It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, October 17, 2021
When adaptive radiations collide: Different evolutionary trajectories between and within island and mainland lizard clades
Contributed by Jonathan B. Losos, December 14, 2020 (sent for review December 14, 2020; reviewed by Michael E. Alfaro and Frank T. Burbrink) Article Figures & SI Info & Metrics PDF
Significance
Isolated and infrequently colonized, islands harbor many of nature’s most renowned evolutionary radiations. Despite this evolutionary exuberance, island occupation has long been considered irreversible: The much tougher competitive and predatory milieu on mainlands prevents colonization, much less evolutionary diversification, from islands to continents. To test these postulates, we examined neotropical Anolis lizards, asking what happens when mainland and island evolutionary radiations collide. Far from being a dead end, we show that island-to-mainland colonization seeded an extensive radiation that achieved its ecomorphological disparity in ways distinct from their island ancestors. Moreover, when the incumbent and island-derived radiations collided, the ensuing interactions favored the latter, together highlighting a persistent role of both historical contingency and determinism in adaptive radiation.
Abstract
Oceanic islands are known as test tubes of evolution. Isolated and colonized by relatively few species, islands are home to many of nature’s most renowned radiations from the finches of the Galápagos to the silverswords of the Hawaiian Islands. Despite the evolutionary exuberance of insular life, island occupation has long been thought to be irreversible. In particular, the presumed much tougher competitive and predatory milieu in continental settings prevents colonization, much less evolutionary diversification, from islands back to mainlands.
To test these predictions, we examined the ecological and morphological diversity of neotropical Anolis lizards, which originated in South America, colonized and radiated on various islands in the Caribbean, and then returned and diversified on the mainland.
We focus in particular on what happens when mainland and island evolutionary radiations collide. We show that extensive continental radiations can result from island ancestors and that the incumbent and invading mainland clades achieve their ecological and morphological disparity in very different ways. Moreover, we show that when a mainland radiation derived from island ancestors comes into contact with an incumbent mainland radiation the ensuing interactions favor the island-derived clade.
↵1A.H. and J.B.L. contributed equally to this work. ↵2To whom correspondence may be addressed. Email: anthony.herrel@mnhn.fr or losos@wustl.edu. Accepted August 12, 2021.
This contribution is part of the special series of Inaugural Articles by members of the National Academy of Sciences elected in 2018.
Author contributions: A.H.P., L.J.H., and J.B.L. designed research; A.H.P., M.d.R.C., H.K.F., C.M.D., A.H., and J.B.L. performed research; A.H.P. analyzed data; and A.H.P., L.J.H., A.H., and J.B.L. wrote the paper.
Reviewers: M.E.A., University of California, Los Angeles; and F.T.B., American Museum of Natural History.
Scripts and ecological and morphological measurements have been deposited in GitHub (https://github.com/austinhpatton/AnolisRadiation) (80). Ecological, morphological, and all other study data are included in the article and/or supporting information.
REFERENCES ARE IN THE ARTICLE LINKED ABOVE
Build Back Smaller? Extinction and Origination Patterns Change After Mass Extinctions
BySTANFORD UNIVERSITYOCTOBER 12, 2021
A trilobite fossil from the Ordovician period, which lasted from about 485 to 443 million years ago. A new analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries. Credit: Smithsonian
A sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years shows the usual rules of body size evolution change during mass extinctions and their recoveries. The discovery is an early step toward predicting how evolution will play out on the other side of the current extinction crisis.
Scientists at Stanford University have discovered a surprising pattern in how life reemerges from cataclysm. Research published on October 6, 2021, in Proceedings of the Royal Society B shows the usual rules of body size evolution change not only during mass extinction, but also during subsequent recovery.
Since the 1980s, evolutionary biologists have debated whether mass extinctions and the recoveries that follow them intensify the selection criteria of normal times – or fundamentally shift the set of traits that mark groups of species for destruction. The new study finds evidence for the latter in a sweeping analysis of marine fossils from most of the past half-billion years.
A modern-day species of crinoid known as a feather star.
Whether and how evolutionary dynamics shift in the wake of global annihilation has “profound implications not only for understanding the origins of the modern biosphere but also for predicting the consequences of the current biodiversity crisis,” the authors write.
“Ultimately, we want to be able to look at the fossil record and use it to predict what will go extinct, and more importantly, what comes back,” said lead author Pedro Monarrez, a postdoctoral scholar in Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). “When we look closely at 485 million years of extinctions and recoveries in the world’s oceans, there does appear to be a pattern in what comes back based on body size in some groups.”
Build back smaller?
The study builds on recent Stanford research that looked at body size and extinction risk among marine animals in groupings known as genera, one taxonomic level above species. That study found smaller-bodied genera on average are equally or more likely to than their larger relatives to go extinct.
The new study found this pattern holds true across 10 classes of marine animals for the long stretches of time between mass extinctions. But mass extinctions shake up the rules in unpredictable ways, with extinction risks becoming even greater for smaller genera in some classes, and larger genera losing out in others.
Fossilized crinoids, or sea lilies.
The results show smaller genera in a class known as crinoids – sometimes called sea lilies or fairy money – were substantially more likely to be wiped out during mass extinction events. In contrast, no detectable size differences between victims and survivors turned up during “background” intervals. Among trilobites, a diverse group distantly related to modern horseshoe crabs, the chances of extinction decreased very slightly with body size during background intervals – but increased about eightfold with each doubling of body length during mass extinction.
