South Kashmir is in Flood Alert

Flood alert has been declared for Anantnag and Pulwama district of South Kashmir as river Jhelum was flowing close to danger mark at Sangam.

According to PTI, the Chief Engineer,

Irrigation and Flood Control Department, Javed Jaffer said,

 

"Flood alert has been declared for Anatnag and Pulwama districts as river Jhelum is flowing at 22 feet at Sangam, one feet below the danger mark,".

People living in and around flood prone areas in these districts have been advised to shift to safer areas.

The water level in Jhelum and its tributaries rose sharply following heavy rainfall since early on Wednesday.
The weatherman has forecast more rains over the next 48 hours in Kashmir.

Heatwave in Pakistan's Sindh killed 224 people

Some 224 people are now believed to have died during a heatwave in Pakistan's southern Sindh province.

Health officials say most of the deaths have been in the largest city, Karachi, which has experienced temperatures as high as 45C (113F) in recent days. 

The city has seen power cuts caused by an increased demand for electricity because of the extreme weather.

Many of the victims are elderly people who have been suffering from fever, dehydration and gastric problems. 

Hundreds of patients suffering from the effects of the heatwave are being treated at government hospitals, provincial health secretary Saeed Mangnejo said.

 

Local media report that more than 150 bodies have been taken since Saturday to the Edhi morgue in Sohrab Goth, which usually receives about 20 bodies a day.

The demand for electricity for air conditioning has coincided with increased power needs over Ramadan, when Muslims fast during daylight hours.

Hot weather is not unusual during summer months in Pakistan, but prolonged power outages seem to have made matters worse, the BBC's Shahzeb Jillani reports.

Sporadic angry protests have taken place in parts of the city, with some people blaming the government and the city's main power utility, K-Electric, for failing to avoid deaths, our correspondent says.

Source: BBC News

Crocodiles rocked pre-Amazonian Peru: Seven crocodile species found in single 13-million-year-old bone bed

 

Thirteen million years ago, as many as seven different species of crocodiles hunted in the swampy waters of what is now northeastern Peru, new research shows. This hyperdiverse assemblage, revealed through more than a decade of work in Amazon bone beds, contains the largest number of crocodile species co-existing in one place at any time in Earth's history, likely due to an abundant food source that forms only a small part of modern crocodile diets: mollusks like clams and snails. The work, published today in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, helps fill in gaps in understanding the history of the Amazon's remarkably rich biodiversity.

"The modern Amazon River basin contains the world's richest biota, but the origins of this extraordinary diversity are really poorly understood," said John Flynn, Frick Curator of Fossil Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History and an author on the paper. "Because it's a vast rain forest today, our exposure to rocks--and therefore, also to the fossils those rocks may preserve--is extremely limited. So anytime you get a special window like these fossilized "mega-wetland" deposits, with so many new and peculiar species, it can provide novel insights into ancient ecosystems. And what we've found isn't necessarily what you would expect."

Before the Amazon basin had its river, which formed about 10.5 million years ago, it contained a massive wetland system, filled with lakes, embayments, swamps, and rivers that drained northward toward the Caribbean, instead of today's pattern of eastward river flow to the Atlantic Ocean. Knowing the kind of life that existed at that time is crucial to understanding the history and origins of modern Amazonian biodiversity. But although invertebrates like mollusks and crustaceans are abundant in Amazonian fossil deposits, evidence of vertebrates other than fish have been very rare.

Since 2002, Flynn has been co-leading prospecting and excavating expeditions with colleagues at fossil outcrops of the Pebas Formation in northeastern Peru. These outcrops have preserved life from the Miocene, including the seven species of crocodiles discussed in Proceedings B. Three of the species are entirely new to science, the strangest of which is Gnatusuchus pebasensis, a short-faced caiman with globular teeth that is thought to have used its snout to "shovel" mud bottoms, digging for clams and other mollusks. The new work suggests that the rise of Gnatusuchus and other "durophagous," or shell-crunching, crocodiles is correlated with a peak in mollusk diversity and numbers, which disappeared when the mega-wetlands transformed into the modern Amazon River drainage system.

"When we analyzed Gnatusuchus bones and realized that it was probably a head-burrowing and shoveling caiman preying on mollusks living in muddy river and swamp bottoms, we knew it was a milestone for understanding proto-Amazonian wetland feeding dynamics," said Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi, lead author of the paper and a graduate student at the University of Montpellier, in France, as well as researcher and chief of the paleontology department at the National University of San Marcos' Museum of Natural History in Lima, Peru.

Besides the blunt-snouted crocodiles like Gnatusuchus, the researchers also recovered the first unambiguous fossil representative of the living smooth-fronted caiman Paleosuchus, which has a longer and higher snout shape suitable for catching a variety of prey, like fish and other active swimming vertebrates.

