tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/lichens-18496/articlesLichens – The Conversation2023-08-02T12:52:29Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2101992023-08-02T12:52:29Z2023-08-02T12:52:29ZZimbabwe’s rulers won’t tolerate opposing voices – but its writers refuse to be silenced<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539973/original/file-20230728-19-7tnmnb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">NoViolet Bulawayo, Zimbabwean author of the politically charged novels We Need New Names and Glory.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Levenson/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The ruling elite in Zimbabwe has always tried to <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/04/zimbabwe-43-years-independence-commemoration-marred-by-rapidly-shrinking-civic-space/">silence</a> opposing political voices and erase histories it does not wish to have aired. Although “democratic” elections have been held since 1980, the country has become what the scholar Eldred Masunungure <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24388181">calls</a> a state of “militarised, electoral authoritarianism”. </p>
<p>As Zimbabwe heads to the polls again in 2023, it’s worth considering the role that writers have played in engendering political resistance. Their voices have been important in challenging oppression, exposing social injustices and advocating for political change. </p>
<h2>The liberation struggle</h2>
<p>Literature was vital for raising awareness about the harshness of colonial rule. It was used to mobilise resistance against the white minority regime and garner international support for the liberation struggle. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with an illustration of an African man against a spider's web, a needle stitching a wound on his forehead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=905&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539976/original/file-20230728-27-n59hy5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1137&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Heinemann African Writers Series</span></span>
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<p>Texts like <a href="https://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/books/voices-of-liberation-ndabaningi-sithole">Ndabaningi Sithole’s</a> foundational 1955 novel Umvekela wamaNdebele (The Revolution of the Ndebele) and <a href="https://theconversation.com/dear-dambudzo-marechera-the-letters-zimbabweans-wrote-to-a-literary-star-144299">Dambudzo Marechera</a>’s 1978 magnum opus The House of Hunger were instrumental. Many others like <a href="https://www.gale.com/intl/databases-explored/literature/charles-mungoshi">Charles Mungoshi</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/tsitsi-dangarembga-and-writing-about-pain-and-loss-in-zimbabwe-144313">Tsitsi Dangarembga</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/21/chenjerai-hove">Chenjerai Hove</a> produced texts that encouraged resistance against colonial rule. </p>
<p>These works showcased the resilience of Zimbabweans in the face of adversity, inspiring the population to continue their fight for freedom.</p>
<h2>Independence</h2>
<p>Since independence in Zimbabwe, there has remained little space for dissenting voices – first under the leadership of <a href="https://theconversation.com/robert-mugabe-as-divisive-in-death-as-he-was-in-life-108103">Robert Mugabe</a> and then <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-three-barriers-blocking-zimbabwes-progress-zanu-pf-mnangagwa-and-the-military-89177">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.fairplanet.org/story/zimbabwes-genocide-an-open-wound/">Gukurahundi genocide</a>, which novelist <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Novuyo_Rosa_Tshuma/">Novuyo Rosa Tshuma</a> called the country’s “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/aug/09/house-of-stone-novuyo-rosa-tshuma-review">original sin</a>”, marked the first instance in which the state quashed opposing voices. Between 1982 and 1987, the government sent a North Korean-trained brigade to quell dissenters in the provinces of Matabeleland and the Midlands. An estimated 20,000 civilians were killed. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with an illustration of an African woman looking directly ahead with traditional hairstyle." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539978/original/file-20230728-15-vc4suo.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1194&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Women's Press</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Interestingly, despite the shrinking of the civic and political space in Zimbabwe, literary production has thrived in providing political resistance.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/view/168612">My research</a> as a scholar of African literature has demonstrated that literature in Zimbabwe has highlighted diverse forms of state sponsored violence. Through their works, writers have raised awareness, sparked dialogue, and inspired readers to engage in opposition and activism.</p>
<h2>The turbulent ‘lost decade’ (2000-2010)</h2>
<p>From around 2000, Zimbabwe <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-inflation-idUSL1992587420070919">experienced</a> economic meltdown, coupled with an increased shrinking of the civic space. The rise of a formidable opposition, the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Movement-for-Democratic-Change">Movement for Democratic Change</a>, in 1999 <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/election-violence-in-zimbabwe/movement-for-democratic-change-was-number-one-enemy-in-2000/2CB944ACBCDB63C2311FDAB85ACD8037">was met with violence</a> by the state. </p>
<p>This period also saw a flourishing in literary production. Fresh voices emerged, among them <a href="https://writersmakeworlds.com/brian-chikwava/">Brian Chikwava</a>, <a href="https://novioletbulawayo.com/about/">NoViolet Bulawayo</a>, <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e1fad84a-903e-44ec-b7c5-920e88a91eac">Petina Gappah</a>, <a href="https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/poets/poet/102-5757_Eppel">John Eppel</a>, <a href="https://www.icorn.org/writer/christopher-mlalazi">Christopher Mlalazi</a> and <a href="https://www.africanbookscollective.com/authors-editors/lawrence-hoba">Lawrence Hoba</a>.</p>
<p>Literature from this period captured the socioeconomic realities of the country. Gappah’s debut collection of short stories in 2009, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/faberbooks/petina-gappah-an-elegy-for">An Elegy for Easterly</a>, depicts the emotions experienced by Zimbabweans in the face of diverse challenges. Some characters express disillusionment and despair, while others maintain optimism and resilience, representing a complex reality.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with illustrative fonts spelling the words " src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539979/original/file-20230728-24712-naw856.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1130&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Random House</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Bulawayo’s award-winning 2013 novel We Need New Names depicts the political situation through the perspective of its teenage protagonist, Darling. The story delves into the effects of political turmoil, economic challenges and societal changes on regular lives. Her 2022 novel <a href="https://theconversation.com/noviolet-bulawayos-new-novel-is-an-instant-zimbabwean-classic-185783">Glory</a> parodies a dictatorship, protesting the irrationality of a police state.</p>
<p>White Zimbabwean writers have also criticised autocracy in books like Catherine Buckle’s <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/AFRICAN_TEARS/haxhDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0">African Tears: The Zimbabwe Land Invasions</a> (2000) and Graham Lang’s <a href="https://www.google.co.za/books/edition/Place_of_Birth/TzCsAAAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Place%20of%20Birth%20graham%20lang">Place of Birth</a> (2006). </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with an illustration showing the portrait of a woman with butterflies instead of hair." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539980/original/file-20230728-3718-jawgb2.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Faber and Faber</span></span>
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<p>These novels portray the emotional effects of the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/zimbabwe/ZimLand0302-02.htm">Fast Track Land Reform Programme</a> on many white Zimbabweans, who found themselves dispossessed of their farms and their sources of income.</p>
