Dispatches

The battle over lead bullets is heating up in the US as those for and against their use both aim to settle the matter with pre-emptive strikes. On one side, 100 environmental groups petitioned the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in March 2012 to regulate the lead in recreational ammunition as a toxic substance. On the other side, a bill to prevent the EPA from doing so recently passed the US House of Representatives Committee on Natural Resources. Lead ammunition can kill birds that scavenge lead-tainted carcasses, most notably raptors like bald eagles and the endangered California condor. Fewer than 200 California condors live in the wild (with about an equal number in captivity), and lead poisoning is the biggest cause of death in juveniles and adults. “There can be no doubt that lead ammunition is what's killing condors”, says Mike Splain, Executive Director of the Ventana Wilderness Alliance (Santa Cruz, CA), a nonprofit organization dedicated to California's Big Sur backcountry, where condors are being reintroduced. “The isotopic signature of lead in poisoned condors matches exactly that of local lead ammunition”, he explains. California condors accidentally eat fragments of lead ammunition in carcasses. Although about 95% of ammunition sold in the US contains lead, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, hunting with lead bullets and shot is already partially restricted. Lead ammunition has been banned for hunting waterfowl nationwide since 1991, for instance, and for big game hunting in condor habitat in California since 2008. However, hunting and shooting organizations oppose a complete ban on lead ammunition partly because the alternative is copper, which is more costly and, they say, ballistically inferior. Moreover, the National Rifle Association argues that the link between lead ammunition and raptor deaths is inconclusive, citing the rise in bald eagle populations and the fact that California's partial lead ammunition ban has not helped the condor. But conservationists counter that this partial ban is not enough. “It's difficult to enforce and just one contaminated carcass can poison about 20 condors”, Splain observes, adding, “sometimes science shows that there's a better way, and we need to embrace it and move on”. The EPA has 90 days from the filing date to grant or deny the petition. The 24–31 million tons of endocarp biomass, produced worldwide each year from food crops such as coconut and fruits like cherries, peaches, and apricots, has considerable energy production potential, according to a recent feasibility analysis. The study looked at pairing endocarp production with energy-poor regions and then examined the capacity for small-scale gasification plants to produce decentralized bioelectricity (P Natl Acad Sci USA 2012; doi:10.1073/pnas.1112757109). “We found that in some countries, endocarp biomass could provide up to 30% of the total energy requirement”, says senior author Seth DeBolt (University of Kentucky, Lexington). “The drawback of using corn or cellulose-based biomass as biofuel is that it can displace human or livestock food and lead to food insecurity, particularly in developing countries. But that does not necessarily render all biofuel unfeasible”, continues DeBolt. Due to its high lignin content, endocarp biomass has an energy content similar to that of moderate-grade coal, making it a feasible feed-stock for gasification. Although endocarp energy could only ever meet a small proportion of global energy requirements, its potential to become a major contributor in specific regions is eliciting great interest. Endocarp production, mainly from coconut crops, is concentrated in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, the Philippines, and some regions of India. “In the poorer regions of these countries, if the national grid reaches people at all, it is unreliable and expensive, and the cash to purchase fuel from outside sources just isn't there. Decentralized production of endocarp energy – implemented with small-scale gasification plants maintained from local resources and fuelled with locally produced feed-stocks – could be a sustainable way to produce renewable energy”, explains DeBolt. “Endocarp biomass has a small yet promising potential for electricity generation in rural areas”, says Marcus Nagle (University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart, Germany). However, Nagle warns that the relatively low energy content and bulk density of the feed-stock could pose challenges. “There also could be logistical problems, as production areas may be located far from the generation plant and the supply of feedstock may be inconsistent, due to the seasonality of some crops”, he comments. DeBolt concurs: “Technical problems have to be solved, and infrastructures – capital plant and equipment and organizations of trained personnel – have to be created”. However, because the required fuel and inputs would be locally produced and modest in size, DeBolt is convinced that “endocarp energy could improve people's lives and provide renewable energy”. The Canadian Government is planning to strip protection of fish habitat out of the federal Fisheries Act, according to leaked documents unveiled on March 13. The move would help speed approval of large industrial projects, such as the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline that will deliver tar sands oil to the west coast for export to Asia. An unprecedented number of scientists and fisheries organizations have protested the elimination of habitat protections, saying it would jeopardize fish stocks as well as damage Canada's international standing as an environmental steward. Retired federal fisheries biologist Otto Langer (Vancouver, British Columbia) announced on a blog that he had been leaked a confidential copy of proposed changes to habitat protections in the Fisheries Act as dictated by unnamed political managers within Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government. Since 1976, Section 35(1) of the Act has prohibited harmful alteration, disruption, or destruction of fish habitat. The new proposed language does not mention habitat and prohibits