When they looked beyond the marine genera that died out to consider those that were the first of their kind, the authors found an even more dramatic shift in body size patterns before and after extinctions. During background times, newly evolved genera tend to be slightly larger than those that came before. During recovery from mass extinction, the pattern flips, and it becomes more common for originators in most classes to be tiny compared to holdover species who survived the cataclysm.
Gastropod genera including sea snails are among a few exceptions to the build-back-smaller pattern. Gastropod genera that originated during recovery intervals tended to be larger than the survivors of the preceding catastrophe. Nearly across the board, the authors write, “selectivity on body size is more pronounced, regardless of direction, during mass extinction events and their recovery intervals than during background times.”
Think of this as the biosphere’s version of choosing starters and benchwarmers based on height and weight more than skill after losing a big match. There may well be a logic to this game plan in the arc of evolution. “Our next challenge is to identify the reasons why so many originators after mass extinction are small,” said senior author Jonathan Payne, the Dorrell William Kirby Professor at Stanford Earth.
Scientists don’t yet know whether those reasons might relate to global environmental conditions, such as low oxygen levels or rising temperatures, or to factors related to interactions between organisms and their local surroundings, like food scarcity or a dearth of predators. According to Payne, “Identifying the causes of these patterns may help us not only to understand how our current world came to be but also to project the long-term evolutionary response to the current extinction crisis.”
Fossil data
This is the latest in a series of papers from Payne’s research group that harness statistical analyses and computer simulations to uncover evolutionary dynamics in body size data from marine fossil records. In 2015, the team recruited high school interns and undergraduates to help calculate the body size and volume of thousands of marine genera from photographs and illustrations. The resulting dataset included most fossil invertebrate animal genera known to science and was at least 10 times larger than any previous compilation of fossil animal body sizes.
The group has since expanded the dataset and plumbed it for patterns. Among other results, they’ve found that larger body size has become one of the biggest determinants of extinction risk for ocean animals for the first time in the history of life on Earth.
For the new study, Monarrez, Payne and co-author Noel Heim of Tufts University used body size data from marine fossil records to estimate the probability of extinction and origination as a function of body size across most of the past 485 million years. By pairing their body size data with occurrence records from the public Paleobiology Database, they were able to analyze 284,308 fossil occurrences for ocean animals belonging to 10,203 genera. “This dataset allowed us to document, in different groups of animals, how evolutionary patterns change when a mass extinction comes along,” said Payne.
Future recovery
Other paleontologists have observed that smaller-bodied animals become more common in the fossil record following mass extinctions – often calling it the “Lilliput Effect,” after the kingdom of tiny people in Jonathan Swift’s 18th-century novel Gulliver’s Travels.
Findings in the new study suggest animal physiology offers a plausible explanation for this pattern. The authors found the classic shrinking pattern in most classes of marine animals with low activity levels and slower metabolism. Species in these groups that first evolved right after a mass extinction tended to have smaller bodies than those that originated during background intervals. In contrast, when new species evolved in groups of more active marine animals with faster metabolism, they tended to have larger bodies in the wake of extinction and smaller bodies during normal times.
The results highlight mass extinction as a drama in two acts. “The extinction part changes the world by removing not just a lot of organisms or a lot of species, but by removing them in various selective patterns. Then, recovery isn’t just equal for everyone who survives. A new set of biases go into the recovery pattern,” Payne said. “It’s only by combining those two that you can really understand the world that we get five or 10 million years after an extinction event.”
Reference: “Mass extinctions alter extinction and origination dynamics with respect to body size” by Pedro M. Monarrez, Noel A. Heim and Jonathan L. Payne, 6 October 2021, Proceedings of the Royal Society B. DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2021.1681
Payne is also a professor of geological sciences and, by courtesy, of biology.
Support for this research was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation and Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.
How Astronauts Used A Teabag To Save $150 Billion Space Station 400 Km Above Earth
After a leak was found in one of the modules of the International Space Station which usually flies 400 kilometres above the Earth, astronauts were left in a fix trying to find a quick solution in case things were to escalate
Usually, the space station leaks air from some of the modules throughout its journey in Earth's orbit, which takes 93 minutes per orbit
Each day, the station loses more than 250 grams (0.6 pounds) of air each day during its 15.5 orbits around Earth, but that's not always the case, as evident in the case of this leak
The International Space Station is a potential hazard due to many reasons, with its age being one of the key factors. In 2020, astronauts used a teabag to avert a major disaster on the space station by fixing a hole in one of the modules.
After a leak was found in one of the modules of the International Space Station which usually flies 400 kilometres above the Earth, astronauts were left in a fix trying to find a quick solution in case things were to escalate.
Usually, the space station leaks air from some of the modules throughout its journey in Earth's orbit, which takes 93 minutes per orbit. Each day, the station loses more than 250 grams (0.6 pounds) of air each day during its 15.5 orbits around Earth, but that's not always the case, as evident in the case of this leak.
NASA How astronauts detected the leak on ISS
Over the days, the station started losing more than a kilogram every day. Astronauts from different countries - USA, Japan, Russia, Canada, and Europe are usually aboard the station. When the leak occurred, they were compelled to look for its source in the station.
To ascertain its source, they sealed all the modules and camped together in one of the extreme end modules of the International Space Station called Zvezda in the Russian part of the station.
To this end, they tested each section of the space station for leaks over the duration of four days. Unfortunately, their experiment didn't bear any fruits.
The astronauts then realised that the model they were temporarily waiting was the one leaking. The Zvezda module, launched in 2000 is especially important on the ISS because it supports the station's life support systems in case of an emergency on the space station.
The teabag comes in!
In October 2020, Russian cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin saved the day using a teabag. After setting up a few cameras in the Zvezda module, the cosmonaut cut open the teabag, and sealing its doors. Not much later, they witnessed the tea leaves slowly floating towards a tiny scratch on the metal wall of the space station.