<p>Writers from the 2000s have offered multifaceted portrayals, highlighting the interconnectedness of personal lives and political realities. The stories illuminate the human cost of political decisions and the resilience of ordinary people in the face of hardships.</p>
<h2>Literature in the Second Republic</h2>
<p>Literature after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-the-state-is-the-man-and-that-man-is-mugabe-a-new-era-begins-with-his-fall-87868">demise</a> of Mugabe and his four-decade regime – a period referred to as the Second Republic – has continued to grapple with Zimbabwe’s prevailing sociopolitical environment. In the book <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Zimbabwean-Crisis-after-Mugabe-Multidisciplinary-Perspectives/Mangena-Nyambi-Ncube/p/book/9781032028149">The Zimbabwean Crisis after Mugabe</a>, my colleagues and I contend that today’s Zimbabwe is similar to the Mugabe years in many ways.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539974/original/file-20230728-19-7nqol2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tsitsi Dangarembga was arrested in 2020 for staging a protest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zinyange Autony/AFP/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.batsiraichigama.com/">Batsirai Chigama</a>’s collection of poems Gather the Children captures the vicissitudes of contemporary life in Zimbabwe. In <a href="https://www.poetryinternational.com/en/poets-poems/article/104-29416_On-Chigama-8217-s-Gather-the-Children">his analysis</a> of this collection, literary scholar Tinashe Mushakavanhu explains: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Zimbabwe’s political crisis has been a different kind of catastrophe, one that has occurred in slow motion: its mechanisms abstract and impersonal, although the economic, physical, and psychological consequences have been very real and devastating. These strictures insinuate themselves into the ambience of everyday life and language, something that Chigama observes with careful attention. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In her poem Zimbabwe, Chigama writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Like eating olives</p>
<p>we have acquired the taste of discomfort</p>
<p>over the longest time</p>
<p>it has gently settled on our tongues</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her poems highlight how Zimbabweans have normalised the abnormal.</p>
<p>Other writers from the post-Mugabe period like <a href="http://www.panashechigumadzi.com/bio">Panashe Chigumadzi</a> and <a href="https://novuyotshuma.com/about">Novuyo Rosa Tshuma</a> grapple with similar issues and themes. Writer and academic <a href="https://brittlepaper.com/2023/03/siphiwe-ndlovu-on-the-rise-and-rise-of-zimbabwean-literature/">Siphiwe Ndlovu</a> explains that in contemporary Zimbabwean fiction</p>
<blockquote>
<p>there is anger, outrage, disappointment, disillusionment, hope (and the loss of it), but most importantly, there is a call for reckoning and change that the politics of the country have failed to successfully address.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The power (and limits) of literature</h2>
<p>Despite its power, reading remains a luxury that many Zimbabweans cannot afford. Books are extremely expensive and few people have disposable income to read for pleasure. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A book cover with an illustration of birds flying into a tree and down into a red backdrop." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=850&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539982/original/file-20230728-16223-8s27vs.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1068&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ntombekhaya Poetry</span></span>
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<p>It’s for this reason that, since independence, the state has not banned the many novels which are critical of the situation in the country. Writer Stanley Nyamfukudza <a href="http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:240525/FULLTEXT02.pdf">explains</a>: “It has been suggested that one of the best ways to hide information in Zimbabwe is to publish it in a book.” </p>
<p>Literature can achieve greater effects if there is a robust culture of critical thinking and reading.</p>
<p>However, despite the continued oppression and the lack of a robust reading culture, Zimbabwean writers have been unrelenting in telling the world what is really happening in Zimbabwe. They have always spoken truth to power.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Gibson Ncube does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Writers have challenged oppression, exposed social injustices and advocated for political change.Gibson Ncube, Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2091822023-07-10T15:54:26Z2023-07-10T15:54:26ZHow to recognise a temperate rainforest in Britain and Ireland when you see one<p>The term “temperate rainforest”, or “Celtic rainforest”, has rapidly gained public attention in the UK recently. </p>
<p>In February 2023, British insurance company, Aviva, awarded <a href="https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/news/new-fund-help-wildlife-trusts-restore-rainforests-britain">£38 million of funding</a> for the restoration of these rainforests. These restoration efforts have even caught the interest of Prince William, who has announced plans to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/03/prince-william-to-expand-duchy-of-cornwalls-temperate-rainforest-wistmans-wood">double the size of Wistman’s Wood</a>, an iconic fragment of ancient woodland on his Dartmoor estate. </p>
<p>Britain was once covered with trees. But over thousands of years, ancient woodland in wetter areas of the country’s west were cleared and converted into pasture for sheep and cattle. By the start of the 20th century, Britain and Ireland had become the <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpls.2018.00253/full">least-wooded region</a> in Europe, with only small fragments remaining in both countries’ western coastal rainforest zones.</p>
<p>But how much of this woodland actually counts as rainforest? The complex variation among different types of woodland makes it difficult to classify them as either rainforests or non-rainforests. And while the climate in Britain and Ireland is wet relative to the south and east of Europe, the question remains: how wet is wet enough to support a rainforest? </p>
<p>To understand if an area can support a rainforest, it’s important to consider not just the mean annual rainfall, but also that it rains across the seasons. Some areas in the Mediterranean basin receive the same amount of annual rainfall as parts of Great Britain. But this rain is concentrated in the winter, and prolonged periods of drought during the summer prevent the formation of a recognisable rainforest. </p>
<p>In Britain and Ireland, the climate is characterised by lower seasonality in rainfall, with dry summers being the exception rather than the rule. However, <a href="https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/approach/collaboration/ukcp/index">most climate models</a> predict that this will change in the future, meaning that fewer areas of these islands will be able to support rainforests.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A view of what remains of Wistman's Wood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536535/original/file-20230710-23-z8k8mq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prince William plans to double the size of Wistman’s Wood.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/view-wistmans-wood-dartmore-devon-england-2283975363">Bourne for nature/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But rainfall alone does not determine the presence of rainforests. The availability of water in the soil, which is influenced by factors such as soil depth, texture and organic matter content, plays a crucial role in supporting rainforest trees. Even in areas with high rainfall, thin soils can lead to conditions prone to drought. </p>
<p>So, this leaves us with a dilemma: how can you spot a rainforest in Britain and Ireland?</p>
<h2>1. Characteristic types of plant</h2>
<p>The most iconic plant types characteristic of temperate rainforests are the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/epiphyte">epiphytes</a>. These are plants that grow above the ground and attach themselves to the stems of trees or shrubs. </p>
