“Megafauna” and “tiny species”: are we using an ecological link for conveying conservation messages to society?

Since I was a child I could see and understand how people (e.g., my family, relatives and neighbors in my hometown) had relationships based on their way of being, work, homes, titles, to name a few, that resulted in friendship, affection, respect, money, problems, and to certain level of “dependency”.  Over time, I got increasingly interested in the area of ecology (i.e., a science that allows us to understand and use relationships between living and nonliving entities in nature).  So, relationships have always captivated me in different levels; one of them is the reason that I am still struggling for learning into this field.

Last week, I wrote about how people are more oriented towards looking, thinking of, and caring for animals from a utilitarian and charismatic point of view.  Today I will try to intertwine my past opinion with another link: the unnoticeable minute species.  In the literature, we can find several articles on conservation focused on big mammals and birds particularly addressing on site conservation issues.  Using big charismatic vertebrate species as a flagship (i.e., a selected species used as a conservation cause or to represent an environmental cause to increase awareness and favorable efforts) for conservation has been proved to have some utility since the 80’s.  Research has shown that by having only “cute” endangered mammals (sometimes called megafauna in risk of extinction), we could be missing entire islands where these species are absent or gone already.  

Taken from http://www.hickerphoto.com/arctic-wildlife-hudson-bay-polar-bear-canada-29110-pictures.htm

As everything in life, this approach has its own shortcomings and drawbacks waiting for researchers to address and improve them.  Birds, amphibians, and plants under different status of conservation concern and/or charismatic to people are also considered as flagships either for educating or informing our society of specific aspects of them and their environments.  

In general species such as some small noncolorful birds, amphibians, insects, and, very especially, the “microbes” are frequently overlooked from conservation workshops, outreach activities, and education activities when addressing the open society.  Microbes and invertebrates alone conform about 95% of all living species on Earth! so, are oriented to care for what is numerously dominant or by the size of what we see?.  

Bacteria Nitrobacter.  Taken fromhttp://ozsoapbox.com/goldfish/why-do-i-need-to-cycle-my-goldfish-tank/  

Informing people about the past and current status, ecological values, basic natural history and relationships of these small creatures (e.g., invertebrates) with the “megafauna” and vital ecosystem services can improve the understanding of how several biological entities (inconspicuous or noncharismatic species) and environmental processes (e.g., nutrient cycling or regulation of population size) are interrelated and depend on each other at least in certain period of their life.  For instance the flow of nutrients coming from the permanent change or shed of feathers, hairs, skin cells, leaves, branches, carcasses, and all organic material in decomposition are dependent on the activity first of small sensitive leaf litter creatures (insects, worms) and secondly of microbes (e.g., fungi and bacteria) to break them down into smaller particles (e.g., nutrients such as different presentations of nitrogen that is a structural element of protein for all living organisms) make them available over time to plants. 

Plants use them for their own good (i.e., absorbing and transforming them into their bodies to create more live tissue or biomass) and then make them available (e.g., flowers, fruits, leaves, bark, wood) again to countless species of small and large terrestrial and aquatic organisms.  All unnoticeable tiny species (i.e., fungi and bacteria) are very likely to gain appreciation of people as mammals, birds, amphibians and plants do.  To put a cherry on this cake, let’s say that microbes in collaboration with plants are responsible agents driving agriculture, forestry, and fisheries.  These activities mean food, work, money, health and several other prime services to us.  

Thus, by informing people of the importance of appealing “megafauna” (e.g., polar bears, monkeys and jaguars), other charismatic species (e.g., colorful birds, frogs and plants) and their basic relationships with other non-attractive species of invertebrates (e.g., earthworms and beetles) and the imperceptible microbes (e.g., fungi and bacteria) we can provide a more complete image of how relationships and interdependencies play a key role in our ecosystems.  Further, if we link these interrelationships among species to environmental factors and the ecosystem services resulting from them, there will be a better way to see and understand ecology in our society and to enhance the societal valuation of wild species and ecosystems.  We can develop our major scientific topic during our conservation activities and, when possible, make a link to the other "imperceptible and little treasured" living species to provide a more complete ecological idea of our topic.  Outreach and environmental education (in any format!) are two “open doors” to everyone who understand, cares, and wants to cooperate in giving a more complete picture of ecology to our society in favor of ecosystem conservation.   Are we in? As for me concerns, I am in!

