Record Locust Swarms Hint at What’s to Come with Climate Change

Warming oceans that feed cyclones have also bred record-breaking swarms of desert locusts. Such plagues could grow bigger and more widespread with climate change.

The locust attacks of 2019–2020 are the worst of the past 30 years. Credit: Sarwar Panhwar

By Rina S. Khan  14 July 2020

This year’s locust attacks, which spread from Kenya to Pakistan and India, are the worst in the past 30 years.

In mid-June, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) issued a threat level warning to countries across East Africa and southwest Asia: Desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria) are swarming. A severe outbreak that started in 2019 has spread across the Horn of Africa and the Middle East before moving on to western Asia. Scientists say climate change has played a role in this invasion.

Usually solitary, locusts become gregarious, or swarm, when there are heavy rains in an arid region. Desert locust swarms are highly destructive, sparing no greenery in sight.

This mango tree in Hyderabad, Pakistan, is devoid of its leaves, which were consumed by a swarm of desert locusts. Credit: Sarwar Panhwar

This year’s locust attacks, which spread from Kenya to Pakistan and India, are the worst in the past 30 years and may be the most economically destructive since the 1960s, said Chaudhry Inayatullah, a former research scientist at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, Kenya. The swarms are expected to peak this month, as a wetter-than-normal monsoon arrives, and to flourish as the rains continue through October.

Inayatullah and other locust experts fear that these attacks will only get worse. Climate change is altering the dynamics of pest control and reproduction, said Keith Cressman, the FAO’s senior locust forecaster. Changes in climate have led to increases in cyclones, which feed locust swarms with water and warmth.

Recent research also shows that human-induced warming may be intensifying a regional variability in an Indian Ocean pattern of warming and cooling called the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD), sometimes nicknamed the “Indian Niño.” A more intense IOD could cause more frequent tropical storms and heavy rains. These rains create perfect conditions for locust breeding, with more water and warmth ideal for increased plant biomass to feed the locusts—which is what happened in 2019, when a record IOD led to above-average rainfall in the coastal areas of Somalia, Yemen, and some regions bordering the Red Sea.

During droughts, locust outbreaks do not occur in the region, mostly because of a lack of plants for the insects to eat. But higher temperatures associated with climate change coupled with increased availability of plants for food could speed up the locusts’ maturation and incubation during spring, Inayatullah said. This year, warmer temperatures have already allowed an extra generation of breeding to occur in northwest Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and southwest Asia, amplifying the overall risk of a locust plague, the most serious category of locust threat identified by the FAO.

Perfect Storms for Locusts

An increased number of cyclones in the past 3 years in the Indian Ocean played a role in the current upsurge in locust activity.

“If this trend of increased frequency of cyclones in [the] Indian Ocean continues, then certainly, that’s going to translate to an increase in locust swarms in the Horn of Africa,” said Cressman. An increased number of cyclones in the past 3 years in the Indian Ocean played a role in the current upsurge. “In 2018, two cyclones dumped heavy rain on the uninhabited portion of the Arabian Peninsula known as the Empty Quarter. There, locusts can breed and reproduce freely. Three generations of breeding occurred in 9 months in the Empty Quarter, causing locust numbers to increase by 8,000 times.” Cressman said that outbreak is the source of the East Africa upsurge the FAO is warning about now.

The swarms can jump oceans, and they leapt over the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to the Horn of Africa late last year. “There, another cyclone in December 2019 triggered yet another spasm of reproduction that could give rise to two more generations of breeding—400 times the locusts,” Cressman said.

Climate anomalies have allowed desert locust populations to have “reproductive spasms” several times this year. Credit: Sarwar Panhwar

Heavy rains in Yemen and Saudi Arabia prompted the spread of locusts into Iran and Pakistan. They have also managed to breed in Pakistan’s Balochistan Province adjacent to Iran, are currently sweeping across the country’s southern agricultural belt, and have entered India across the Rajasthan desert. Drifting with the wind, some individuals have even been captured in Nepal. The FAO says the spring-bred swarms along both sides of the Indian-Pakistan border were poised to mature and lay eggs in early July, and new swarms will arrive from the Horn of Africa in mid-July.