<p>Epiphytes, including <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/orchid">orchids</a>, are an important component of biodiversity in tropical rainforests. By contrast, most of the epiphytes in temperate rainforests are “lower plants”, such as ferns and plants lacking a vascular system to move water within them, like <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/moss-plant">mosses</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/liverwort">liverworts</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/lichen">lichens</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A close-up shot of moss growing on a tree branch." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536526/original/file-20230710-25-xsvb1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Plants such as moss are characteristic of temperate rainforests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/green-moss-grows-on-old-trees-2301179671">Alexandr Macovetchi/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>2. Horizontal precipitation</h2>
<p>Epiphytes gain some of their moisture from water that trickles down the trunks of trees during heavy rainfall (a process called “stem flow”). But these plants do not solely rely on rain. </p>
<p>In upland or coastal environments, where ground-level cloud or mist is common, another important source of moisture for epiphytes is horizontal precipitation (droplets of water that are suspended in the cloud). This moisture source is particularly important for the epiphytes that are most susceptible to drought, such as <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/Hymenophyllaceae">filmy ferns</a> and some mosses and lichens.</p>
<h2>3. Woody climbers</h2>
<p>The UK’s temperate rainforests have several other features that are reminiscent of their tropical counterparts. One such feature is woody climbers (or <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/liana">liana</a>) that use trees to ascend to the forest canopy. Classic examples of these plants in Britain and Ireland are <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/ivy-plant">ivy</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/Clematis">clematis</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/plant/honeysuckle">honeysuckle</a>. </p>
<p>However, the presence of woody climbers alone is not indicative of a temperate rainforest. While ivy, for example, is most abundant in wetter forests, these three liana species can be found across a range of woodland types in Britain and Ireland, even in the drier eastern regions.</p>
<h2>4. Tree structure</h2>
<p>The species of tree found in rainforests in Britain and Ireland are not good indicators of their rainforest status. The dominant canopy tree in many is <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/british-trees/a-z-of-british-trees/sessile-oak/">sessile oak</a>, which is the same species that dominates many forests producing straight stems of high-quality oak timber in northern France.</p>
<p>What better distinguishes a rainforest in Britain or Ireland is the structural characteristics of the trees. In rainforests near the west coast, such as on Dartmoor, the trees tend to be short, with leaning trunks and low branches. </p>
<p>However, this small tree structure is unlikely to be a direct result of high rainfall. The canopy trees of temperate rainforests in even wetter areas of coastal Oregon, Washington State and British Columbia in North America reach at least twice the height (40 metres or more). The distinctive short stature of trees in Britain’s rainforests is instead probably influenced by a combination of factors, including exposure to high winds and infertile thin soils, both of which are characteristic of the Atlantic coastal and upland environments of western Britain and Ireland.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Small and twisted oak trees growing among rocks in a mossy wood." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536537/original/file-20230710-25-x4od63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Rainforest trees in Britain and Ireland tend to be short, with leaning trunks and low branches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/twisted-gnarled-dwarf-oak-trees-growing-1817854715">Chris JG White/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The temperate rainforests of Britain and Ireland are rapidly assuming an iconic status, conjuring up a vivid image of mist, moss and convoluted trees. </p>
<p>But these woodlands are more than just visually captivating – they are rare habitats that are crucial for many endangered species, especially epiphytes. Unfortunately, they are also vulnerable to the effects of climate change. This makes them a fitting focus for new initiatives targeting their restoration.</p>
<hr>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Imagine weekly climate newsletter" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/434988/original/file-20211201-21-13avx6y.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Healey receives funding from the Natural Environment Research Council of the UK Government, Welsh Government, Woodknowledge Wales. </span></em></p>Only fragments of Britain’s “temperate rainforest” remain – here’s some tips to help you identify one when you come across it.John Healey, Professor of Forest Sciences, Bangor UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1812582022-05-03T20:07:36Z2022-05-03T20:07:36ZToughness has limits: over 1,100 species live in Antarctica – but they’re at risk from human activity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458548/original/file-20220419-24-q8u3f6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4608%2C3428&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura Phillips</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s hard to survive in bitterly cold Antarctica. But the ice continent is home to more than 1,100 species who have adapted to life on land and in its lakes. </p>
<p>Penguins are the most well known, but Antarctica’s diversity lies in its microbes and species like mosses, lichens and tardigrades (water bears). Most of these survive in the few ice-free areas on the continent. </p>
<p>Our <a href="https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cobi.13885">new research</a> provides a comprehensive inventory of Antarctic species. We believe it will help the 54 nations who are party to the Antarctic Treaty fulfil one of its major conservation goals – the continent-wide protection of Antarctic species. </p>
<p>Despite their toughness, climate change, introduced species and human activities pose growing threats for these species. We need rapid and widespread protection for Antarctica’s biodiversity if these species are to survive.</p>
<h2>How can so many species live in Antarctica?</h2>
<p>Our inventory found 1,142 land and lake-dwelling species currently known to live on the Antarctic continent. This list is dominated by extraordinarily resilient groups, such as lichens, mosses and invertebrates, which have evolved to thrive under extreme conditions.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=331&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458552/original/file-20220419-26-y7s59p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The number of species within each taxonomic group that live in Antarctica. Groups like bacteria with poorly-resolved species lists are excluded.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura M. Phillips</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These species have developed unique adaptations to live in this frozen desert, where sub-zero temperatures are the norm and life sustaining water is often locked up as ice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/invasive-species-are-threatening-antarcticas-fragile-ecosystems-as-human-activity-grows-and-the-world-warms-172058">Invasive species are threatening Antarctica's fragile ecosystems as human activity grows and the world warms</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Antarctic mosses have the incredible ability to freeze and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11120-020-00785-0">almost completely dry out</a>. They come back to life during the brief periods when it’s warm enough for ice to melt, and take advantage of liquid water to rehydrate and grow.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458557/original/file-20220419-16-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=482&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A moss bed at Casey Station, Antarctica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura M. Phillips</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=440&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458553/original/file-20220419-18-1tnfsr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=553&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Tardigrade in its active form and after freezing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura M. Phillips</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Tardigrades are, famously, masters of survival. During tough times, they can enter a frozen, inactive state very close to death. Some have remained frozen <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0011224015300134?via%3Dihub">for over 30 years</a> before recovering and resuming their normal lives as if nothing happened.</p>
