CABI Blogs: hand picked... and carefully sorted

No, your car won't glow in the dark

'But will your car glow in the dark' was the headline of an Irish newspaper article a few months ago describing a joint project between Irish-based company Greenfield Project Management, the Belarussian government and Swedish-based Chematur Engineering. The aim is to produce fuel ethanol from grain crops and sugarbeet grown on land contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. Not being a regular reader of the business sections of Irish newspapers, I read about the project more recently in the journal Sugar Industry/Zuckerindustrie.

Science and Hollywood: An Inconvenient Truth

I wonder how many of us have watched Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth and thought "wow, that really is terrifying, I’d better start making a few changes". And more to the point, how many of us have then done something about it. If you’re like Sarah and you’ve started cycling to the supermarket, well done, Al Gore would be proud of you!

But what do the scientists think of An Inconvenient Truth (AIT)? Sensationalism or accuracy? Informing the public or misinforming the public? A forum published in GeoJournal looked at these questions and asked the scientists what they thought of the film documenting Al Gore’s campaign to educate the public about global warming and inspire them to take action.

Every frog has its day

As I flicked through the latest issue of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust magazine ‘On the edge’ I came a cross an article on the mountain chicken, a large endangered frog that unfortunately happens to taste a bit, well, a bit like chicken.

Now I’m not the greatest fan of amphibians but I couldn’t help but feel concerned about the poor old frog. Native to the Caribbean islands of Dominica and Montserrat, the mountain chicken is not only a national dish in own right but has had its habitat wrecked by volcanic eruptions and is now under threat from a deadly fungal infection.

Easier being green…

Last Saturday, I cycled to Tesco's*. It's around five miles away from where I live, so wasn't a huge effort and, to be fair, I could use the extra exercise. I stress this because I'm about to mention the environment. Before you head off to the 'post comment' box below, I must stress that my environmental credentials aren't great. Like many of us, I guess I do my bit, but sometimes find this relationship a bit one sided. My meagre efforts at saving it are simply not appreciated. It must be that unconditional love that only a parent could show a tempestuous child. As if to prove my point, as I headed out of Tesco's with a re-usable bag of groceries on my back, it rained. It seems to do this most times I 'do my bit for the environment' and leave the car at home.

The environment clearly doesn't appreciate my efforts.

Earth Day – What’s Your Story?

Fuel shortages, Famine, Disease, Extinction, Floods, Drought…So this is 'Earth Day'. Hardly something to look forward to is it?

At CABI, we work tirelessly under the assumption that most people we're likely to come across believe that 'saving the planet' is a Good Thing. But what are we really trying to save? Are we saving the planet for later? Are we trying to preserve it the way it is? Are we in the western, economically privileged world trying to preserve our world the way it is at the expense of the struggling populations suffering malnutrition and disease at the hands of climate change that we ourselves have helped create?

NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

The sound of despondent Handpicked bloggers rang through the air at CABI this morning. The corridors were reverberating in despair at the New Zealand Herald's frightening headline 'Climate change could see pubs run dry'. Streuth!

Pedants among you who have checked the link will have noted that the story appeared in last week's Herald, but what with the time difference with the UK and a weekend spent in the pub, it was a little late in catching our attention. But this makes it all the more worrying. We are one week nearer to running dry!

Natural England launches the Future of Farming awards 2008

Natural England are inviting farmers and farm managers across England (UK) to enter Natural England’s 2008 Future of Farming Awards.

The award scheme, which opened for registration on Monday 7 April, recognises and celebrates farmers in England who have integrated wildlife, landscape and access management with more sustainable farming production on their farms. The awards are being actively supported by the farming industry with input from the CLA, NFU and TFA.

25 future novel threats facing UK biodiversity

There requires a greater emphasis on forecasting and critical evaluation, and less dawdling on existing, well studied issues: in summary, this is the main recommendation made by 35 senior representatives from UK academia, environmental management & policy, and scientific journalism. 

