Biological Annihilation

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https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-019-1079-8

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Mexican conservationist Homero Gómez González was found dead Wednesday, about two weeks after he was reported missing, provoking a wave sorrow from allies and advocates worldwide as they honored his work running a butterfly sanctuary in the state of Michoacán.

"Authorities found Gómez González's body floating in a well in the community of El Soldado de Ocampo, not far from the butterfly sanctuary," according to the Washington Post. "Authorities told local media outlets that his body did not show any obvious signs of violence. But Gómez González's friends didn't have any details."

https://t.co/it9IXdVPw7

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Raúl Hernández worked as a tour guide at a butterfly sanctuary in Michoacán state.

His body, which bore signs of beatings and a head injury, was found two days after the funeral of Homero Gómez.

Mr Gómez managed a monarch butterfly sanctuary in the same state and had received threats, his family said.

https://t.co/ZoFv57q7O0

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When you were young, were you the type of child who would scour open fields looking for bumble bees? Today, it is much harder for kids to spot them, since bumble bees are drastically declining in North America and in Europe.

A new study from the University of Ottawa found that in the course of a single human generation, the likelihood of a bumble bee population surviving in a given place has declined by an average of over 30%.

https://phys.org/news/2020-02-bumble-be ... _TrendMD_1

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Highlights
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We are pushing many ecosystems beyond recovery, resulting in insect extinctions.

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Causes are habitat loss, pollution, invasives, climate change, and overexploitation.

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We lose biomass, diversity, unique histories, functions, and interaction networks.

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Insect declines lead to loss of essential, irreplaceable services to humanity.

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Action to save insect species is urgent, for both ecosystems and human survival.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0719317823

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https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/02/21 ... s-2/print/

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Tropical forests now emit more carbon than they are able to absorb from the atmosphere as a result of the dual effects of deforestation and land degradation, a new study says.

The research challenges the long-held belief that forests act as “carbon sinks” by storing more carbon than they emit due to natural processes and human activity.

Instead, the world’s tropical forests could have experienced a net loss of around 425m tonnes of carbon from 2003 to 2014, the lead author tells Carbon Brief. This figure is considerably higher than previous estimates of carbon loss from tropical forests.

The findings suggest that curbing deforestation and protecting existing forests could be instrumental in removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and fighting future climate change, he adds.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/tropical-fo ... n-activity

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