Baby Tortoises Show Up In The Galapagos For The First Time In Over A Century

Anomalism said:

Baby Tortoises Show Up in the Galapagos For the First Time In Over a Century

You may think 2015 has been full of gloom and doom, but there is plenty of good news out there if you know where to look. It includes the wonderful news that baby tortoises have been spotted for the first time in over 100 years in the Galapagos. There hadn't been one single baby tortoise sighting in more than a century on the Galapagos Island of Pinzon, until a small group of the tiny, shelled youngsters were spotted this year.

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Anomalism said:

Baby Tortoises Show Up in the Galapagos For the First Time In Over a Century

You may think 2015 has been full of gloom and doom, but there is plenty of good news out there if you know where to look. It includes the wonderful news that baby tortoises have been spotted for the first time in over 100 years in the Galapagos. There hadn't been one single baby tortoise sighting in more than a century on the Galapagos Island of Pinzon, until a small group of the tiny, shelled youngsters were spotted this year.

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Derp said:

Wonder how they taste with stuffing?

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"Given projection probabilities, I'm sure there were a hundred times more hatchlings out there, he explained. Gibbs and his team spotted 300 tortoises in all on the trip, which suggests there are likely more than 500 currently living on the island.

In the 1960s, just 100 of the tortoises lived here. Good news indeed.

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Tim the plumber said:

So when they were saying that there had been no bady tortoises for 100 years it was the standard ecco-exageration factor in play then.

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Tim the plumber said:

So when they were saying that there had been no bady tortoises for 100 years it was the standard ecco-exageration factor in play then.

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Steve Case said:

the standard ecco-exageration factor

Every time some PhD in blue jeans, wire rim glasses and a pony tail
pontificates about something, my first thought is, "It's probably bullsh!t."

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Jack Hays said:

More good news . . . .

[h=2]Phytoplankton love carbon dioxide[/h]

Further to the last post, and with truly magnificent timing, I come across a new paper from John Hopkins University:

As anthropogenic CO[SUB]2[/SUB] emissions acidify the oceans, calcifiers generally are expected to be negatively affected. However, using data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder, we show that coccolithophore occurrence in the North Atlantic increased from ~2 to over 20% from 1965 through 2010. We used Random Forest models to examine >20 possible environmental drivers of this change, finding that CO[SUB]2[/SUB] and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation were the best predictors, leading us to hypothesize that higher CO[SUB]2[/SUB] levels might be encouraging growth. A compilation of 41 independent laboratory studies supports our hypothesis. Our study shows a long-term basin-scale increase in coccolithophores and suggests that increasing CO[SUB]2[/SUB] and temperature have accelerated the growth of a phytoplankton group that is important for carbon cycling.
​

So the population of coccolithophores has increased by an order of magnitude. And since coccolithophores sequester carbon dioxide when they calcify, that means a favourable carbon cycle feedback just got a whole lot bigger.
Excellent news, I'm sure you'll agree.

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polgara said:

Greetings, Jack. :2wave:

:agree: :thumbs: The link you posted seems to show benefits for us from something that some seem to think is harmful, but what if it's actually helpful? Will we upset a natural process by changing things simply because we can, when nature already seems to have it handled without our help, and which could be to our benefit?

I'm just thinking out loud ...it's been that kind of a day! :shrug:

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Jack Hays said:

More good news . . . .

[h=2]Phytoplankton love carbon dioxide[/h]

Further to the last post, and with truly magnificent timing, I come across a new paper from John Hopkins University:

As anthropogenic CO[SUB]2[/SUB] emissions acidify the oceans, calcifiers generally are expected to be negatively affected. However, using data from the Continuous Plankton Recorder, we show that coccolithophore occurrence in the North Atlantic increased from ~2 to over 20% from 1965 through 2010. We used Random Forest models to examine >20 possible environmental drivers of this change, finding that CO[SUB]2[/SUB] and the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation were the best predictors, leading us to hypothesize that higher CO[SUB]2[/SUB] levels might be encouraging growth. A compilation of 41 independent laboratory studies supports our hypothesis. Our study shows a long-term basin-scale increase in coccolithophores and suggests that increasing CO[SUB]2[/SUB] and temperature have accelerated the growth of a phytoplankton group that is important for carbon cycling.
​

So the population of coccolithophores has increased by an order of magnitude. And since coccolithophores sequester carbon dioxide when they calcify, that means a favourable carbon cycle feedback just got a whole lot bigger.
Excellent news, I'm sure you'll agree.

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polgara said:

Greetings, Jack. :2wave:

:agree: :thumbs: The link you posted seems to show benefits for us from something that some seem to think is harmful, but what if it's actually helpful? Will we upset a natural process by changing things simply because we can, when nature already seems to have it handled without our help, and which could be to our benefit?

I'm just thinking out loud ...it's been that kind of a day! :shrug:

Click to expand...

polgara said:

Greetings, Jack. :2wave:

:agree: :thumbs: The link you posted seems to show benefits for us from something that some seem to think is harmful, but what if it's actually helpful? Will we upset a natural process by changing things simply because we can, when nature already seems to have it handled without our help, and which could be to our benefit?

I'm just thinking out loud ...it's been that kind of a day! :shrug:

Click to expand...