It was no scratch, turns out! The astronauts found it to be a crack through which the air was escaping the space station, which were sealed on the spot using tape and foam. Later, astronauts completely sealed the hole using a drill and applying sealing paste, as per Roscosmos.
The International Space Station is a costly affair. It was built with costs as high as $150 billion before launching on November 20, 1998. On follow up costs, it takes about $3-4 billion each year to maintain the International Space Station. The cracks spotted in the station was caused either by metal fatigue or small meteorites.
What do you think about this genius fix by astronauts aboard the International Space Station? Let us know in the comments below. For the latest in the world of science and technology, keep reading Indiatimes.com.
POP-SCI How to tell science from pseudoscience
Our all-in guide to ferreting out falsehoods.
BY NATALIE WALLINGTON | PUBLISHED OCT 15, 2021 Trying to determine if something is pseudoscience or real science involves taking a close look.
Michael Longmire / Unsplash
In our increasingly chaotic digital age, disinformation disguised as science is rampant. It’s also getting harder to detect, thanks to new technologies and politically motivated campaigns against commonly acknowledged scientific truths like vaccine effectiveness, the realities of the climate crisis, and more. Navigating the turbulent sea of online scientific and pseudoscientific information requires a sharp eye, a skeptical brain, and an openness to new ideas about the world around us.
Your first exposure to any pseudoscientific claim will almost certainly come in the form of a catchy headline—perhaps a little too catchy. John Gregory, a researcher for the online fact-checking service NewsGuard, warns that fully capitalized words, exclamation points, or strong opinions in the headline of an article are some of the first signs that its contents may be misleading.
“One of the dead giveaways is the use of really emotional language,” he says, adding that the key difference between a factual and misleading story is what evidence its authors use to back up the headline’s claim. This means that your best defense against being duped is to click the link and actually read the article, rather than taking the headline at face value. It’s often difficult for journalists to convey nuance and uncertainty in headlines that are meant to be catchy and brief. The best way to tell whether a headline is accurate, misleading, or downright false is to see for yourself what the article has to say.
Scrutinize the study
Science news is usually based on a specific, detailed study—a feature that sets it apart from other types of news. Ironically, this makes it both easier to verify and easier to fake. On one hand, a primary source like a recently published paper can quickly back up an article’s claims. On the other, many developments in science and medicine are fairly complex, making primary sources difficult for many readers to understand.
“A lot of these [pseudoscience] sites rely on the fact that people are not going to dig into the studies that they’re citing,” says Gregory. “They might even present them in a way that’s not very accessible in order to give the impression of scientific rigor and lend the claims an air of credibility.”
Given that risk, it’s worthwhile to do a little extra digging into the studies behind science news stories. Keep an eye out for a few simple metrics: a large sample size, the presence of control groups, and appropriate caveats in the researchers’ conclusions. All of these items should be included in the paper’s abstract—the paragraph at the beginning that summarizes the study’s methods and findings. News articles about the study should also mention these details.
“Most scientists are very cautious, always leaving open that opportunity for new data,” says Jessica McDonald, the science editor at FactCheck.org. “In fact, if a scientist is 100 percent certain of something, that’s probably a sign that they may not be giving you accurate information.”
This applies both to quoted experts and primary sources themselves. A reliable scientific study will be forthcoming about its own limitations, the scope of its results, and the need for further investigation. Likewise, a trustworthy scientist usually won’t make sweeping claims about a study’s findings, instead explaining the nuances of new discoveries.
Consider the context
Developments in the field of medicine are frequently falsified or misrepresented. This means you’ll need an extra level of scrutiny to separate fact from fiction. Often, peddlers of false info rely on a small nugget of truth to help support their claims.
“What they usually rely on is misrepresenting smaller lab studies, maybe an animal model study, but no human trial,” Gregory says of articles that purport to reveal miraculous cures to diseases like cancer. “Then, they exaggerate that to say that because [an experimental treatment] killed cancer cells in a lab in a petri dish, it’ll do the same in the human body—and that’s just not true.”
McDonald adds that medical scientific papers are not necessarily accurate just because they are listed on popular preprint servers. Actual publication in a peer-reviewed journal is a promising sign of legitimacy; simple appearance online is not.
“Just because a paper is indexed on PubMed does not mean that it’s been vetted,” she says. “[Databases like PubMed] can be full of a lot of good information, and also some very dubious scientific papers. They’re not necessarily legitimate.” Check the source
A miracle cure, a government conspiracy, or a shocking revelation are all hallmarks of dubious science news—and they often pop up again and again in the same pseudoscience-peddling outlets. If a scientific claim seems suspicious, it’s worthwhile to see what other types of stories the site is posting and if the publication’s overall character throws up red flags.
“One of the biggest things we depend on [at NewsGuard] is: ‘What is the history of this site and the claims they’ve shared in the past?’” says Gregory. If a website consistently posted anti-vaccine disinformation before the pandemic, for example, it’s not going to be a reliable source of info about the COVID-19 vaccines now.
Gregory recommends checking suspicious outlets for information about who writes their articles, who runs the publication, and what organizations they’re associated with. If this information is difficult to find or missing altogether, the source may not be reliable. It’s also important to look beyond a publication’s name to judge its character, says Gregory. Some sites, like the Denver Guardian or the National Vaccine Information Center, rely on legitimate-sounding names to convey authority despite being known peddlers of disinformation and false news, he explained.
