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)
Wednesday, August 09, 2023
Over one million acres of tribal land submerged by dams in the US
Dam constructions have flooded over 1.13 million acres of tribal land in the US contributing to the historic and ongoing struggle against land dispossession for Indigenous peoples in the United States. New research, published in Environmental Research Letters, has identified that a region of tribal land larger than the state of Rhode Island has been submerged by dams in the US. The findings raise concerns about the destruction of ecosystems, cultural heritage, and livelihoods.
The new study shows that dams have significantly contributed to land loss of Native people, a factor that has not been fully quantified until now. Over the centuries, colonial settlers and the federal government have acquired over two billion acres from Native nations through various policies, including forced removal, allotment, and the reservation system. The study considers data from federal Indian reservations and Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Areas (OTSAs) alongside the locations of nearly 8000 dams across the United States and the size of their reservoirs. The research reveals that 424 dams have flooded 1.13 million acres of tribal land in the US.
Heather Randell, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography at Penn State University, says: “The consequences of dam-induced land loss are far-reaching. The disruption of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems not only devastates natural resources but also destroys culturally significant sites. The impact on local communities' livelihoods and displacement from their ancestral lands is equally severe.”
Recommendations proposed by the research team include the prioritization of dam removal wherever feasible, along with exploring alternatives such as tribal ownership or funding for dam repairs and improvements in cases where removal is not viable.
"In the wake of recent federal legislation addressing aging infrastructure in the United States, it is important to prioritize removing dams that have flooded tribal land," Randell continues. "This is an opportunity to address historical land dispossession and to respect the sovereignty and rights of Indigenous communities."
‘Our people are not well': First Nation under microscope
Story by The Canadian Press •
Shane Ward finds the frightening footage on his phone with a few flicks of his fingers.
It’s an old TV news report from Aug. 29, 2000, showing federal fisheries officers going full tilt in a big speed boat and ramming Ward’s much smaller vessel.
He and two other lobster fishers from Esgenoôpetitj, or Burnt Church First Nation, plunge into the water of Miramichi Bay.
“I tried to throw a few bricks,” says Ward, 45, chuckling. “That’s what we were fighting for 20 years ago.”
More than two decades on, Ward and others in this Mi’kmaq community of 1,240 people just north of Miramichi are saddened that the agreements signed with Ottawa since that tumultuous time to end the Indigenous fishing dispute haven’t benefited everyone.
On Thursday, two federal fraud investigators came to Esgenoôpetitj to interview people about allegations of financial irregularities on the band council.
A boat deckhand, Ward won't speak ill of anyone on council, the same people who control the community's lucrative fishing licences.
“A lot of Native people when you put the microphone in front of them, they’re quiet. But then later, we’re all talking about it. Everyone’s talking about this investigation here.”
With a knowing smile, he adds: “I’m happy to get the crumbs. I’m not saying I get the pie, but I get the crumbs.”
Other members of the tight-knit, seaside community are reluctant to speak about the investigation.
“I have nothing to say about that,” said Daren Metallic, who kindly posed for a photo on his motorcycle. “I have two first cousins on council.”
One 31-year-old woman, who Brunswick News agreed not to name because she fears repercussions, said the investigation was no surprise.
“It’s been crooked on that council as long as I’ve been here,” she said. "In other, smaller reserves, each member gets royalty payments of $1,500 around Christmastime. We might be lucky to get a $300 cheque."
A secretary at the large band office said Thursday no one on the 12-member council was available for an interview, mentioning that several of the councillors were in Nova Scotia for meetings.
Chief Alvery Paul answered his phone, but said little, other than to confirm an investigation was taking place.
“I have no problem with that,” Paul said, before excusing himself because he was in a meeting. The chief promised to talk later in the afternoon, but he didn’t answer follow-up messages.
Unafraid to speak out is Joanne Bartibogue, the elder and former crisis intervention worker who's been pushing for an investigation for almost a year, first going to the RCMP and then to Premier Blaine Higgs to air her concerns.
Two federal investigators with the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs – Abdihamid Mao and Chantal Dunn – knocked on her door Thursday to speak with her about her complaints.
In 2010, a study showed that Burnt Church was the poorest postal code in Canada. Bartibogue says the situation hasn’t changed much, and while most of the community remains impoverished, the chief and at least one other council member have become millionaires.