<p>And then, of course, there are the penguins. Five of the world’s 18 species <a href="https://www.antarctica.gov.au/about-antarctica/animals/penguins/">live in Antarctica</a>, with another four species on sub-Antarctic islands. These birds are built for the cold with thick layers of insulating fat and feathers to keep warm.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458554/original/file-20220419-16-q8u3f6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gentoo penguin adult and chicks.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steven L. Chown</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Isn’t Antarctica already protected?</h2>
<p>It’s a common belief that Antarctica is already highly protected. But, in practice, this is only true for specific areas. </p>
<p>In 1991, the nations party to the Antarctic Treaty agreed to conserve the unique continent through the <a href="https://www.ats.aq/e/protocol.html">Madrid Protocol</a>. This agreement set the foundations for a network of 75 protected areas – those with outstanding environmental, scientific, historic, aesthetic and wilderness value.</p>
<p>This approach aided conservation, by restricting entry and limiting what people can do, safeguarding biodiversity from <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1222821">issues such as</a> wildlife disturbance, pollution, and introduction of invasive species.</p>
<p>But there are <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-08915-6">still large gaps</a>, leaving many species unprotected. </p>
<p>One solution is already outlined in the Madrid Protocol: protect the “type localities” of each species. This refers to the location where the very first specimen of a species was collected and described. These specimens are crucial for taxonomy, as they act as the point of reference to check against unknown or ambiguous specimens. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458555/original/file-20220419-12-q5yz3z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vegetation on the Clark Peninsula, Antarctica, the type locality for five lichen species.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Laura M. Phillips</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Importantly, protecting the type locality of a species ensures any species can be protected, even if we know little about their habitat or distribution. This is especially important for Antarctic species, because for many, the type locality is the only known location for that species.</p>
<p>To date, however, no Antarctic protected areas have been created specifically to conserve type localities. That’s where our research can help. </p>
<h2>What needs to be done?</h2>
<p>The reason there are no protected areas of this kind is because we haven’t had a comprehensive list of Antarctic species and their type localities. That’s why we undertook this research. </p>
<p>Once we had the list, we mapped the type localities across the continent to see how many of these sites are currently protected.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=547&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458556/original/file-20220419-15-c01pkq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=687&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The distribution of protected (green) and unprotected (purple) type localities across Antarctica.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Rachel I. Leihy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found more than a quarter (28%) of all species already have their type localities protected for other reasons, such as scientific interest or wildlife colonies. That’s because they occur in the few and small ice free areas across the continent, where most of the existing protected areas have been created. The remaining 72% of the continent’s type localities are not protected in this way. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/record-smashing-heatwaves-are-hitting-antarctica-and-the-arctic-simultaneously-heres-whats-driving-them-and-how-theyll-impact-wildlife-179659">Record-smashing heatwaves are hitting Antarctica and the Arctic simultaneously. Here’s what’s driving them, and how they’ll impact wildlife</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is now a great opportunity to protect these localities. If we focus first on areas with multiple type localities, we could get many more species protected. </p>
<p>Over time, we could expand this network. We estimate another 105 new protected areas would cover all remaining type localities.</p>
<p>We would also need to update the plans for existing protected areas to ensure the value of type localities are taken into account. </p>
<p>Longer term, we will need to embrace a systematic conservation framework across Antarctica to ensure the world’s last great wilderness remains full of life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/181258/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Phillips is affiliated with Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rachel Leihy works for the Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental Research and is affiliated with Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
This research was done as a part of the Australian Research Council funded program Securing Antarctica’s Environmental Future, and it was also funded by an Australian Antarctic Program grant.</span></em></p>We compiled the first list of Antarctic species and where they were first found. This knowledge means we can now protect all of the icy continent’s species.Laura Phillips, Antarctic Scientist, Monash UniversityRachel Leihy, Ecologist, Arthur Rylah Institute for Environmental ResearchLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1318462020-02-17T16:14:36Z2020-02-17T16:14:36ZMeet the insects that are defying the plunge in biodiversity – new findings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315733/original/file-20200217-10976-1qpvl47.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=82%2C53%2C3155%2C2575&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A ruddy darter dragonfly perches on a stalk in Coleshill Park, Wiltshire, UK.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/ruddy-darter-dragonfly-perched-on-stalk-701737042">Ian_Sherriffs/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In 2019, there were <a href="https://theconversation.com/top-five-threats-to-uks-wildlife-and-what-to-do-about-them-new-report-124670">44 million fewer breeding birds</a> in the UK than there were in the 1970s. There are thought to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/02/last-hedgehogs-in-central-london-survived-by-learning-to-avoid-roads">fewer than one million hedgehogs</a>, compared to <a href="https://theconversation.com/disappearing-hedgehogs-show-familiarity-may-be-a-curse-42914">35 million in the 1950s</a>. Two-thirds of British butterflies have also been on <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/08/rare-uk-butterflies-enjoy-best-year-since-monitoring-began">a downward trend since the 1970s</a>, adding to a grim picture for biodiversity in the UK.</p>
<p>“Biodiversity” simply means the variety of life on earth. Simply put, rich and diverse ecosystems are essential to the way we live. Take the way our food is grown. Agriculture depends on <a href="https://theconversation.com/bumblebees-in-crisis-insects-inner-lives-reveal-what-the-world-would-lose-if-they-disappear-131519">hundreds of different species to pollinate crops</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/feeding-the-world-archaeology-can-help-us-learn-from-history-to-build-a-sustainable-future-for-food-117601">help with pest control</a>. A diverse range of animals, fungi and microbes decompose organic matter and enrich the soil with different micronutrients, making the food we grow more nutritious. A variety of plants also store carbon in their tissue at different rates and quantities, which is invaluable for slowing climate change.</p>
<p>That’s why <a href="https://theconversation.com/revolutionary-change-needed-to-stop-unprecedented-global-extinction-crisis-116166">huge declines in biodiversity</a> are so worrying, particularly among insects. They may not be dear to many of us, but they <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-happens-to-the-natural-world-if-all-the-insects-disappear-111886">make up a large proportion of all living creatures</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315737/original/file-20200217-11005-t4r2n2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Eight-legged friends.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/macro-small-wolf-spider-on-rock-1581059563">L Richardson Photography/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We’re fortunate in the UK to have very good data on the abundance of some species, particularly birds, butterflies and some mammals. This gives researchers a good understanding of trends over time. But what about everything else? There are many more groups of organisms out there that lack such information. To understand how these less well studied species are faring, we decided to use a different measure – distribution, or where a species can be found.</p>
