drives ocean currents worldwide. In this way, AABW acts like a lung, breathing oxygen and nutrients deep into all the oceans – the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic – because, of course, all the world’s oceans are connected.

What’s thought to be happening is that the meltwater coming off the Antarctic ice sheet, which is fresh water, is effectively diluting, deoxygenating and lightening AABW so it’s sinking more slowly. This slowdown of AABW circulation will starve the deep ocean everywhere of oxygen and nutrients. No-one is sure what the flow-on effects will be in the upper ocean and on land. But, bearing in mind that it’s such a fundamental physical process of the planet, the consequences are likely to be huge. This AABW circulation slowdown had been predicted by scientists. But what we’re seeing now wasn’t expected to happen for decades, until 2050.

Problems with the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) are also potent signs that things are not as they should be on the southern continent. This is the fastest-moving current in the world and it wraps around Antarctica like a strong, broad pressure bandage, extending from the surface of the ocean to the bottom. It’s created by strong westerly winds across the Southern Ocean, combined with the impact created by the difference in water surface temperature between the Equator and the South Pole.

The ACC keeps Antarctica frozen by locking in the icy water that circulates around the continent and keeping out warm water. But the mechanism is leaking. At the time of going to press, CSIRO’s massive oceangoing deep-sea research vessel RV Investigator (see Delivered from the deep, AG 175) was heading south with a team of oceanographers and climate scientists to try to understand what exactly is going on with the ACC, and why it’s happening.

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The return of the ozone hole

The environmental assault on Antarctica, which the continent is now redirecting back at the rest of the planet, isn’t only coming from the waters that surround it, but also from overhead. High up in the sky, the hole in the ozone layer has returned.

When this potentially catastrophic ‘tear’ in the planet’s stratosphere, more than 10km above Antarctica, was discovered by scientists in 1985, it quickly set global alarm bells ringing.

Ozone is a gas that forms a kind of atmospheric ‘blanket’ around Earth to keep out much of the sun’s UV radiation. Without it, life as we know it would never have evolved on this planet. The hole over Antarctica quickly became recognised as the most extreme sign of a phenomenon scientists began finding evidence for, worldwide, during the 1980s: stratospheric ozone was being destroyed across the planet by human-produced gaseous chemicals, notably chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), which were used as propellants in aerosols and as highly effective refrigerants in refrigerators and air conditioners. It was feared the destruction of Earth’s ozone layer would mean we’d be bombarded during the 21st century by such high levels of cancer-causing UV radiation that life outdoors would be almost impossible for our species – and, of course, for most other species on the planet.

But just as it seemed that humans had done irreversible damage to the planet’s atmosphere, there were signs the hole was slowly healing, due to the gradual phasing out of CFCs after the introduction of the international treaty known as the Montreal Protocol. Early this decade, scientists finally confirmed that long-term recovery of the hole was underway. It was hailed as one of humanity’s greatest environmental success stories, and showed what could be done with a unified global geopolitical effort.

Now, however, new research led by an atmospheric scientist at New Zealand’s University of Otago, Hannah Kessenich, reports that the ozone hole is again increasing in size and it’s unlikely to be because of CFC use. “The past three years (2020–2022) have witnessed the re-emergence of large, long-lived ozone holes over Antarctica,” Hannah’s team reported in November 2023 in the journal Nature Communications. “The recent deep and long-lived ozone holes have already resulted in extreme UV levels over Antarctica,” the paper explained. “Beyond local UV effects, Antarctic ozone is intrinsically linked to the climate and dynamics of the Southern Hemisphere; changes in stratospheric ozone levels drive circulation changes across the entire hemisphere…”

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An issue of geopolitics

All these problems besetting the Antarctic continent could be slowed down – even eventually halted – with a global reduction in carbon emissions. Prevent what’s causing climate change and you’ll slow the charge of Antarctica’s proverbial rhino, although much change is already locked in.

But that’s a geopolitical decision that’s beyond the scope of the public servants and scientists who both manage, and try to protect, Antarctic ecosystems. In the meantime, there are things that can be, and are being, done on the ground in Antarctica.