She also corroborated what the young woman said about inadequate royalty payments.
The department won’t comment on the investigation, but audited financial statements, signed by the chief, and available on the Government of Canada’s website, show that Paul took in more than $1.6 million in salary, expenses and other payments over the three years between 2020 and 2022, the latest figures available.
Coun. Jason Barnaby, who also owns the Sit N Bull bar and restaurant, raked in more than $1.1 million over the same period. Coun. Clark Dedam was the third-highest earner, making more than $662,000.
“This investigation is a long time coming,” Bartibogue, 61, said, shortly before the two investigators from Ottawa came to her home on Algonquin Road. Her house was egged the night after Brunswick News first published stories about the whistleblower in June. The splatter was still visible on her window and air conditioner. “Our people are not well. There are a lot of health problems and addictions and people are so hurt. They’ve been hurt so many times by the same leadership.”
Statistics show that about half of the adult population in the community has not completed high school, and two-thirds are out of the labour force or unemployed. Nearly half the homes need major repairs.
Like many Indigenous elders Brunswick News interviewed as part of a series about the problems at Esgenoôpetitj, Bartibogue said it was important for the community to return to traditional values of sharing.
But in the meantime, she wants accountability.
“The chief last year received more than $789,000 for 12 months. And on social media, our members are begging for food. I don’t understand their mentality on the band council any more. What I want to see is for us to be a community again and everyone to get a fair shake. Everyone, from the old to the young.”
Her private meeting with the investigators lasted over an hour. Bartibogue said the federal officials had also been to the band office on Bayview Drive but couldn’t find any of the councillors.
This is the third time in a little over a decade the band council has been under intense scrutiny. In April 2016, the federal cabinet ordered the removal of the entire 12-person council, including Paul, for vote buying and corruption, just before the end of their two-year elected term.
A similar investigation in 2011 led to the removal of another chief and three councillors.
Some of them were re-elected in subsequent years.
Bartibogue said she remained hopeful this time.
“The director said he has done these kinds of investigations for 20 years, and he’s going to put a report together. But he warned me it would cost $768,000 for a forensic audit, which still hasn’t been approved. I said, ‘take it out from the chief, he made almost a million dollars last year’.”
John Chilibeck, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Daily Gleaner
‘Native American’ or ‘Indigenous’? Journalism group rethinks name
ATLANTA (AP) — The Native American Journalists Association is aiming to become more inclusive as its members vote on whether to rebrand as the Indigenous Journalists Association — a move inspired, in part, by evolving trends in cultural identity.
The group, with more than 950 members mostly in the United States, is expected to approve the change at its annual conference this week in Winnipeg, Canada. Voting on the new name, as well as branding that would replace a feather with an “ija” logo in stylized letters, runs through Thursday, Aug. 10.
Founded in Canada in 1983, NAJA wants to foster inclusion with Indigenous journalists there as well as in Alaska and Hawaii, since “ Native American ” is a modern alternative for “ American Indian ” — referring specifically to the millions of descendants of the original inhabitants of what is now the Lower 48 states.
“Essentially, we’re going back to our roots and trying to create and provide support and resources for Indigenous journalists all across Turtle Island,” board member Jourdan Bennett-Begaye said, invoking the term some Indigenous people use to refer to the North American continent.
More broadly, the proposed change aligns with terminology used by the United Nations and many multinational organizations as the group also seeks allies among Indigenous journalists worldwide. The Māori people in New Zealand, the Sámi people in Arctic Scandinavia and Russia, and the Mapuche people in Patagonia all face similar issues, with journalists who cover climate change, conflicts over land and resources and missing and murdered women, she said.
The change also would reflect an evolution in how Indigenous people see themselves. They're increasingly calling for “decolonizing” language, moving away from terms that were imposed on them, like “Indian” — a legacy of Christopher Columbus' infamous cartographic blunder — and even, in some contexts, “American,” which derives from a mapmaker's effort to honor another Italian explorer, Amerigo Vespucci.
“It’s part of this larger movement that’s happening in Indigenous people, just reclaiming everything that’s theirs that should be theirs," Bennett-Begaye said. "Since contact, decisions have been made for us and not by us.”
Still, some NAJA members have raised concerns that if the association globalizes, its focus on issues particular to Native Americans might be lost. Board members have proposed creating regional chapters if that happens.