<p>In our latest <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-020-1111-z">study</a>, my colleagues and I investigated how the distribution of over 5,000 of these UK species has changed over the last few decades, to try and get a broader look at how biodiversity is faring in the UK. </p>
<h2>Little surprises</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-019-0269-1">estimates of species distribution</a> came from observations of species collected by volunteers. These estimates cover more than 5,000 UK species of invertebrates, mosses and lichens and extend back to 1970. </p>
<p>We found that the situation with these groups is more complicated than the average trends of well studied species. Essentially, not everything is declining.</p>
<p>We did find a number of groups, including spiders and freshwater molluscs, whose distributions have declined, which means they’re absent from places they could be found 50 years ago. But overall, the average distribution across the 5,000 species increased by about 11%, with some species expanding into new areas.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/top-five-threats-to-uks-wildlife-and-what-to-do-about-them-new-report-124670">Top five threats to UK's wildlife (and what to do about them) – new report</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>When we split these species into groups, we found some very interesting differences. Of the four groups that we assessed, only the invertebrates showed an average decline in distribution. This group included spiders, centipedes, millipedes, slugs and snails, and their average distribution has declined by almost 7%, which means they’re found in fewer places than they were in 1970. </p>
<p>The insect group, which contained over 3,000 species and included ants, ground beetles, soldierflies and fungus gnats, increased its average distribution by almost 6%, although there were considerable variations between species. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315722/original/file-20200217-11000-18qtpd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A caddisfly larvae rests in a cocoon made of tiny pebbles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/caddisfly-larvae-under-water-built-home-1239227623">FJAH/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Perhaps the most intriguing findings were from freshwater species. This group initially declined between 1970 and the mid-1990s, but their distribution has bounced back to near 1970 levels in recent years. The freshwater insects include dragonflies, mayflies, stoneflies and caddisflies – groups of species that spend most of their lives in freshwater streams and rivers as larvae. All followed the same U-shaped pattern of decline and recovery.</p>
<p>This reversal seems to coincide with the implementation of the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-urbanwaste/index_en.html">Directive</a>, so it’s possible that freshwater insects have benefited from efforts to clean up the UK’s rivers. </p>
<p>There was also an increase over time in the group containing mosses and lichens. <a href="https://theconversation.com/citizen-scientists-have-a-role-to-play-in-our-woods-and-cities-18584">Both are sensitive to air quality</a>, so their partial recovery might be due to reductions in air pollution. These positive findings are very exciting, as they suggest that a downward trend can be reversed if the causes of the decline can be addressed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/315719/original/file-20200217-11005-1jzikid.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The prevalence of moss and lichen on outdoor surfaces can reveal a lot about local air quality.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/yellow-tree-lichens-xanthoria-parietina-on-408736705">Olpo/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It’s important to remember that these are changes in distribution and not the number of individuals in a species. It’s possible that the numbers of the species in the groups studied here have fallen over the same period, but we can’t measure this with the kind of data we used. Spotting the patterns and common responses behind changes in distribution can suggest what the drivers might be.</p>
<p>This research wouldn’t have been possible without all the volunteers that collect the biological records that underpin this study. The UK has a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/bij.12575">long history</a> of biological recording and an interest in natural history that stretches back at least as far at the 19th century. It’s one of a few countries that has national recording schemes that include thousands of people with an interest in observing and collecting data on wildlife. </p>
<p>There are over <a href="https://www.brc.ac.uk/recording-schemes">80 such schemes</a> in the UK, collecting data on everything from insects, birds and mammals to plants and fungi. Without all of this information, we would know almost nothing about the state of the UK’s wildlife. While we may worry about the picture we have, we can take comfort in the fact that there are so many who care enough to give up their time to painstakingly record it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131846/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charlie Outhwaite is currently funded by a UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant (NE/R010811/1). This work was funded by NERC (NE/L008823/1) and conducted in partnership with the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) and the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).</span></em></p>While many surveys show the numbers of wildlife falling, there is good news for some species – including pondskaters and various mosses and lichen.Charlie Outhwaite, Postdoctoral Researcher in Biodiversity Change, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1127552019-09-11T12:17:02Z2019-09-11T12:17:02ZIn dandelions and fireflies, artists try to make sense of climate change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291823/original/file-20190910-190016-875y1e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Visitors walk through Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama's installation 'Fireflies on the Water.'</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/maurizio_mwg/2985709941">maurizio mucciola/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Climate change is real, it’s accelerating and it’s terrifying. We are adding carbon to the atmosphere at a rate <a href="https://www.ametsoc.net/sotc2017/SoC2017_ExecSumm.pdf">100 times faster than any previous natural increases</a>, such as those that occurred at the end of the last ice age.</p>
<p>The effects are easily made visible through dramatic images of <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/4/graphic-dramatic-glacier-melt/">rapidly shrinking glaciers</a> or the <a href="https://www.sciencenews.org/article/brazil-amazon-rainforest-fires-climate-emissions-oxygen,%20https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/08/look-no-further-than-brazils-amazon-fire-for-the-dangers-of-deregulation/">Amazon rainforest on fire</a>. </p>
<p>But pictures like these can distance us from environmental catastrophe, turning it into something spectacular, arresting – even paralyzing. They don’t communicate the everyday impact of climate change, <a href="https://theconversation.com/climate-change-is-happening-in-your-garden-heres-how-to-spot-it-65730">which is also taking place in our own backyards</a>.</p>
<p>In the book I’m currently writing, I’ve made these smaller, less obvious effects my focus. I explore the work of artists and poets who help us understand how the smallest changes to the environment can signal large-scale damage. </p>
<p>They build on a crucial legacy left by Victorian observers of the natural world who emphasized the need to pay careful attention to the tiny details of our surroundings.</p>
<h2>Observant Victorians</h2>