Using a technique called 'horizon scanning.' They have established a list of 25 future novel threats facing UK biodiversity. This list includes toxic nanomaterials, potential invasiveness of new artifical life species and biomimetic robots or genetically engineered viruses. Although they only covered the UK situation, most of the 25 treats can be applied to other parts of the world.

Will the Nile dry up?

Scientists are unable to make up their minds about the impact that climate change will have on the future of the Nile. Specialists say Egypt is already facing massive water management challenges due to demographic pressures and rising demand for water and electricity, but it is unclear what affect climate change is going to throw into the mix, making predictions difficult.

"Some experts say that there will be water increase with more rainfall from the Ethiopian plateau, and some say there will be a decrease because of water evaporation. Until now, no specific research has been developed to determine exactly the impact of climate change on Nile water availability. All [studies] that have been published so far are only predictions" (Nahla Abou El-Fotouh of the National Water Research Centre in Cairo).

A 2004 report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said a rise in temperature of just one degree centigrade would lead to large evaporation losses and significantly reduce Nile flows and a large number of studies foresee up to a 70% decline in Nile water availability, whereas other studies project an increase in Nile water levels by 25% over current yearly levels due to changing rainfall patterns. For an overview of the research subscribers can search CAB Abstracts - a sample of some of these studies is in the list at the end of this blog item.

Rethink urged on biofuel targets

From next month, UK government policy demands inclusion of biofuels into fuel at the pumps. The Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO) is to introduce 2.5% biofuels at the pumps from April 2008. But those calling for a halt on targets, including the EU targets for inclusion of 5.75% biofuels in road fuel by 2010 and 10% by 2020, now include not just environmental and development pressure groups such as Greenpeace and Oxfam, but the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee, and the UK's chief environmental scientist Professor Robert Watson. So what are the reasons behind all the criticism of biofuel targets?

Algae for biofuels: solving the land-use problem

It’s becoming increasingly obvious that there isn't enough suitable land space to grow crops for food and feed as well as for biofuel, and to retain the forests and other land uses that sequester carbon in huge quantities. As the Nature blog ‘The Great Beyond’ points out, two articles published in Science in February argue that biofuels, especially those derived from agricultural crops (first generation biofuels), actually aren’t that great for the environment because of the required clearance of forests, grasslands, peatlands and savannas to make extra space for biofuel crops. Timothy Searchinger and colleagues argue that a wholesale switch to corn-based ethanol "nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years", whilst Joseph Fargione and colleagues say that converting land to produce food-based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbon debt".

So what’s the solution? We need a source of biofuel that doesn’t require a lot of land to produce it. How about that slimy green stuff we see floating on ponds? For several decades algae have been seen as having great potential as a source of fuel because of their high oil content which can amount to as much as 50% and their ability to grow quickly in sunlight. Now, due to increasing petrol prices government funds are again being channelled into new research on the use of algae as a biofuel and we’re starting to see developments that are making the production of biofuels from algae a commercially feasible proposition.

Coping with extinction: can plants cope with the loss of their dispersers?

In an era of widespread deforestation and habitat loss, we hear much about the problems that this causes for wildlife. The plights of orangutans, gorillas, lemurs and other charismatic species as they lose the forests on which they depend, and of apes and other wild animals as they are hunted in Africa for bushmeat, are often featured on wildlife programmes, and the protection of these animals, and the forests in which they live, is a concern of many.

But what is perhaps less well known to the public is the other side of the coin: just as wildlife depends on the survival of habitats such as tropical forests, so the health of the forests is in turn dependent on the animals living in them. The trees and other forest flora often depend on particular animals for aspects of their life-cycles such as pollination and seed dispersal, and if those animals are lost through hunting, or because the forest becomes too fragmented for them to survive, this can have profound effects on the ecosystem of those forest areas which do remain.

Organic biofuels?

