Rutger's English Blogg

Seahorse is a small fish that is fascinating. There are about 35 species of seahorse. the largest can be 30 cm, the smallest four cm long. One seahorse has the record as the world's slowest fish. It swims by 0,016 km/h villket is 16 meterin one hour. Its way to reproduce itself is special. The females have eggs and this is what defines a female. The female lays eggs in the male's belly where they are also fertilized. After a month, the development of the eggs, it's time for the hatched seahorses to "be born".

"Birth" of sea horses

 

In the blog Mongabay I read an interesting article on the Asian tapir. http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0423-hance-malaysia-tapir.html .
Tapir's is an animal that lives in rainforests, a shy animal that is hard to spot. It has said to be endangered but they have not really had good knowledge of how many animals there are today.
It is now estimated that there are about 2000 tapirs in the Malaysian forests after setting up camera traps. With these camera traps they could show that there were more than they thought. It is about 9.5 animals/100 km2 and there are still large areas that remain in Malaysia that can accommodate this animal. In these forests they chops down trees randomely and it does not seem to affect these animals negatively. The tapir can weigh up to 540 kg. The three species found in South America are smaller and have a brownish fur.
Range of the species according to the IUCN red list http://maps.iucnredlist.org/map.html?id=21472

 

The climate is well amongst the best example of the cycles of nature. Heat Periods succeeded by colder periods. There are short-term fluctuations and volatility in the longer time. Saw recently a new chart with snow fluctuations in Antarctica which then is translated to SMB (surface mass balance) How much it snow, how much it sublimates (when the sun shines snow disappearing as water vapor directly, no melt in between). In fact Antarctica is so cold that there are no the formation of meltwater lakes on the ice as in Greenland. Only at the edges and on the West Antarctic Peninsula close to South America does it melt in the usual way. Would it melt elsewhere it freezes almost immediately. Antarctic ice mass can only significantly be reduced by iceberg calvings that flows into the sea, where the ice melts.
Let's look at a graph of suface mass balance reflecting precipitation.

 

Today, when it becomes warmer the treeline is moving north in Siberia. That it gets warmer is manifested in longer growing season, spring comes earlier, but as in Sweden the height of summer heat does not increase, the average temperature in July does not rise. See chart of July's temperature from the Kola Peninsula. The lower part shows recruitment of pines at the tree line in a couple of periods. The average temperature in July has declined since the 1930s as well as in Sweden. In Sweden, the average temperature in July, about two degrees cooler in the late 1900s, compared with 30, 40 and 50s. But the tree line is moving north because of longer growing season and this causes problems for the nomadic peoples of northern Russia. But still the treeline has not reached areas where there was forest in the Middle Ages and during the Holocene Termal Maximum (HTM).

"However, conifers have not yet recolonized many areas where trees were present during the Medieval Warm period (ca AD 800–1300) or the Holocene Thermal Maximum (HTM; ca 10000–3000 years ago). Reconstruction of tree distributions during the HTM suggests that the future position of the treeline due to global warming may approximate its former Holocene maximum position." http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/363/1501/2283.full

July

 

Now that the temperature is at a plateau since 1998 people have begun to talk increasingly about extreme weather. See graph of satellite measured temperature.

 

Wolf territories are increasing and the area smaller. From 15 a few years ago to 27 in last wintwr in Värmland. Now the territories are so close that scientists must take DNA to help keep the territories apart. But it is not only in Värmland wolves reproduce. Up north there are the more place.

"The reindeer is on the road to collapse" http://www.svt.se/nyheter/regionalt/jamtlandsnytt/renhjord-pa-vag-mot-kollaps

"We are quite distressed." Professor Birgitta Åhman at SLU would actually researching reindeer productivity and fitness. But pretty soon she began instead examining the ongoing collapse of the herd as Njaarke Sami right now living through. This according Jamtland News.

Furthermore, says Prof Åhman "From 2007 onwards, she has collected data on a village with reindeer herders. And statistics show that the number of reindeer drops drastically. Among the marked females as she followed through the years, there are not many left. In the group that has its winter foddarea left to mountain terrain was only 26 percent of the tagged females also left summer 2012. Within five years, then 74 percent of the tagged females also disappeared., mainly due to predators, says Birgitta Åhman. Meanwhile no time for the group to reproduce itself. "

- We are quite distressed, says Dana Fjällberg, president of the Sami village.
Wolf meetings in Västra Götaland has also become numerous.
We read: "Hunting dog attacked by wolves outside Stenungsund, April 3, 2013
A wolf took at 15 o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, a dog, ten feet from the dog owner Janne Andersson's front door in Ucklum, outside Stenungsund in Västra Götaland. Janne Andersson chased after the wolf 20 yards into the woods, where it stopped and let the dog just meters from him. "

Janne Andersson had his two huntings dogs on the lawn while he was working behind the house. Suddenly, he heard one of the dogs screamed and he ran around the house.
- When I come around the house, I see a wolf lumbering off into the woods with the female in the jaw. The puppy went behind and barking and I run after. After 20 meters I have time to catch up and then stopped the wolf and turned against me. I thought it would take me so I pulled my knife and screamed, when I was standing one meter away from it. It just looked at me, dropped the dog and lumbered away. It was not in a hurry, says Janne Andersson.

Recent meetings with the wolf in Borås, Bollebygd, Kungälv, Stenungsund, Uddevalla, Tidaholm. All in Västra Götaland
Read more at the site Wolf Facts http://www.vargfakta.se/

How many wolves are there in Sweden? Maybe 500, twice as much as the parliamentary decision, max 210 wolves. http://www.vargfakta.se/vargfakta/hur-manga-vargar-finns-det-i-sverige-sommaren-2011/  http://www.vargfakta.se/nyheter/rekord-i-antal-fodda- wolves-in-2012
 
Others believe that there are not that many.

http://www-genfys.slu.se/staff/dagl/varg/Varg.pdf
But the link contains a good discussion of the inbreeding issue. Wolves do well in Sweden, normal groups of puppies and some scientists worry still very much at an inbreeding depression.
It is always the starting point that is important. How healthy were the original animals? That's the important question.