<p>No one was more insistent on the importance of looking closely at the ordinary and the everyday than the 19th-century art critic and social thinker John Ruskin. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=873&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291638/original/file-20190909-109957-za45hz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1097&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Everett Millais’ 1853 portrait of Ruskin.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Millais_Ruskin.jpg">Ashmolean Museum</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>His <a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/depts/ruskinlib/Modern%20Painters">advice</a> to “go to Nature … rejecting nothing, selecting nothing and scorning nothing” inspired many artists of the era – British artists like <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ruskin_(painting)#/media/File:Millais_Ruskin.jpg">John Everett Millais</a> and <a href="http://www.victorianweb.org/painting/brett/paintings/25.jpg">John Brett</a>, and American painters <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/2359">John Henry Hill</a> and <a href="https://www.brooklynmuseum.org/exhibitions/ask/william_trost_richards">William Trost Richards</a>. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, books and articles, such as J.G. Wood’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Be9RDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=Common+Objects+of+the+Country&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjf8becyrrkAhUQZd8KHRwMCk4Q6AEwAHoECAAQAg#v=onepage&q&f=false">Common Objects of the Country</a>” and Anne Wright’s “<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=p6fewQEACAAJ&dq=the+observing+eye&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjfm6apyrrkAhWknOAKHZLECN8Q6AEwAnoECAAQAQ">The Observing Eye</a>,” <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo5519168.html">popularized scientific observation</a> as a practice available to all, teaching people to find wonder in the world about them – in “<a href="https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/users/ruskinlib/eSoV/texts/vol35/vol35p37.html">the sky, the leaves and pebbles</a>,” as Ruskin wrote.</p>
<p>Many contemporary artists have picked up the baton, showing how three very ordinary species from the natural world – dandelions, fireflies and lichens – can stimulate our imagination and make us think about climate change in new ways.</p>
<h2>The resilience of dandelions</h2>
<p>Few plants are more ubiquitous than the dandelion.</p>
<p>In the 19th century, its yellow flowers and decorative fluffy seed-heads often appeared in sentimental paintings of <a href="https://arthive.com/artists/64493%7EWilliam_John_Hennessy/works/345871%7EDandelion_clock">children gathering dandelions in meadows</a> or of <a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Q_qzgkdqzz0/VJnHy4lIB1I/AAAAAAAEFpY/a_mFmpUp-zg/s1600/Charles%2BEdward%2BPerugini%2BTutt%27Art%40-%2B(1).jpg">young women blowing on gossamer puff-balls</a>. They flourished in <a href="https://archive.org/details/athome00sowe/page/20">nursery rhyme illustrations</a> and on decorative <a href="http://www.demorgan.org.uk/gillow-0">tiles</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=351&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291641/original/file-20190909-109923-od9hii.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dandelions dotted the landscapes of 19th-century children’s picture books.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://archive.org/details/athome00sowe/page/20">New York Public Library</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The flower was useful in the kitchen, too: Victorians ate it <a href="https://convivialsupper.com/2017/04/09/dandelion-salad-recipe-victorian-food-blog-1844/">in salads</a> and drank it <a href="http://www.columbia.edu/itc/cerc/danoff-burg/invasion_bio/inv_spp_summ/Taraxum_officinale.htm">in teas</a>. </p>
<p>But at some point in the 19th century, its status morphed. Dandelions became a weed. </p>
<p>As all gardeners know, they are persistent. Weedkillers like sodium arsenite were introduced in the late 19th century. After World War II, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/science/herbicide">powerful chemicals were developed for lawn maintenance</a>, doing far more damage <a href="https://www.naturalnews.com/025534_Roundup_research_toxic.htm">to people and the environment</a> than dandelion roots. Gardening websites are still full of references to “<a href="https://medium.com/@thereejackson/the-war-on-dandelions-23b0a9457ce6">the war on dandelions</a>.” </p>
<p>Today, British artist <a href="https://www.edwardchell.com/soft-estate/">Edward Chell</a> wants us to think about the damage done to these exiled weeds. He picks dandelions and other wild flowers on Britain’s motorway verges – micro-habitats choking with pollutants that nonetheless sustain diverse vegetation.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291645/original/file-20190909-109957-shqu0g.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=974&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Edward Chell’s ‘Dandelion Taraxacum officinale: Road Dust M4.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.edwardchell.com/prints/nggallery/page/1">Edward Chell, 2011. Road dust on 400gsm acid free watercolour/drawing paper 135 x 105 cm.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using a silhouette drawing technique borrowed from the late 18th century, he draws the plant in outline and fills it with a mixture of ink and dust taken from the motorway. His images show the beautiful fragility of roadside weeds. But they’re also records of toxicity, made with the residue of the internal combustion engine: unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.edwardchell.com/prints/">The jagged edges of the dandelion</a> have a starring role in his series. But for Chell, the flower no longer symbolizes sentimentality and innocence, as it did in the Victorian era; instead, it’s mutated into a chilling commentary on roadside pollution.</p>
<h2>The magic of fireflies</h2>
<p>In a threatened world, nature exerts a nostalgic pull. For many Americans, thoughts of fireflies transport them to the long, warm summer evenings of childhood. </p>
<p>Fireflies enjoy a double life: By day, they are unremarkable, dull-brown insects; by night, they are captivating sparks that dance together. </p>
<p>Victorian writers and artists saw magic in these floating dots of light, comparing them to <a href="https://fireflyforestwatcher.files.wordpress.com/2014/06/meeting-1.jpg">fairies and goblins</a>. The firefly’s grip on the imagination was so strong that it inspired scientists to search for ways <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-fireflies-glow-and-what-signals-theyre-sending-118574">to explain the mysteries of bioluminescence</a>.</p>
<p>The magic of fireflies persists. Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama has constructed several firefly installations that were inspired by <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/atfj/atfj46.htm">a Japanese folktale about an old man in a field who was robbed on a pilgrimage</a>. In Japanese culture, fireflies stand for the soul: In the tale, thousands of fireflies attack the man’s assailants after his death.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.phxart.org/fireflies">The Phoenix Art Museum features one of Kusama’s installations</a>. Visitors can stand in a pitch-black room of mirror-lined walls, polished black granite floor and a black plexiglass ceiling, from which 250 LED lights hang and flicker like fireflies on a continuous two-and-a-half minute loop. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qX_uV3hKsuc?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Yayoi Kusama’s ‘Infinity Mirror Room’ at the Phoenix Art Museum.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To stand here is to experience infinity. It recalls the extraordinary beauty, yet fragility, of our natural environment. </p>
<p>And then you might wonder: When did I last see fireflies? </p>
<p>Fireflies <a href="https://www.firefly.org/why-are-fireflies-disappearing.html">have become increasingly uncommon</a> – victims of habitat loss, pesticides and light pollution. Kusama’s project, involving so many dancing electric dots of light, may be understood as a deeply ironic one. </p>
<h2>The sagacity of lichen</h2>
<p>It’s not just artists who give significance to the small and overlooked. </p>
<p>Art historians can direct our attention to something we take for granted. </p>
<p>Mid-Victorian paintings are best known for their depictions of modern life, for dramatizing the personal side of historical events and for introducing us to stunning landscapes.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=924&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/291646/original/file-20190909-109935-up3ck0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1161&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">John Everett Millais’ 1852 painting ‘A Huguenot on St Bartholomew’s Day Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Sir_John_Everett_Millais._A_Huguenot%2C_on_St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_Refusing_to_Shield_Himself_from_Danger_by_Wearing_the_Roman_Catholic_Badge..jpg">Manson and Woods, Ltd.</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But I suggest viewers concentrate on the apparently insignificant in these works; examine and think about the lichen that clings to rocks, tree trunks and walls in paintings like Millais’ “<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sir_John_Everett_Millais._A_Huguenot,_on_St._Bartholomew%27s_Day_Refusing_to_Shield_Himself_from_Danger_by_Wearing_the_Roman_Catholic_Badge..jpg">A Huguenot</a>” or Brett’s “<a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Brett_Val_d%27Aosta_1858.jpg">Val d'Aosta</a>.” </p>
