Transcript

4.30.26 · Science Show KY

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Radio Wized Diary of Science and Nature. Your
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reader's Kelly Taylor. I'll have articles related to science and nature,
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but first a reminder that RADIOI is a reading service
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intended for people who are blind or have other disabilities
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that make it difficult to read printed material. We'll start
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off today with an article from fox Weather and the
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headline is pets two pests. Goldfish found to be harmful
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to natural freshwater ecosystems. This is April twenty ninth. One
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of the most common starter pets for families, the goldfish
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may not be so harmless when released into the wild.
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Goldfish are widely distributed across the world, with an estimated
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seven million sold each year. A new study done by
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researchers at the University of Toledo and University of Missouri
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offers some of the first rigorous experimental lefts evidence that
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suggests goldfish can drastically change freshwater ecosystems when they are
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released or escape into the wild. The study, published in
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the Journal of Animal Ecology on Tuesday, used a large scale,
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outdoor controlled model ecosystem to simulate realistic late conditions and
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track the effects of goldfish introductions across different ecosystem types.
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Goldfish were introduced into nutrient poor and nutrient rich waters
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and monitored over time to see the ecological consequences. Some
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of the results showed that the presence of goldfish through
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direct consumption and destruction of habitat led to a significant
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reduction in snails, amphipods, and zooplankton, small invertebrates that are
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the basis of healthy aquatic food webs. In nutrient rich environments,
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it was found that goldfish triggered a rapid deterioration of
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water clarity and strong increase in suspended solids, signaling a
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primary shift in the ecosystem state. The university said native
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fish also suffered because of goldfish having been out competed
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for food and resources, reducing the body condition of native
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fish species. Quote. If goldfish are released into the while,
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they rapidly grow into very large fish that stir up
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lake sediments, consume large numbers of prey, and compete with
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native fish, says Rick Riley, co author of this study
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and professor at the University of Missouri College of Agriculture,
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Food and Natural Resources. The study found that no lake
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type is safe from goldfish impacts, proving harmful in both
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the nutrient rich and nutrient poor waters. Quote, no freshwater
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ecosystem appears immune, the university said. The study noted that
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a regime shift, the scientific term used when an ecosystem
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crosses a threshold and rapidly reorganizes into a different, often
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degraded state, was documented in the goldfish invaded ecosystems. The
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university said regime shifts are very difficult and expensive to reverse.
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The study called for pet owners to never release their
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pet goldfish into the wild. Quote. For pet owners with
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unwanted goldfish, humane alternatives to release include returning fish to
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the pet store, rehoming them with other aquarium enthusiasts, or
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contacting local wildlife authorities for guidance. The university said. It
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also calls for natural resource managers to treat goldfish as
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an invasive species and implement prevention, early detection, and control
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strategies before goldfish populations become established in freshwater ecosystems. Quote.
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It is critically important to inform the public that their
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pets can become pests that will harm freshwater ecosystems. The
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evidence is now clear reducing a goldfish into the wild
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might be seen as an act of kindness, but it
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can turn into a major ecological threat, says the study's
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lead investigator, doctor William Hintz. And now we have an
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article from BBC News global forest loss sloths, but El
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Nino fires could threaten progress. The loss of tropical rainforests
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slowed last year, new satellite data suggests largely due to
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Brazil's efforts to curb deforestation in the Amazon. Researchers estimate
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that nearly forty three thousand square kilometers of old growth
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tropical forests were lost in twenty twenty five, about the
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size of Denmark. While it is about a third lower
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than record losses in twenty twenty four, scientists warned that
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tropical forests, along with or among the Earth's most important ecosystems,
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are still disappearing much faster than a decade ago. There
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is also concern that a two pronged attack from climate
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change and the arrival of the warming Al Nino weather
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pattern later this year could increase the likelihood and severity
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of forest fires. The latest figures show that the loss
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of tropical forests fell by thirty six percent in January
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twenty twenty five, according to analysis from the World Resources
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Institute and the University of Maryland. The data comes with
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a degree of uncertainty, however, as losses towards the end
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of one year might only be detected by satellites at
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the beginning of the next, but scientists are confident about
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the overall trend. The decline last year partly reflects an
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easing of the unprecedented fires of twenty twenty four, helped
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by cooler La Nina conditions instead of the warmer El Nino,
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but researchers also to greater efforts to protect forests in
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countries such as Brazil, Columbia and Malaysia. Quote. It's incredibly
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encouraging to see the decline in twenty twenty five, said
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Elizabeth Goldman, co director of Global forest Watch at the
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World Resources Institute. Quote. It highlights how when we have
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political will and the leaders in charge who want to
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do something for forests, we can see real results in
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the data. Quote. In Brazil, home to the world's largest rainforest,
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researchers highlight the effects of stronger environmental policies and law
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enforcement in helping to slow deforestation, excluding losses driven by
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fires and estimated five seven hundred square kilometers of old
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growth tropical forests disappeared in Brazil last year, the lowest
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figure since the analysis began in two thousand and two.