While discussing biofuels with a colleague the other week, I wondered whether there was any demand for organically grown biofuels, as people interested in protecting the environment are likely to be interested both in biofuels and in organic agriculture. Not long afterwards I came across a record in CAB Abstracts for an article¹ on the life cycle assessment of energy crops, which discussed the environmental impact of different ways of growing fuel crops. It concluded that organic farming was preferred to 'integrated' production for maize and soyabeans, that it had both advantages and disadvantages for cereals and oilseed rape, that  extensive grassland was the lowest-impact source of biogas and (together with sugarbeet)  bioethanol, and that there was no preferable crop for biodiesel.

Virgin flight fuels aviation and energy debates

The first flight by a commercial airline to be powered partly by biofuel has taken place. No passengers were on board, and just one of the aircraft's four engines ran on fuel comprising a 20% biofuel mix together with 80% normal aviation fuel. But with both aviation and biofuels arousing strong emotions among environmentalists, the flight has sparked debate on both these issues. Richard Branson, head of the Virgin Atlantic airline which conducted the flight, hailed it as a 'vital breakthrough,' while environmental groups dismissed it as a gimmick.

National Invasive Weed Awareness Week in USA

Sunday marks the beginning of the 9th annual "National Invasive Weeds Awareness Week" over in Washington D.C., USA. Looking at the packed agenda, the week looks to be well supported by all the players in US invasive species research, control and policy sectors.   

If you can not make any of the meetings and are interested in NIWAW 9 or invasive species in general, then check the blogsphere and the NIWAW website for updates.

Thanks to Jennifer of the Invasive Species Weblog for this heads-up.

Northern Circumpolar Soil calendar 2008

Supporting the International Polar Year, March 2007 to March 2009 (two years are needed to cover all the seasons in northern and southern hemispheres), the European Union have published a rather smart 2008 calendar on Northern Cirumpolar Soils (9MB pdf).
Each month is dedicated to a different soil type, for example January covers Cryosols (from the Greek, kraios, meaning cold or ice). A distribution map, centred on the north pole, shows the approximate location of each soil type. In addition, a soil profile and a brief description of the soil are provided.      

Biofuel – the burning issues

The development of biofuel has been hailed as a sustainable way to combat dependency on declining oil reserves, but a new study suggests there are substantial obstacles to large-scale deployment of biofuels. It is still an open question whether biofuel can meet a significant proportion of the world’s energy needs, say John Fike and co-authors in a paper in CAB Reviews. There are numerous practical questions about biomass systems, from feedstocks to logistics to pretreatment/process technologies, to be addressed. While policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions may support biofuel, other environmental impacts are also of concern, say Fike and his colleagues at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The cost of hauling the feedstock to the refinery is a key issue, and so a high proportion of farms within a given radius of the refinery would have to commit to producing the feedstock, as a need to transport the feedstock over long distances would make bioenergy production uneconomic. The distance of the refineries from the energy user is also an important factor. There are many logistic and socio-economic issues that will need to be resolved along with the purely technical issues, say the Virginia Tech team.

Policy is critical, and if US policies were to create a value for carbon sequestration, this would of course change the economics of bioenergy production. Tax levels on biofuel relative to fossil fuel are another central issue. Fike and his co-authors question whether the US government would allow a switch from food to bioenergy production to allow large increases in food prices, as some models have predicted. Some residents may oppose the dramatic industrialisation of the countryside that comes with bioenergy, but others may feel that this is a price worth paying for renewable energy.

The paper, Challenges for deploying dedicated, large-scale, bioenergy systems in the USA by John Fike, David Parrish, Jeffrey Alwang and John Cundiff appears in CAB Reviews: Perspectives in Agriculture, Veterinary Science, Nutrition and Natural Resources2, No. 064, 28 pp.

Review of 2007

Happy New Year and a big thank you to all those who subscribe or read our blog.