<p>The very lichen that was painted in the mid-19th century likely contained traces of the substances that would destroy it.</p>
<p>For lichen is – as the Victorians came to realize – <a href="https://www.anbg.gov.au/lichen/ecology-polution.html">a bellwether for a polluted climate</a>. Too much pollution near a big industrial city, and it disappears from tree trunks and stones. </p>
<p>Because of its quiet beauty and its vulnerability to environmental change, lichen has become a powerful symbol for <a href="https://www.dianerogers.co.uk/flora-flowers-lichen">fabric artists</a>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Extra-Hidden-among-Wesleyan-Poetry/dp/0819578053">poets</a> and <a href="https://olafureliasson.net/archive/artwork/WEK101810/moss-wall">installation artists</a>.</p>
<p>Yet lichen is the consummate survivor. It appears quickly <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/a18126/tiny-lichens-internalize-nuclear-fallout/">after nuclear disaster</a> or on <a href="http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=5453">newly solidified lava</a>. What’s more, lichen possesses properties – collaboration, determination, endurance – that humans will need to survive climate change.</p>
<p>“We are all lichens now,” <a href="http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/anthropocene-capitalocene-chthulucene/">wrote eco-scholar Donna Haraway</a>, referring to the <a href="https://courses.lumenlearning.com/microbiology/chapter/lichens/">symbiosis and codependence</a> that characterizes lichen – and that increasingly will come to define the human experience. </p>
<p>Looking at 19th-century depictions of nature doesn’t just lead to a nostalgic lamentation of all that’s been lost.</p>
<p>Instead, it inspires us to try to grapple with the present – and spurs us to intervene in our future.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112755/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Flint does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Images of wildfires are powerful, but can make climate catastrophe seem like something spectacular and distant. So some artists are focusing on the plants and bugs in our immediate surroundings.Kate Flint, Provost Professor of Art History and English, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1214522019-08-06T11:05:33Z2019-08-06T11:05:33ZMass starvation of reindeer linked to climate change and habitat loss<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287045/original/file-20190806-84249-rhynzt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6720%2C4476&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An old male reindeer weathers a heavy snow storm.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/old-male-reindeer-magnificent-antlers-heavy-739320433?src=UtlW9HdIkT1YKao3Hgt2ww-1-25">Kerfu/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Reindeer are incredibly hardy creatures – they survived the last Ice Age and today live in some of the world’s most inhospitable landscapes. Despite their fine-tuned adaptations to life in the Arctic and after <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=OsPBXSNL8ZkC&lpg=PA170&pg=PA170#v=onepage&q&f=false">over 600,000 years</a> of living there, reindeer are struggling to survive the rapid changes happening all around them.</p>
<p>In the winter of 2013-14, <a href="https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/full/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0466">61,000 reindeer starved to death</a> in the Yamal peninsula of Russia. The population crashed, devastating the Yamal Nenets – an indigenous people who herd the reindeer for food. A more recent census found that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/30/deaths-of-200-reindeer-in-arctic-caused-by-climate-change-say-researchers">200 reindeer in Svalbard, Norway</a> didn’t survive the winter of 2018-19. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287033/original/file-20190806-84240-ticdwd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reindeer relaxing on the tundra in northern Sweden.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ilona Kater</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These mass starvations were largely due to climate change, which is causing unusual <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0175.1">spikes of warm winter weather</a> in the Arctic. The higher winter temperatures cause snow to melt and refreeze, or to fall as rain which also refreezes. The icy sheet encases lichen on the ground – the reindeers’ main winter food supply. The reindeer can’t dig through it and often the ice freezes over such a large area that they starve while wandering, trying to reach the plants they can smell beneath them. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-arctic-is-turning-brown-because-of-weird-weather-and-it-could-accelerate-climate-change-107590">The Arctic is turning brown because of weird weather – and it could accelerate climate change</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>These “freeze-thaw” and rain-on-snow events do happen naturally each year in the Arctic, and have done for a long time. But they’re <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1307/6/34/342039/pdf">happening more often</a> now and on a larger scale.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287034/original/file-20190806-84225-cydoqx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lichen, one of the main winter foods of reindeer in Europe.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ilona Kater</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Change and conflict in the Arctic</h2>
<p>The recent struggles of reindeer aren’t all down to climate change though, especially in northern Europe. Sapmi – a region spanning northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and west Russia – is home to the indigenous Saami, who are also reindeer herders. For many years they’ve tried to maintain the tradition which provides them with food and warm clothing, while locked in conflict with industries and governments over land.</p>
<p>Sweden provides <a href="https://www.informa.com.au/insight/infographic-sweden-eus-leading-iron-ore-producer/">90% of the EU’s iron ore</a> and the mines built to extract this, as well as the areas flooded to store mining waste, reduce the pasture land that’s available for reindeer. One dam holding mining waste in Kiruna, Sweden is <a href="http://www.ejge.com/2015/Ppr2015.0482ma.pdf">4km long</a>.</p>
<p>The region’s timber industry is also disrupting the ancient forests reindeer have evolved alongside. These are populated by a variety of tree species of various different ages and heights. This creates a canopy that’s uneven, allowing snow to accumulate in deeper and shallower patches below – so some areas will remain grazeable when others are too deeply covered.</p>
<p>Plantations created and used by commercial foresters are monocultures – the trees are all roughly the same age and size. This creates a uniform canopy which allows snow to pool at roughly the same depth everywhere, leaving fewer alternative places to graze when food becomes inaccessible.</p>
<p>Even if there is food and a variety of pastures, the reindeer can be <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271565648_Avoidance_of_Cabins_Roads_and_Power_Lines_by_Reindeer_during_Calving">scared away</a> by noisy machinery and roads to the mining and logging sites. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000632070300048X">One study</a> in Norway found that in the last century, undisturbed reindeer habitat has shrank by 70%, including grazing lands that have been flooded for hydroelectric dams. </p>
<p>Reindeer have less and less to eat and their migration routes are being broken apart by roads, fences and railway lines. The effects of climate change on top of all this make an already difficult situation worse. Many reindeer herders now need to purchase feed for their reindeer during winter – an extra cost that may be difficult for owners of smaller herds to afford.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287039/original/file-20190806-84240-113i63o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Reindeer eat supplementary feed given to them by herders during a recent winter.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ilona Kater</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reindeer are climate allies</h2>