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Tropical rainforests are home to millions of species, and in
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a healthy state, they take up vast quantities of planet
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warming carbon dioxide, helping to keep the Earth cool. They
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have come under increasing pressure, however, as a result of
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decades of deliberate land clearance for agriculture and logging, as
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well as climate change, which scientists warm can create the
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conditions for bigger fires to spread. World leaders pledged to
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halt and reverse forest loss by twenty thirty at the
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COP twenty six Climate summit in Glasgow in twenty twenty one,
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but progress toward that pledge remains way off track. In
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twenty twenty four, tropical forests disappeared faster than ever before,
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driven by fires amplified by human cause, climate change and
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the Alninio weather pattern. Quote. Forests are well equipped to
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cope with normal climate, said Rod Taylor, global director for
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Forest and Nature Conservation at the World Resources Institute. With
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these new intense fires and droughts and so on, we
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really have to think about how to make forests more
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resilient and proof them against climate and fire. He added,
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researchers are concerned the threat from fires could be even
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higher later this year due to a combination of climate
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change and a new phase of al Nino, although predictions
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are still uncertain. Quote climate change and land clearing have
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shortened the fuse on global forest fires, says Professor Matthew
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Hanson of the University of Maryland. Without urgent action to
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manage fire more effectively, we risk pushing the world's most
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important forests past recovery. In a separate report released on Wednesday,
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the EU's Copernicus Climate Service laid out how climate change
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had helped to drive intense heat waves, wildfires, and droughts
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in large parts of Europe last year. Already the world's
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fastest warming continent, few places escaped the heat, with at
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least ninety five percent of Europe experiencing above average annual temperatures.
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The warmth helped to create conditions for widespread wildfires, with
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more than ten thousand square meters burning in total, a
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bigger area than Cyprus. There was no need or there
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was no escape for Europe's traditionally cold regions either, with
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alpine glaciers continuing to lose ice and temperatures in the
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Arctic Circle reaching thirty degrees celsius in July. The average
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surface temperature of Europe's seas was also the highest on record,
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with the Mediterranean Sea particularly badly hit. The report did
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point to progress on efforts to tackle climate change, with
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nearly half of Europe's electricity now coming from wind, solar,
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and hydropower. Now we'll turn to Inside Climate News for
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an article from March twenty six that is headlined Scientists
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discover a new branch of life in the deep sea.
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Beneath the neon lights of a laser scanning microscope, newly
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classified species glow in vivid greens and oranges, a far
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cry from the pitch black abyss of their natural ocean floor.
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Researchers have identified twenty four new deep sea creatures and
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a whole new evolutionary branch in the Clarion Clipperton Zone
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the CCZ for short, a wide swath of ocean between
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Hawaii and Mexico. The finding's surface as the Trump administration,
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via a January mandate from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,
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has fast tract permits for deep sea mining in that zone.
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One of the planet's richest rare earth metal regions. The
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identification of a new branch of life underscores the stakes
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of an international regulatory vacuum mining might be allowed to
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occur before scientists even have the chance to name species
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that call the seabed home. Tammy Horton, co author and
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researcher at the National Oceanography Center in Southampton, explain the
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significance of a new evolutionary branch this way. If you
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imagine that on planet Earth, we know about carnivorous mammals,
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we know that bears exist, we know that families of
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cats exist. It would be like finding dogs. The superfamily
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of amphipods that researchers describe dwell thirteen thousand feet down
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compared to their shallow water relatives, like common sand fleas
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tucked under seaweed on beaches. These deep sea species have
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evolved in darkness for millions of years. The shrimp like
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creatures with a unique conical mouth mostly measure around one centimeter. Quote.