Question the motive
Pseudoscience, particularly in the medical field, often aims to serve a specific goal by preying upon the public’s fear. At times, this goal may be simply political—for example, denying the existence of the climate crisis may serve the agenda of a particular political party. But often, the motivation behind pseudoscience is financial in nature.
“When it comes to health misinformation sites, and pseudoscience in general, there’s often this ‘They don’t want you to know this’ mentality,” says Gregory. “The sources using those tactics are often trying to sell you something themselves, whether it be a supplement, a medical treatment, consultations, or sometimes the content itself.”
This is another reason why it’s so important to figure out who exactly owns or controls a publication: they may have a financial motivation that inherently destroys the impartiality that responsible journalists are supposed to practice. Giving an overview of various sore throat remedies isn’t necessarily pseudoscience—but promising that One Miracle Tea will instantly cure sore throats probably is. If an article seems to be steering you toward one solution or treatment without giving an honest look at its pros and cons, its authors might be after your money.
Even if an article isn’t trying to sell you a particular product, following the money can also reveal the motivations behind dubious claims. If possible, do a little research on the outlet itself to learn more about its leadership and funding sources. A lobbying group, a private medical practice, a professional business association, or even an individual person with a strong agenda may be lurking behind the curtain.
Consult the experts
When you can’t quite tell whether a piece of science news is accurate, doing your own digging may be time-consuming or prohibitively complicated. That’s where fact-checkers like NewsGuard, FactCheck.org, and even us right here at Popular Science come in.
Professional fact-checkers and science journalists are trained to ferret out misleading information and expose it for the pseudoscience it is. In addition to presenting carefully-compiled research in a clear, factual way, they can also help shine light on complex topics by directly consulting subject matter experts.
“Part of what journalists are doing is reaching out to sources we trust and asking them what they think. People should take that seriously,” says McDonald. “I would [also] challenge people to find news organizations that aren’t necessarily in line with their views, and that are known for being middle-of-the-road.”
Consulting a wide variety of non-partisan sources to get an idea of the scientific consensus is a great way to rely on outside expertise without placing all your faith in one outlet. Maybe one newspaper or website is leading you astray—but it’s unlikely that five, 10, or 15 are all at once.
Trust the court of public opinion
If you’re the type of person who takes everything with a grain of salt, it may be difficult to figure out who to trust on scientific issues. There is no perfect answer: certain individual scientists may be corrupt or misinformed, some government officials may have political agendas, and even trustworthy news outlets occasionally make mistakes. That’s why in addition to trusting the experts on science, you may also find it useful to trust the systems in our society that you recognize to be reliable, like the importance of public reputation and even human nature itself.
“Governments like to look good,” says McDonald. “They don’t want to have their citizens dying.” You may not trust the government in every aspect of your life, but your tax dollars are funding a lot of scientific and medical research conducted by people hoping to improve our lives and protect us from diseases, she explains.
If renowned universities and hospitals were actively spreading misinformation, they would risk ruining their prestigious reputations. The same goes for well-regarded news outlets and the journalists who work for them. The public’s trust is hard to win, and most institutions wouldn’t risk losing it for the sake of one misleading claim. But even if you will never trust large organizations, you can still have faith in individual people.
“Scientists are people too,” McDonald says. “A lot of this ‘evil scientist’ stuff doesn’t make sense if you’ve actually met a scientist. Scientists are just regular people, and they get into this field because… [they] want to help their fellow man.”
Natalie Wallington is a contributing writer for PopSci's DIY section. Her reporting on social and environmental justice has appeared in the Washington Post, Audubon Magazine, VICE News, and elsewhere. In her spare time, she collects stationery and naps on the couch with her retired racing greyhound. Visit her website to see more of her work.
WHEN IS FEMICIDE FUNNY Free speech or hate speech?
Netflix at eye of LGBTQ storm
Issued on: 17/10/2021
Dave Chappelle's Netflix special "The Closer" has plunged the streaming giant into Americas' culture wars as the comedian accuses LGBTQ people of being "too sensitive" Robyn Beck AFP
Los Angeles (AFP)
Netflix has been plunged into America's culture wars by a Dave Chappelle comedy special that raises concerns about free speech and censorship but has been slammed by its own employees as transphobic.
In "The Closer," boundary-pushing mega-star Chappelle responds to critics who have accused him of mocking transgender people in the past by asserting that "gender is a fact" and accusing LGBTQ people of being "too sensitive."
"In our country you can shoot and kill" a Black man, "but you'd better not hurt a gay person's feelings," says the stand-up comic, who is Black.
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While the show has been condemned by LGBTQ groups -- including GLAAD, which cited studies linking stereotypes about minorities to real-world harm -- Netflix has so far stood firm, insisting the show will not be taken down.
But the streaming giant finds itself trapped at the center of arguably its most intense controversy yet.
Chappelle remains hugely popular, at a time when Netflix is competing with rivals such as HBO and Disney in the so-called streaming wars. He commanded a $24 million outlay from Netflix on his latest special, highlighting his appeal to the subscribers on whom the platform depends.
And the affair raises broader questions about acceptable speech -- and the role of entertainment giants such as Netflix in policing it.
"Netflix is no longer a little company that mails out DVDs, it's a vast maker of content that last year spent something like $17 billion," said Stephen Galloway, film and media arts dean at California-based Chapman University.
"This is [Netflix's] first really visible test case. And they stuck their flag in the grounds of free speech versus limiting speech," he added. - 'Head-to-head' - In "The Closer," Chappelle describes a US rapper who "punched the LGBTQ community right in the AIDS," compares trans women to the use of Blackface,
and jokes about threatening to kill a woman and stash her body in his car.