Already, some farmers in Pakistan have reported up to 50% losses of their cotton crops. Ghulam Sarwar Panhwar, who owns two farms on around 120 hectares of land in the Hyderabad District of Sindh, said three locust attacks hit his farm in the past 3 months.

“Each time it is like a black cloud descending from the sky. There are millions of them, and they attack the cotton and other crops, eating all the green leaves in just 3–4 hours’ time before moving on,” Panhwar said. “Half of my cotton crop is gone. We chase them off by beating drums and banging metal plates. What else can we do?”

Aside from eating cash crops, the locusts are also consuming fodder plants, which will affect livestock.

Climate Controls

Meanwhile, the FAO has asked Pakistan and India to remain on high alert. India, Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan are all part of FAO’s Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in South-West Asia. “Intercountry cooperation is needed to tackle the locust threat. Where they fly next depends on wind direction, speed, and other weather parameters,” Inayatullah said.

A farmer holds one locust out of the thousands that have ravaged crops in Pakistan. Credit: Sarwar Panhwar

Accurate wind forecasts could be helpful to understand possible new landing sites, where aerial and ground spraying operations for pesticide applications could be readied in advance. Spraying in desert breeding areas in Pakistan has been underway since February, the region’s early spring, and could have its own set of ecological impacts.

The locust swarms eventually will dwindle in the cooler and drier winter months. No longer gregarious, “they will change back to their solitary phase,” Inayatullah said, “but by then they would have spread over vast areas and would have enough fat in them to stay alive even without food—until warmer weather arrives. This would be the ideal time to monitor and control them.”

—Rina Saeed Khan (@rinasaeed), Science Writer

Citation: Khan, R. S. (2020), Record locust swarms hint at what’s to come with climate change, Eos, 101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO146954. Published on 14 July 2020.

Text © 2020. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

 

Worsening Water Crisis in the Eastern Caribbean

Scientists, policy makers, and residents are concerned that ongoing water shortages and longer periods of drought may worsen as the climate changes and that the Paris Agreement has fallen short.

Many plants in the tropical forests and woodlands of Saint Lucia are not drought tolerant. Credit: georama, CC-BY-3.0

By Sarah Peter  22 July 2020

For years, people living in the eastern Caribbean have not had reliable supplies of fresh water: Their homes might go for months without running showers or flushing toilets, let alone potable fresh water on tap.

The region suffers from a severe and worsening water crisis, and this year is breaking records. In May, the government of Saint Lucia declared a water emergency for the island’s approximately 180,000 residents. In a Facebook post in early June, Prime Minister Allen Chastanet raised the alarm that the country is “currently experiencing drought conditions said to be the worst in more than 50 years.” The island’s sole reservoir is at “alarmingly low water levels,” Chastanet said, owing to lower than average rainfall made worse by heavy siltation that has reduced the reservoir’s capacity by “a whopping 30%.”

Although they contribute far less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, eastern Caribbean islands are among the first to experience the most destructive impacts of climate change.

Although they contribute far less than 1% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, small island nations like the ones that make up the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States are among the first to experience the most destructive impacts of climate change: sea level rise, increased storm activity, and coastal erosion. One of the inevitable casualties is water supply.

“We are already seeing it. It’s like we do not actually have a rainy season in the Caribbean,” said Judith Gobin, a marine biologist at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and Tobago. Climate change has shifted the hydrological cycle in the region, with more intense rainfall and longer dry spells.

Venantius Descartes, senior meteorologist at Saint Lucia Meteorological Services, said that paradoxically, increases in storms and hurricanes as a result of climate change have exacerbated the island’s water shortage. As bigger storms bring more water, they destroy infrastructure and lead to contamination, affecting the distribution and quality of the water supply in the region.

The hurricane season this year has already seen two named storms in June, the first month of the Caribbean hurricane season. That’s “too soon,” according to Dale Destin, a climatologist and director of the Antigua and Barbuda Meteorological Services. The phenomenon has happened only four times since 1886.

Missing Water

Tamisha Daniel, a resident of Bois Patat, Saint Lucia, fears that the current water shortage may become worse. At times when there is “not a drop of water in the house,” taking care of her newborn son can feel daunting, said the mother of two. “When to bathe him and to wash his clothes, it’s a bit of a challenge because we do not have the water, and to make it worse, it’s not raining. So you can’t collect water…and it’s so hot!” Daniel considers herself lucky, as a neighboring community, Odlum City, has not seen pipe-borne water for over 2 months.

