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Divers Find New Species in Aleutians

There are unknown creatures lurking under the windswept islands of the Aleutians, according to a team of scientific divers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

This summer, while completing the second phase of a two-year broad scientific survey of the waters around the Aleutian Islands, scientists have discovered what may be three new marine organisms. This year's dives surveyed the western region of the Aleutians, from Attu to Amlia Island, while last year's assessment covered the eastern region.

During the dives, two potentially new species of sea anemones have been discovered. Stephen Jewett, a professor of marine biology and the dive leader on the expedition, says that these are "walking" or "swimming" anemones because they move across the seafloor as they feed. While most sea anemones are anchored to the seabed, a "swimming" anemone can detach and drift with ocean currents. The size of these anemones ranges from the size of a softball to the size of a basketball.

Another new species is a kelp or brown algae that scientists have named the "Golden V Kelp" or Aureophycus aleuticus. According to Mandy Lindeberg, an algae expert with NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service and a member of the expedition, the kelp may represent a new genus, or even family, of the seaweed. Up to ten feet long, the kelp was discovered near thermal vents in the region of the Islands of the Four Mountains.

"Since the underwater world of the Aleutian Islands has been studied so little, new species are being discovered, even today," said Jewett. He adds that even more new species may be revealed as samples collected during the dives continue to be analyzed.

The organisms were found while surveying more than 1000 miles of rarely-explored coastline, from Attu to the Tigalda Islands. Logging more than 300 hours underwater, the divers collected hundreds of water, biological and chemical samples during 440 dives. Armed with underwater cameras and video cameras, the divers took hundreds of photographs and dozens of short movies of the creatures that inhabit the coast of the Aleutians.

According to Jewett, the scientists are reasonably sure that the kelp is a new species, but more work is being done to confirm that the sea anemone species are completely new to science. Correspondence with anemone experts has so far shown the anemones to be new species, but the analysis is ongoing.

During both years, the chief scientist on the project was Douglas Dasher, a water quality expert from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The scientific team operated from the R/V NORSEMAN, a 108-foot vessel originally designed for crab fishing in the Bering Sea.

The dives were part of a broad health assessment of the Aleutian Islands and were sponsored by the Alaska Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program, also referred to as AKMAP. The program is funded by the Environmental Protection Agency and managed through a joint agreement between the ADEC and UAF.

Samples from the dives are being used to catalog biodiversity in the region, assess water quality and potential contaminants. According to Jewett, this is the first time the remote nearshore region of the Aleutian Chain has undergone an in-depth marine assessment.

Not immune from human impacts

The rugged and remote islands of the Aleutians are not immune to the reach of human activity, say scientists leading the expedition.

"Pollutants traveling through air and water pathways from temperate latitudes have been showing up in the area," says Jewett. "Debris and spills from World War II in the Aleutians have left their mark behind in unexploded ordinance and local sources of pollutants."

Scientists on the project are using water and tissue samples collected during the dives to gauge the impacts of human activity in the area. Samples are being tested for nutrient and oxygen levels in the water, acidity, temperature and radioactive chemicals left over from the underwater nuclear tests conducted at Amchitka Island between 1965 and 1971.

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New Animal, Plant Species Found in Vietnam

World Wildlife Fund scientists said today that the discovery of 11 new animal and plant species in a remote area in central Vietnam underscores the importance of conservation efforts in the ancient tropical forests of the region.

Within the ancient tropical forests of a region known as Vietnam’s “Green Corridor,” scientists found a snake, five orchids, and two butterflies as well as three other plants new to science and exclusive to the Annamites Mountain Range. Ten other plant species, including four orchids, are still under examination but also appear to be new species.

“Discoveries of so many new species are rare and occur only in very special places like the Green Corridor,” says Chris Dickinson, WWF’s chief conservation scientist in the Green Corridor. “Several large mammal species were discovered in the 1990s in the same forests so these latest discoveries may be just the tip of the iceberg.”

The rainforests of the Central Annamites likely existed as continuous undisturbed forest cover for thousands of years, and, as a result, offer unique habitats for many species, said WWF experts.