It was a good 2007 for the hand picked ... and carefully sorted with a full calendar year of blogging under our belt, turning 1 year old on 2nd November. We posted 167 articles on a variety of topics and had one of our posts, "Bluetongue virus:knocking at the door" by Robert Taylor, nominated for consideration towards the new edition of the Science Blogging Anthology, "Open Laboratory 2007".

Please read on for a monthly breakdown of all our posts.

Could blue be next year's green?

Whilst reading the Marine Conservation Biology Institute blog I came across a link to a piece in the Economist entitled Blue in green. The article argued that green is the colour synonymous with environmentalism but isn't this rather a anthropocentric, terrestrialist viewpoint?  I agree, it probably is. We use green to describe groups who monitor whales and dolphins, and who conserve turtles - all creatures that dwell in the deep blue. 

The Economist columnist goes on to say that when it comes to green issues we suffer from planet-scale nimbyism that seems to focus on terrestrial organisms. I thought this a little unfair, until a friend told me about the junkyard in the sea...

GREENhouse appeal.

The Living Rainforest, near Newbury in the UK, has launched an appeal to find sponsors for the building of a state-of-the-art ‘Green Greenhouse’ building prototype.  The aim is to raise £900,000 matched funding to complete construction of the £3.5m building.

Unsustainable food/crop production and increasing energy costs mean that new methods of production must be found to reduce reliance on non-renewable energy sources, and cut down on pollution from fossil fuels. A zero-carbon glasshouse is planned and the existing greenhouses will be expanded, along with associated buildings. These will be integrated to improve energy management.

The glasshouse will be heated with solar energy harvested via panels in the glasshouse and stored underground in a Vertical Soil Heat Exchanger (VSHE).

The Living Rainforest has secured around 80% of the required funding, but require a further £600,000 by April of next year and is looking for green corporate partners to get involved.

"The partner will benefit from The Living Rainforest’s unique facilities for corporate events and have an opportunity to showcase their environmental R&D to 70,000+ schoolchildren and other visitors annually."

Follow this link to view nearly 100 abstracts (search terms: greenhouses and energy) from CABI made available via Google.

Trade, biotechnology, biofuels, ethics: some issues that the sugar industry is thinking about

Having more or less recovered from the flu mentioned in Sarah's blog entry of 22nd November (no, I wasn't complaining I was dying -- quite the opposite; I kept expecting to be fully recovered the next day and then finding I wasn't), I went last week to the International Sugar Organization's annual international seminar (see the ISO events page) in London, featuring two days of presentations about subjects related to the economics of the sugar industry. This was more interesting than you might think for a non-economist like me -- many different subjects affect or are affected by economics, and even the presentation about the changing face of sugar futures trading was quite well-explained.

Second (Life) Nature - Climate Change Lecture Series

To coincide with the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali 3rd - 14th December, the Second Nature Island will be hosting a special series of events/lectures in Second Life.

TOPPS - Best Pesticide Practice, Better Water Protection

New advice to protect water bodies from pesticide pollution has been published by EU experts. "Training the Operators to Prevent Pollution from Point Sources" or TOPPS, collates and provides best practice from 15 European countries. TOPPS aims for a sustainable improvement of water quality through education and training.

Forests and climate change: a convenient truth?

'Forests and climate change: a convenient truth?' was the title of a conference I attended on Wednesday, organised by the Forestry Commission. It was a chance to hear from some of the UK's leading experts on the role of forests and woodlands in tackling climate change, chaired by the king of the "Swingometer", Peter Snow, who lead the interactive electronic voting between speakers. Globally, forest ecosystems play a key role in addressing climate change by absorbing CO₂ from the atmosphere and storing it in growing vegetation and soil. Deforestation caused by unsustainable harvesting of timber and the conversion of forests to other land-uses currently leads to 18% of global emissions of CO₂ into the atmosphere. But, managed sustainably so that any logged trees are replaced again, forests and woodlands are a good source of wood – an alternative and less polluting energy source to fossil fuels, and a low-energy construction material.