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It was and still is the most exciting thing I've
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had in my career, said Horton, highlighting how discovering new
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species in the deep sea is relatively common, but only
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very rarely a new superfamily quote. It just shows you
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how little we know about what's in the deep seat.
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The breakthrough was the result of immense scientific collaboration. Horton
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and co author Anna Jedyuska each individually worked on their
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collections before realizing they'd reached the same conclusions. Merging data
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sets and bringing together a team of more than a
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dozen experts accelerated the often years long taxonomic process into
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a single week's workshop. Researchers immortalized their findings by naming
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them bibliss. Hortone and Bibliss Sid's jazz Usek took inspiration
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from Horton and jazz Uska, respectively. Horton bestowed her daughter's
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name on a new superfamily. The name serve a deeper
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purpose then mere tribute. Naming species affords them a passport
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for living, said Jajusca, professor at the University of Loats.
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It allows people and policymakers to think about a species
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like the living entity that it is a quote. Until
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they are properly named for science in this official way,
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they are not communicable about, said Horton. It absolutely gives
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them a passport to be discussed, to be talked about
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to be conserved. However, with over ninety percent of species
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in the CCZ still unnamed, it will likely be difficult
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for policymakers to know the true impacts of proposed deep
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sea mining projects on fauna. Spanning one point seven million
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square miles of the eastern Pacific seabed, The CCZ teams
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with significant stores of manganese nodules. These potato sized deposits
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contain high concentrations of battery grade metals such as nickel, cobalt,
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and copper. In January, Noah finalized changes to the deep
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Sea Hard Mineral Resources Act that fast tracked deep sea
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mining projects by allowing companies to apply for a commercial
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recovery permit at the same time as an exploration license. Previously,
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companies were required to undertake extensive scientific research prior to
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receiving an extraction permit quote. This consolidation modernizes the law
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and supports the America First Agenda, said Neil Jacobs, noah's administrator.
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Earlier this month, Noah accepted for review and application from
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the Metals Company to target over twenty five thousand square
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miles of the same zone where the new species live.
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Mining exacts an environmental cost Just two months after commercial
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machinery plowed the ccz's silty seabed. In large scale tests
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in twenty twenty two, species abundance dropped thirty seven percent
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and biodiversity fell by almost a third, according to settlement
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sediment analysis. Horton and Jajuska plan to keep uncovering the
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wonders of the deep sea as part of the International
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Seabed Authority's Sustainable Seabed Knowledge Initiative to identify one thousand
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new species by the end of the decade. Indeed, while
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the description of two dozen new species and the description
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and the discovery of a new superfamily is a monumental leap,
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researchers know much further identification work lies ahead. Understanding how
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the animals live, how they reproduce, and what they feed
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on is completely unknown beyond basic inference. Quote, we've just
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done twenty four and that is a drop in the ocean,
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literally of how many more we have to describe, said Horton.
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And now to BBC Science Folks Magazine for a headline
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that reads, A devastating fungal invasion is now sweeping the
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US and it may be too late to stop it.
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The Golden oyster mushroom is beautiful, delicious, and, if ecologists
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are rite, one of the more insidious biological invasions currently
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unfolding in North American forests. No one knows exactly when
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it arrived or how sometime around twenty ten. Best guesses
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suggest it began sprouting from dead wood in the forests
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of the northeastern US. Then it started spreading. Quote. There
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are areas now where it is almost the only mushroom
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you see in the woods, says Michele Guicino, Assistant Professor
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of Forest Pathology at the University of Florida. It is striking,
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beautiful and horrifying everywhere goes this fungus is pushing out
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native species and permanently altering ecosystems. Today it's in more
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than half of US states, with no signs of slowing down.