The new snake species, called the white-lipped keelback, prefers living by streams where it catches frogs and other small animals. With a beautiful yellow-white stripe sweeping along its head and red dots covering its body, the white-lipped keelback can reach 31 inches—almost a yard in length.

Three of the new orchid species are entirely leafless, a rarity even among orchids. Containing none of the chlorophyll or green pigment commonly found in plants, these orchids live on decaying matter like many fungal species. The other new plants include an aspidistra which produces a nearly black flower and a newly-discovered species of arum with beautiful yellow flowers. Arum plants have funnel-shaped leaves surrounding the flowers.

The two new butterfly species are among eight discovered in the province since 1996. One is a skipper – a butterfly with quick, darting flight habits—from the genus Zela and the other is a new genus in the subfamily of Satyrinae.

According to WWF experts, all of these species are at risk from illegal logging, hunting, unsustainable extraction of natural resources and conflicting development interests. However, local authorities – in particular the Thua Thien Hue Provincial Forest Protection Department – have committed to conserve and sustainably manage these valuable forests.

“The area is extremely important for conservation and the province wants to protect the forests and their environmental services, as well as contribute to sustainable development,” says Hoang Ngoc Khanh, director of Thua Thien Hue Provincial Forest Protection Department.

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Uganda's Mountain Gorillas Increase in Number

The most recent census of mountain gorillas in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park—one of only two places in the world where the rare gorillas exist—has found that the population has increased by 6 percent since the last census in 2002, according to the Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Max Planck Institute of Anthropology and other groups that participated in the effort.

“This is great news for all of the organizations that have worked to protect Bwindi and its gorilla population,” says Wildlife Conservation Society researcher Alastair McNeilage, who is also the director of the Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation in Bwindi. “There are very few cases in this world where a small population of a endangered primates is actually increasing.”

According to the census, which also successfully used for the first time genetic samples from fecal specimens, Bwindi’s gorilla population now numbers 340 individual gorillas, up from 320 in 2002, and 300 in 1997.

The census was conducted between April and June 2006 to determine the size and makeup of the Bwindi population, in addition to their distribution and to gauge human impacts on the gorillas. During that time, survey teams set out with the intention of counting every family group in the population, a method possible only with small animal populations in a relatively small area; Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is approximately 127 square miles in size.

In addition to census methodologies such as counting trails and nests (gorillas construct a nest each night), researchers used genetic analyses as well, specifically because many of the groups were clustered in the same area of the park, which presented survey teams with the risk of double-counting the same individuals or groups. DNA analysis, however, allowed individuals to be identified and distinguished, even among groups which have never been seen by people.

Fecal specimens were analyzed at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Researchers were encouraged by the overall growth of the population, showing an annual increase of one percent over the past decade. The age composition of the population shows a healthy distribution of adult and immature classes, including infants and juveniles. Other findings are that gorillas are not using the eastern side of the park, a possible result of human disturbances there. Particularly encouraging, however, is that one group of gorillas are starting to use the northern sector of the park for the first time in living memory.

Bwindi is also home to a thriving gorilla ecotourism program, which generates much needed foreign revenue for Uganda annually by bringing paying travelers into the company of mountain gorillas. Four of the 30 family groups are habituated for tourism, or conditioned to tolerate the presence of humans for short durations.


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Atlantic Ecosystems Experiencing Large Climate-Related Changes

Ecosystems along the continental shelf waters of the Northwest Atlantic Ocean--from the Labrador Sea south of Greenland all the way to North Carolina--are experiencing large, rapid changes, report oceanographers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the Feb. 23, 2007, issue of the journal Science.

While some scientists have pointed to the decline of cod from overfishing as the main reason for the shifting ecosystems, the paper emphasizes that climate change is also playing a big role.

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Northwest Atlantic ecosystems are being affected by climate forcing from the bottom up and overfishing from the top down," says Charles Greene, an oceanographer at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y, and lead author of the Science paper. "Predicting the fate of these ecosystems will be one of oceanography's grand challenges for the 21st century."