"We uncovered this special moment in time when the ancient mega-wetland ecosystem reached its peak in size and complexity, just before its demise and the start of the modern Amazon River system," Salas-Gismondi said. "At this moment, most known caiman groups co-existed: ancient lineages bearing unusual blunt snouts and globular teeth along with those more generalized feeders representing the beginning of what was to come."

The new research suggests that with the inception of the Amazon River System, mollusk populations declined and durophagous crocodile species went extinct as caimans with a broader palate diversified into the generalist feeders that dominate modern Amazonian ecosystems. Today, six species of caimans live in the whole Amazon basin, although only three ever co-exist in the same area and they rarely share the same habitats. This is in large contrast to their ancient relatives, the seven diverse species that lived together in the same place and time.

This story is taken from Science Daily

Underground ants can't take the heat

Underground species of army ants are much less tolerant of high temperatures than their aboveground relatives -- and that difference in thermal tolerance could mean that many climate change models lack a key element of how animal physiology could affect responses to changing environments. 

According to a new study from Drexel University, underground species of army ants are much less tolerant of high temperatures than their aboveground relatives--and that difference in thermal tolerance could mean that many climate change models lack a key element of how animal physiology could affect responses to changing environments.

At face value, this is not surprising, noted Sean O'Donnell, PhD, a professor in Drexel's College of Arts and Sciences and senior author of the study published in the Journal of Animal Ecology. Ants that live above ground are exposed to higher temperatures than subterranean ants, so they should be expected to tolerate hotter conditions--but the relationship between microhabitat and heat tolerance simply hadn't been tested before. No one knew whether the subterranean ant species might have been capable of handling high temperatures, even if they prefer cooler ones.

Current models of climate change are built on predictions that animal species may shift their geographic ranges to new latitudes or elevations when the temperature rises. But these models typically use temperature averages taken at a macro resolution--commonly measured 1 meter above ground, and encompassing areas of a square kilometer or more--and they don't generally take into account that different species have varied levels of heat tolerance.

"A few inches of soil can make a big difference in temperature," said Kaitlin Baudier, a doctoral student in O'Donnell's lab and lead author of the study.

 

To look at whether factors like microhabitat preference--living above ground vs. below ground--affected an animal's thermal range, Baudier, O'Donnell and colleagues looked at nine closely related species of army ants that lived in the same general area in Costa Rica's tropical forests. They sampled ants from each of the species and experimentally tested their maximum heat tolerance in the lab.

They found that the best predictor of heat tolerance was how active the ant species was in above-ground environments. Above-ground army ants were most tolerant of higher temperatures, while species that lived mostly below-ground had much lower tolerance to heat, and species that used a combination of above- and below-ground environments had intermediate levels of tolerance.

Body size and habitat type also interacted, so that in comparisons of same-size individuals from different species, the species that are active above-ground were more heat tolerant--another indicator that habitat use signals the species' tolerance to heat. Within each species, smaller ants were more sensitive to rising temperatures than the larger ants of the same type.

"The takeaway message is that an animal's adaptation to its microhabitat is relevant to its thermal physiology," said Baudier.

"This shows us that the ways these species respond to a changing climate will be different depending on habitat type, and it's important to know that microhabitat could be an indicator of heat tolerance," O'Donnell said.

This story is taken from Science Daily

Vagrant bachelors could save rare bird

A study has revealed the importance of single males in small, threatened populations. Results from a study of endangered New Zealand hihi birds shows that bachelor males who don't hold breeding territories, known as 'floaters,' could help maintain genetic diversity and decrease the likelihood of inbreeding by sneakily fathering chicks. 

These underestimated individuals are vital to the long-term survival of small populations, such as in the hihi, a rare bird found only in New Zealand. There are thought to be only 2,000 individuals left in the wild, making them extremely vulnerable to natural disasters or disease, of which a single severe incident could wipe out the whole species.

While floaters have much lower breeding success rates than coupled males, in hihis they are able coerce females, which are already coupled up, into mating. This has been shown to have a small but significant impact on population size by increasing the number of breeding birds, as well as influencing the sex ratio. These factors are important in maintaining genetic diversity and decreasing levels of inbreeding.

Dr Patricia Brekke, researcher at ZSL and the lead author of the study, said: "Conservation management often discounts individuals that are thought to be unable to produce offspring, thinking that they have no effect on populations. We have shown that in hihi, floaters are able to reproduce and pass on their genes from one generation to the next, which helps with long-term survival of this endangered bird.

 

"Despite being difficult to study, as they have no fixed abode, we should pay more attention to these bachelor males as they can potentially have a big effect on genetic diversity and therefore the survival of species with very few individuals remaining. Not taking floating individuals into account can undermine our conservation efforts."

