How Wolves Change Rivers

Keystone species are fascinating and show how we really need more systemic thinking. The one that tons of people have seen is how reintroducing wolves into Yellowstone changed the course of rivers, made them less eroding, and generally increased ecosystem diversity: ▶ this video Beavers are another one: [link] Remember how we learned a lot of westward expansion in US colonial days was led by mountainmen trapping beavers to use their pelts in fancy european hats and we kept going further west because we kept killing off the beavers while demand for fancy hats kept going up? Turns out when you remove all those beaver ponds that would slow down water flow, you end up with a lot more erosion, incision, and flooding -- the landscape we have now. Fisherman think beaver ponds decrease fish populations because they tend to have warmer water, but this doesn't quite pass the thousands-years-of-coevolution-before-beaver-extermination sniff test... some experiments have showed that beaver ponds actually increase fish stock because they create lots of fish nurseries, and trout and salmon can instinctively swim up through beaver dams. Then when you consider how things like aquaponics incorporate fish because fish poop makes great fertilizer, it starts to become clear how important beaver ponds can be to nutrient cycling in these ecosystems. One of the most fascinating fish-based nutrient flows is salmon migrations... they're hatched upstream, put on most of their growth and biomass in the ocean

in “Moths have 'secret role' as crucial pollinators” · View on HN

It defies logic but case in point: the re-introduction of wolves actually changed rivers in Yellowstone: ▶ this video . Not claiming this proposal will have the same impact, or even a positive one.

in “28,000-year-old mammoth cells have shown reactivity in mouse egg cells” · View on HN

The obsession I'm mentioning is based one's worldview & presuppositions...How we reify & approach the problems determine the solutions. Appeal to authority will ensure policies that enrich the authority, with the associated conflicts of interest, confirmation bias, & transfer of power from the population to the authority. Remember, that plant growth is promoted with Carbon Dioxide. A principle of Permaculture is turning the problem into the solution. Elevated CO2 is plant food, if we properly take advantage of the opportunity. Here's an anology re: agriculture. Conventional monoculture petro-chemical till agriculture optimizes for yield & only yield. Unfortunately, there are pests, molds, blight, disease, weather issues, drought, soil conditions that reduce yield. In response, pesticides, herbicides, GMOs, mass irrigation (disrupting watersheds), petro-chemical fertilizers are all sold to the farmer. This leads to soil erosion, destruction of ecosystems, pollution, & lower quality (less nutrition) food. Instead, one can practice regenerative agriculture, that optimizes the ecosystem & soil remediation. Earthworks, such as swales, terraces, & ponds are used to capture rainfall & cycle the water through the property for as long as possible. Polycultures of plants that compliment each other are planted together. Animals are allowed to graze, which brings in fertilizer. Predatory insects & birds are introduced into the habitat to control pests & molds. And you get a higher overal

in “Climate Concerns Are Pushing Oil Majors to Look Beyond Fossil Fuels” · View on HN

There's a really interesting article about how Yellowstone (a national park in the US) reintroduced wolves into the ecosystem, reducing the dear population, altering the ecosystem for the better: [link] ▶ this video

in “Iceland's attempts to replant its forests” · View on HN

Somewhat relevant video[1]. The introduction of wolves changed the entire landscape by pushing the deers out of the some areas. [1]: ▶ this video

in “Iceland's attempts to replant its forests” · View on HN

"The moths evolved to become dark in order to match the background of these trees." "Those guppies evolved to be very colorful, over the course of just two years." "Over ten years they evolved significantly shorter legs." Remember, the variation already existed. There were already white and dark months in the population and natural selection caused increase or decrease in the ratios. The black moth did not evolve into white. The variation for short and long legs already existed. Short legs probably increased reproductive fitness in once case and not the other. Causing the number of individuals with certain trait to increase or decrease. My professor has repeated this the entire semester and she wants us to never forget that mutation is the only source of variation. If the variation is not already present, natural selection cannot trigger it. This is how some species go extinct. Natural selection is one source of evolution. Also, distinction between micro vs macro evolution is important here. [0] "But there's no reason to believe this. Why shouldn't they be adapting to our conditions just like any other evolutionary situation?" Because natural selection doesn't cause variation. Mutation is the only source of variation. Variation must already exist in a population for natural selection to work on it. "What she found was that in each case they had changed. The lizards in the city had evolved longer legs—presumably useful for hanging onto broad surfaces, like walls—and they had e