Most scientists believe humans are warming the planet by burning fossil fuels and changing land surfaces. Early signs of this warming have appeared in the Arctic. Since the late 1980s, scientists have noticed that pulses of fresh water from increased precipitation and melting of ice on land and sea in the Arctic have flowed into the North Atlantic Ocean and made the water less salty.

At the same time, climate-driven shifts in Arctic wind patterns have redirected ocean currents. The combination of these processes has led to a freshening of the seawater along the North Atlantic shelf.

"Long time-series measurements, as well as research on large-scale ocean processes, are the key to improving our understanding of ecosystem shifts," says Mary Elena-Carr, program director in NSF's biological oceanography program. "This study brings together the important components: the atmosphere, freshwater flow, changes in currents and biological responses, all necessary to predicting future ecosystem responses to climate change."

Under normal conditions in summer months a warmer, less salty layer of water floats on the surface (warmer, less salty water is also less dense and lighter). This surface layer is known as a "mixed" layer, because wind-driven turbulence mixes the water and creates a uniform temperature, salinity and density to depths that can range from 25 to 200 meters.

Similar to the flow of heating and cooling wax in a lava lamp, when the air temperature cools during autumn, temperature and density differences lessen between the surface mixed layer and the cooler, saltier waters below. As the density differences get smaller, mixing between the layers typically increases and the surface mixed layer deepens.

But Greene cites recent scientific studies that reveal the influx of fresh water from Arctic climate change is keeping the mixed layer buoyant, inhibiting its rapid deepening during autumn. A gradual rather than rapid deepening of the mixed layer has impacted the seasonal cycles of phytoplankton (tiny floating plants), zooplankton (tiny animals like copepods) and fish populations that live near the surface.

Normally, when the mixed layer deepens rapidly during autumn, phytoplankton numbers decline because they spend less time near the surface where they are exposed to the light necessary for growth. But with the mixed layer remaining relatively shallow, phytoplankton populations stay abundant throughout the fall. In turn, zooplankton that feed on phytoplankton have increased in number during the fall through the early winter. Herring populations also rose during the 1990s, which some scientists suspect may be because of more abundant zooplankton to feed on.

Greene's paper also cites a link between the collapse of cod fisheries in the early 1990s and an increase in bottom-living species such as snow crabs and shrimp, which cod prey upon. Without cod, other animals that live in the water column and feed on zooplankton, including herring, may have increased.

While the herring story is still unclear, the authors contend that the crash of cod populations does not explain why phytoplankton and zooplankton populations at the base of the food chain have risen during autumn.

"We suggest that, with or without the collapse of cod, a bottom-up, climate-driven regime shift would have taken place in the Northwest Atlantic during the 1990s," Greene says.

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Human Preference for Other Species Could Determine Whether They Survive

As humans exert ever-greater influence on the Earth, their preferences will play a substantial role in determining which other species survive. New research shows that, in some cases, those preferences could be governed by factors as subtle as small color highlights a creature displays.
In the case of penguins, mostly black-and-white flightless birds that live predominantly in the Southern Hemisphere, those most popular with humans appear to be the ones that display markings of warm colors such as red, orange or intense yellow, said David Stokes, a conservation biologist at the University of Washington, Bothell.

He and his undergraduate students calculated the popularity of various species by studying photographs in four large-format photograph books about penguins. Decisions about how many and which photographs to use and how large to make them presumably were made by the books' editors based on their own preferences or on their beliefs of what would appeal to the book-buying public.

"Penguins are lucky because they are popular with people, especially right now. But that's not true of 99.9 percent of the species out there," Stokes says. "Even the penguin species I found to be among the least appealing to people are tourist attractions."

Tops on the list are the Emperors, featured in the film March of the Penguins, and their close cousins the King penguins. Second are crested penguins, including Rockhoppers and Macaroni.
Species at the bottom of the list are Adelie, Yellow-eyed and Little Blue. Stokes was surprised by the relative lack of popularity of Adelie penguins because that species is probably the most familiar to the public.

There are 17 penguin species, and in the past some were hunted for food or boiled to extract their oil. Some species now struggle to survive climate change, changing food patterns and encounters with humans or human activity, such as oil drilling at sea.