The hihi is one of the world's most evolutionarily unique birds, classed as the only member of its own family, and were lost from New Zealand's North Island by around 1895 because of introduced predators such as rats, habitat loss due to farming and disease. They are the only bird species in the world to mate face-to-face like humans.

Floating behaviour has been observed in a variety of animals including fish, mammals and insects. Floating can be a successful breeding strategy as bachelor males avoid investing their energy into defending territory and looking after chicks, instead spending time searching for mates. In hihi birds, floaters tend to be either younger males (around a year old) that are inexperienced at holding a territory or older males (over five years) who lack the energy to defend territory. Their 'homelessness' makes them difficult to study as they travel between different areas looking for food and potential mates.

Conservation efforts to save the species began in the 1980s and involves reintroducing birds to different islands and mainland reserves. ZSL has so far been involved in establishing three reintroduced populations, but these are all small (less than 150 birds each) and so hihi remain in a precarious situation.

This story is taken from Science Daily

Tiger-spray DNA shown as valuable conservation tool

Scientists have demonstrated a new technique to non-invasively survey tigers using their scent sprays, which are detected much more frequently in the wild than scat--the 'breadcrumb' that researchers have traditionally used to track the endangered animals. The findings show that DNA taken from tiger spray is just as good or even better than scat in identifying individual tigers and their gender, and have the potential to increase the power of conservation surveys and management. 

"Genetic monitoring of tiger source populations is a conservation priority," said Anthony Caragiulo, a postdoctoral researcher in the American Museum of Natural History's Sackler Institute for Comparative Genomics. "The utility of this new method is really impactful because it will let us dramatically build upon the number of tigers that can be surveyed and, consequently, increase our understanding of these elusive animals--hopefully before they are gone."

Despite intense conservation efforts, there are fewer than 3,200 tigers (Panthera tigris) in the wild, living in less than seven percent of their historical range. When a population is confined to small islands of wilderness, as are tigers, there is a higher risk of inbreeding and loss of genetic diversity, leaving the species with weaker young. To combat this, the Museum has been working with the global wild-cat conservation organization Panthera to establish "genetic corridors" that allow tigers to seek new territory for prey and new populations for breeding. "Tracking" individual cats using genetic markers lets researchers map movement within and between populations.

Genetic tracking has traditionally relied on extracting DNA from scat collected in the wild. But in humid, tropical landscapes--like those in Sumatra, where a number of tigers live--scat often degrades before researchers can find it. Scent sprays left by tigers on trees and overhanging leaves degrade less quickly, and can be detected by researchers between two and eight times as frequently as scat. So, to boost the effectiveness of genetic monitoring of tigers in warm regions, the research team questioned whether DNA could be extracted from sprays.

The researchers collected spray samples from three captive tigers in Ontario with cotton swabs that were then stored in tubes of buffer to help preserve the DNA. Tiger spray is a combination of anal gland secretions--said, surprisingly, to have a floral scent like citrus--and urine, which contains DNA in the form of cells from the urethra. The researchers were able to amplify microsatellite loci, which are noncoding DNA sequences with unique numbers of repeated nucleotides providing enough information to "fingerprint" individual tigers, and portions of the sex chromosome to determine whether they are male or female.

"We recently spent weeks looking for tiger scat in the field with very little luck," said Rob Pickles, monitoring specialist for Panthera. "Although this new spray technique wouldn't replace scat studies entirely, we now know that we can use both methods in conjunction to drastically increase our monitoring abilities."

The next step for the researchers is to test the technique in the field, where it also could be used to monitor other scent-spraying animals, like lions.

This Story is taken from Science Daily

West Bengal Govt. want to relocate forest villages to increases the number of Bengal Tiger in BUXA TIGER RESERVE

In Buxa Tiger Reserve, you can find a village inside the forest within every 5 kms. This human habitat inside the Buxa Tiger Reserve create great opportunities for the timber mafias and the poachers.

Timber mafias and poachers give a little money to the local villagers and use them as a guide to enter the core areas. this increases the Wildlife crime inside the Buxa region rapidly.

The Govt. and the Forest ministry now looking to end or decrease this Wildlife crime by relocate the villagers. 

According to the Govt. report there are 13 villages inside the Buxa core region (unofficially the number exceeded 20) with more than thousand people who are living in those villages. Their main source of income is wood cutting, farming and dairy. For their livelihood very often they enters the core areas.

This trespassing inside the core zone makes a uncomfortable environment for the Bengal Tigers to breed. The West Bengal Govt. is criticized not only from the Wildlife NGOs but also from the Central Govt. because for a lot time no Bengal Tiger is seen in the Buxa Tiger region but the Bengal Govt claims that there are at least 6 Bengal tiger lived inside the Buxa Tiger Reserve.