Despite all these large, threatening processes, much of Antarctica remains free from human impact. “Most of the continent is untouched, primarily due to its remoteness and because it’s covered in ice,” says Queensland University of Technology’s Dr Justine Shaw, a conservation scientist and Antarctic ecologist, who’s worked extensively during the past two decades with the Antarctic science programs of both South Africa and Australia. “Most of the continent is still wilderness and the world needs to understand that’s what we’re impacting in Antarctica – a wilderness. There’s no mining, no agriculture, no cities, and yet it’s still vulnerable – on a massive scale – to all these global threats. That vulnerability is a really powerful story for the world to hear.”

Like many scientists working in the Antarctic, Justine thinks protected areas are one of the most important local management tools presently available for the conservation of the continent’s wildlife. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are particularly valuable, because most Antarctic wildlife are connected to the sea for most, if not all, of their lives.

Major decisions about managing Antarctica tend to be protracted, multilateral processes. That’s because they need to proceed within the terms of the Antarctic Treaty, which was enacted near the end of the Cold War and set the continent aside for peace and science.

The treaty came into effect in 1961, after being signed in 1959 by the 12 countries whose scientists had, at that time, been active in and around Antarctica. This included Australia and six other countries that have territorial claims. Since then, 44 other countries have agreed to the treaty, but only 29, including Australia, are Consultative Parties that can make decisions about the continent – including what areas deserve special protection.

Declaring an MPA in Antarctica is always potentially controversial, mostly because of lucrative fishing interests and because consensus among all parties is required. Antarctica’s first was the South Orkney Islands Southern Shelf MPA, established in 2009, followed by the massive Ross Sea region MPA in 2016, which took 10 years of negotiations to get over the line. Three proposals currently under consideration would protect areas of the East Antarctic, Weddell Sea and Antarctic Peninsula.

“Through these large areas we’re protecting entire ecosystems, and all the processes and species that occur within them,” Justine says. “And there are spill-over benefits to the waters surrounding and beyond protected area boundaries.”

Related: The bizarre marine creatures of Antarctica

All of Antarctica is protected under the treaty, but, she says, more could be done on land to identify and protect at-risk areas with unique values. Antarctica doesn’t have national parks, but it does have 75 sites that are Antarctic Specially Protected Areas, managed in different areas by different governments.

But more could be done to protect the environments, ecosystems and species, Justine adds. “Most of the biodiversity on land is restricted to the ice-free areas,” she says. “Not much of Antarctica is ice-free, so there are tiny [pockets] of ice-free land…that are really valuable, because that’s where everything is.”

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Bird flu: an existential crisis 

The one threat that presently has everyone with an interest in Antarctic wildlife on tenterhooks is bird flu. This pathogen, also known as avian influenza, has been around for decades. But a new highly pathogenic and contagious strain – HPAI H5N1 – has emerged. And it’s not just infecting and killing birds en masse, it’s jumped into mammals and is having the same devastating impact.

Scientists have been tracking its spread down the west coast of South America for several months. At the time of going to press, it had reached South Georgia, a subantarctic island just north of the Antarctic mainland, where it was recorded in Antarctic skuas and southern elephant seals.

“Bird flu is absolutely terrifying because it’s so deadly and it doesn’t just affect birds,” Dana says.

Everyone is now bracing for its arrival in Antarctica this summer and reluctantly, but realistically, anticipating a massive loss of life among wildlife. “All the seabird researchers are feeling like an existential crisis is bearing down on us and our study ecosystems,” says AAD seabird ecologist Dr Louise Emmerson. “We’re all incredibly attached to our study species, and it feels horrendous that there’s very little we can do apart from monitor the impacts, avoid spreading it [bird flu] further, and maintain the resilience of the wildlife through other management actions.”

Emily Grilly, WWF-Australia’s Antarctic conservation manager, agrees this upcoming summer in Antarctica is likely to be devastating for wildlife because of bird flu. “I think we’re going to see some haunting images,” she says. “And it’s the last thing that Antarctic wildlife needs right now, when it’s trying to adapt to this changing climate.”