Cleon Athill is vice president of The Movement, an environmental organization that works toward good governance on the island of Antigua, which has a population of over 80,000.

“We see our dams and wells drying up, and our drought periods are getting longer and drier.”

“We see our dams and wells drying up, and our drought periods are getting longer and drier,” Athill said. “Farmers suffer the most, they depend on piped water, but this is inadequate and inconsistent. Many residents must haul or buy water, which can be a burden for deprived communities.”

The water company that supplies Saint Lucia, for example, relies on the reservoir and river flows, but those flows have been unreliable. Storms might muddy the waters enough that even after treatment the taps deliver sediment-laden water. The company rations water at times, leading residents to seek out friends and acquaintances in other neighborhoods with running taps or to collect untreated water from rivers and waterfalls.

Small island nations throughout the eastern Caribbean are experiencing a similar plight. Tourism dependent, most of the large hotels and resorts that cater to foreign visitors are owned by foreign companies that treat wastewater on site for reuse as nonpotable water and can maintain water tanks filled with tap water. Meanwhile, most local communities do not have the space or funding for large water storage tanks, which can hold enough for months.

Previous drought has led to such measures as charging farmers for extracting water from certain rivers in Trinidad and Tobago and asking residents in Barbados to adopt voluntary conservation methods. Rain-fed agriculture in these island nations means that drought can lead to food insecurity, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations warned in a 2016 report.

Too Little, Too Late?

Signatories of the Paris Agreement, which came into force in 2016 and builds on years of negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, agreed to keep the increase in global average temperature to below 2℃, instead of a far more ambitious target of 1.5℃, as requested by small island developing states (SIDS). A long-term global temperature increase above 1.5℃ would be disastrous to SIDS and the eastern Caribbean, contributing to sea level rise, coastal erosion, and loss of habitats.

At the heart of the Paris Agreement is the Green Climate Fund, intended to help the eastern Caribbean region and other SIDS by providing billions of dollars for climate adaptation projects. The initial resource mobilization of $10.3 billion fell to $9.8 billion after the United States withdrew $2 billion of the $3 billion that was initially pledged.

Islands in the eastern Caribbean have received funding from other sources, said Gobin, who participated in past projects focused on coastal livelihood strategies. However, she contends the money is not properly spent, with funding going toward administration and foreign consultants, instead of to the technical aspects of local projects.

“What comes out of this is a lovely report that describes situations. But it lacks that practical aspect for a clean supply of water,” Gobin said. She called for a reexamination of this approach.

Cardinal Warde, a professor of electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a scientific adviser to the government of Barbados, agreed. “I believe that people in poor communities have reason to believe not much is going to happen,” he said.

The Paris Agreement is “too little, too late,” said Destin.

“Even if there is funding from the Green Climate Fund to deal with adaptation and mitigation,” said Eden Charles, a former United Nations ambassador who was the lead negotiator for Trinidad and Tobago for the Paris Agreement, “that doesn’t trickle down sufficiently to deal with the plight of the rural poor—the farmers, artisans, and workers—and doesn’t deal with whether the fisherman is being impacted and whether there is a greater impact of coastal erosion.”

Charles also noted that the Paris Agreement is based on voluntary commitments: “If there is a breach, there is no recourse; if it was legally binding, there would be,” he said. One of the largest signatories of the agreement, the United States, has decided to withdraw, a decision that will become effective this November.

The Paris Agreement is “too little, too late,” said Destin. “The forecast is for us to get drier in the future [in the eastern Caribbean]. We have missed or [are] about to miss the point of return. We are pretty much at the point where we cannot do enough to prevent hazardous climate change.”

—Sarah Peter (@SarahPeter3), Science Writer

Citation: Peter, S. (2020), Worsening water crisis in the eastern Caribbean, Eos, 101, https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EO147278. Published on 22 July 2020.

Text © 2020. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

 FISH GOT FEET

Skeletal study suggests at least 11 fish species are capable of walking

9-Sep-2020 1:15 PM EDT, by Florida Museum of Natural HistorY

Zachary Randall/Florida Museum

Thailand's cave angel fish, Cryptotora thamicola, is famous for its ability to walk, using a salamander-like gait. 