harm only to “fish of economic, cultural, or ecological value”. The vague new language “will negatively impact water quality and fisheries across the country, and could undermine Canada's attempt to maintain international credibility in the environment”, says David Schindler, an aquatic ecologist at the University of Alberta (Edmonton). When questioned in Parliament about plans to abandon protection of fish habitat, federal Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield admitted that the government is looking at policy changes and described scenarios providing “ample evidence that the policies we have in place are inhibiting the everyday activities of Canadian landowners.” “The reason these changes are being contemplated is to facilitate resource extraction and mining, hydroelectric, and pipeline projects”, according to John Werring, an aquatic habitat specialist with the David Suzuki Foundation, an environmental organization in Vancouver. Environmental assessments are the leading cause of delays for these big projects, and one of the main triggers for requiring environmental assessment is the habitat protection provisions in the Fisheries Act, he explains. Schindler sent a letter, co-signed by 650 leading scientists and two retired fisheries ministers, to Prime Minister Harper, criticizing fish habitat rollbacks. Letters of protest have also been submitted by the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution, the Canadian branch of the American Fisheries Society, Trout Unlimited, and several other environmental groups. “I can't recall such a rapid and strong response from Canadian scientists on any issue that a Canadian government has come up with”, concludes Jeff Hutchings, an evolutionary ecologist at Dalhousie University (Halifax, Nova Scotia). Although Antarctica has been in the recent spotlight regarding biosecurity threats (see Chown et al. 2012; P Natl Acad Sci USA, doi:10.1073/pnas.1119787109), other high-latitude destinations elsewhere are at similar risk to non-native species, some of which may be hitching rides on unsuspecting humans. Near the opposite end of the Earth, scientists working on the Arctic island of Spitsbergen – which is administered by Norway and by coincidence is home to the “doomsday” Svalbard Global Seed Vault – wanted to quantify the unintentional human-mediated dispersal of plant seeds to the area, and did so by examining travelers' footwear. Throughout a consecutive 3-month period, Inger Greve Alsos of The University Centre in Svalbard (Longyearbyen, Norway) and colleagues inspected shoes worn by more than 250 airline passengers who arrived at the island's Svalbard Airport. During the investigation, her team detected over 1000 seeds in all, representing 53 plant species – most of which were non-native and belonged to the family Poaceae (Biol Invasions 2012; doi:10.1007/s10530-011-0098-4). “The high number of seeds present on some travelers – up to 117 on a single pair of shoes! – was really unexpected”, says Alsos. Interestingly, the more soil that was stuck to any particular shoe, the greater the chances of seeds being present. Later, by subjecting seeds to conditions mimicking the current Svalbard climate, the researchers found that about one-quarter successfully germinated. Not all airport screenings that involve shoe removal are alike. According to experts, the Arctic has remained safe from exotic species establishment because of its historically harsh conditions and relative isolation. In contemporary times, however, characterized by rising temperatures and convenient air travel, the likelihood of successful non-native plant introduction in polar regions may be increasing; indeed, today's now dormant seeds could become tomorrow's invasives. Despite their relative scarcity, travelers who identified themselves as “scientists” during the airport survey were associated with the biggest shoe-borne seed loads. So what's the intrepid yet responsible explorer to do? Before departure, Alsos advises, “Closely examine and clean any gear that's been in contact with soil or vegetation, paying special attention to footwear, tent pegs, and field equipment – especially anything previously used in cold regions, as it is likely to carry organisms pre-adapted to Arctic conditions.” For the first time in memory, mushrooms have been found growing on an Antarctic island – a mystery for mycologists and potentially a signal of a changing climate. A team discovered the fungi in late January while exploring Amsler Island, a rocky, 2-square-km islet off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Alexandra Isern, program director for Antarctic Earth Sciences within the Office of Polar Programs at the US National Science Foundation (Arlington, VA), was the first to spot them. “We were moving back to the boat, and we walked down this alley-like area – a green, mossy landscape – and all of a sudden, I looked down and there were these mushrooms. I called someone over and said, ‘Hey, I didn't know we had mushrooms here' ”. Neither did the rest of the team. Frozen and dried samples of the mushrooms were sent to microbiologist Robert Blanchette of the University of Minnesota (St Paul, MN) for identification, who concurs that fruiting bodies of fungi anywhere in Antarctica are an unusual occurrence. While the British Antarctic Survey has detected mushrooms in Antarctica before, it is, according to Blanchette, “quite a rare sight. I have not ever seen mushrooms fruiting in Antarctica. The environmental conditions must have been just perfect for fruiting.” Some of the mushrooms found on Antarctica's Amsler Island. The “large numbers” of mushrooms appear to live on dead moss, which is about the only organic material found on Amsler Island. In temperate climates, cool, wet weather typically promotes fungal fruiting (ie sprouting the gilled, often cap-and-stem form) Blanchette explains, but “in Antarctica, it may be that you have to have warmer weather”. The origin of the mushrooms is another mystery. While the species could be a recent introduction from humans or migratory birds, it's also possible the fungus is native to the region. On mainland Antarctica, Blanchette has been studying non-fruiting