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Hope for the wilderness at the bottom of the planet

Despite all the despair, there’s an overwhelming feeling of hope among the experts that Antarctic wildlife will be able to adapt and survive. It has, after all, been adapting and surviving for millennia in one of the most volatile and harsh environments on the planet. But it’s the rapid pace of change that has scientists worried. The answer to that, most Antarctic experts agree, lies in the hands of everyday people worldwide. And they’ve been buoyed by the empathetic way the world responded to the mass death of emperor penguin chicks.

Dana, who is now mainly affiliated with the University of Wollongong, recently launched the Pure Antarctica Foundation, a not-for-profit that draws attention to the wonders of Antarctica and the human-induced perils it’s now facing. The foundation is planning to connect with the grief the world showed for the emperor penguin chicks by staging a worldwide Penguin Vigil.

“I want people to come together and express their sadness,” she says. The vigil is planned to begin in Sydney on the winter solstice – 21 June – and then spread around the globe. The timing of the vigil will coincide with the period when emperors begin arriving in Antarctica to form their breeding colonies.

“Yes, it’s a tough time for the wildlife in Antarctica at the moment,” Louise agrees. “They’ve got avian influenza bearing down on them, they’ve got fisheries expanding, they’ve got climate change – and the unknown impacts from that on the food web they rely on. I mean, Antarctic wildlife is incredibly good at responding to environmental change – they’ve been doing it for many thousands of years, and that’s why they are there. But when we keep pushing them over the edge, there’s a limit to how much they can respond or adapt to.

“I’m still trying to be as optimistic as I can, that there’s something we can do, but the signals are alarming. Now is a critical time for us to pull out of our back pocket whatever we can to help support that ecosystem. I believe we have a moral responsibility to do that.”

Justine says it’s vital people understand that, as far away as Antarctica seems, whatever they can do to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their own backyards will help.

“If you explain that to people and ask if they hope their grandchildren get to live with penguins in their lives, I see them respond,” she says. “And I ask, ‘Do you want your grandchildren to know that there is a wilderness at the bottom of the planet, where whales come every summer to feed, and there are leopard seals and all these amazing animals?’”

And most people, she says, reply with an emphatic, “Yes.”

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Related: Australia’s emissions policies savaged by experts ahead of COP28 climate summit

The post Antarctica: a continent in crisis appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 350072 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2023/11/why-are-we-seeing-so-many-seabird-wrecks/ Tue, 28 Nov 2023 23:04:54 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=349489 If you are a regular beachgoer, you would know it’s not uncommon to see the odd dead bird lying on the sand. But recently there have been hundreds of seabirds washing up dead along Australia’s beaches.

The post Why are we seeing so many ‘seabird wrecks’? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> The incidents are known as ‘seabird wrecks’, and people have been reporting them up and down the east coast, from as far north as Byron Bay, in New South Wales, to Tasmania.

“It’s just devastating to see,” says Australian Seabird and Turtle Rescue volunteer and photographer Silke Stuckenbrock.

Silke says over the last month, every time she has walked on the beach, she has encountered dozens upon dozens of dead seabirds, mostly short-tailed shearwaters, all emaciated.

“Some clearly have been washed ashore dead, or have drowned in the surf, while others look like they have crash-landed on the beach,” she says.

What’s happening?

Although it’s not uncommon for exhausted migratory birds to be found dead on Australian beaches, the scale of these wrecks is not usually of this magnitude. This has prompted plenty of speculation as to why so many birds are dying this season – not just in Australia, but worldwide.

Although these events have been poorly documented in the past, Adrift Lab marine scientist Jennifer Lavers says the scientific community is seeing a correlation with climate change.

“As a whole, it does appear that these events are becoming more frequent…in line with the frequency of marine heatwaves,” Jennifer says. “…We have seen some pretty significant mass-mortality events just in the last decade, which also suggests that the severity of the events is rising.”

These ‘seabird wrecks' occurred over the last month at One Mile Beach, NSW. Image credits: Silke Stuckenbrock

Marine heatwaves to blame

According to the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, a marine heatwave occurs when ocean temperatures are warmer than usual over a long period, slowing the growth of certain fish species, stressing other creatures – prompting them to move elsewhere – and affecting habitats. Put simply, warmer water can lead to fewer fish, which can lead to starving birds. 