In a leaked memo, content chief Ted Sarandos wrote that "content on screen doesn't directly translate to real-world harm," and so the principle of free speech outweighs any offense taken -- including by its own employees.
Chappelle was paid $24 million for the special, which illustrates his popularity among Netflix subscribers Alex Edelman AFP/File
Still, a group of Netflix employees plans to walk out this week over their bosses' handling of the furore, while one worker was fired for leaking internal data about Chappelle's high fee.
"We understand this employee may have been motivated by disappointment and hurt with Netflix, but maintaining a culture of trust and transparency is core to our company," Netflix said in a statement to AFP.
Sarandos also sought to defend Chappelle's presence on Netflix by pointing to other performers it features such as Hannah Gadsby, whose acclaimed "Nanette" special recounted her horrific experiences of homophobic violence as a lesbian woman.
That earned him an expletive-laden response from Gadsby on Instagram, who labelled Netflix an "amoral algorithm cult."
"You're seeing the Netflix leadership going head-to-head with some of their employees," said Galloway.
"When does Ryan Murphy say this is unacceptable?" he asked, referring to the creator of LGBTQ-themed smash hits such as "Pose" who is on a reported $300 million deal to make shows for Netflix.
- 'Earthquake' -
Chappelle's case is more complicated still because, while he is accused of hounding one vulnerable minority, the comic repeatedly points out during the show that he is speaking as a member of another.
"The special draws its energy from one of the hottest debates in popular culture, about competing claims to victimhood," wrote Helen Lewis in The Atlantic.
There are parallels with the uproar sparked by "Harry Potter" author JK Rowling last year, when she asserted the reality of biological sex, which many deemed to be transphobic.
While Rowling spoke about the importance of protecting the safety of girls and women, Chappelle discusses his experiences as a Black man.
He argues that white gay people "are minorities until they need to be white again," and that LGBTQ communities have made progress in a few years that Black people have not enjoyed in decades.
"There are multiple fault lines here," said Galloway. "Any one could split open and create an earthquake."
Lord of the plants: death metal eco-baron rewilds Irish estate Plunkett hails from a dynasty who have presided over Dunsany Castle northwest of Dublin for 900 years
Issued on: 17/10/2021 -
Paul Faith AFP
Navan (Ireland) (AFP)
Randal Plunkett, the 21st Baron of Dunsany, strides out of his Irish castle in a T-shirt bearing the name of death metal band "Cannibal Corpse" in bloody lettering.
In the distance, a russet-coloured stag appears for a moment, before dissolving into the 750 acres (300 hectares) of ancestral estate Plunkett has surrendered to the wilderness -- almost half of his lands.
"I felt a sort of sense of duty towards the environment here," said Plunkett, perched on a decaying tree trunk sprouting a clutch of mushrooms.
Plunkett's family has presided over Dunsany Castle northwest of Dublin for nine centuries
Paul Faith AFP
"I'm a caretaker of this estate for this generation and the estate is not just the castle, it's also the land but it's also the environment," the aristocrat told AFP, his mane of shoulder-length hair rippling in the breeze. - Born to rewild -
Eight years ago, death metal fan Plunkett, whose family have presided over Dunsany Castle northwest of Dublin for nine centuries, began his "radical" rewilding project. The 38-year-old vegan, an unlikely successor to ancestors depicted in sober portraits lining the walls of the grey stone castle, evicted livestock and dismissed lawnmowers to allow nature to take its course.
Now, the results are plain. The ultra-rare pine martin has been spotted. Otter and red deer thrive. Skies are jammed with birds: buzzards, red kites, peregrine falcons, sparrowhawks, kestrels and snipes.
Plunkett says a woodpecker has been sighted in the area for the first time in a century.
Beyond the castle crenellations, the lawn is transformed into a swirling morass of 23 species of grass, fizzing with insect life.
Plunkett lends a hand here and there -- planting 2,500 trees last year was no small feat -- but mostly he is hands-off.
"As I watched it, I began to understand what the land was doing," he said after trudging across a field of knotted undergrowth in a faux leather jacket. "It became a rewilding project," he said, two Jack Russell terriers named Beavis and Butt-head gambol around his vegan-friendly Doc Marten boots. In June the UN said an area the size of China must be rewilded over the next decade. Stemming land "degradation" is key to keeping temperature rise below two degrees celsius in accordance with the international 2015 Paris Agreement, the UN Environment Programme said.
The UN COP26 summit is taking place in Scotland from October 31, hoping for stronger commitments from world leaders to halt runaway climate change.
Last Saturday, UK campaigners marched on Buckingham Palace with a petition signed by 100,000, calling on the British royal family to commit to rewild their estates before they appear as ambassadors at the Glasgow summit.
"I think we need to do a lot more than we're doing. I unfortunately think that it's not going to be done by governments," said Plunkett pessimistically.
"I started all of this because I wasn't willing to wait anymore," he added. "I'm trying to popularise an idea, which I know for a fact will help."
- Fresh Eire -
The benefits of rewilding are manifold. It reverses biodiversity loss, draws carbon down from the atmosphere and can even quash natural disasters.
Some 65 percent of Ireland -- known as the "emerald isle" -- is agricultural land according to 2018 World Bank figures.
Livestock is responsible for around 14 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions according to the UN.
For Plunkett, unhitching the perception of the estate as a farming asset has been difficult. He said initially some locals considered him a "moron".
"They thought that I was destroying perfectly good farmland," he said. "They thought I was just decadent." There have been dark moments too. Plunkett now considers the rewilded estate an "oasis" where deer hunting is off-limits. He patrols the land at dawn to keep unwelcome poachers at bay.
"There were certain threats, there was abuse, there was vandalism. It became very difficult," he recalled.