A need for communicating ecological values: a like me, like me not attitude?

Today I will write on a topic that I usually think of and use when talking to the open non-scientific society about conservation: charismatic and non-charismatic animals.  In general, people tend to care for mammals and birds over all other animals, especially for those who are amazingly colorful, or sing harmoniously, or are catalogued as “cutest little things”, right?  This tendency is partly due to the fact that these animals are warm-blooded and we identify ourselves with them to certain level.  The point is, do we have the right of becoming judges in deciding if we should care for species considered “nonatractive” and subconsciously assign them a lack of value? Based on our taste, mood, background, homeland, friends circle, lack of information or a combination of some of these and other factors people have the perception of doing what they considered they should with animals, and fairly frequently holding only a utilitarian perspective.  For this, I broadly mean, if a species or object can be of some benefit, I will care for or do something for it.

A good example to illustrate these ideas comes from birds and bats (part of my personal passion in life!). 

 

Birds are nearly 10,000 species worldwide and roughly 10% are under some category of conservation concern.  Most bird species are active during day hours (another reason for being more in contact with them) and can use and live in the air, land, fresh, brackish and sea water.  Speaking of mass or size, birds cover from 2 gr (Bee Hummingbird in Cuba) to 160 Kg (Ostrich in Africa and introduced by humans to several other regions of the world).  Birds are well-known for pollinating flowers and dispersing seeds of several hundreds of plant species, eating tons of insects, other invertebrates and vertebrates every year, eating up putrid road-killed animals along our highways, contributing to the recycle of nutrients by excavating nests on trees, leaving animal and plant remains almost everywhere where they eat or defecate or die, or simply by allowing us to enjoy either their beautiful elaborate songs or majestic plumages in the sunny days of the breeding season right in the background of our homes, backyards or forests.  So, why we should not care for birds right? Even more, we do not have to read a long, dully-written scientific paper to perceive these roles.  By just paying attention and watching our natural surroundings in any day of our lives we could easily witness and appreciate the presence of birds.

As concerns for bats, there are about 1100 bat species recorded in the world and nearly 10% of them with different categories of conservation concern.  In terms of numbers, birds and bats seem pretty even, right?  Now, when speaking of ecological roles, amazingly enough is to mention that bats perform pretty much the same roles that birds do: disperse fruits, pollinate flowers, and, when eating, regulate outstanding numbers of invertebrates and vertebrates.  Unfortunately for bats, they do not sing nor have brightly colorful feathers.  The vast majority of bat species are nocturnal (partly explaining why we do not see them as frequently as birds) and live in almost all types of ecosystems (except in the poles).  Interestingly, bats are the only mammals with the capacity of real flight, have a few species that feed exclusively on blood and have developed “echolocation” (a sensory system that works like sonar) to move around (small insectivorous bat species have this sonar system well developed).  The smallest bat in weight is the Bumblebee bat with 1.7-2 gr (southeastern Asia) and the heaviest bat species is the giant golden-crowned fruit bat reaching up to 1.5 Kg (southeastern Asia).  So, when comparing birds and bats is some easy to remember characteristics, they are similar with the exception of being unattractive to the human eye!  To make this matter uglier for bats, very unfortunately, bats have an undeservedly bad, or even worse evil, reputation among humans.  Movies, science fiction novels, and word of mouth have contributed to this undesirable reputation.  There are currently many more movies, video clips, documentaries, books, magazines, articles, and journals on birds than in bats in internet and in libraries.  If you are curios enough, give it a try and compare the number of any of this examples in nearest library of just check on your favorite internet search tab.