With an ‘off the scale’ marine heatwave forecast for Australia this summer, and significant losses of sea life predicted, Jennifer says this month’s wrecks could be just the beginning. “We are still getting fresh birds washing up…which suggests that this is ongoing, and the prediction is for it to be ongoing,” she says.

Other theories 

Short-tailed shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris) aren’t the only species being found dead on our shores; albatross and raptors are also being reported but Jennifer says it doesn’t mean their deaths are also linked to this marine heatwave. “Across the huge number of people who are reporting, and the thousands of kilometres of beach that are being searched, we would expect to see a variety of species,” she explains.

When it comes to other wreck theories, some people are quick to blame wild weather, however Jennifer says this isn’t the reason the birds are dying, because they have evolved to take advantage of windy conditions. What people might see is that the wind has pushed already deceased and frail birds ashore. “To get to a condition where they are so weak that they can’t even really thrive in their natural habitat requires weeks of being deprived of the things that they need. Not days, weeks.”

Death by plastic consumption has also been ruled out as causing these wrecks. Jennifer says that adult birds don’t accumulate large amounts of plastic in the way fledglings and chicks do. “Right now the birds that are dying on beaches are 100 percent adult birds, so plastic – we can’t say it plays no role, but it is unlikely to play a driving or major role.”

The majority of seabirds being found dead are short-tailed shearwaters (Ardenna tenuirostris), like these photographed at Curl Curl Beach, NSW. Image credits: Silke Stuckenbrock

How you can help

Australia doesn’t have a national reporting system for seabird wrecks, which is why everyday beachgoers are important for compiling information. 

“Citizen science plays a key role in these massively widespread events,” Silke says. “We are the eyes and the boots on the ground.”

Silke describes public observations as pieces of a giant puzzle, with the information collected helping current and future studies. “In this case, our observations provide a snapshot of what’s happening along the entirety of the East Coast of Australia; that is impossible for a handful of scientists to do by themselves.”

So, whether you’re simply walking your dog along your local beach or heading out for a weekend surf, if you see a dead shearwater you can report it to Adrift Lab. 

“These days, with mobile phones in pockets, it’s extremely easy to take images and make notes of distances walked. Even GPS locations are embedded in the photos,” says Silke.

And even if you don’t see any birds, scientists still want to hear about it.

“It’s just as important for me to know that citizen scientists walked a beach and saw zero dead shearwaters as it is to know that they saw three, or nine,” Jennifer says. She adds that, without such reports, she wouldn’t know if people haven’t come across the birds or they simply haven’t documented them. She also asks for people to keep reporting all summer, and you can do that by following these instructions:

How to report dead seabirds

Record:

• The name of the beach.
• The date you visited.
• Approximately how far you walked.
• How many people are counting with you.
• The number of birds you found.
• Photos to help with species identification.
  

Contact Adrift Lab:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Website

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Image credit: Silke Stuckenbrock

What not to do

It’s important that if you see a dead bird you don’t touch it. Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI), or Avian flu, is an issue of great concern in the Northern Hemisphere, and there are concerns of when, not if, there will be outbreaks in Australia. Because of this, do not handle any dead seabirds, and do not let dogs approach them; HPAI can cross species. If you find a bird that is alive and you want to take it to a carer, wear protective clothing, use a towel to pick it up and transport it in the boot of your car. It’s also wise not to take it into your house.

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Related: Trouble in paradise for Lord Howe Island’s shearwaters

The post Why are we seeing so many ‘seabird wrecks’? appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> 349489 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/science-environment/2023/11/moonlight-basking-and-queer-courting-the-secret-lives-of-freshwater-turtles/ Mon, 27 Nov 2023 03:41:42 +0000 https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/?p=349850 New research reveals fresh insights into Australian freshwater turtle behaviour, survey methods and conservation strategies.

The post Moonlight basking and queer courting: The secret lives of freshwater turtles appeared first on Australian Geographic.

]]> Australian freshwater turtles support healthy wetlands and rivers. Yet one in three turtle species is threatened with extinction. And there is still much we don’t know about them.

In today’s special issue of the journal Austral Ecology, 55 authors present the latest research on Australian freshwater turtles.

Along with other biologists, we have contributed to a series of research papers to inform ecology and conservation of freshwater turtles.