fungi growing in wood in the huts of the early-20th-century Antarctic explorers Shackleton and Scott, where the fungal colonies seem to be made up of opportunistic natives, rather than invaders. “Whether this is an exotic fungus that has come in, we just don't know yet”, says Blanchette. If the newly discovered mushrooms are natives, perhaps they indicate that Antarctica is, rather than a desert, a sleeping oasis awaiting the right conditions to wake up. Although spring this year is arriving unseasonably early throughout much of the US, spring growing conditions will be arriving even sooner for urbanites in particular. A new study finds that, in the mid-Atlantic region, earlier spring and later autumn conditions are associated with the urban heat island effect – increased air temperatures around cities – which causes leaves to “green up” earlier in the spring and “brown down” later in the autumn (Glob Change Biol 2012; doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02521.x). According to lead author Andrew Elmore (University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Appalachian Laboratory, Frostburg, MD), “The length of time that leaves are on trees has a profound impact on ecosystem functioning at landscape scales. As such, growing season length is thought to influence the fluxes of water and carbon between the biosphere and the atmosphere, and these effects must be understood in the context of global climate change.” The researchers used high-resolution satellite imagery to identify landscape factors that influence phenology, the study of natural timing. “The phenological impacts of urban heat islands are fairly well known, [showing that] urban areas embedded within forested landscapes are warmer than their rural counterparts, with phenological timing at both ends of the growing season impacted”, says Elmore. “However, most work has suggested that the effect on phenology is similar in the spring and autumn. A surprising result of our work is that we found the effect is almost twice as strong in autumn.” A prolonged growing season could have both positive and negative ecological ramifications. As Elmore explains, “A positive implication might be that a longer growing season will lead to greater sequestration of carbon in forests. Alternatively, a more negative implication questions the capability of trees to grow more during an extended growing season due to resource limitations (eg water or nutrients) and continued respiration through the autumn.” Satellite observations of forest phenology have the potential to guide future observations made in other forest types in the US and globally. Indeed, it is possible that the effects of climate change will vary based on local phenological events. “Our results will help us to answer questions like, do forests in locations with a longer growing season (for instance, in urban settings) sequester more or less carbon in years with warm springs?”, says Elmore, “and how do these changes compare with forests in locations with a shorter growing season?” The US National Pollinating Insect database – the country's largest digitized database of georeferenced insect pollinator records to date – now offers researchers and farmers alike the opportunity to scrutinize almost 1 million specimens, the majority of which are part of the collection held at the USDA's Agricultural Research Service Bee Biology and Systematics Laboratory in Logan, UT. The database can be queried by the pollinators' plant preferences, distribution, or nesting habits, opening up new possibilities to mine historical records, said Terry Griswold, a Logan-based research entomologist and curator, at the Pacific Branch meeting of the Entomological Society of America in Portland, OR, on March 28. With many pollinator populations in decline worldwide, the database can help growers identify alternative pollinators for specific crops, as well as an appropriate mixture of plant species to attract pollinators or extend their foraging season. Additionally, database specimens allow researchers a means of assessing the distribution and population dynamics of pollinator species over time. For example, last year, researchers combined field observations with historical distribution records spanning 100 years for eight bumblebee species (Bombus spp) across North America. With that data, the team was able to conclude that four of the eight species are on the decline (P Natl Acad Sci USA 2011; doi:10.1073/pnas.1014743108). Those records were then added to the national database. “Having such databases is huge because then we don't have to keep reinventing the wheel from historical collections”, explains University of Illinois entomologist Sydney Cameron (Urbana, IL), a member of the research team, cautioning that “databases are invaluable, but only if they are reliable – verifying that individual specimens are accurately identified and include all the associated data collected with the specimen”. Cameron adds that she hopes future efforts will standardize database efforts. Neal Williams and Jessica Forrest, entomologists at the University of California (UC) Davis, are mining databases for insights into how environmental changes may impact bee communities. “We need large amounts of this type of data to characterize the timing of different bees' activity throughout the season, which may also determine their sensitivity to human land-use change”, Williams says. Currently, access to the entirety of the US National Pollinating Insect database is best achieved by contacting Griswold directly, but more than 630 000 records can be accessed online via www.gbif.org. Six other pollinator collections – housed at UC Riverside, UC Davis, Cornell University, Rutgers University, the American Museum of Natural History, and the University of Connecticut – are also in the process of being digitized. A recent UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report states that the approximately 200 remaining Dukha reindeer herders – indigenous nomads of northern Mongolia's coniferous forests – are facing unprecedented threats to their way of life and the taiga ecosystem in which they live. 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