Related video: Natives redefining communication (Indian Country Today)
“Indigenous is inoffensive, but it also doesn’t do any of the kind of distinct sovereignty work, distinct political work, distinct cultural affiliation ″ that other words do, said Elizabeth Ellis, a historian at Princeton University and an enrolled citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma. “It doesn’t tell you much beyond the fact that you’re existing in opposition to a history and ongoing legacy of colonization.”
Usage of the word “Indigenous” has soared in recent years, particularly after demonstrations against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 forged the largest pan-Indigenous alliance in North American history. Standing Rock marked a before and after for Native American visibility in the media and popular culture, Ellis said.
But the proliferation of its usage doesn't mean other terms should disappear, because they're not always interchangeable, said Ellis. Indian, American Indian, Native American, Native, and even “NDN” — a tongue-in-cheek slang popular in social media — each have distinct meanings and are appropriate in different contexts.
“Indigenous” applies worldwide, including to anyone whose ancestors didn’t come from somewhere else, and whose communities have endured oppression of their people. But it doesn't reflect the particular duality that many Native Americans experience as citizens of their tribal nations as well as the U.S., Ellis said.
This is why many Native Americans, when communicating with wider audiences, identify themselves first by their tribal affiliations, and increasingly, in their Indigenous language. Ellis intentionally introduces herself as Peewaalia, just as Bennett-Begaye tells people she’s Diné, a member of the Navajo Nation.
Young people in particular are driving these changes in language, Bennett-Begaye said.
“A lot of older folks, and across Indian Country, they still call themselves Indian. My late grandmother, she still calls herself Indian," she said. "But young people ... they see that as derogatory. They’re like, ‘We don’t call ourselves that.’ And I think that’s the cool part, like, young people owning their identity.”
As editor of Indian Country Today, Bennett-Begaye oversaw that media organization's recent name change to ICT, prompted by conversations about identity that were happening across the United States after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
For older generations, ICT can still mean Indian Country Today, while for younger folks, it can mean Indigenous Cultures Today, or Indigenous Communities Today, she said. “We really left it up to interpretation for our readers and our audience.”
Michael Warren, The Associated Press
QUOTED HIS OWN RESEARCH
French research centre behind controversial Covid paper found to have used questionable ethics processes
Story by Melissa Davey, Medical editor •The Guardian Prof Didier Raoult,
A major French research centre that produced one of the most widely cited and controversial research papers of the Covid-19 pandemic has been found by an international research team to have used questionable and concerning ethics approval processes across hundreds of studies.
The Institut Hospitalo-Universitaire Méditerranée Infection, or IHU, is a large clinical research centre in the south of France. It was founded by Prof Didier Raoult, who was also director of the centre until August 2022, when he stood down ahead of the release of findings from a government audit that found the institute conducted trials “likely to constitute offences or serious breaches of health or research regulations”.
The research was quickly identified as problematic, with the study design and interpretation of data criticised by experts, and the combination treatment also found to be associated with increased risk of heart damage.
More rigorous studies concluded the treatments in combination and alone were ineffective, with major international organisations including the World Health Organisation recommending against the treatments and warning of adverse effects.
Given the widespread ramifications caused by one highly promoted study, Lonni Besançon, a postdoctoral research fellow at Monash University in Australia, co-led a review of 456 other studies led by the IHU and published in medical journals.
“Among the studies investigated, 248 were conducted with the same ethics approval number, even though the subjects, samples, and countries of investigation were different,” the review, published in the August edition of the journal Research Integrity and Peer Review, found. “Thirty-nine did not even contain a reference to the ethics approval number while they present research on human beings.”
Raoult’s name was on 415 of the 456 papers that were reviewed, and on 238 of the 248 studies with the same ethics approval number, Besançon told Guardian Australia. While reusing approvals is allowed in some circumstances, this is usually only the case if the research is related to the original approval, the review said.
However, Besançon and his team found ethics approvals were shared across a large variety of research. Some studies, for example, examined samples from stools, urine or organs; some studies were conducted in adults while others examined children, healthy volunteers or obese patients; and study populations even came from different countries.
The authors said medical journals should routinely require researchers to submit their ethics approvals before the work is reviewed and published.
“Although some publishers already require the upload of ethics approval, this practice is not widely adopted,” Besançon said.