"It became a war and we're slowly winning it because the truth is this needs to happen for climate change." Listing the species that have taken up residence on his estate it is clear Plunkett still has an appetite to fight for his self-described "mini-movement".
The 38-year-old vegan is an unlikely successor to ancestors depicted in sober portraits lining the walls of the grey stone castle
Paul Faith AFP
"Every year I'm getting at least one animal back," he enthused.
"We're bringing the wild back to Ireland, a place that used to be remembered for being green."
A sampling of snake diversity. Clockwise from upper left: rainbow boa (Epicrates cenchria), image credit Pascal Title, U-M Museum of Zoology; Amazon basin tree snake (Imantodes lentiferus), image credit Pascal Title, U-M Museum of Zoology; western worm snake (Carphophis vermis), image credit Alison Rabosky, U-M Museum of Zoology; two-striped forest pitviper (Bothrops bilineatus), image credit Dan Rabosky, U-M Museum of Zoology; parrot snake (Leptophis ahaetulla), image credit Ivan Prates, U-M Museum of Zoology; and green anaconda (Eunectes murinus), image credit Dan Rabosky, U-M Museum of Zoology. These species show considerable variability in their diets, ranging from generalist predators on vertebrates (rainbow boa, anaconda) to species that specialize on sleeping lizards (tree snake), earthworms (worm snake), and tree frogs (parrot snake). Credit: PLOS Biology (2021). 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001414, John David Curlis, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Modern snakes evolved from ancestors that lived side by side with the dinosaurs and that likely fed mainly on insects and lizards.
Then a miles-wide asteroid wiped out nearly all the dinosaurs and roughly three-quarters of the planet's plant and animal species 66 million years ago, setting the stage for the spectacular diversification of mammals and birds that followed in the early Cenozoic Era.
A new University of Michigan study shows that early snakes capitalized on that ecological opportunity and the smorgasbord that it presented, rapidly and repeatedly evolving novel dietary adaptations and prey preferences.
The study, which combines genetic evidence with ecological information extracted from preserved museum specimens, is scheduled for online publication Oct. 14 in the journal PLOS Biology.
"We found a major burst of snake dietary diversification after the dinosaur extinction—species were evolving quickly and rapidly acquiring the ability to eat new types of prey," said study lead author Michael Grundler, who did the work for his doctoral dissertation at U-M and who is now a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA.
Mammals and birds, which were also diversifying in the wake of the extinction, began to appear in snake diets at that time. Specialized diets also emerged, such as snakes that feed only on slugs or snails, or snakes that eat only lizard eggs.
Similar outbursts of dietary diversification were also seen when snakes arrived in new places, as when they colonized the New World.
"What this suggests is that snakes are taking advantage of opportunities in ecosystems," said U-M evolutionary biologist and study co-author Daniel Rabosky, who was Grundler's doctoral adviser. "Sometimes those opportunities are created by extinctions and sometimes they are caused by an ancient snake dispersing to a new land mass."
Those repeated transformational shifts in dietary ecology were important drivers of what evolutionary biologists call adaptive radiation, the development of a variety of new forms adapted for different habitats and ways of life, according to Grundler and Rabosky.
A blunt-headed tree snake (Imantodes inornatus) eating its way through a batch of treefrog eggs. Credit: John David Curlis, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
Modern snakes are impressively diverse, with more than 3,700 species worldwide. And they display a stunning variety of diets, from tiny leaf-litter snakes that feed only on invertebrates such as ants and earthworms to giant constrictors like boas and pythons that eat mammals as big as antelope.
So, how did legless reptiles that can't chew come to be such important predators on land and sea? To find out, Grundler and Rabosky first assembled a dataset on the diets of 882 modern-day snake species.
The dataset includes more than 34,000 direct observations of snake diets, from published accounts of scientists' encounters with snakes in the field and from the analysis of the stomach contents of preserved museum specimens. Many of those specimens came from the U-M Museum of Zoology, home to the world's second-largest collection of reptiles and amphibians.
All species living today are descended from other species that lived in the past. But because snake fossils are rare, direct observation of the ancient ancestors of modern snakes—and the evolutionary relationships among them—is mostly hidden from view.
However, those relationships are preserved in the DNA of living snakes. Biologists can extract that genetic information and use it to construct family trees, which biologists call phylogenies.
Grundler and Rabosky merged their dietary dataset with previously published snake phylogenetic data in a new mathematical model that allowed them to infer what long-extinct snake species were like.
"You might think it would be impossible to know things about species that lived long ago and for which we have no fossil information," said Rabosky, an associate professor in the U-M Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an associate curator at the Museum of Zoology.
"But provided that we have information about evolutionary relationships and data about species that are now living, we can use these sophisticated models to estimate what their long-ago ancestors were like."
In addition to showing a major burst of snake dietary diversification following the demise of the dinosaurs in what's known as the K-Pg mass extinction, the new study revealed similar explosive dietary shifts when groups of snakes colonized new locations.
CT scan of a cat-eyed snake (Leptodeira septentrionalis) reveals a frog (blue skeleton) in its digestive tract. Snake specimen from U-M's Museum of Zoology. Credit: Ramon Nagesan, University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.
For example, some of the fastest rates of dietary change—including an increase of roughly 200% for one subfamily—occurred when the Colubroidea superfamily of snakes made it to the New World.
The colubroids account for most of the world's current snake diversity, with representatives found on every continent except Antarctica. They include all venomous snakes and most other familiar snakes; the group does not include boas, pythons and several obscure snakes such as blind snakes and pipe snakes.
