Features

It's easy to think there are two main roadblocks to saving wild habitats, apathy and money, but a new report into conservation in the Everglades suggests a third: bureaucracy.

According to New York Times the report suggests that Florida's unique 'river of grass' is rapidly reaching the point of no return. The gloomy prognosis is that a combination of human encroachment and delays caused by red tape mean that too many species will be lost before definitive action is taken.

NYT's Damien Cave writes that the long-term plan is for an environmental Florida purchase: 'negotiating a proposed $1.75 billion purchase of nearly 300 square miles of farmland from the United States Sugar Corporation to add storage space for millions of gallons of water south of Lake Okeechobee.'

For the Everglades ecosystem this purchase literally can't come soon enough. And if the US can't mobilise quickly enough to save a unique ecosystem on its own doorstep then what hope is there for poorer countries?

Reading about the brave efforts of the Army Corps of Engineers to realise the hugely ambitious Florida plans it makes me wonder whether we don't need some sort of environmental rapid reaction force - a green equivalent of UN peacekeepers - to bridge the gap between fast-moving environmental problems and the ability of governments to respond in time.

It might seem like the days when non-scientists could make big contributions to science are long gone but in fact we could be entering a new age of 'citizen science'.

I've blogged before about a variety of Oxford projects [including Galaxy Zoo and ClimatePrediction.net] in which scientists are collaborating with members of the public through the web.

Now a new initiative, The Encyclopaedia of Life (EoL), aims to harness people power to record biodiversity around the globe.

Charles Godfray from Oxford's Department of Zoology, a member of EoL's Distinguished Advisory Board, writes that 'its goal is to create a webpage for every species known to man.'

'EoL is developing the tools that will allow anyone to contribute to the project... [including] the more casual naturalist who might record a new locality for an animal or plant, or might submit a particularly nice photograph or biological observation.'

He comments that taxonomy has historically been an individualistic science but that if EoL can bring diverse observations, classifications and views on relationships between species together it will deliver massive benefits. 

Charles concludes: 'EoL offers the prospect of empowering this community to carry out novel and important biodiversity studies, and then for their findings to be incorporated into the ever-growing body of knowledge about the natural world.'

So the days of amateurs collecting specimens that advance scientific knowledge could be making a comeback, it's just that these specimens will be captured on a digital camera instead of in a jam jar.

Research published in PNAS this week reveals more about how a chemical compass could enable migrating birds to find their way.

‘Evidence is steadily accumulating to back up the idea that chemical reactions in the eyes of birds could help them navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field,’ says Peter Hore of Oxford's Department of Chemistry, co-author of the paper.

‘We have shown that a magnetic field has a small effect on the photochemistry of a protein called photolyase.'

Photolyase is closely related in terms of structure and properties to another protein found in birds’ eyes called cryptochrome which is thought to be at the heart of the compass sensor.

The results suggest that birds may ‘see’ the Earth’s magnetic field lines through variations in chemical reactions going on in their eyes. Such a compass could help them navigate during migrations.

Although the researchers used a magnetic field around 200 times bigger than that of the Earth, it is the first time a biological system closely related to that found in birds has been shown to be sensitive to a magnetic field.

The work is a collaboration between researchers at Oxford University, led by Dr Christiane Timmel and Professor Hore, and scientists at the Universities of Freiburg, Berlin and Munich.

The researchers previously reported that an artificial chemical system could detect weak magnetic fields and respond to their directions as a proof-of-principle of a chemical compass.

Peter told us: ‘It’s early days, but I feel that, if we get the conditions right in the lab, we will be able to see a larger effect and at weaker magnetic fields. That could mimic what happens in a migrating bird’s eye.’

How do you help developing countries protect their precious wildlife?

One approach, being piloted at Oxford, is a new Postgraduate Diploma in International Conservation Practice.

The Diploma, which will officially start in 2009, will aim to give those involved in conservation the scientific and professional skills to help preserve biodiversity and improve wildlife management.

The initiative is a joint venture between Oxford's Department for Continuing Education and the WildCRU, part of Oxford's Department of Zoology.

Thanks to a donation from The Panthera Foundation and its Chairman, Thomas Kaplan, Oxford is able to offer fully-funded scholarships for conservationists from developing countries to take the Diploma.

Wild cats will be a special focus for the programme, with the pilot group including biologists with expertise on tigers in China, leopards in Iran, lions in Tanzania and lynx in the Balkans - each facing their own special set of challenges.

The WildCRU's Director David Macdonald commented: 'This new diploma will not only make a great contribution to building conservation capacity in parts of the world where action is urgently needed on the ground - it will be a milestone in opening access to Oxford.'

'Our focus on big cats will take the students to the heart of the most challenging conservation issues, and the new course will lead to the creation of a worldwide force of expert problem-solvers who can take their training home and pass it on to others.'

Big cats are known to be good indicators of the health of a particular ecosystem. The hope is that the knowledge and skills gained by those taking the Diploma will help them to get to grips with the complex issues that determine the health of a wide range of species and habitats.

Botany was never a passion of mine, but the more I find out about plant science the more interested I become in our leafy friends.

Did you know, for instance, that in woody plants with separate sexes female plants are usually considerably smaller than male plants of the same species?

Scientists think this is because females invest more resources in reproduction leaving them less resources to power growth.

In a paper just published in Royal Society B, John Pannell and Mark Harris of Oxford's Department of Plant Sciences take a look at a group of plants where the opposite is true: herbs.

So why, in herbs, do female amazons tower above their male counterparts?

To find out the researchers grew males and females of the herb Annual Mercury [Mercurialis annua] but only allowed some of them to reproduce.

John told us: 'Our results suggest that male herbs are smaller than female herbs because they need to allocate resources to the roots needed to harvest nitrogen for pollen production.'

Even for plants, it seems, sexual potency comes at a high evolutionary cost.