Bits of Ecology

Climate Change & Anthropocene Extinction 4: Earth’s biodiversity may include >1,000,000,000,000 species(!)

Yes. That’s ONE TRILLION. ‘Possibly’ – as recent research using statistical scaling rules shows Earth’s total biodiversity, expressed in numbers of species, lies somewhere between 100 billion and (possibly more than) ten times as much. Welcome to the world of … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction 2: Biodiversity graph shows Garden of Eden is Now

Yesterday we tried to place the Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction in the context of Earth’s past mass extinctions. Listing the Holocene Extinction as the ‘Sixth Mass Extinction’ proves problematic for various reasons. Today we offer additional context: although a mass extinction … Continue reading →

Climate Change & Holocene-Anthropocene Mass Extinction 1: First of all, what are we talking about?

Yes, you’ve guessed it: a new series – and one we think is (even) more important than the previous climate series on Bits of Science, like our short (ongoing) understanding sea level rise series, and the more elaborate series about … Continue reading →

A quarter of all European bumblebee species threatened with extinction

Europe is still home to 68 different bumblebee species – of which according to IUCN 24 percent are now directly threatened with extinction and about half have clearly declining populations. The reasons: Habitat loss, agricultural pollution, climate change, and general … Continue reading →

Dear Media, there is just ONE THING World Leaders Need To Do this December: Unite On Climate

We – the one million silenced voices, the one million people who this December were planning to march on Paris to call for climate justice – have a request, to the world media. For once. Just for once. For this … Continue reading →

Alpine meadows and subalpine meadows – equally beautiful and equally threatened by decreasing snowcover

Do you like to go for a hike in the mountains on a sunny summer day? Do you then enjoy stepping out of the forest into one of those flowery meadows? In many cases this would not be an actual … Continue reading →

Vanished Brazilian Atlantic Forest still has negative carbon balance

Not so long ago Brazil was home to not one, but two of the Earth´s largest tropical rainforest biomes, the Amazon and the Atlantic Forest. Including true rainforest, dry tropical forest and mangroves the Atlantic Forest used to span an … Continue reading →

Biodiversity increases biomass

In theory less biodiversity would not necessarily imply less biomass. But in reality – in case you were to try and replace all animals with pandas – somewhere along the line you may risk to overlook some important symbiotic connections. And what … Continue reading →