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The golden oyster mushroom began its life in the forests
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of eastern Russia, northern China, and Japan, where it has
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been a popular staple of local cuisine for centuries. They
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were introduced to the US in the early two thousands
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as the culinary market for exotic mushrooms began to boom.
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Home mushroom growing kits sold online and in garden centers
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made golden oysters accessible to anyone. The kits were cheap, simple,
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and wildly popular. But somewhere along the line, nobody knows
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exactly where the mushroom got out. Quote. The potential source
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of it could be anywhere, says Aishiwara Vira Buhu, a
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PhD research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Quote. Mushroom
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farms have a constant outgoing airflow, releasing millions and billions
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of spores every minute. Consumers composting used grow kits in
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their gardens may have done the rest. It's truly a
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two pronged point of origin either way. By the early
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twenty tens, it was loose in the wild and it
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had no intention of stopping via. Bahu's study, published in
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Current Biology, offers the clearest picture yet of the damage
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being done. The team drilled into dead elm trees in
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forests around Madison, Wisconsin, extracting wood samples and analyzing the
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DNA of every fungus living inside. Some trees hosted golden
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oyster mushrooms, some did not. Trees of golden oyster mushrooms
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housed only half as many fungal species as those without.
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In some cases, even fewer native species, including the mossy
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maize polypore and the elm oyster mushroom, were being pushed
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out entirely. Why does this matter? Fungi are not incidental
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to forest life, but foundational to it. They break down
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dead wood, cycle nutrients back into the soil, and form
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symbiotic networks with plant life. Such loss of diversity could
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have consequences for humans too. For example, fungi or a
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common source of life saving medicines, including penicillin. Quote. If
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you have a fungus like this pushing out the native
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biodiversity and potentially causing local extinctions, what does that mean
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for a medicine that could have been in one of
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those fungi that we don't get anymore in quote says Verabavu.
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And there are deeper structural concerns for the ecosystem golden
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oyster mushrooms or white rot fungi, meaning they break down
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wood differently to many native species. Juicino warns that a
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large scale shift in rot type could alter how carbon
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moves through forest ecosystems, potentially pushing more of it into
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the atmosphere. Global carbon cycles are pretty important, she adds. Officially,
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the mushroom has been confirmed in at least twenty five
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US states and two Canadian provinces, although Verabahu says the
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real number is likely a bit higher. Now. Beyond the US,
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it has been spotted in the wild in the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Austria,
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Hungary and Italy. With climate change opening new habitats, the
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range is only expected to grow. Quote. I am watching
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it much further and further south in the United States now,
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Gusino says, and thinking how far is it going to go?
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The most troubling aspect of this invasion is perhaps that
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there is no way to reverse it. Fungi don't exist
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merely as mushrooms. The mushroom is only the visible fruiting
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body beneath which lies a vast network of mycelium threading
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through forest, wood and soil. You can remove what you see,
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but the rest of the organism remains intact. Quote. When
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an invasive fungus gets out into the environment, there is
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no getting it out. The only measures you can take
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are preventative, says Zra Bahu. Some producers have already acted
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and have stopped selling golden oyster products, but the broader
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industry has been slower to respond, and researchers are already
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worried about what fungus species may come next. Quote. We're
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really trying to shift and focus on what can be
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done not just for golden oyster mushrooms, but for other
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cultivated Fungijusino says, it is a massive movement right now.
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Fungi are having this moment, which is exciting, but we
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also need some boundaries. Quote. The longer term hope, according
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to Vera Bajhu, may lie in developing sporeless strains it
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can't escape, and in establishing clear guidelines for growers and
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consumers alike. In the meantime, citizen science is playing a
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critical role. Much of what researchers know about the moment
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ushrooms range comes from observations point posted to High Naturalist,
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a free website and app where users log wildlife sightings
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with photographs and location data. Quote it is actually the
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most useful thing they could do. Vera Bayo, who says,
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if you're walking in woodland and spot of vivid yellow
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cluster erupting from a dead log, take a photograph, note
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the location and post it. And if you're confident in
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your identification, you can do one more thing. Eat it.
