The bees and the birds.

"Let me tell ya 'bout the..."
bees and the birds?

Bees have been in the news of late, and I am not referring to either Colony Collapse Disorder or the threat to agricultural production as pollinators decline.

The news I'm referring to relates to climate change, and how bees and the plants they pollinate may get out of synch as climate change affects dates when they emerge each spring. Biologists have theorized that food webs might be disrupted by climate change, but it is very difficult to detect. (I will be writing soon about recent findings regarding migratory birds and their food sources.) In the special case of bees and the plants they pollinate, there are a lot of interacting variables besides climate change affecting pollination:

There is growing recognition that plant–pollinator interactions can be drastically influenced by anthropogenic changes to ecosystems. Climate change, habitat fragmentation, agricultural intensification, urbanization, pollution, pesticides
and species’ invasions all have the potential to affect plant–pollinator interactions directly and indirectly.

Evidence for the consequences of climate change is difficult to tease out in complex ecological systems, but it is through long-term studies in pristine environments like Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory that we may be starting to see effects. A recent study conducted there, high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, got quite a bit of attention in the U.S., Canada, and the UK last week.

James Thompson, in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Toronto, has been studying glacier lilies and bumble bees at RMBL for 17 years. This pristine study site is free of the many confounding factors that affect pollination, allowing him to examine changes in bee activity and pollination success for glacier lilies over two decades.

Over that time, he found that both bee numbers and pollination of wild lily flowers have been declining. The change appears to be due, at least in part, to earlier flowering, before bumble bees have emerged from hibernation. And earlier flowering may be due to climate change:

The onset of blooming is determined by snowmelt, with the earliest years starting a month before the latest years owing to variation in winter snowpack accumulation. Fruit set is diminished or prevented entirely by killing frosts in some years.... When frosts do not limit fruit set, pollination limitation is frequent, especially in the earlier cohorts. .... This lily appears to be poorly synchronized with its pollinators. Across the years of the study, pollination limitation appears to be increasing, perhaps because the synchronization is getting worse.

Thompson is cautious in his summary of the study:

[He] admitted the evidence from the study was still weak but said the results were a warning that the phenomenon ‘might be widespread and needs more attention’.

‘It certainly suggests that people who have warned about the possible climate-change consequence of dislocated timing between interacting species have made a reasonable argument,’ he added.

While this is an alarming story, don't worry about glacier lilies. They are common and widely distributed in montane habitats in the western U.S. The bees (and the birds; that story's next) may not be in perfect synch with their flowers (or their insect food, in the case of birds) anymore, but it's not too late to prevent things from getting to the point of losing our favorite species. We still have time before the natural community diversity that exists in the Rocky Mountains is lost.

But we need to start reducing GHG emissions now. Personally, in our communities, and through our local, state, and national governments, we need to push to reduce our carbon footprints. Now is the time.

Our Dying Forests

(I posted this in a slightly different form at Daily Kos yesterday.)

Subhankar Banerjee has a post up on Huffington Post in support of Barbara Boxer's re-election campaign in California.
Banerjee's post is a good one, but the best part was sending us to his new website.

After the U.S. Senate killed the climate bill in late July, many of us were disappointed (but not surprised). We pointed our fingers to what went wrong and why our climate movement failed, but then we got to work to figure out how to move forward. Just a few days ago I founded ClimateStoryTellers.org that you can check out.

What a gifted writer! And what a story he has brought together about our dying forests, both here in North America and around the world.

The first post on this site is an essay by Banerjee, entitled 'Could This Be A Crime? U.S. Climate Bill Is Dead While So Much Life On Our Earth Continues To Perish'.

He begins by describing pinyon pine mortality around Sante Fe, New Mexico, over the last decade.

...In many areas of northern New Mexico, including Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Española, and Taos, 90 percent of mature piñons are now dead.

Under normal climate conditions, bark beetles live in harmony with their environment, laying their eggs in dead or weakened trees. However, when healthy trees become stressed from severe and sustained drought, they become objects of attack: the beetles drill into their bark, laying eggs along the way, and killing their host. Milder winter temperatures have ensured more of them survive the winter, and warmer summer temperatures have reduced the life cycle duration of the beetles from two to one year, and subsequently their numbers have exploded in recent years.

...During my childhood in India, I was fascinated by the detective stories of Satyajit Ray’s Feluda series. Because of the forest devastation I witnessed daily, I took on the role of a self–assigned visual detective of a geographic region bound by a 5–mile radius around our home. I walked again and again the same three paths, each no more than 2 miles long.

Banerjee provides a link to a photo journal of the 'scene of the crime' from these regular walks, and also describes pinyon decline in prose. He's particularly eloquent in describing Native American use of pinyon pine nuts, and in reviewing the plight of pinyon forests in the last century. In addition to the threat from climate change, pinyon-juniper forests were threatened by development in the late 1800's and 1900's. P-j forests were cleared for ranching, an act which he calls 'ecocultural vandalism.'