in “Urban Evolution: How Species Adapt, or Don't, to City Living” · View on HN

Well, I would rather call it organization rather than just care. While the highest level of animal organization is called eusociality, humans are not hardwired to be eusocial but can display very advanced division of labor. Now, I would not really say advantage or disadvantage. Each species have a specific role in the ecosystem and sometimes they're related in very unexpected ways. ▶ this video

in “Forget Survival of the Fittest: It Is Kindness That Counts (2009)” · View on HN

Rabbits have completely transformed the Australian continent, one so dramatic you can see the effects from space. ( [link] ) Cane toads have a smaller but measurable effect since they utterly ruin entire ecosystems. If you think it's impossible for a single organism to have an effect on climate you're mistaken. Wolves, once reintroduced to Yellowstone, have changed the entire park, altering water flow on a massive scale: ▶ this video

in “Can Anyone Stop the Man Who Will Try Just About Anything to Stop Climate Change?” · View on HN

This solution would have negative disruptive impacts. Harvesting fog would effect dependent microclimates & ecosystems, by taking water out of the air. This also has an affect of causing a greater concentration of the water to be held by big institutions (corporations & government). This creates a social power imbalance, concentrates the economy to global institutions, & reduces autonomy of the people who live on the land. Plundering & profiteering off the commons & reducing autonomy in the guise of humanitarian efforts. --- re: better solutions, after all harvesting fog is a "solution". Regenerate the ecosystems. Encourage small scale regenerative agriculture, that utilizes native plants in polycultures to restore ecosystems and stimulate local health, novelty, & economy. Restoring local ecosystems has a positive effect on the local watershed. Reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone caused the river to flow again & had positive fundamental impacts on the local ecosystem. ▶ this video

in “Could Harvesting Fog Help Solve the World’s Water Crisis?” · View on HN

Loss of species diversity, 50 million years of evolution, and potentially profound impacts on ecosystems. Look for the story in the past year or so about dramatic impacts of reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone. How Wolves Change Rivers: ▶ this video [link] Destroy a species and it's gone forever. Moreover, if you're looking to eliminate suffering, it's humans and their rampant overconsumption which are driving that. Not the elephant.

in “Elephants Shot with Poison Arrows Travel to Humans for Help” · View on HN

>In what way? Because we are all completely dependent on ecosystem services provided by those species, such as erosion control (without which your country erodes away to desert), rainwater buffering (without which you experience catastrophic flooding), and transpiration (without which you lose almost all inland rainfall[1]). Loss of individual species is just the symptom. The real problem—and what this article discusses—is wholesale destruction of wilderness. Don't imagine that just a handful of species can provide these services either. Since ecosystems are complex adaptive systems, a particular species' role is almost always subtle and interconnected. See: the services provided by wolves in Yellowstone, which were never fully understood until they were removed and then re-introduced[2]. So why is wilderness important? Fundamentally, wilderness is arranged (and so, it functions) in completely different ways than human-tended landscapes. Now it's obvious that a suburb is different from a forest, but what's less obvious is that the way wilderness works is much more efficient . It's not dependent on a constant stream of material extracted from "somewhere else", but on average it produces far more economic value when ecosystem services are accurately accounted for. Surprise, surprise: economics seems to suggest that those living on a spaceship shouldn't take a sledgehammer to the life support system… (of course, the ultimate trick would be to design human landscapes that also fu

in “Can the World Really Set Aside Half of the Planet for Wildlife?” · View on HN