Birds and bats have a tremendous relevancy in the stability and well-being of our ecosystems where we obtain most of our vital resources every day (oxygen through plants and food to mention a couple).   Very sadly, both of them have species that are being negatively affected by several factors related to humans.  When asking people about the importance and preference between these two groups of warm-blooded vertebrates, 80% of adult attendees in the audience (over 18 years old) have preference for birds over bats and did not know about the similar ecological role of them. If preference and/or lack of information play a key factor towards this attitude, is there anything that people with a graduate education level in environmental sciences can do about it? Perhaps share our knowledge with the public in any facet that we feel comfortable with and have abilities with: writing for the mass media? Speaking in public? blogging? Creating web pages? At the end, being cataloged or called “ugly or unattractive” in our human society has not been ever an issue, right?  My co-responsibility in conserving our biodiversity (e.g., birds and bats) goes beyond generating knowledge and developing scientific papers.  I am always questioning myself on how to direct my capability and abilities towards making society more aware of our current environmental situation and engaging them into local hands-on actions. 

  

Happy Valentine's day? or happy climate change readings?

Today, 14 February 2011 or our so called Valentine’s Day, it is funny to write my impressions on three articles conveying information on global warming through nonscientific, but well-read and respected magazines.  This is funny to me because who cares for global warming when, based on vox populi, it is time to buy presents and call our loved ones to finally say how much we love them.  I do not mean that the latter idea is erroneous at all, but when should we start caring for real environmental issues? 

I asked during the last three days (Fri, Sat, and Sun) to 15 young people (8 females and 7 males) that I found by chance on campus, grocery store, vicinity of apartment or walking down the street about two topics: climate change and about Valentine’s day.  By far, they spent much more time and put far more excitement when talking about today’s celebration than climate change.  Even more, they said that they still doubt about climate changes are happening (not just global warming) and that thing was depressing. 

I am starting my blog with these statements because the people I talked to were students from MU, but none of them related to environmental sciences.  So, I was wondering if there is or is going to be any particular time of the year or day that we should spend documenting ourselves about global warming or climate change or alternative energy supplies (to mention a few)? 

Now, I am finally going to start describing my opinions on the three articles we were given to read and discuss tomorrow in our seminar.

1. “Earth at the tipping point: global warming heats up” by Jeffrey Kluger.  This article contains a good wealth of scientific information and jargon throughout the text.  The author does a pretty good job intertwining processes and environmental events, and clearly explaining the technical terms used (especially because he is not a scientist).  From my point of view, it is biased towards a cataclysmic view of the theme and had several overly negative expressions.  These characteristics are “golden land” for skeptic people to keep strengthening their postures towards global climate change.  In terms of organization and flow of the ideas, I would assign this article a quality level of poor (in comparison to the other several readings we have reviewed during our seminar).  The ending section of “what we can do”, it falls too short from being complete, organized, and insightful.  But, out of the three articles, this was the one with more scientific information in it.
2. Is global warming responsible for wild weather?  This article is much shorter, does not get into much depth in the topics, have some references or sources backing up the statements, and finally give a subtle message of “get ready for the unexpected …… because it is happening” with reference to global warming.  Although presenting some references, it gave me the idea of being vague and I’d have liked to see more data supporting what was being written.  Although short and superficial, it gives a good outline of the global warming scenario with some bits of alarmism. 
3. Climate-change strategy: be afraid – but only a little by Bryan Walsh.  This article was the shortest, most recent, and straightforward to its take home message: fear tactics do not work well in conveying the global warming message to the society.  He backed up this posture with a study on Americans and some examples of using media to communicate potential catastrophic event in our future.  He wrote a saying by a writer and activist bill Mckibben, “you can’t negotiate with the planet, but you have to negotiate with the public” … without scaring them!  The question is how can we make average people understand facts that go against their well, long-rooted ideas?  Should we just wait till the “appropriate time or special day” comes by for negotiating with the society?  How much is too much passion, alarmism, jargon, text, bias, or time to put into any article to effectively communicate current environmental issues to the majority of our society?  Should we keep writing and asking for the “magical recipe” to get the “balance compelling writing” and then to start negotiating and acting towards local or global measures in favor of the environment?  Or should we just start using our limited current scientific information and make it available to the society in every format that we feel fit to?  To me, it is scary to find college people (with certain level of education) still thinking that “it might happen or not, who knows?”, “That is depressing, we better go out shopping and get ready for Valentine’s day, don’t you think so?” I scratch my head and walk away pondering about the last comments and what I should do about it.
4. These three articles allow me to compare styles, postures, techniques, and length of writing when addressing environmental issues such as climate change or global warming.  I do not think there is a single secret formula for effectively writing scientific information for the society, but practice makes perfect and attitude, ethics, a combination of writing techniques, and hard work can help in doing so.

