5 Reasons Why Biodiversity Matters – to Human Health, the Economy and Your Wellbeing

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Animals
Plastic waste from the nearby city of Ushuaia is polluting nests and being found in penguins' stomachs and excrement. Deutsche Welle
Tierra del Fuego is at the southernmost tip of South America and is sometimes known as the "end of the world." This windswept part of Argentina is home to seven penguin colonies which breed, nest and feed in the area.
Yet even here, the evidence of human encroachment on nature is clear.
Plastic waste from the nearby city of Ushuaia is polluting nests and being found in penguins' stomachs and excrement. And warmer waters mean adults must search longer for food, leaving their little ones more exposed to predators. Increasing tourism is also threatening the ecosystem.
Biologist Andrea Raya Rey has been studying the region's penguins for more than 20 years. She and others from the Austral Center for Scientific Research (CADIC) are working to protect the beloved flightless birds.
A film by Aitor Saez 
Holger Casselmann / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
The climate crisis has caused Japanese cherry blossoms to bloom in October and sped the arrival of spring in much of the U.S. But it turns out that humans aren't the only animals who can trick plants into flowering early.
Scientists have discovered that bumblebees can cause plants to flower as much as 30 days ahead of schedule by biting their leaves.
"I think it's fascinating how much we still don't know about organisms that we think we know really well," study coauthor and ETH Zurich professor Consuelo De Moraes told BBC News . "It absolutely increases our sense of wonder at the cleverness of nature in all its many forms."
 
The discovery, published in Science Friday , was made by accident. One of De Moraes' students, Foteini Pashalidou, observed buff-tailed bumblebees making small slits in the leaves of greenhouse plants, National Geographic explained. However, the bees didn't appear to eat the leaf bits or bring them back to their nests.
The researches did notice that the bees from colonies with less food were the ones most damaging the leaves, Science reported . This led the scientists to wonder if the bees were trying to get the plants to flower early out of hunger, so they set up an experiment to test this hypothesis, as Science described:
The researchers set up a greenhouse experiment with black mustard (Brassica nigra), a crop they had been studying. Ten plants were put in mesh bags with bumble bees that hadn't eaten any pollen for 3 days; they proceeded to nibble five to 10 holes in each plant. On average, those plants flowered after 17 days ; undamaged plants that had not been exposed to bumble bees took an average of 33 days, the researchers report today in Science. In a similar experiment, tomato plants sped up their flowering by 30 days.
Further experiments confirmed that the behavior was motivated by hunger. Pollen-deprived bees cut four times as many holes in lab leaves as fully fed bees. Outside the lab, bees cut holes in plants on a rooftop garden in early spring, but stopped doing so as frequently once more flowers began to bloom. The researchers also observed leaf-biting in two wild species: red-tailed and white-tailed bumble bees.
"That was super exciting," De Moraes told Science.
While this behavior is new to scientists, we may have encountered its evidence for years without realizing it.
"You see these semi-circular sort of incisions, often in the leaf," coauthor Dr Nark Mescher told BBC News. "One of the students was saying that they were eating a salad the other day, and they saw that kind of damage on the leaf that was probably from a bumblebee."
Beyond its novelty, the finding has important implications for bumblebees' ability to adapt to the climate crisis, National Geographic explained. As warmer spring temperatures cause pollinators to awaken before plants flower, this activity could ensure early-rising bees find food. It might also help farmers increase human food supply if they can copy the bees' technique.
But so far the researchers aren't sure how the bees' trick works. Attempts to duplicate it in the lab by damaging leaves in similar ways were only partially successful.
"We really tried to replicate it with the best of our ability," De Moraes told BBC News. "It's possible that the bees also have some cue that they are providing to the plants that is specific to the bee. And that could be secretions that we don't know about, but it's something that we plan to investigate."
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Californians enjoy Manhattan and Hermosa beaches on the first day Los Angeles County allowed beaches to reopen with restrictions on May 13, 2020, after a six-week closure implemented to stop the spread of coronavirus. MARK RALSTON / AFP / Getty Images
By Claudia Finkelstein
Even if we escaped getting sick from the coronavirus, we are all sick of staying at home, practicing social distancing and wearing masks. While case numbers and deaths from COVID-19 are trending downward , this is not the time to let down your guard. These are not ordinary days. These novel days call on us to make decisions with limited and evolving information. The coronavirus is still circulating.
