CLIMATE change is the greatest threat humanity faces – and we aren’t the only ones at risk. Global warming will harm millions of other species, including iconic endangered animals such as polar bears and tigers. Despite this, conservationists often don’t take climate change into account, meaning plans to preserve these species are doomed to fail. “It’s astonishing,” says Miguel Araujo at the . . . [ Read More ]
Our success has depended on unlimited access to planetary credit
My recent interview to the magazine Lisboa (page 54, sorry in Portuguese alone) where I talk about broad issues of sustainability, biogeography, climate change, economics, and how these issues are linked together through the concept of metabolism. . . . [ Read More ]
Biogeographic analysis of trophic structures reveals the signature of climate and people
Community trophic structure typical of seasonal tropical climates https://youtu.be/1WwGVnNFJOY In Spanish here Climate determines the arquitectures of trophic structures and human activities simplify them. This is the main conclusion of a study published today in Nature Communications, by Manuel Mendoza and Miguel B. Araújo. Using the geographic distributions and feeding . . . [ Read More ]
Standards for distribution models in biodiversity assessments
https://youtu.be/iS31WaKMW_Y Would you have your cancer treatment be defined by one doctor supported by the opinion of two additional referees? Surely, you would hope the treatment to follow best practice standards reached by consensus among several doctors working in the field. Surprisingly, no such standards exist in models entering biodiversity assessments, but we now provide such . . . [ Read More ]
Networks of global bird invasion altered by regional trade ban
In 2005, the European Union imposed a ban in trade of wild exotic species as part of a package to control the sprea d of avian flu into the Continent. In a paper published in Science Advances we demonstrate that the ban reduced fluxes of trade in about 90%, from 1.3 million to 130 thousand birds traded. This mighty achievement had non predicted consequences: the market adjusted and new . . . [ Read More ]