The conference was kicked off by the Minister for the Environment, Phil Woolas, who emphasised the importance of including forestry in climate change policy and investing in reforestation, afforestation and prevention of deforestation through financial incentives. He said that "a key goal of UK policy is to make forestry part of the process in Bali [where negotiations on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will take place next month]. After intensive lobbying of key countries across the world, we now expect support from China, Brazil and the US that this should be the case."

Tim Rollinson, Director-General of the Forestry Commission listed 6 key ways in which forestry can help meet the challenge of climate change, and these formed the basis for the conference talks:

• protecting and managing the forests that we already have;
• reducing deforestation;
• restoring the world's forest cover;
• using more sustainably produced wood for energy;
• using more sustainably produced wood as a substitute for other materials; and
• planning our forests so that they adapt to a changing climate.

Bioethanol production arrives in the UK

British Sugar Plant, East Anglia, UK

Britain is now officially a producer of bioethanol fuel. The plant, already in operation for a few months, was declared open for business yesterday. Biofuels promise so much, carbon neutrality and reduced reliance on fossil fuels to name a couple. But there are potential pitfalls too - Katherine blogged about the issues of water usage in growing sugar cane back in February.

The new plant uses locally grown sugar beet as raw material, aiming to process up to 800k tons into fuel each year. Damage to world food prices is unlikely, since the sugar produced from the crop would be surplus to EU quotas and exported anyway. Scenes like the 'Tortilla Riots' in Mexico, shouldn't be repeated.

Concerning environmental effects, the abstract of this paper (freely available from the CAB Abstracts database via Google) assures us,  "...a significant proportion of the UK crop [of sugar beet] is being grown in an economically efficient way whilst minimizing environmental damage". Further reading can be found in this selection of abstracts here. The savings in carbon emissions could be equivalent to removing 40,000 cars from the roads. Good news when the European Union has set a target for all member states to increase the market share of biofuels to 5.75% by the year 2010. The plan is for fuel to be sold for blending with petrol and distributed widely. As flex-fuel vehicles become more commonplace (heavily dependent on biofuel becoming equivalently priced to fossil fuels), we may well see more industries of this kind being established.

Maps - Finding Our Place in the World

If you can't get to Chicago for the Festival of Maps which is currently underway, then why not pop along to the virtual gallery of the exhibition. Navteq have recreated the Chicago Field Museum Maps exhibit in interactive 3D, allowing you to tour the rooms where the maps are hung. By clicking on each of the small arrows gives a short information piece about each map or globe. Why not pop online for a quick tour.

Do you blog about peer reviewed research?

If so, the recent announcement from BPR3 (Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting) might be of interest to you and potentially increase the readership of your blog.

Goliath and Titan – running out of leg room

A long, long time ago in a land far away, lived giant beasts stomping, scurrying and soaring over the earth. No, not a fairy tale but an image of life on earth around 290 million years ago before the climate continued to change, oxygen levels decreased and animals shrunk in size and long before humans came along.

In the late Carboniferous and early Permian, fossil evidence shows that most insects were much bigger than they are today. For example, Meganeura, a carboniferous dragonfly, had a wingspan of 75 cm and Ramsdelepedion schusteri, a carboniferous silverfish, was 6 cm long! Today, the largest insects include the Goliath beetles (Goliathus), which measure 5–11 cm in length as adults, and can reach weights of up to 80-100 g in the larval stage, Titan beetles (Titanus giganteus), which grow up to 16.7 cm in length (or 21 cm including antennae), the Titan stick insect (Acrophylla titan) with a body length of up to 50 cm and some butterflies and moths which have wingspans up to 28 cm. But why did the insects shrink?