As a physician who has practiced for over 30 years, I find myself facing the decisions about safe outdoor recreation with some trepidation. The decision about whether to go to a beach, a pool or a park was previously pretty simple – now, not so much.
On one hand, there is too much information, some of it conflicting and much of it infused with political ideology. On the other, there is a lack of information – the "novel" in novel coronavirus means it's new and there is much we don't know. While it remains as true as ever that there are tremendous benefits to going outside these days, it's also true there are risks to yourself and to others in doing so.
 
How to decide whether you and your loved ones can go hiking, beaching or swimming? Let's begin with some facts that we actually do know. We know that the virus can be carried asymptomatically, and we know that there are people at disproportionately high risk of serious complications.
We scientists and doctors don't know yet if having antibodies is indicative of immunity, so a positive antibody test doesn't mean you're good to go without risk. We know that the number of virus particles you are exposed to and the duration of exposure are vital factors determining risk of transmission.
Also, at least one preprint study, which has not been peer-reviewed, found that the risk of outdoor exposure is much less than that indoors.
But I Want to Be Outside.
Now that almost all states have opened back up, in varying degrees, it is important to remember that the virus is still out there. The risks of getting infected when passing by a runner or cyclist fairly quickly are not terribly high, at least in the absence of a sneeze or cough, and are even lower at a distance. Solitary activities transmit fewer particles than team sports or horseplay in the pool.
Going alone or only with the people in your quarantine bubble will minimize your risk. Proximity to people outside your bubble means you should wear a mask properly to protect others. The quarantine bubble is shorthand for a small group of friends you may choose to get together with who have followed social distancing guidelines and whom you know to be healthy. The safety of your bubble, however, is only as good as the agreement between members to follow safety precautions outside the bubble.
Look at the logistics of your plan. It's worth breaking your intended activity down to basic steps.
How will you get there? Remember, public transportation and air travel are still high-risk. And, if you are driving on the highway or interstate, remember that you might need to stop for bathroom breaks. In the spirit of "better safe than sorry," if you do travel long distances by car, bring your own food and water as well as a hygiene kit containing wipes, paper towels, travel soap and sanitizer.
What will I need while there? Consider the need for bathroom breaks, food and water, your ability to wash hands and maintain distance. Bathrooms and changing rooms are full of "high touch" surfaces, and while definitive information is lacking, early evidence demonstrates virus persistence on surfaces. You should treat public bathrooms as high-risk areas and keep in mind that many may not even be open.
Once at your destination, remember the coronavirus basics.
Keep a distance of at least six feet.
Wash and disinfect your hands often – and definitely after touching any shared surface.
Keep your hands away from your face.
Wear a mask.
If at a park, walk or hike single file and leave room for others to pass at a safe distance. Consider going at off-peak hours and to less popular locations.
If going to the beach, you still need to wear a mask. And keep your distance.
If going to the pool, remember that although there is no evidence of spread through water that has been treated per recommendations, common areas require distancing, masks and the other usual precautions.
Remember the real estate adage "location, location, location." The virus prevalence and the slope – whether cases are rising or falling – in your area matter. Also, the availability of testing and of hospital beds in your area are things to consider.
You should take into account the regulations and laws in your area , understanding that they may not reflect public health guidelines. If in doubt, err on the side of protection.
Factors Out of Your Control
Finally, there is the wild card of figuring out what the people around you will be doing to protect you as you are deciding how you will protect yourself, your loved ones and them. Will they respect your space and wear masks? The final word on outdoor recreation? Of course, go out and be active. It's important for your mental and physical health. But, choose wisely, be prepared and stay safe.
Claudia Finkelstein is an Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Michigan State University.
Disclosure statement: Claudia Finkelstein does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Science
A rescued coral from Key West settles in for a feeding at an intermediate holding facility before being shipped to a long-term aquarium. Tiffany Duong / Ocean Rebels
Six years ago, during a global coral bleaching event and after the Port of Miami was dredged, endangered corals on Florida's coral reef began rapidly wasting away and dying. Their "mystery killer," whose exact pathogen still remains unidentified, is referred to as the " Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease" (SCTLD) .