The Govt. want to relocate the villagers outside the the core area beside the 31st National Highway.

Source: Ei Samay

Genetic ancestry of tigers explored

A 10-year study looked at DNA similarities of tigers -- living and extinct -- in order to better understand these animals as well as provide a new, more powerful tool for wildlife protection.

study, which is published online in the Journal of Heredity and will appear in the print edition May 1, 2015 describes DNA signatures for 145 individual tigers, including "voucher specimens" of tigers from verified geographic origins including Eurasian museum specimens that represented extinct subspecies

Tigers -- they are some of nature's most beautiful, deadly and endangered species. In fact, living tigers are severely endangered in fragmented geographic areas across Asia -- some reports show their numbers as low as 3,000 wild individuals. While there are efforts to help protect these magnificent creatures, more was needed in terms of research into the genetics of tigers.

 

The study's first results appeared in 2004 that showed Malayan tigers splitting from its Indochinese counterpart as a distinct, new fifth-living tiger subspecies. The latest results show that extinct Javan (1980s) and Bali (1940s) tigers were nearly indistinguishable from a molecular standpoint from Sumatran tigers just as the extinct Caspian tigers are nearly identical to surviving Amur tiger subspecies.

Source: Science Daily

Habitat loss threatens the world's felids

Almost half of the 36 species of felids that live in the wild in the world are at threat, according to scientists. Yet the lack of studies regarding their main threat, the loss and fragmentation of their habitat, limits the establishment of effective conservation strategies. These are the findings of a study which has only been able to find 162 scientific articles regarding this threat which clearly endangers the Iberian lynx. 

 

Despite conservation efforts, news on how Iberian lynx (Lynx pardinus) are hit by vehicles on Spanish roads has been reported. The status of the most endangered felid in the world is hardly improved by the continual 'incursions' into its territory.. Ever-shrinking and broken-up habitats affect the future of the lynx.

To assess the situation of the Iberian lynx and other felid species that live in the wild on our planet, a team of Brazilian and Spanish scientists has reviewed the scientific literature that exists on the main threat for these mammals: the loss and fragmentation of their habitats. The results have been published in the scientific journal Oryx. Although many scientific studies are produced (last January, for example, 60,000 scientific articles were published), researchers could only find a total of 162 studies which evaluated threats affecting felids.

North America and Europe generate the greatest amount of research on the effect of habitat loss on felids. However, in view of the lack of research in certain countries with less economic resources, the real effect of this threat is still unknown for 16 species of felids. This is the case for the Andean mountain cat (Leopardus jacobita), the Bornean bay cat (Pardofelis badia), the flat-headed cat (Prionailurus planiceps), and the fishing cat (Prionailurus viverrinus), in danger of extinction and for whom there are very few studies and conservation measures.

Source: Science Daily

lower-oxygen oceans will shift marine habitats

Warming temperatures and decreasing levels of dissolved oxygen will act together to create metabolic stress for marine animals. Habitats will shift to places in the ocean where the oxygen supply can meet the animals' increasing future needs. 

 

University of Washington researchers and collaborators have found that the same principle will apply to marine species under global warming. The warmer water temperatures will speed up the animals' metabolic need for oxygen, as also happens during exercise, but the warmer water will hold less of the oxygen needed to fuel their bodies, similar to what happens at high altitudes.

The study, published June 5 in Science, finds that these changes will act together to push marine animals away from the equator. About two thirds of the respiratory stress due to climate change is caused by warmer temperatures, while the rest is because warmer water holds less dissolved gases.

The study centered on four Atlantic Ocean species whose temperature and oxygen requirements are well known from lab tests: Atlantic cod that live in the open ocean; Atlantic rock crab that live in coastal waters; sharp snout seabream that live in the subtropical Atlantic and Mediterranean; and common eelpout, a bottom-dwelling fish that lives in shallow waters in high northern latitudes.

Deutsch used climate models to see how the projected temperature and oxygen levels by 2100 due to climate change would affect these four species' ability to meet their future energy needs. If current emissions continue, the near-surface ocean is projected to warm by several degrees Celsius by the end of this century. Seawater at that temperature would hold 5-10 percent less oxygen than it does now.

Results show future rock crab habitat would be restricted to shallower water, hugging the more oxygenated surface. For all four species, the equator-ward part of the range would become uninhabitable because peak oxygen demand would become greater than the supply. Viable habitats would shift away from the equator, displacing from 14 percent to 26 percent of the current ranges.

The four animals were chosen because the effects of oxygen and temperature on their metabolism are well known, and because they live in diverse habitats. The authors believe the results are relevant for all marine species that rely on aquatic oxygen for an energy source.

Previously, marine scientists thought about oxygen more in terms of extreme events that could cause regional die-offs of marine animals, also known as dead zones.

Source: Science Daily