There are a few evolutionary hypotheses for the decrease in size of the insects:

1. climate change – as oxygen levels decreased, it became more difficult to get enough oxygen to all the tissues via spiracles and diffusion alone.
2. the weight of an insect’s body at moulting might be greater than the soft cuticle could bear, and, being vulnerable to predators, they would probably have to hide.
3. the appearance and rise of vertebrate predators, e.g. reptiles made it an evolutionary advantage to get smaller to avoid predation and radiate into all the available empty niches.

A recent paper published in PNAS by Kaiser et al. lends extra support to the climate change hypothesis…

Don't waste your energy!

It’s the middle of Energy Saving Week and the Energy Saving Trust has come up with a range of themes to encourage people to reduce their energy consumption by 20%.  The Trust is government and private sector funded and the website features calculators, space for comment and plenty of contact details, yet Combat Climate Change think that the event has attracted little attention and relatively few people have pledged to reduce energy usage. The latter organisation offers a no-nonsense approach to climate change information, and thinks that whether climate change concerns are real or not, we can all do our bit to improve the world we live in.  They also suggest that if we switched to low-energy bulbs we could save £1.5 billion annually and reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 7.6 million tonnes.

Get set for a busy birdfeeder!

A recent article published in Bird Study gives some explanation of the varying numbers of birds you may see on your bird feeder from year to year. Dan Chamberlain, Andrew Gosler and David Glue from the British Trust for Ornithology and the Edward Gray Institute of Field Ornithology, Oxford investigated whether woodland species that feed on beechmast (nuts of Fagus spp.) will have significantly lower occurrence rates at garden feeders in mast years (a year in which there is abundant production of fruit/nuts of trees considered as food for livestock and certain kinds of wildlife*). They monitored garden feeders between 1970 and 2000 for 40 species to assess whether beechmast abundance explained further significant variation additional to underlying seasonal and annual trends.

As you may expect, they found that the 7 species listed below (see end for photos), which commonly feed on beechmast, showed significantly lower occurrence in gardens in years of highest beechmast abundance:

1. Great Spotted Woodpecker (Dendrocopos major)
2. Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus)
3. Great Tit (Parus major)
4. Coal Tit (Periparus ater)
5. Nuthatch (Sitta europaea)
6. Jay (Garrulus glandarius)
7. Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)

Blackbird (Turdus merula) and Siskin (Carduelis spinus) showed similar significant patterns and are likely to take beechmast as elements of their diet.

Carbon offsets - whats the deal?

At the UNWTO Conference on Climate Change and Tourism I attended in Davos, Switzerland last week, participants were requested to offset the carbon dioxide emissions of their travel and accommodation. Not an unreasonable request given the subject matter of the conference, and the fact that the conference itself was free to attend. But as reported in this article on Swissinfo, the whole question of offsetting, and the lack of consistency and clarity in the many alternative schemes on offer, led to debate in and out of the Congress hall.

When one delegate said on the stage the amount he had paid to offset the 6 t of carbon the conference offsetting scheme calculated for a return flight from New York, Philippe Rochat from the Air Transport Action Group responded that he didn't know how the 6 t figure had been worked out, as it should actually be around 3 t. Checking just two offsetting companies while writing this article, Climatecare (used by British Airways) calculated emissions of just 1.43 tonnes of carbon dioxide for a return flight between New York and Zurich, at a cost of £10.74, when accessed via British Airways, and 1.76 t of CO2 when I went directly to the Climatecare website. Atmosfair.de, however, charge 83 Euros (approx £56) for a calculated 4.1 t of carbon dioxide.

World tourism leaders tackle climate change

Earlier this week, some 600 representatives from over 100 countries, representing all sectors of the tourism industry (public and private sector, NGOs and governments) met in the idyllic Swiss resort of Davos to debate the  global challenge of climate change as it affects and is affected by tourism, at the 2nd International Conference on Climate Change and Tourism. This meeting was organised by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in collaboration with UNEP and the World Meteorological Organisation, and included many senior tourism figures. As CABI is a leading information provider in both environmental and tourism literature, I was lucky enough to be able to attend, both to learn more about the issues and consider what contribution CABI may be able to make in the area of information dissemination – one of the components of the Davos Declaration which was drafted at the end of the conference.