In response, scientists launched an unprecedented, "Hail Mary" rescue effort to save the corals from local extinction. The first phase of the groundbreaking project concludes next week.
SCTLD is different and more devastating than other coral diseases because of how quickly it can kill an entire coral colony, how many different species it infects, how long it has lingered and how much remains unknown about its origins, University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine Science professor Andrew Baker told EcoWatch.
"Corals affected by SCTLD lose tissue really fast," he said. "Unlike many other coral diseases that can take weeks or months to pass over a coral's surface, SCTLD can kill a colony within a few days under 'ideal circumstances.' Some species, principally the brain corals, have almost disappeared from local reefs within a period of about six months."
The coral biologist also noted that SCTLD was particularly difficult to eradicate because it affects almost half of Florida's coral species, which has allowed it to persist in reef communities for a long time because it has so many different hosts it can inhabit.
SCTLD now threatens the entire Florida Reef Tract (360 linear miles), which is the third-largest coral barrier reef in the world, decimating important reef-building and endangered corals in its path.
"It's really sad. Some of these corals that have been growing for tens to hundreds to possibly thousands of years are disappearing in months," said Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) coral caretaker Allan Anderson. "We're talking about corals that have literally built this reef now dying, and it's pretty scary that something we can't yet identify is destroying everything."
For the past two years, Anderson and his FWC Coral Rescue Team colleagues have taken matters into their own hands — literally — by using hammers and chisels to remove healthy, at-risk corals from the reefs before the disease reaches them.
"At first I was kinda sad about collecting corals off the reef," said Tanya Ramseyer, FWC Coral Rescue project coordinator. "Your whole life, you're told not to touch the corals, and here, they tell us, 'Here's a hammer and chisel. You're gonna go down and take these off the reef.' But we're saving these corals in the nick of time. That's how I work myself up to it. We're rescuing these corals."
Scuba diving off charter and research vessels, the Coral Rescue Team identifies, collects, measures and samples corals susceptible to SCTLD that would likely perish if left on the reef.
FWC biologist Ananda Ellis uses a hammer and chisel to remove a healthy coral from the reefs off Key West as part of FWC's Coral Rescue Project. Tiffany Duong / Ocean Rebels
"The rescue mission is exactly what it sounds like," FWC Coral Program research assistant Ananda Ellis told EcoWatch. "We're trying to collect these corals and take them out of their natural environment before they get hit with this disease. Most of the individuals we're collecting would have been affected and dead within X amount of period, depending on the species, so we're definitely at that last stage. We do need to collect these corals."
To date, the team has completed six rescue cruises, and their last cruise is scheduled for May 27, Ellis shared. They have collected nearly 2,000 individual corals from 22 target species. Genetic sampling ensured they had enough unique genotypes of each species to preserve genetic diversity during the next phase of the rescue mission — coral propagation for future restoration activities, said Stephanie Schopmeyer, a main FWC coordinator for the rescue cruises.
FWC biologists Allan Anderson and Ananda Ellis take genetic samples and measurements of rescued corals at an intermediate holding facility. Tiffany Duong / Ocean Rebels
Rescue corals are shipped to partner universities, non-governmental organizations, zoos and aquaria around the country for study and safekeeping. The corals will remain in these new homes indefinitely. Many have never been observed in captivity before, and researchers have already successfully experimented with sexual and asexual propagation techniques to create new "coral babies."
"Over time, we should be able to breed or propagate or grow enough coral to repopulate the entire reef tract," Schopmeyer said. "That is the actual goal."
The final phase of the rescue project will occur when it is safe for the original rescue corals and their offspring created in holding facilities to be reintroduced to the wild in numbers that will hopefully help restore what the disease has ravaged.
Rescued corals acclimate to life outside of the ocean in an intermediate holding facility before being shipped to longer-term aquaria for safekeeping. Ananda Ellis / FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
The Coral Rescue Team is part of a broader, extensive, multi-agency effort to track the spread of SCTLD, identify the pathogen, develop methods to lessen the effects of the disease on reefs and to rescue corals for safekeeping in zoos and aquaria around the country.