“We therefore argue that it should be more widely and rigorously adopted. Ethical approval numbers should be provided as metadata so that post-hoc analysis can be carried out more systematically.”
Guardian Australia contacted Raoult and the IHU for comment but did not receive a response.
A co-author of the review, University of Western Sydney epidemiologist Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, said the IHU “produced by far the most cited and among the most viewed” paper in relation to the pandemic in its hydroxychloroquine study.
“It is genuinely one of the most influential papers of the pandemic and it resulted in a treatment across the world that is still being used, even though we know it does not work,” he said.
“I think it’s hard to overstate how potentially impactful it could be if this research, and other research conducted by the institution, was not conducted ethically.”
Canada looking to sell Trans Mountain pipeline stake to indigenous groups - Bloomberg News
(Reuters) - Canada is looking to sell a stake in the Trans Mountain oil pipeline to indigenous groups through a special-purpose vehicle that will allow individual communities to buy into the enterprise, Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.
The Canadian government will provide the groups with access to capital so they do not have to risk any of their own money to participate, according to the report, citing a letter from Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland's office, dated Aug. 2.
The communities' equity interest in Trans Mountain will provide them with cash flows and allow them to jointly exercise governing rights, the report added.
Indigenous groups that take part in the special purpose vehicle will not be excluded from participating in later rounds offering additional equity in the pipeline and the government will soon begin discussions with the groups along the pipelines route and shipping corridor, the report said.
Freeland's office and Trans Mountain did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the report.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government bought the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018 from Kinder Morgan Inc to ensure the expansion project got built and provided a C$10 billion loan guarantee to TMC.
But the project has been hampered by regulatory obstacles, environmental opposition, and construction delays, and is now anticipated to cost C$30.9 billion ($23.02 billion), more than quadrupling the C$7.4 billion budgeted in 2017.
A Canadian government agency last week guaranteed fresh commercial loans of up to C$3 billion to the pipeline expansion project.
($1 = 1.3422 Canadian dollars)
(Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Editing by Rashmi Aich)
Bat activity lower at solar farm sites, study finds
The activity level of six bat species was significantly reduced at solar farm sites, researchers have observed.
Their findings, published today in Journal of Applied Ecology, have the potential to impact and inform planning legislation and policy so that the benefits of solar power are reaped without impacting wildlife.
Renewable technologies are important in meeting energy demands sustainably. This is of vital importance given the roles of fossil fuels in producing carbon dioxide, a key driver of climate change. Renewable energy is growing at a rapid pace globally, with solar photovoltaic power providing about 30% of global renewable power, and increasing in amount by 25% in 2021.
Lead author Lizy Tinsley from the University of Bristol’sSchool of Biological Sciences explained: “Renewable energies can have negative impacts on biodiversity and mitigation is essential to provide win-win solutions for energy suppliers and for wildlife.”
To carry out their experiment, the team set up bat static monitoring equipment in a solar farm field, and a matched field without solar panels (control site).
Fields were matched in size, land use, and boundary feature (e.g. hedge, fence, stream) and a bat detector was placed in the middle and edge of both fields, totalling four recording locations, repeated across 19 separate sites. Field boundaries were selected as they are important navigation features for bats.
The data from the different echolocation calls at recording points were then analysed to identify the bat species and number of bat passes. They found that the activity level of Common Pipistrelle, Noctule, Myotis species, Serotine, Soprano pipistrelle and Long-eared species was substantially lower at solar farm sites, compared to the paired control sites.
Lizy said: “Due to the significant negative impact identified, solar farm developments should be screened in an Environmental Impact Assessment for ecological impacts so that appropriate mitigation be designed against the impacts, and monitoring undertaken.
“This has already been done with wind farms – where mortality of bats has been reduced by changing the wind speeds at which turbines become operational and by using acoustic deterrents, at minimal cost.
“Further research is required to assess bat behaviour at solar farms, and why it is causing the significant decrease of certain species at the site. Is it the loss of suitable habitat that reduces activity? Are they fewer insect prey available, and are bats at risk of collisions with panels?
“It will be important to identify mitigation strategies that can benefit bats at solar farms, such as planting insect-friendly plants, providing corridors to insect-rich habitats, or providing suitable alternative foraging habitats such as trees.
“Mitigation strategies can potentially mean that renewable energy can be provided while simultaneously having no detriment to wildlife. Such mitigation will be critical in reaping the undoubted benefits for climate change that can be provided by renewable energy.”