Grundler and Rabosky also found a tremendous amount of variability in how fast snakes evolve new diets. Some groups, such as blind snakes, evolved more slowly and maintained similar diets—mostly ants and termite larvae—for tens of millions of years.
On the other extreme are the dipsadine snakes, a large subfamily of colubroid snakes that includes more than 700 species. Since arriving in the New World roughly 20 million years ago, they have experienced a sustained burst of dietary diversification, according to the new study.
The dipsadines include goo-eaters, false water cobras, forest flame snakes and hognose snakes. Many of them imitate deadly coral snakes to ward off predators and are known locally as false coral snakes.
"In a relatively short period of time, they've had species evolve to specialize on earthworms, on fishes, on frogs, on slugs, on snakelike eels—even other snakes themselves," Grundler said.
"A lot of the stories of evolutionary success that make it into the textbooks—such as Darwin's famous finches—are nowhere near as impressive as some groups of snakes. The dipsadines of South and Central America have just exploded in all aspects of their diversity, and yet they are almost completely unknown outside the community of snake biologists."
Rabosky and Grundler stressed that their study could not have been done without the information gleaned from preserved museum specimens.
"Some people think that zoology collections are just warehouses for dead animals, but that stereotype is completely inaccurate," Rabosky said. "Our results highlight what a tremendous, world-class resource these collections are for answering questions that are almost impossible to answer otherwise."Modern snakes evolved from a few survivors of dino-killing asteroid
Japan’s indigenous people, the Ainu, were the earliest settlers of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island. But most travellers will not have heard of them.
(Image credit: Michele and Tom Grimm/Alamy) By Ellie Cobb20th May 2020
“This is our bear hut,” the short, vivacious woman shouted through a hand-held loudspeaker, her smile creasing her forehead with deep wrinkles. A blue hat was perched on her head and her short tunic, embroidered with pink geometric designs, was tied sharply at the waist. She pointed at a wooden structure made of round logs, raised high above the ground on stilts.
“We caught the bears as cubs and raised them as a member of the family. They shared our food and lived in our village. When the time came, we set one free back into nature and killed the other to eat.”
Having treated the bear well in life, her people believe the spirit of the sacred animal, which they worship as a deity, will ensure the continued good fortune of their community.
Kimiko Naraki is 70 but looks decades younger. She is Ainu, an indigenous people who now live mostly on Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, but whose lands once spanned from northern Honshu (the Japanese mainland) north to Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands (which are now a disputed part of the Russian Federation). The Ainu have long been of interest to anthropologists because of their cultural, linguistic and physical identity, but most travellers will not have heard of them. That’s because although they were the earliest settlers of Hokkaido, they were oppressed and marginalised by Japanese rule for centuries.
Shiretoko National Park in Hokkaido was a traditional Ainu hunting and fishing area (Credit: Azuki25/Getty Images)
The Ainu have had a difficult history. Their origins are murky, but some scholars believe they are descendants of an indigenous population that once spread across northern Asia. The Ainu called Hokkaido “Ainu Moshiri” (“Land of the Ainu”), and their original occupation was hunting, foraging and fishing, like many indigenous people across the world. They mainly lived along Hokkaido’s warmer southern coast and traded with the Japanese. But after the Meiji Restoration (about 150 years ago), people from mainland Japan started emigrating to Hokkaido as Japan colonised the northernmost island, and discriminatory practices such as the 1899 Hokkaido Former Aborigines Protection Act displaced the Ainu from their traditional lands to the mountainous barren area in the island’s centre.
“It’s a very ugly story,” said Professor Kunihiko Yoshida, law professor at Hokkaido University.
Forced into agriculture, they were no longer able to fish for salmon in their rivers and hunt deer on their land, Yoshida said. They were required to adopt Japanese names, speak the Japanese language and were slowly stripped of their culture and traditions, including their beloved bear ceremony. Due to the wide stigmatisation, many Ainu hid their ancestry. And the long-term effects are clear to see today, with much of the Ainu population remaining poor and politically disenfranchised, with much of their ancestral knowledge lost.
Among other nefarious practices, Japanese researchers ransacked Ainu graves from the late 19th Century to the 1960s, amassing huge collections of Ainu remains for their study and never returning the bones.
The Ainu built their homes along rivers or by the sea where water was plentiful and safe from natural disasters (Credit: Toshifumi Kitamura/Getty Images)
Recently, however, things have started to look up for the Ainu. In April 2019, they were legally recognised as an indigenous people of Japan by the Japanese government, after many years of deliberation, which has resulted in a more positive appreciation of Ainu culture and renewed pride in their language and heritage.
"It is important to protect the honour and dignity of the Ainu people and to hand those down to the next generation to realise a vibrant society with diverse values," said government spokesman Yoshihide Suga, as reported in The Straits Times.
Naraki continued showing us around the Ainu kotan (village). Still smiling, she pointed to a wooden, cupboard-like structure. “This is the toilet for the men,” she said, giggling. Next to it was a smaller, teepee-style hut. “And this one is for the women.”
I want to tell the world that Japan has indigenous people
Naraki leads tours of this kotan to teach visitors about her culture. It is part of the Sapporo Pirka Kotan (Ainu Culture Promotion Centre), Japan’s first municipal facility featuring indigenous people, where visitors can experience Ainu handicrafts, watch traditional dancing and imagine traditional Ainu life when this area was a vast wilderness and the people lived on and with the land. Located approximately 40 minutes by car from downtown Sapporo, Hokkaido’s capital city, the centre was opened in 2003 to teach both other Japanese and foreign visitors about Ainu culture and spread their message to the world.