Climate
People make their way through uprooted trees and damaged power lines blocking a road in Taltala a day after Cyclone Amphan hit the city on May 21, 2020 in Kolkata, India. Samir Jana / Hindustan Times via Getty Images
At least 84 people were killed when Cyclone Amphan walloped India and Bangladesh Wednesday, bringing "war-like" destruction to the city of Kolkata in the Indian state of West Bengal, The Guardian reported .
The response to the storm, which made landfall as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane , was complicated by the spread of the new coronavirus . While around three million people in India and Bangladesh evacuated to safety ahead of the storm, some villagers remained in place out of fear of contracting the virus in a crowded shelter, The New York Times reported .
"At one end there is this small Covid virus that is terrifying people," West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a video conference reported by The New York Times . "This was another virus from the sky."
Causes of death included felled trees, downed electrical wires and collapsed buildings. In Bangladesh, Khanat Begum and her 13-year-old daughter were killed when a gust of wind uprooted their neighbor's tree and dropped it on top of their house.
For the survivors, the storm also brought devastation. Hundreds of thousands of people saw their homes destroyed, according to The Guardian. This could enable the spread of the new coronavirus as people are forced to remain in shelters.
In Kolkata, home to around 14 million people, power was lost and many streets were flooded , BBC News reported . Banerjee said that two districts had been completely destroyed.
"We have to rebuild those districts from scratch," she said, as The Guardian reported: "Area after area has been ruined. I have experienced a war-like situation today."
At least 15 people in the city were killed, The New York Times reported. All told, at least 72 people died in West Bengal and 12 in Bangladesh, according to BBC News.
Bangladesh evacuated more people ahead of the storm than India, at 2.4 million compared with around 660,000, The New York Times reported. But the country was still hit hard.
"Even by Bangladeshi standards, this was a powerful storm," Save the Children in Bangladesh Humanitarian Director Mostak Hussain said in a statement . "We've received reports that more than 5 million people were disconnected from the electricity grid for their own safety as winds of 150kph smashed into power lines, destroying homes and uprooting trees. In some of the worst-affected areas there was a tidal surge of nearly three metres, causing dams to overflow and submerging low-lying villages and crops."
For a period Monday night, Cyclone Amphan became the most powerful storm ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal, with winds of up to 165 miles per hour, CNN reported . It weakened before making landfall, bringing sustained winds of 105 mile-per-hour winds and a five meter (approximately 16 foot) storm surge, according to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration . But it was still the worst storm to strike Kolkata in 100 years, The Guardian reported.
It struck the same week as a study confirmed that the climate crisis is making tropical storms more intense, increasing the chance that a cyclone develops into a Category 3 storm or higher by eight percent per decade since the late 1970s. Cyclone Amphan originally intensified after passing over water temperatures as warm as 88 degrees Fahrenheit, The New York Times reported .
"Sea surface temperatures are much warmer than normal in the Bay of Bengal right now," Colorado State University hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach told CNN .
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The Ebo Forest in Cameroon, Africa, is a biodiversity hotspot, home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog. San Diego Zoo Global
By Lamfu Fabrice Yengong and Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue
Biodiversity loss is a global crisis. In May last year, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services ( IPBES ) warned that over 1,000,000 species are threatened with extinction worldwide. On May 22, the International Day of Biodiversity, it is important to recall the silent victims of our country's obsession for industrial growth at the expense of our forests.
Tropical rainforests are estimated to harbor more than half of the world's plant and animal species. They are also essential for access to water, regulating temperature and preventing soil erosion. It's time to return the forests to indigenous and local communities.
In our country, Cameroon, the conservation of biodiversity, global climate goals and human rights of indigenous and local communities are all put at stake for industrial exploitation of the rainforest, driven by short-sighted thinking. Biodiversity hotspots are put at risk by industrial logging and agriculture, as trees are cut for the tropical timber market and entire forests cleared to make room for oil palm and rubber plantations. The government tries to assure conservationists that some space will be reserved for the wildlife in the forest it trashes, but even protected areas are not truly safe.
Companies, usually foreign-owned, are rapidly destroying rainforests that have existed for years. Local communities are left poorer after their traditional source of livelihood is desecrated. The only ones getting rich are a small group of beneficiaries that are close to the circles of power.