But it may not be alone: At least 10 relatives share its unusual pelvic shape

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Newswise — GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- An international team of scientists has identified at least 11 species of fish suspected to have land-walking abilities.

The findings are based on CT scans and a new evolutionary map of the hillstream loach family, which includes the only living fish species caught in the act of walking: a rare, blind cavefish known as Cryptotora thamicola, or the cave angel fish. Pinpointing which species of hillstream loaches have walking capabilities can help scientists piece together how the first land-walking vertebrates might have come to be.

In a new study, researchers from the Florida Museum of Natural History, the New Jersey Institute of Technology, Louisiana State University and Maejo University in Thailand analyzed the bone structure of nearly 30 hillstream loach species, describing for the first time three categories of pelvic shapes. Based on the shape of the bone that connects some loaches' spines to their pelvic fins, the team found that 10 other species of loach shared the cave angel fish's unusually hefty pelvic girdle.

"Fishes don't usually have any connection between their spine and pelvic fin," said biologist Zachary Randall, manager of the Florida Museum's imaging lab and one of the study's co-authors. "But before, the idea was that the cave angel fish was totally unique. What's really cool about this paper is that it shows with high detail that robust pelvic girdles are more common than we thought in the hillstream loach family."

But not all loaches are so gifted: Though more than 100 species of hillstream loach are found throughout Southeast Asia, the cave angel fish is the only one whose walking capabilities have been observed and studied. Its salamander-like wiggle, powered by enlarged ribs bolstered with stabilizing muscle attachments, was first described in Scientific Reports in 2016 by Brooke Flammang, an assistant professor of biology at NJIT and the study's lead principal investigator.

Randall said the cave angel fish's walk is a key adaptation for surviving fast-flowing cave streams. It can grip rocky streambeds and move between habitats - even up waterfalls - as water levels fluctuate in the dry season. The cave angel fish's increased mobility could help it access well-oxygenated stream regions with few or no occupants. Still, little is known about the species, including what it eats.

"These loaches have converged on a structural requirement to support terrestrial walking not seen in other fishes," said study lead author and NJIT Ph.D. candidate Callie Crawford in a statement. "The relationships among these fishes suggest that the ability to adapt to fast-flowing rivers may be what was passed on genetically," rather than a set of specific physical characteristics.

The team used CT scanning and DNA analysis to trace the evolutionary history of the hillstream loach family and found that, rather than evolving from a single origin, a robust pelvic region appeared several times across the hillstream loach family.

"Even though the cave angel fish was first described in 1988, this is the first time it's been included in the hillstream loach family tree," Randall said. "With our Thai collaborators and using DNA analysis, we were able to use hundreds of genes to trace how pelvic shapes in these fish have evolved over time. Now, we have a much more accurate tree that adds a framework for studying how many species can walk and the extent to which they're able to."

"This study brought together a team of researchers with interests and levels of expertise that varied from those of us who do fieldwork and study fishes in their natural habitats to geneticists to comparative anatomists," added Lawrence Page, Florida Museum curator of fishes and a co-principal investigator of the study. "The result is a greatly improved understanding of the evolution of an extremely uncommon event - the ability of a fish to walk on land."

Randall and his team most recently observed the cave angel fish on a 2019 cave excursion in northwest Thailand. Given the rarity of spotting a cave angel fish in the field, Randall said the team was surprised to find six of them clinging to the bed of a fast-flowing shallow stream among glittering stalagmites in one of the cave's chambers. He added that the cave angel fish's rarity meant that museum specimens and CT data were key to mapping the family's evolution.

"The beauty of CT scanning is that you can capture different types of high-resolution data without compromising the integrity of the specimen," Randall said. "For rare species like this one, it even allows you to capture things that are hard to observe in the field, even what it eats."

The team published its work in the Journal of Morphology.

RIP
Diana Rigg, Avengers and Game of Thrones star, dies aged 82

Actor who played Emma Peel in hit spy series and James Bond’s only wife was diagnosed with cancer in March

Hannah J Davies
@hannahjdavies
Thu 10 Sep 2020 

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2:29 Dame Diana Rigg's most memorable roles: from The Avengers to Game of Thrones – video obituary


The actor Diana Rigg, known for her roles on stage and in film and television – including The Avengers and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service – has died at the age of 82.