Banerjee writes with similar eloquence about his travels to forests in the western U.S., in the Yukon, and the Siberian taiga. He adds notes about forest declines in India and Spain that he's heard about from colleagues and friends. The thread that binds these far-flung places is that decline of forests around the globe can be attributed to the same factors that led to decline of the pinyon-juniper forests in the southwest U.S.: drought and increasing temperatures as effects of climate change intensify.

He points out that our 3 largest global carbon 'sinks', the forests which sequester carbon in their growth [Siberian taiga, North American boreal forest, and Amazon rain forests], are declining in their ability to function.

He concludes with this thought:

Global warming is a crisis: for all lands, for all oceans, for all rivers, for all forests, for all humans, for all birds, for all mammals, for all little creatures that we don’t see... for all life. We need stories and actions from every part of our earth. So far, global warming communications have primarily focused on scientific information. I strongly believe that to engage the public, we need all fields of the humanities. It is to this end that I founded ClimateStoryTellers.

Climate Story Teller indeed. Please give him a read.

News note!

I saw a western skink (Eumeces skiltonianus) out front today! There are only 40 documented sightings of this species in western Montana; none in the last five years. Here, it is a 'Species of Concern'.

Species of Concern are native taxa that are at-risk due to declining population trends, threats to their habitats, restricted distribution, and/or other factors. Designation as a Montana Species of Concern or Potential Species of Concern is based on the Montana Status Rank, and is not a statutory or regulatory classification. Rather, these designations provide information that helps resource managers make proactive decisions regarding species conservation and data collection priorities.

We're located in the Rocky Mountain lower montane, foothill, and valley grassland ecological system. The specific location was the gravel bed in front of the house (south-facing), between the house and the herb garden/ perennial flower and shrub bed.

What it tells me is that we have fantastic wildlife habitat on our little piece of Montana!

I DID race today! Temperature: 49 degrees F. Winds: calm. Raining lightly. Almost bailed (see my previous post about NOT running in late May), but my friend Karen talked me into coming out at least to see what the weather would be like.

What a fabulous race.

What a fabulous place (Greenough Park).

Race results.

Climate Progress celebrates its 4th anniversary. Joe Romm says:

What I have learned most from the success of my blog, from the rapid growth in subscribers and visitors and comments, along with the increasing number of websites that link to or reprint my posts, is that there is in fact a great hunger out there for the bluntest possible talk. It is a hunger to learn the truth about the dire nature of our energy and climate situation, about the grave threat to our children and future generations, about the vast but still achievable scale of the solutions, about the forces in politics and media that impede action—a hunger to face unpleasant facts head on.

This blog is among the most important ones out there for providing links to the latest in climate science, and for taking the climate change denialists head-on in their disinformation efforts. It's one of the first blogs I read each day. I'll start passing more of his posts along to you. He doesn't deal with ecology or natural history per se (he's a physicist), but sometimes his commenters have nuggets of information. For example, in the comments of this post, 'Colorado Bob' said:

To the end of seeding tips that others miss, I suggest you add a category of “species response”. Into that, place reports of just what plants and animals are doing to respond , things like this :

Coffee threatened by beetles in a warming world

A tiny insect that thrives in warmer temperatures — the coffee berry borer — has been spreading steadily, devastating coffee plants in Africa, Latin America, and around the world

http://www.guardian.co.uk/ environment/ 2010/ aug/ 27/ coffee-threatened-beetles-warming

———–
It has been my experience that the deniers , can’t spin Humbolt Squid showing up in Sitka, Alaska, or pine beetles eating the Canadian lumber supply.

and this further down the thread:

An 11 year set of maps of the beetle kill march across in British Columbia from the Provincial Forest Service -

http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/hre/bcmpb/cumulative/1999.htm

The Aqua satellite pass over British Columbia 8-16-2010

http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ gallery/ ?2010228-0816/ BritishColumbia.A2010228.2120.1km.jpg

It's a great web site. Important.

Hello, readers! I have been busy lately, but that is no excuse for not posting here.

I had a blog at 1Sky a few weeks ago.

The 2 take-home points from the post were:

1. The science is settled: climate change is occurring, it is due to human-caused burning of fossil fuels, and we no longer need to engage with the global-warming denialists. They (the denialists) are a relatively small proportion of the population, they will not be convinced, and their support is not necessary for us (Americans, global citizens) to take action against climate change. It is past time to move on.

2. The biggest roadblock (other than our senators and the money from Big Oil and Dirty Coal!) to finding support for action against climate change is economic concerns. The "policy" or "action" message must address "equity." When speaking out for action, we need to speak to the economic concerns of that massive "middle," who care about doing something about climate change but are afraid of the cost to themselves and their families.

Follow the links in the diary to other blogs I've posted, both here and at DailyKos, to see the evidence to support my arguments. One additional diary (and the links therein) that is part of my evidence is here. (It was edited out of the post for 1Sky.)

Okay, now you are up-to-date on my blogging activities. Don't forget that in addition to blogging, I do blogging research for 1Sky, and that has kept me busy.

(And lest we forget, I live in beautiful western Montana where summer activities, like having relatives visit, camping, hiking, and backpacking are an essential part of my life!)

Happy reading!