To eat or not eat, .... that is not the question! but, shrimp or beef?

I feel emotionally obligated to express how much I enjoyed reading the chapters “Graze Anatomy” by Richard Manning and “All You Can Eat” by Jim Carrier this week.  Now, as for answering why I believed these chapters were considered as part of the Best Science and Nature Writing in 2010 book, below you have my comments.

All you can eat.  Carrier’s style of writing was clear, captivating, creative, well-argumented, and flourished in tips for fully capturing the reader’s attention (like me!).  I believe that the key for this chapter is the combination of reality, familiar case studies, analogies, metaphors, colloquial sayings, scientific information, research, dates, sources, economy and health aspects, reader friendly text, and rich vocabulary made a very special “reading cocktail” for me as a reader.  Associating the major topics (e.g., US broken shrimp industry due to overfishing and the growing problem of the food quality of imported shrimp) to our everyday life examples (e.g., shrimp price for a family or a daily financial profit of a shrimp boat) and real familiar names of places (e.g., Red Lobster Restaurant and Ecuadorian shrimp farms) made interesting and facilitated the connection of all ideas into the shrimp story.  Intermixing dialogues, quotes, descriptions and passages through the story spurned me to keep avidly reading and wondering on what new issue this author was bringing up next into it.  Now, as a reader and part of our society, I am just wondering when I am going to have my next shrimp-based plate in a restaurant located at least 100miles away from the coast! or, should I just ask for a cocktail?

Graze Anatomy.  Manning’s style was rich in writing techniques, clear, interesting, informative and up to date as well.  One thing that manning did in his text was to use subtitles to enhance the information coming up and linking it to the whole picture of the story.  In scientific writing the use of different sections and subheadings is important, but Manning gave me another example of how a writer can drive the attention of the reader towards any desirable point or to emphasize part of the “take home” message.  The change from grass-fed system (grain production for cattle) into pasture and organic crop farming (e.g., perennial grasses for cattle) sounds very promising and desirable, but the globalized economic system and our multi-cultural approaches to farming in the world are two major obstacles to fend before this idea comes to reality.  Manning forged a excellent text linking ecological, social, health, financial, and political issues into a congruous, appealing, documented story.  By associating the production of beef (milk and other derivatives) on grass pastures (e.g., corn, wheat) with aspects of global warming, climate change, product nutritional value for humans, crop productivity, physiology, flooding, erosion, carbon sequestration, and sustainability, Manning gives me a solid outline of a very complex problem that we are currently facing.  As Carrier did, manning provided with specific numbers and quantities to support his statements which gains more credibility from the reader.  Although I did not see any scientific reference throughout both chapters, I perfectly understand this fact due to the nature of the book.

In summary, I am confident in saying that I enjoyed a lot reading and learned from both chapters, but I must also say that my favorite one was “All you can eat” by Manning.  Both chapters were presented with a technically diverse, informative, and clear writing format under a coherent, flowing style which simply put these stories into the Best Science and Nature Writing 2010 book.  Another relevant point that these authors made me remembered was the importance of a short, explicit, eye-catching title for a text, do you agree?