Rigg, who rose to prominence in the 1960s through her starring role as Emma Peel in The Avengers alongside Patrick Macnee, enjoyed a long and varied career, playing Lady Olenna Tyrell in HBO’s smash hit Game of Thrones, a show she admitted in 2019 that she had never watched. She also played Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, or Tracy Bond, James Bond’s first and only wife to date, in the 1969 film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Confirming her death, her agent said that Rigg had died “peacefully” on Thursday morning, adding that she had been “at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time”.

Diana Rigg: a life in pictures  4/30

Her daughter, the actor Rachael Stirling, said Rigg had been diagnosed with cancer in March, and had “spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession. I will miss her beyond words.”

The pair appeared together in the Doctor Who episode The Crimson Horror in 2013. The episode’s writer, Mark Gatiss, tweeted a tribute, saying: “It was my great joy and privilege to have known Diana Rigg. From three slightly hysterical months at the Old Vic in All About Mother to writing The Crimson Horror for Diana and her wonderful daughter Rachael. Flinty, fearless, fabulous. There will never be another.”


Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was born near Doncaster in 1938. She spent part of her childhood in India, where her father worked as a railway executive. After attending boarding school in Pudsey, Yorkshire, Rigg trained at Rada alongside Glenda Jackson and Siân Phillips.

Prior to The Avengers, she enjoyed a successful theatre career performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company; she would later return to the stage to perform in productions including Tom Stoppard’s plays Jumpers and Night and Day. On Broadway, she earned two Tony nominations in the 1970s, and in 1992 she won the award in the titular role of Medea, which she played in the West End and on Broadway.

To many, however, she is best known as Emma Peel in The Avengers, having appeared in 51 episodes of the hit spy series between 1965 and 1968. In a 2019 interview with the Guardian, she said that becoming a sex symbol overnight had shocked her, adding that she “didn’t know how to handle it”, and kept unopened fan mail in the boot of her car “because I didn’t know how to respond and thought it was rude to throw it away. Then my mother became my secretary and replied to the really inappropriate ones saying: ‘My daughter’s far too old for you. Go take a cold shower!’”

After finding out that she was being paid less than the cameraman on the series, Rigg fought for greater pay, saying in 2019: “I was painted as this mercenary creature by the press [for fighting against the pay disparity on the series] when all I wanted was equality. It’s so depressing that we are still talking about the gender pay gap.”

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1:06 'I'm still a Yorkshire girl': Diana Rigg in 1972 interview – video


Her other TV roles included the part of the Duchess of Buccleuch in ITV’s Victoria. Rigg won the Bafta TV award for best actress for the BBC miniseries Mother Love in 1989, and an Emmy for her role as Mrs Danvers in an adaptation of Rebecca (1997).


Diana Rigg: ‘Becoming a sex symbol overnight shocked me’

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Leading the tributes, Stoppard said: “For half her life, Diana was the most beautiful woman in the room, but she was what used to be called a trouper. She went to work with her sleeves rolled up and a smile for everyone. Her talent was luminous.”

Her director in Medea, Jonathan Kent, said: “Diana Rigg’s combination of force of personality, beauty, courage and sheer emotional power, made her a great classical actress – one of an astonishing generation of British stage performers.

“I was so fortunate to direct her in a series of great classical roles: Medea, Phèdre – in Ted Hughes’s version, specially written for her – Mother Courage and Dryden’s Cleopatra. Her dazzling wit and that inimitable voice made her an unforgettable leading figure in British theatre.”

Natalie Dormer, who played her granddaughter Margaery Tyrell in Game of Thrones, said: “It was a great privilege to work with an actor of such talent, range and experience. Diana was an inspiring force with a wicked sense of humour and sharp intellect. I am grateful for the times I shared either a screen or a bottle of champagne with her.”

Rigg also appears in Channel 5’s hit remake of All Creatures Great and Small, which is currently airing. She will be seen in the BBC drama Black Narcissus later this year, and Edgar Wright’s film Last Night in Soho next year, her final role.


This article was amended on 10 September 2020. An earlier version stated that Rigg and Rachael Stirling appeared on screen together only once, in a Doctor Who episode. This statement has been removed.