Co-author Professor Gareth Jones added: “This is novel research, as the impacts of solar farms on wildlife are currently little understood, with no evidence regarding their effects on bats, which can provide valuable ecosystem services such as the suppression of pest insect populations.
“The situation is potentially of concern as solar farms are occupying increasing areas of suitable foraging area for bats, and we already know that bats can collide with vertical flat surfaces, and can mistake flat surfaces for water, and attempt to drink from them. Very little is known on the impacts of solar farms on bat, particularly in the UK.”
The team now plan to look at the differences in invertebrate species richness and abundance between the paired sites.
Illustration showing effect of solar farming on bat activity
CREDIT
Lizy Tinsley
JOURNAL
Journal of Applied Ecology
ARTICLE TITLE
‘Renewable energies and biodiversity: impact of ground-mounted solar photovoltaic sites on bat activity’
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
8-Aug-2023
Common ancestors of bats were omnivorous suggested by resurrection of ancestral sweet receptors
IMAGE: THE ANCESTRAL SWEET RECEPTOR OF ALL EXTANT BATS (NODE C) WAS FUNCTIONALLY SENSITIVE TO NATURAL SUGARS, WITH A LOWER LEVEL OF SUGAR SENSITIVITY THAN MODERN PTEROPODID BATS (NODE A), SUGGESTING THAT COMMON ANCESTORS OF BATS WERE OMNIVOROUS.view more
This study is led by Prof. Huabin Zhao (College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University).
The origins of powered flight and laryngeal echolocation in bats are widely cited as evidence that ancestral bats evolved as insectivores. Moreover, others have hypothesis that suggesting early bats were diurnal herbivores and that insectivory emerged secondarily for protein supplementation, which suggests modern frugivorous and nectarivorous bats might have retained ancestral adaptations, rather than undergone derived specializations. Direct evidence relating to the diets of ancestral bats is lacking.
Taste is closely linked to diet, and the sweet taste is particularly tied to the consumption of carbohydrate. The sweet taste receptor is formed by a dimer of Tas1r2 and Tas1r3, encoded by the Tas1r2 and Tas1r3 genes, respectively. In a previous study, both in vivo and in vitro functional experiments indicated that frugivorous species from both suborders of bats can sense natural sugars, whereas insectivorous species cannot.
To obtain insights into early evolution of bats, this study assesses whether ancestral bats were able to sense natural sugars, by resurrecting and measuring the functional properties of ancient proteins from six ancestral linages. The sweet receptors of the common ancestors of all extant bats, Yinperochiroptera, and Pteropodidae showed clear responses to natural sugars.
Functional assays of mismatched sweet receptors indicated that Tas1r2 is responsible for the loss of sweet taste in the ancestor of Yangochiroptera, and both Tas1r2 and Tas1r3 have resulted in the regain of the sweet taste in a New World fruit bat.
Two sets of protein sequences respectively resurrected by the amino acid model and the codon model showed the same trend in functional assays. Clear responses to an artificial sweetener as a positive control and similar equivalent expression levels of Tas1r2 and Tas1r3 confirmed that the heterologous expression system worked properly.
In summary, these findings provide the first evidence that the ability to sense natural sugars was present in the common ancestors of extant bats. Based on the correspondence between taste and diet in extant bats, early bats were suggested as omnivorous, feeding on a mixture of fruits and insects, and the ability to preceive sweetness has been retained throughout the evolutionary history of Old World fruit bats. The omnivorous diet of the common ancestor of bats challenges the common view that bats evolved flight and echolocation for hunting insects. Instead, it raises the possibility that the first bats hunted for insects and fruit without echolocation.
“This is an interesting study that went an additional step in inferring ancestral phenotypes from ancestral genotypes.” Says Professor Jianzhi George Zhang, the former President of Society for Molecular Biology and Evolution and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, an evolutionary geneticist at the University of Michigan. “In this work, the authors inferred the dietary preference of the common ancestor of all extant bats by experimentally confirming the functions of inferred ancestral taste receptor genes, rendering their phenotypic inference more trustworthy. Because the diet of ancestral bats is hypothesized to be linked with the evolution of bat flight and echolocation, this study will stimulate investigations of the origin of bats and their unique biology.” Zhang says.