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Vera Baya who steal forages golden oysters herself quote I
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chop them up pretty fine, dry, saute them to pull
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the water out, and then add some oil and garlic
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and put them in tacos. I think it is the
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best way to eat them. In quote Now an article
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from Popular Science, scientists sacrifice delicious possums to fight Florida's
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invasive pythons. Florida's possums may soon start dying for a
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noble cause. A few select marsupials fitted with tracking callers
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may begin to lead scientists to invasive Burmese pythons slithering
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through the everglades. More specifically, researchers will home in on
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signals coming from inside the enormous snake's stomachs. Florida's decades
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long python problem remains one of the toughest ecological challenges
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facing wildlife conservationists in the United States. Despite expert's best
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attempts to highlight their nutritional value and even hunt them
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using robotic rabbits, the snakes have continued to decimate native
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animal populations since they were introduced into the Everglades during
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the nineteen seventies. Curtailing Florida's unwanted apex predators is much
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easier said than done. Burmese pythons can grow upwards of
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twenty feet long, and unlike humans, they are the species
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that is specifically evolved to thrive in subtropical wetlands. Local possums,
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on the other hand, don't have any problem trap seeing
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through the marshy terrain the way we do. In twenty
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twenty two, North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences wildlife biologists A. J.
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Sanjar and Michael Cove traveled to Florida to survey the
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habits of possums. After fitting them with tracking callers, it
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didn't take long before they ran into a problem. Local
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pythons kept eating their study participants each felled. A possum
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wasn't only a lost source of information, it was expensive too.
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At the time, each tracking caller costs about fifteen hundred dollars.
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While the issue was annoying, it also prompted an interesting discussion.
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The pythons that ate the possums were all euthanized as
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part of Florida's conservation efforts. What if researchers intentionally deployed
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possums with much cheaper tracking. Callers then used them as
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bait for thinning the python's numbers. After a few years
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of tinkering with the plan and securing additional funding including
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one hundred ninety to one hundred and ninety dollars collars,
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Sanjar and Cover planning to use Crocodile Lake National Wildlife
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Refuge in Key Largo for their new possum versus Python experiment.
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According to the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the researchers aim
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to enlist at least forty possums by later this summer.
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Given simple math and the area's food chain, it's a
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near certainty that some of the furry allies will meet
25:34
their end in the tightening coils of an invasive python. However,
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instead of literally feeding the ongoing problem, their demise will
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help conservationists continue their work restoring a semblance of balance
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to the native ecosystem. Quote we're not putting these animals
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out there and in harm's way Crocodile Lake National, while
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a refuge manager, Jeremy Dixon says harm's way is there.
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We're just documenting what's happening. And now an article from
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new scientists dated April twenty seventh, ten thousand new planets
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found hidden in NASA telescope data. Astronomers have identified more
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than ten thousand candidate planets in data from a NASA telescope,
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the most ever found in a single hall. NASA's Transiting
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Exoplanet Survey satellite TESS was launched in twenty eighteen. It
26:36
is tasked with looking at stars across the sky for
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planets in orbit, known as exoplanets. It identifies these exoplanets
26:45
by looking for brief dips in the brightness of the
26:48
light reaching Earth from each star, a sign that an
26:52
exoplanet orbiting the star has passed in front of it.
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So far, the telescope has found more than seven hundred
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fifty confirmed exoplanets, but it has thousands more candidates awaiting confirmation.
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There are other telescopes that have found exoplanets, and the
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total number of exoplanets confirmed by all telescopes now stands
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at more than six thousand. Joshua Roth at Princeton University
27:19
and his colleagues have now announced a much bigger number
27:22
of possible planets by reanalyzing the first year of TESS
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data by combining images taken by the telescope. The researchers
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were able to look for planets around stars that are
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less bright due to their smaller size or greater distance
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from Earth than was previously possible. This revealed eleven thousand,
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five hundred and fifty four candidate exoplanets, of which ten thousand,
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ninety one have not been identified in previous exoplanet searches. Quote.
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There have been predictions that there were thousands of planets
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still lurking in the test data, says Roth. It just
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hadn't been searched yet. Well that's all for today's Diary
28:08
of Science and Nature. Your reader was Kelly Taylor. Thanks
28:11
for listening, and now stay tuned for further programming on
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