Compare with Przewalski's horse where the original group were 12 horses at the turn of the century and during World War II, one mare plus a number of stallions and now there are about 1,500 horses around the world and of these 300 in freedom in Mongolia. This breed has genetic problems much larger than the Swedish wolves. http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/AC148E/AC148E02.htm
http://www.fao.org/docrep/004/AC148E/AC148E03.htm

Other animals in Sweden has increased a lot from a small number of origin are:
The beaver was reintroduced in 1922 in a small number of specimens from Norway. Today the population of more than 100,000 animals and inbreeding is not spoken of as a problem. Finland has a similar history on the beaver. 

Canada Goose was introduced from North America in the 1930s, with a few animals. The population is about 30,000 and no inbreeding problems.
The current Swedish wolf population is mainly based on three individuals who have immigrated since 1980. Now there are over 200 animals that are essentially the offspring of three individuals. It is considered inbreeding as extremely problematic.
The common deer comes from 50 deers that were in Skåne in 1850. Today there are between 600 000 and 800 000.

All animal species are not sensitive to inbreeding.

 

 

 

This video shows a test of the strength in a wing of a jumbo jet. Start from the tip and imagine that the tip is bent eight feet in the air. So much can be bent without breaking. Raise more wing broken. It might be good to know when you fly and the plane goes through an air pocket.

 

 

The first rhinos lived about 50 million years ago. During the Miocene, around 20 million years ago, there were maybe 30 different species of rhinos. In the period before, Oligocene, several predecessors died out. At the time, rhinoceros animals were much more common than today. Today, the hunt for their horns are the biggest problem and to read about the hunt for Rhinos for horns sake is a depressing story. Around the year 1900 there were only about 20 individuals left of the so-called white rhino in South Africa. They were protected in a national park in South Africa. The southern white rhino was considered for a while extinct until a number was found in 1895, Thanks to 100 years of efforts to preserve them, there are now over 20 000 in South Africa, a success story. http://www.savingrhinos.org/White-Rhino.htm

 

These white rhinos have been reintrodused in Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Zambia and Cote d'Ivoire. Recently a calf was born even in Uganda but the hunt for horns is problematic. The coveted horns are used in Chinese and Vietnamese medicine and to handle daggers in Oman and Yemen. The use of daggers has been reduced but the use in Chinese medicine seem to increase.

 

 

"The local species richness has increased throughout the country. The clearest trend is in the mountains and inland areas of Norrland as many southern species expanded their ranges northward. But it is also noticeable in the south where many species that previously had little or incoherent propagation now filled out the poorer areas, says Åke Lindström, zooekolog at the university. "
"The big winners are generalists, that is, species that thrive in many different natural environments. These include wrens, cranes, nuthatch, cuckoo, Mistle Thrush, Blackbird, Fieldfare, garden warbler and great spotted woodpecker.
- The cuckoo increase is interesting, given that the former was in sharp decline. Now the trend has reversed in the other direction, says Lindstrom. "
"Though completely regimented it is not yet. Happily, all northern species is still  there, despite the increase in temperature., It seems as though most still holds its own." Although some decreases as bluethroat, willow sparrow and maybe patch tit.

 

The same positive messages is coming from botanically knowledgeable inventory in the mountains. See what Leif Kullman writes: http://www.kullmantreeline.com/empty_16.html

MOUNTAIN NATURE'S NEW FACE - A GREEN BREAK IN the NEOGLACIAL

"Plant "mountain hiking" means that the species richness of some high mountain peaks increased by 60-170% over the last 50-60 years, This without a single native species disappeared. Changes to cut through the ecosystem, all levels implied by the standard yellow chanterelles found high up in the mountains (c. 1400 m above sea level), far higher than previously known.
Even around the new and higher timberline flora has added more and more pronounced heat-demanding species, most of which are not normally associated with mountains. Occasional seedlings of oak and elm trees now growing quite near birch tree limit in Jämtland and Härjedalen. Although alder, maple and birch have begun to appear in the upper forest belt. There are at least 8000 years ago "deciduous trees" growing on the corresponding levels in the mountain regions.
The enclosure of the new small birch groves established in the mountains are several representatives of a newly arrived southern forrest flora.Anemone, golden saxifrage milkwort and bracken are some examples. "
"All of the progressive changes of the mountain vegetation described here has occurred despite reideer feading increased significantly over the last 50 years."
"The general impression is that the mountains become greener and plant cover everything lusher and more high grown. Alpine plants flowering has intensified, which attracts several large butterflies, previously rarely seen flying high up in the mountains. Possibly, the growth dynamic in the mountains stimulated not only by higher temperatures . Atmospheric increased levels of carbon dioxide cause in principle a "fertilization effect," which could explain some extreme growth phenomenon. "
Warmer climate entails increased biodiversity, maybe not so strange.

 

 

 

 

This smuggling was unveiled in Bangkok. Thailand has become something of a center for smuggling of wild animals according to the blog "Tree Hugger".

http://www.treehugger.com/endangered-species/more-10-percent-entire-species-found-smugglers-bag.html  

This turtle reaches sexual maturity at the age of 15. That´s why it can´t reproduce so quickly. Distribution area is minimal. See map

 

My daughter who currently is in Brighton, England told of rain mixed with snow that came yesterday. Coldest month of March in England for 100 years, in Germany the sixth coldest month of March since 1881. But spring is still in coming. Snowdrops in the garden hesitate to flower.