“97% of Ainu are underground. But the people who come here to events are very proud of their culture,” said Jeffry Gayman, an educational anthropologist at Hokkaido University who has been working with the Ainu for 15 years.
The Ainu were assimilated into Japanese society and their traditional tattoos and other customs banned (Credit: Michele and Tom Grimm/Alamy)
The pride is especially evident in the centre’s small, well-kept museum, where Ainu artefacts, such as traditional clothing and tools, are carefully displayed. Upstairs are rooms where visitors can join workshops on Ainu embroidery or learn how to make the traditional Ainu musical instrument mukkuri (a bamboo mouth harp). By hosting events, members of the community are able to educate the wider world on their history and situation.
“If I try to tell people about Ainu rights and empowerment, no-one is interested. But when people see our dancing or music, it makes them interested in learning more about us,” explained Ryoko Tahara, an Ainu activist and president of the Ainu Women’s Association.
Although this centre is a significant step in sharing Ainu culture nationally and internationally, no-one lives here. The kotan is a replica to show people what traditional Ainu life was like. Only a few isolated neighbourhood pockets of Ainu people remain, scattered across Hokkaido, with most of the estimated 20,000 Ainu (there are no official figures) assimilated into cities and towns around the island.
However, travellers who look carefully will be able to see traces of their culture everywhere. Many place names in Hokkaido have Ainu origins, such as “Sapporo”, which comes from the Ainu words sat (dry), poro (large) and pet (river) due to its location around the Toyohira River; or “Shiretoko” – a peninsula that sticks out from Hokkaido’s north-eastern tip – which can be translated as “of the ground” (siri) and “protruding point” (etuk). The Ainu worship the bear as a sacred animal, incorporating them into their architecture and traditions (Credit: DEA/W BUSS/Getty Images)
And Ainu pride is visible at events like the annual Marimo Festival at Lake Akan and the Shakushain festival in Shizunai; and in groups like The Ainu Art Project, a 40-member group that share Ainu culture through their Ainu and rock fusion band and handmade arts and crafts. Restaurants such as Kerapirka in Sapporo serve up traditional Ainu food and act as a hub for the local community.
“And you can see Ainu values in any settings where Ainu people gather, whether that be inside their home, at a local town gathering or an event. But you need to know what you’re looking for,” said Gayman, explaining that “generosity and hospitality” are core Ainu principles. “They’re light-hearted people,” he said.
The Ainu have also become more prominent on the national stage, with activist Kayano Shigeru elected to the Japanese parliament in 1994, where he served five terms; and the hugely popular manga series, Golden Kamuy, pushing Ainu culture into the national spotlight over the last couple of years.
“In the last few years, people have become more interested in the Ainu; it has become a hot topic in Japan,” said Tahara. “That makes me proud that people will know about the Ainu, but there is still work to be done.”
Visitors can come to the Sapporo Pirka Kotan to experience Ainu handicrafts, watch traditional dancing and imagine traditional Ainu life (Credit: Ellie Cobb)
The latest step forward for this community is the Symbolic Space for Ethnic Harmony in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, a new complex currently under construction by the government to showcase Ainu culture. Made up of a National Ainu Museum, the National Park for Ethnic Harmony and a memorial facility, it was scheduled to open in April 2020 in time for the Olympics, but has been delayed due to Covid-19.
The recognition is very symbolic, but not so meaningful
However, many experts believe that the recent recognition of the community is not enough, saying it is merely lip-service by the government, with the new Ainu bill failing to provide Japan’s indigenous people with clear and strong rights.
“The Ainu still cannot fish their salmon and dams are still being built that submerge sacred sites,” said Yoshida. “There’s no self-determination, no collective rights and no reparations. It’s just a cultural performance.”
“The recognition is very symbolic, but not so meaningful,” he added with a sad laugh, noting that Japan is far behind the world standard in treatment of indigenous people. “It’s a shameful situation. That’s the reality.”
As I followed Naraki on her tour of the kotan, it seemed clear, however, that public interest in Ainu culture is strong. Groups of Japanese people and other visitors, who’d arrived by bus-load from Sapporo, jostled for pictures in front of the pu, the hut for storing food, which is located directly opposite the poro-ci-set, where the village chiefs lived in order to keep a stern eye on the village’s communal larder. “The elders would resolve any disputes in the village,” Naraki said. If no one could agree, they would discuss for three days and three nights and then make a decision.
Traditional Ainu clothing was made with animal or fish skin, or woven with tree bark or nettle fibres (Credit: DeAgostini/Getty Images)
She explained how the Ainu’s lives were tied to the land. Kotans would be constructed along rivers or by the sea where water was plentiful and safe from natural disasters. Food was foraged or hunted, with staple proteins including salmon, deer and bear. They would pick wild grasses, vegetables, mushrooms and berries, such as kitopiro (Alpine leek) and shikerepe (berries of the Amur cork tree), never picking everything at once and always leaving the roots so the plants could keep growing. Food was simple, with animal oil, kelp and salt the only flavourings, and millet their main grain. Clothes were made with animal or fish skin, or woven with tree bark or nettle fibres.
Living in harmony with nature is a way of life that many Ainu would like to return to. “Eventually what I want is to get back some land so we can hunt and fish freely as well as do our traditional farming,” Tahara told me. Increasing numbers of Ainu are also starting to relearn their language, which is linguistically isolated and declared as critically endangered by Unesco.
What are your other hopes for the future, I asked Tahara.
“I want to tell the world that Japan has indigenous people. People don’t know,” she said. “I want us all to respect each other, to treat each other respectfully and live peacefully in this country. And, of course, I would like our ancestors’ bones returned. Bring them back to the graves they were taken from.”