Spy wear and other turtle tech

In one study researchers compared data from underwater video cameras to traditional trapping surveys and achieved similar results. They detected 83 turtles from 52  hours of footage and identified all species in the study area.

Overall, baited remote underwater videos proved to be a “useful, time effective, non-invasive technique to collect relative abundance and species richness estimates for freshwater turtles”.

Another study provided the first vision of a wild saw-shelled turtle attempting to court a mate. The male sought affection from the female turtle by waving his feet and pressing his nose into her face.

Meanwhile, a different male was observed trying to mount a larger male. This was the first case of same-sex mounting seen in this species.

We are continuing to unravel curious turtle behaviour known as nocturnal basking. During the day, many reptiles regulate their body temperature by sunning themselves. But some freshwater turtles (and crocodiles) also emerge from the water and bask on logs at night.

To find out why, scientists in Queensland measured the preferred temperature of Krefft’s river turtles and watched them bask more when the water was hot. So it seems they do this to stay cool in hot weather.

Over in desert country, we recaptured Cooper Creek turtles after two decades. While we were there, the site became surrounded with floodwater – this provided a rare opportunity to find turtles moving onto the floodplain to find food.

We also found lots of baby turtles. This is in contrast to most places around Australia, which have ongoing problems with foxes eating turtle nests.

Related: Mary River turtle added to world’s most endangered list

Conservation success stories

Foxes target freshwater turtle nests across Australia, reducing breeding success. Researchers are experimenting with measures to protect nests from predators.

In the New England Tablelands, temporary electric fences served to protect turtle nests from foxes over three breeding spring-summer seasons from 2019 to 2022. But in the Murray River, plastic mesh over individual nests only protected some of them.

Nest protection supports conservation of the endangered Mary River turtle. Over 22 years, more than 100 members of the local community in the Mary River Catchment have led initiatives to protect Mary River turtles. Working with communities has dual benefits – for research and for the people involved, who enjoy connecting to nature.

These collaborations have helped improve river management, informing delivery of water for the environment and improving the quality of river habitats for turtles.

November is Turtle Month for the 1 Million turtles campaign, a national citizen science program bringing together scientists and the community, to support freshwater turtle conservation initiatives.

Through the free TurtleSAT app, people can do more than just report turtle sightings. They can actively contribute to data-driven turtle management.

The app provides real-time data visualisation. The program website also provides education, helping citizen scientists protect nests, establish predator-free turtle sanctuaries, engage in national experiments, and deepen their understanding of turtles and wetlands.

With more than 18,000 records logged, 1,200 turtles saved from road hazards and 500 nests protected, this initiative is crucial in light of the growing threats faced by freshwater turtle species.

Challenges and solutions

Of Australia’s 25 freshwater turtle species, 12 are so poorly known their national conservation status could not be assessed during this 2022 review. Many of these lesser-known species occur in northern Australia.

Of the 15 species or subspecies assessed, we recommended listing a higher level of threat for eight. This included western saw-shelled turtles, which were recently uplisted from vulnerable to endangered.

Threats include habitat loss, being eaten by foxes or feral pigs, disease, fire, and moving species into new areas where they breed with existing turtle species. To manage these threats, we need to move beyond engagement to an integrated approach, where conservation advice is co-determined by First Nations people who are closely involved in implementing recovery plans and action plans.

There is immense value in establishing long-term studies to track these long-lived species. And technology continues to provide new opportunities to learn more.

Future conservation and management will require working with communities to learn more about turtles and protect them. If one million people each save one turtle, collectively we will have made a big difference.

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Deborah Bower, Associate Professor in Zoology and Ecology, University of New England; Donald McKnight, , James Cook University; Eric Nordberg, Senior Lecturer (Applied Ecology and Landscape Management), University of New England; James Van Dyke, Associate Professor in Biomedical Sciences, La Trobe University; Michael B Thompson, Emeritus Professor in Zoology, University of Sydney, and Ricky Spencer, Associate Professor of Ecology, Western Sydney University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Related: Bum-breathing turtle discovered in Queensland river

The post Moonlight basking and queer courting: The secret lives of freshwater turtles appeared first on Australian Geographic.

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