“This is an exciting new study where the authors reconstructed the taste receptors from ancestral bats using evolutionary methods to uncover how bat's feeding behaviours evolved.” Says Professor Emma Teeling, the member of Royal Irish Academy, a zoologist at the University College Dublin, Ireland. “One particularly interesting observation is that potentially New World fruit-feeding bats have evolved a different way to taste natural sugars, which would provide a new avenue for mammalian sensory biology. This study is an exciting example of the use of functional genomics to link genotype and phenotype together, giving us a unique insight into the evolution of bats’ unique sensory biology not possible before.” Teeling adds.
LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR ZOO AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH (IZW)
IMAGE: URBAN STRUCTURES ARE A DEADLY TRAP FOR COMMON NOCTULES IN THE UKRAIN WAR ZONEview more
CREDIT: ANZHELA BUT
Russia’s war in the Ukraine has severe consequences not only for humans, it also has detrimental effects on populations of urban and semi-urban wildlife in the attacked cities and regions. Scientists from the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center recently examined the effects of war-related damages to buildings on urban populations of one important and widespread bat species, the Common Noctule (Nyctalus noctula), in the city of Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine. They showed that many buildings used by bats as roosts have been destroyed and approximately 7,000 bats were killed. In addition, partially destroyed buildings have become a death trap for bats, resulting in several thousand more victims. The findings are published in the Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research.
The mission of the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center (UBRC) is to protect, rescue and conduct long-term research on bats, with the Kharkiv region as the focus of their efforts. Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second largest city and one of the places where conflicts between Ukrainian and Russian forces have been most intense to date. UBRC director Dr Anton Vlaschenko, who is also affiliated with the Berlin-based Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), says: “Our findings suggest that 45.1% of buildings used as wintering roosts for Common Noctules were either partially damaged or completely destroyed by shellings, which may have led to the direct killing of approximately 7,000 bats.” Additionally, the war-damaged urban environment in Kharkiv has become a deadly trap for the bats during the period of autumn migration or swarming. “Bats entered the interiors of buildings through windows that were left open or broken by blast waves, resulting in entrapment,” says former Leibniz-IZW PhD student Dr Kseniia Kravchenko from the UBRC.
Windows left open by people and/or were broken by blast waves are a notable threat for migratory bats that enter the building and get trapped inside the apartments or between window frames. Some of the windows in the city are of an old double-glazed type – two frames with a space between them – and the bats end up trapped in the middle. “The issue has been known to occur in Kharkiv since the 1960s, but the war exacerbates the problem by creating ever more human-made traps for bats,” reports Vlaschenko . Before the war, UBRC scientists used to rescue up to 500 bats from such windows during the autumn bat migration. Owing to the war, the number of cases of bats trapped in partially damaged buildings and/or abandoned apartments was three times higher than in previous years. Almost all of them were Common Noctules. The team reports that they discovered 2,836 Common Noctules trapped inside buildings damaged by shelling and that approximately 30 percent of them were already dead upon discovery. Noctules flies in groups and these groups can get lost in urban structures. The size of trapped groups was clearly larger than in previous years, especially in the districts of the city most damaged by the ongoing war such as Saltivka,” says Kravchenko. During the first weeks of the full-scale war (February–March 2022) alone, almost half of the buildings known as winter roosts of Common Noctules were partially (31.4%) or fully (13.7%) damaged by Russian shelling, which may have led to the direct killing of thousands of bats.
The number of bats present in Kharkiv in 2022 was exceptional high, as Common Noctules stayed in the Kharkiv city area all autumn. The scientists also found that these bats had a larger body mass than usual. These changes might have been a consequence of the destruction of street lights and power plants in Kharkiv and most of the settlements in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. The absence of artificial light might result in more bats entering the city, as this removed any “light barrier” for nocturnal animals and facilitated a rapid recovery of night-active insect populations.
“The war created many new challenges in our lives and to those of bats, but we don’t lose focus on our mission to protect wildlife and exploit the current context to learn as much as we can on our favourite animals”, concludes Vlaschenko. The war has indeed made their working condition extremely difficult, but the team of the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center remains very active and continues to save bats, gather data, run workshops and collaborate with many scientists and institutes in Ukraine and beyond, such as with the Leibniz-IZW.