To give a full picture of the debate at the conference, and the issues involved, would take a book rather than a blog entry. But I’ll try and give a very broad-brush overview of the issues and conclusions, and will be presenting more detail of some of the ideas presented in CABI’s subscription website, Leisuretourism.com, over the next few days for those whose institutions are subscribers. There were some very impressive presentations at Davos from some leading figures in both the public and private sector, and it was heartening to see areas where governments and private companies are starting to take real action. It was clear that the tourism sector recognises the need for action, not least to avoid being used as a scapegoat for climate change and the target for kneejerk response, as is increasingly the case in some European countries (the UK’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ears may have been burning, as speaker after speaker attacked his doubling of Air Passenger Duty, without designating the revenue raised for any positive action on transport, the environment or climate).

Bruno, Bruce and the Penan

More than 10 years ago I came across a magazine article about Bruno Manser, a Swiss activist, who had gone to live among a nomadic tribe in Borneo called the Penan. I was fascinated by the way he had become part of the tribe to understand how they lived within the forests of Sarawak. At that time logging had begun to become a threat to the nomads, depleting the forests which not only acted as home but also contained all their food and medicines. In light of this Bruno went on to act as a voice for the Penan and wrote books and lectures about their threatened existence.

The final Steve Irwin croc paper

Published today online, and freely available to all at PLoS ONE is Steve Irwin’s final paper. This paper is a must read for all, especially those interested in animal navigation. The study aims “to record and interpret the movements of translocated large male estuarine crocodiles (Crocodylus porosus) after their release and to investigate their homing behaviour, if any, using satellite telemetry.”

Read, M. A., Grigg, G. C., Irwin, S. R., Shanahan, D., Franklin, C.E. (2007) Satellite Tracking Reveals Long Distance Coastal Travel and Homing by Translocated Estuarine Crocodiles, Crocodylus porosus. PLoS ONE 2(9): e949. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0000949

Vote for the winner of the “Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting” icon contest

As mentioned in a previous article, there is growing debate in the blog sphere over the need for a means to identify the sources of science being reviewed or used as evidence by bloggers. Well, the authors of “Bloggers for Peer-Reviewed Research Reporting” or BP3 for short, devised an icon design competition for which CABI, along with other publishers have provided prizes for the winner of the competition. The entry deadline has now passed, the final three designs have been chosen and now BP3 need all interested bloggers and blog readers' help to vote on the winning design. So head across to BP3 and cast your vote for the icon that you wish to see at the top of posts which discuss peer-reviewed science <direct link>. The deadline for casting your vote is Monday 24th September. CABI would like to wish the best of luck to the final three designers.

So long, and thanks for all the fish

Dolphin sightings in the Bay of Biscay are down by around 80% according to the Biscay Dolphin Research Programme. Is this due to a reduction in fish stocks, and is this in turn linked to climate change?

The Bay of Biscay is a bit of a special place for me as its where I had one of my best wildlife viewing experiences. Four (long!) days aboard a ferry on a round trip from Portsmouth to Bilbao were rewarded with a great sighting of a fin whale. And the dolphins numbers we saw were huge...in the hundreds.

So where have all the dolphins gone? Seabird sightings have also declined say Marinelife's Biscay Dolphin Research Programme (BDRP) who have been conducting surveys on the P&O ferry "The Pride of Bilbao" for the last 13 years. They are worried that the decline could be more wide-ranging than that indicated by their surveys, and may suggest that fish stocks have either become depleted due to over-fishing or have changed in distribution due to temperature changes. They go on to mention the failure of anchovy fisheries (at an all-time low Biscay anchovies are now on the Marine Conservation Society's fish to avoid list [my apologies here for previously stating this list was complied by the Marine Stewardship Council - many thanks for the feedback]) but are there other factors also involved in the decline?