Some low-income countries that are rich in forests are resorting to quick solutions like logging and industrial agriculture. But industrial logging concessions and rubber and palm oil plantations are never the job-creating mechanism they promise to be. That has been demonstrated over and over again in forest countries around the world.
For example, the Dja Faunal Reserve , a UNESCO world heritage site in the South of Cameroon, is home to more than 100 species of mammals, including at least 14 primates, such as the endangered western lowland gorilla, chimpanzee, and white-collared mangabey, as well as species such as the endangered forest elephant, and the African grey parrot, bongo antelope and leopard.
The Dja Faunal Reserve is adjacent to the Sudcam rubber plantation, mainly owned by rubber giant Halcyon Agri. Sudcam has cleared more than 10,000 hectares (approximately 25,000 acres) of dense tropical rainforest in the South region of Cameroon – an equivalent of 10 football pitches a day – to make way for a rubber plantation between 2011 and 2018. The rubber plantation has rattled the lives of several indigenous communities, namely the Baka, but it has also aggravated the lives of those numerous protected species in the Dja Reserve.
To indigenous and local forest dependent communities, the rainforest serves as a source of nutritious foods and traditional medicine, much of which science has yet to explore. The forest is also the foundation of their social life, from recreational to ritual practices. Furthermore, biodiversity loss itself is a direct and immediate threat to the livelihood of indigenous peoples like the Baka next to the Sudcam plantation.
Upon the arrival of rubber company Sudcam, the indigenous community has lost access to its forest and specifically to the animals and plants they rely on. As Sudcam gets richer, it leaves entire communities in impoverishment, abjectness and destitution.
That is the fate which the chiefs of the Banen people of the Littoral region in Cameroon are trying to avoid in their current struggle against the destruction of large parts of the Ebo forest.
The Ebo Forest is a biodiversity hotspot, one of the intact forest ecosystems in the Gulf of Guinea, stretching over 2000 square kilometers (approximately 772 square miles). Ebo Forest is home to an amazing range of wildlife, including forest elephants, gorillas, drills, chimpanzees, grey parrots and the goliath frog – the largest living frog on the planet. Accordingly, it was designated over a decade ago by the Cameroon Government as a National Park.
However, on February 4, the same government of Cameroon authorized two logging concessions ( UFA07005 and UFA07006 ) inside the area of Ebo Forest. The planned concessions are enormous – about the size of London. Again, the government of Cameroon wants to convince us that conservation can be done with chainsaws.
Biodiversity loss doesn't only mean our children would get to see some of the world's most marvelous creatures only in documentary films. The consequences are far greater and more tangible.
The extinction of forest elephants, for example, small relatives of African Savanna elephants, might also reduce the number of large trees that they support, trees that excel at storing carbon. In the Congo Basin forest, the disappearance of forest elephants might mean a loss of about three billion tons of carbon – equivalent to France's CO2 emissions over more than 25 years, according to a New York Times article on recent research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Cameroon's government has made public commitments to preserve and protect biodiversity. Positive declarations and ambitious plans may win applause and some international funding, but all eyes should be on implementation. Field investigations by Greenpeace Africa and others clearly show how far we are from protecting biodiversity.
In Cameroon's government, as well as in the meeting rooms and corridors of development agencies, decision makers often hold outdated views. Too often we hear that only through rapid and massive removal of the rainforest in favor of large-scale logging and industrial agriculture plantations can the country emerge out of poverty.
Yet that model has repeatedly failed the people, as short-term high profits always remained accessible only to a small circle of beneficiaries. On the contrary, local communities who have lived in harmony with nature for many generations are likely to face poverty, abuse, hunger and alcoholism wherever forests are suddenly destroyed. It is becoming increasingly clear that the best solution for both human rights and the planet is for forests to be managed by local communities. They do so much better than the industrial loggers or plantation owners.
The Cameroonian government needs to realize that trashing forests is not the way to make the economy grow. Rapid and intensive exploitation of nature has more far-reaching consequences than short-term economic growth. To prevent the extinction of fauna and flora species, indigenous communities that live among them need the rights to manage their forest.
Standing for biodiversity means communities should get the rights to manage their forests, instead of the corporations that destroy them.
Lamfu Fabrice Yengong is a Congo Basin researcher.
Sylvie Djacbou Deugoue is a forest campaigner for Greenpeace Africa.
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