Publication
Vlaschenko A, Shulenko A, But A, Yerofieiva M, Bohodist V, Petelka M, Vovk A, Zemliana K, Myzuka D, Kravchenko K, Prylustka A (2023): The War-Damaged Urban Environment Becomes Deadly Trap for Bats: Case from Kharkiv City (NE Ukraine) in 2022. Journal of Applied Animal Ethics Research, 5(1), 27-49. DOI: 10.1163/25889567-bja10035
Contacts
Anton Vlaschenko Director of the Ukrainian Bat Rehabilitation Center, Ukrainian Independent Ecology Institute, Plekhanov st., 40, 61001 Kharkiv, Ukraine
National Scientific Center “Institute of Experimental and Clinical Veterinary Medicine”, Pushkinska St., 83, Kharkiv 61023, Ukraine
IMAGE: MEBRAHTU WELDEGHEBRIEL WAS THE LEAD AUTHOR OF THE PAPER RECENTLY PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL SCIENCE ADVANCES.view more
CREDIT: BINGHAMTON UNIVERSITY, STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Sea salt hides a secret: tiny droplets of the seawater from which it came, preserving geologic history.
Using specializing equipment obtained from National Science Foundation grant funds, Mebrahtu Weldeghebriel, PhD ’22, a postdoctoral fellow at Princeton University, and Binghamton University Distinguished Professor of Earth Sciences Tim Lowenstein were able to reconstruct changes in seawater chemistry over the last 150 million years, also gaining insight into related geological processes and climate changes. Their article, “Seafloor Hydrothermal Systems Control Long-Term Changes in Seawater [Li+]: Evidence from Fluid Inclusions,” was recently published in the journal Science Advances.
The ocean “is like a giant soup of different elements,” Lowenstein explained. “Sodium and chloride are the most common ones, but there are dozens of others dissolved in seawater in trace amounts such as lithium.”
They looked at sea salt (halite) formed at various times over the past 150 million years in geographically diverse sedimentary basins in the United States, Europe, Asia and Africa. Within the salt samples were tiny pockets containing a bit of ancient seawater.
To access the tiny droplets, the researchers used a laser to drill holes into the salt crystals and then a mass spectrometer to analyze the different trace elements present. In this research, they focused specifically on the concentration of lithium, a trace element that sustained a seven-fold decrease over the past 150 million years, paralleled by a rise in magnesium to calcium ratios.
But why?
The cause for the long-term variations in seawater composition has been debated for the past two decades. The researchers proposed that the decline in lithium concentration in seawater is mainly associated with reduced production of oceanic crust and decreased seafloor hydrothermal activity, both of which are influenced by the movements of tectonic plates. The slowdown in plate activity over the past 150 million years led to less lithium being added to the ocean and reduced amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere, which ultimately led to global cooling and the present ice age. Turning back the clock 150 million years, the earth was a warmer place with more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and more lithium in the sea.
“There is a close link between ocean chemistry and atmospheric chemistry,” Weldeghebriel said. “Whatever changes happen in the ocean also reflect what’s happening in the atmosphere.”
Overall, Weldeghebriel and Lowenstein’s research has made a significant advance in understanding the chemistry of Earth’s ancient oceans and how the movement of tectonic plates has influenced the composition of our Earth’s hydrosphere and atmosphere. Such chemical changes impact biology, as well, such as the marine creatures that build their shells out of calcium carbonate.
“The oceans and atmosphere are connected to one another, and how they change is related,” Lowenstein explained. “Everything is connected.”
Pollinosis, or hay fever, makes people miserable around the world, and Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) pollen is a significant cause of the suffering in the 38.8% of Japanese people who are allergic. Japanese cedar is also the country's most important timber species. A single mature tree produces on the order of three hundred million grains of pollen. Saneyoshi Ueno and colleagues investigated the genes required to produce this massive amount of genetic material. Previous research by Ueno’s team identified a gene, CJt020762, that seems to be required for pollen production. Mutants who carry broken versions of the gene make no pollen at all. Now, another gene, CjTKPR1, found in a different locus, is also determined to be necessary for the production of pollen. Functionally, CjTKPR1 is required for construction of the wall of the pollen grain. Mutant trees with nonfunctional versions of this gene already exist and produce nearly no pollen. Knocking out this gene in the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, rice, tobacco, and daisies led to male sterility in each case. According to the authors, creating pollen-free commercially grown timber tree lines would be straightforward and desirable.