'Special Places at Risk'

Yesterday, a guest blog at 1Sky posted a heart-wrenching story about oil from the BP spill coming ashore at Florida's Gulf Island National Seashore, one of 15 special places identified as at-risk in a report by the Rocky Mountain Climate Organization and the Natural Resources Defense Council. This report, in .pdf form that can by accessed at this link, was written in late May to summarize a just few of the many, many National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and Seashores at potential risk from the BP oil spill that has now been flowing for over 2 months.

We've seen so many pictures and read so many news reports about the devastation along the Gulf Coast, it's hard to fathom the scope of the treasure that is our Gulf Coast natural habitat at risk. If you are from another part of the country (or the globe), this document is a good place to go to become familiar with the vast area and array of natural treasures preserved along the Coast. Breton Island NWR off Louisiana's coast, among the first areas to be oiled, is

the country's second oldest national wildlife refuge, was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904 ....it has been designated by Congress as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The refuge also is a Globally Important Bird Area.

Terns, brown pelicans, and black skimmers nest here. It is one of only four Gulf of Mexico wintering grounds for redheads, with numbers as high as 20,000. It is a critically important wintering ground for piping plovers, an endangered species.

The Gulf of Mexico is a globally unique ecosystem, including habitats essential to the annual cycles of hundreds of species of breeding, wintering and migrating birds – sea birds, waterfowl, wading birds, shorebirds, raptors, songbirds, and more.

Delta NWR and Pass a Loutre WMA, 50 miles from the drill rig explosion, have also been impacted. These Mississippi Delta habitats are critically important waterfowl wintering areas and migratory stopovers:

What is at stake is enormously important, in the Gulf and beyond – an extraordinarily rich environment that supports a huge quantity and diversity of wading, sea and shore birds, migratory waterfowl and songbirds, crabs, shrimp, and both fresh and saltwater fish.

Grand Bay NWR, in coastal Mississippi and Alabama, protects one of the remaining expanses of wet pine savanna habitat and coastal wetland. Associated areas include the Grand Bay Estuarine Research Reserve and together they make up The Nature Conservancy's Grand Bay Savanna project area, a bioreserve TNC accords 'one of its Last Great Places in America'.

Healthy estuarine salt marshes are among the most biologically diverse habitats in North America. In Grand Bay, this habitat supports many important
species of fish and wildlife. Commercially and recreationally important species of finfish and shellfish such as brown shrimp, speckled trout, and oysters abound here. Sea turtles, bottlenose dolphins and, on occasion, manatees can be found in the
deeper waters of the reserve.

Oil was detected on Alabama's Bon Secour NWR May 12.

The refuge is one of the largest undeveloped parcels of land on the Alabama coast and serves as an example of the Gulf Coast as it once existed. It has been named as one of the 10 natural wonders of Alabama.

Because of its strategic location along the flyway of millions of spring and fall migrants and the habitat it provides, more than 370 species of birds have
been identified on the refuge during migratory seasons, making Bon Secour one of the most important refuges in the national refuge system....[parts of the Refuge]are designated as critical habitat for the piping plover.

Loggerhead and Kemp's ridley sea turtles, both endangered species, nest on Bon Secour NWR beaches. With 4.5 to 5 nests per mile, the refuge has nest densities as high as or higher than many areas along the northern Gulf Coast....Sea turtles move throughout the Gulf and are vulnerable to oil spills at every stage of their lives: in their eggs, as hatchlings heading to the water, and foraging and migrating.

Hundreds of National Parks, Wildlife Refuges, and State Wildlife Management Areas have been identified as at risk from the disastrous BP oil spill, including 31 National Wildlife Refuges alone. But, as the authors stated in their introduction:

This report is not intended to raise useless alarm but to galvanize action. Short-term action is urgently needed.... Every bit as important is long-term action. The BP oil catastrophe is today's overwhelming demonstration of the dangers of America's over-dependence on and over-use of fossil fuels. Besides oil spills, those dangers include emissions of heat-trapping gases that are disrupting our climate..... The disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is a powerful reason, one among many, for us to shift to safer, cleaner, cheaper, and more secure energy resources.

Gulf Islands National Seashore with their beautiful beaches and dunes; St. Marks NWR, where a wintering population of critically endangered whooping cranes is being established; and there are so many others. Please take a look and gain a deeper appreciation of what we all have to lose if the Gulf Coast is damaged. It is time for us all to push hared for passage of energy and climate legislation in the U.S. Senate in the coming weeks.

Fifteen Special Places at Risk:

1. Aransas National Wildlife Refuge, Texas
2. Bon Secour National Wildlife Refuge, Alabama
3. Breton National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
4. Delta National Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
5. Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida
6. Everglades National Park, Florida
7. Lower Suwannee National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
8. Grand Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Mississippi and Alabama
9. Gulf Islands National Seashore, Mississippi and Florida
10. John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, Florida
11. Key West National Wildlife Refuge, Florida
12. Padre Island National Seashore, Texas
13. Pass a Loutre Wildlife Management Area, Louisiana
14. Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana
15. St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Florida