The species are fairly similar, with some larger and some smaller, Stokes says. But the ones that appear to be most popular are the ones that display the warmest colors in the upper body, the neck and head. He likened the effect to that of a man in a tuxedo pinning on a red carnation.

No 'cuteness factor'

Unlike some other types of animals, human preference for particular penguin species does not seem to be driven by a "cuteness" factor.

The four books Stokes examined were published in the last decade and were aimed at the popular adult audience. He eliminated photographs from consideration when factors other than the penguins themselves -– the surrounding landscape, for example, or accompanying humans – could have played a role in their selection. He was left with 304 pictures that clearly showed specific penguin species, and he concluded that a species' popularity wasn't because it was easy to get to, or because it had the largest population, or because of similar factors.

"I went to great lengths to ensure that what I was looking at was a purposeful set of pictures and not one just based on logistics," he says. The popularity rankings were similar across all four books, he added, which suggests that human preferences could be widely shared.

The work has been published in the online edition of the journal Human Ecology, and will appear in an upcoming print edition.

Color is not the only factor that determines a species' attractiveness to humans. Characteristics such as size and neoteny – the retention of babyish physical traits such as large eyes and large head – also can play major roles for some animals. Pandas, zebras and elephants, for example, are black and white or gray but are highly preferred by humans. Millions of insects and the countless slimy invertebrates that occupy the oceans are likely not as lucky, Stokes says.

"The work pretty conclusively shows there is a large difference of appeal among organisms, even among closely related organisms," he says. "For different kinds of organisms, different qualities seem to cause differences of appeal."

The work is a signal to conservationists to be mindful of the role of public popularity, and what might cause it, when making decisions about how to deal with various species, even invasive species.

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Evangelical, Scientific Leaders Join Up to Protect Life on Earth

In a first-of-its-kind collaboration, evangelical and scientific leaders announced today a joint effort to protect the environment. Speaking at a news conference inWashington, DC, a dozen leaders of the coalition shared concerns about "human-caused threats to creation" -- including climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, species extinction, the spread of human infectious diseases, and other dangers to the well-being of societies.

The coalition released an "Urgent Call to Action" statement signed by28 evangelical and scientific leaders. The statement -- sent to President Bush, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, bipartisan congressional leaders, and national evangelical and scientific organizations -- urges "fundamental change in values, lifestyles, and public policies required to address these worsening problems before it is too late. Business as usual cannot continue yet one more day."

The group pledged to "work together toward a responsible care for Creation and call with one voice" to the religious, scientific, business, political and educational arenas to join them in this historic initiative.

"There is no such thing as a Republican or Democrat, a liberal or conservative, a religious or secular environment. We all breathe the same air and drink the same water. Scientists and evangelicals share a deep moral commitment to preserve this precious gift we have all been given," says Dr. Eric Chivian, Nobel laureate and director of the Center for Healthand the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.

"Great scientists are people of imagination. So are people of great faith. We dare to imagine a world in which science and religion cooperate, minimizing our differences about how Creation got started, to work together to reverse its degradation. We will not allow it to be progressively destroyed by human folly," adds Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals.

Stressing that their effort is just beginning, coalition members spoke about some of the immediate next steps they will be taking, including holding meetings with congressional leaders from both parties to inform them of this unprecedented effort and encourage their attention to environmental issues. They also plan to hold a Summit on the Creation and will develop outreach tools, such as a Creation Care Bible study guide and environmental curricula.

"If current deterioration of the environment by human activity continues unabated, best estimates are that half of Earth's surviving species of plants and animals will be extinguished or critically endangered by the end of the century. The price for future generations will be paid ineconomic opportunity, environmental security, and spiritual fulfillment. The saving of the living environment is therefore an issue appropriatelyaddressed jointly by science and religion," said Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Wilson.

One of the imperatives of the group will be to advance the dialogue and influence policy in regards to global warming.

"In order to avoid clear and substantial dangers...it will be necessary to substantially reduce CO2 emissions during the next few decades, and perhaps by 80 percent or morebefore the end of the century," says James Hansen, a leading U.S. climate change scientist.


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