<p>Losing reindeer isn’t just a worry for herders. These animals play an important role within Arctic ecosystems and can even affect the regulation of the planet’s temperature. Though the effects of reindeer grazing vary from place to place, experiments have shown what can happen when they’re removed from an area. Without reindeer, the <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-00554-z.pdf">diversity of plant species</a> dropped in one study as fast growing grasses that reindeer had previously kept in check were allowed to proliferate and push out other species, like mosses and liverworts. </p>
<p>In some areas, <a href="https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1365-2435.12113">lowland shrubs and flowering plants</a> which were previously eaten by reindeer as seedlings were able to expand into the tundra. An open tundra with few large plants allows <a href="https://www.academia.edu/15619176/Effect_of_reindeer_grazing_on_snowmelt_albedo_and_energy_balance_based_on_satellite_data_analyses">more snow to accumulate</a> on the ground. This vast, white landscape reflects more of the sun’s rays back into space and reduces how much the world warms, a phenomenon known as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/jul/03/on-reflection-albedo-effect-word-of-the-week">the albedo effect</a>. Shrubby heathlands don’t allow such an even blanket of snow to form and so reflect less solar energy, amplifying the warming of the atmosphere.</p>
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<p>Luckily, all may not be lost for the reindeer. In recent years there has been growing recognition of the indigenous land rights of the Saami. They won a <a href="https://www.thelocal.se/20180124/sami-village-wins-court-battle-and-compensation-from-swedish-state">court case</a> against the Swedish state which gave them stronger rights in determining who could hunt and fish on their lands. It’s hoped that this could set a precedent for them having more say in how industries use their lands in future. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.arctictoday.com/arctic-railway-not-commercially-viable-report-says/">An official report</a> recently advised against building a train line in Finland, as it would cut through six different reindeer herding areas, and the project has been put on hold. This is a positive step which could open more opportunities for constructive dialogue between these groups in future. Perhaps with growing awareness, more support can be given to protecting reindeer and the wild, diverse landscapes they not only rely on to survive, but also help to create and thrive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=140&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/263883/original/file-20190314-28475-1mzxjur.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=176&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/imagine-newsletter-researchers-think-of-a-world-with-climate-action-113443?utm_source=TCUK&utm_medium=linkback&utm_campaign=TCUKengagement&utm_content=Imagineheader1121452">Click here to subscribe to our climate action newsletter. Climate change is inevitable. Our response to it isn’t.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121452/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ilona Kater receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust.</span></em></p>The winter of 2018-19 claimed 200 reindeer in Svalbard, Norway, according to a recent census.Ilona Kater, PhD Researcher in Arctic Ecology, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/624422016-07-27T07:56:04Z2016-07-27T07:56:04ZHow tiny black spots shed light on part of the Homo naledi mystery<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130564/original/image-20160714-23342-1btij8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A replica of a Homo naledi skull.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">GCIS/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many questions have been thrown up by the discovery in South Africa of a previously unidentified human relative, Homo naledi. Perhaps the one that’s grabbed people’s attention the most is how Homo naledi’s bones ended up in the Dinaledi Chamber in the Rising Star cave complex in the Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg.</p>
<p>The team which found and classified the remains has <a href="http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/09/150915-humans-death-burial-anthropology-Homo-naledi/">suggested</a> that the Homo naledi group deliberately deposited carcasses in complete darkness at the very back of the cave system. According to this claim, Homo naledi adopted a relatively “modern” or ritualistic form of behaviour even though the species had smaller brains than today’s humans.</p>
<p>To date, no opening has been found within the Dinaledi Chamber apart from the existing entrance. But might there have been an additional entrance at some time in the past? New research I have conducted and <a href="http://sajs.co.za/possibility-lichen-growth-bones-homo-naledi-were-they-exposed-light/j-francis-thackeray">published in the South African Journal of Science</a> centred on mysterious black spots found on Homo naledi bones from the cave. My findings suggest that the answer to this question may have been “yes” – there very well may have been an entrance.</p>
<p>I strongly believe that there was possibly a temporary entrance into the chamber, in addition to the one used by explorers today. This temporary entrance may been covered up by a rock fall that also trapped the individuals whose bones were found some time later. </p>
<p>Why do I believe that in fact there was this additional opening to the cave? Because those mysterious black spots are manganese dioxide and were probably deposited on the bones by lichen. And lichen need light to grow – so there must have been some light penetrating into the Dinaledi chamber. My scenario is that the Homo naledi family group was trapped in the Dinaledi Chamber after a rockfall – but that there was still, for a time, enough light to penetrate the chamber. This allowed lichen to grow on many of the bones of Homo naledi. </p>
<p>Then, with subsequent rockfalls in a phreatic maze, the Dinaledi Chamber was sealed except for the difficult route whereby explorers can enter the cave at the present time. </p>
<h2>Evidence from elsewhere</h2>
<p>The team which discovered the remains <a href="https://elifesciences.org/content/4/e09561">noted</a> that “some bones and teeth are dotted with black iron-manganese oxy-hydroxide deposits and coatings”.</p>
<p>I examined the remains in question and found that the spots were analogous to the kind of associated with modern lichen which are “symbionts”, including fungi – that disperse in spots – and algae, which require at least some light to grow.</p>
<p>My colleagues and I have previously <a href="http://reference.sabinet.co.za/webx/access/electronic_journals/sajsci/sajsci_v101_n1_a4.pdf">examined</a> instances of lichen in the Cradle of Humankind area. Lichen can grow on certain substrates, including bone or rock, with a dotted or spotted distribution. The spotted distribution of lichen is sometimes associated with dotted distributions of manganese oxy-hydroxide on the same surfaces. </p>
<p>The source of the manganese in the Cradle of Humankind region would include dolomite and <a href="http://geology.com/rocks/chert.shtml">chert</a>. These are rock materials that date back two billion years ago, related to a shallow saline sea that existed at that time.</p>
<p>In the Cradle of Humankind lichen has proved to grow not only on chert, but also on dolomite. It can also grow on bone surfaces.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=337&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130933/original/image-20160718-2115-fb2pyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=423&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The black markings on these Homo naledi bones are manganese dioxide.</span>
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<p>Hominid cranial specimens from the nearby Sterkfontein caves have small dots or spots of manganese oxyhydroxide on surfaces of bone, even within the inner cranial wall of these skulls. It seems likely that these dots or spots of manganese oxyhydroxide may have been areas where lichens were able to grow – in a partially sunlit micro-environment – for a relatively short period of time. Then sand would have covered the crania, blocking out the light and halting the lichen’s ability to keep growing. </p>
<p>So what does such evidence in the Cradle of Humankind tell us about Homo naledi’s mysterious black spots?</p>
<h2>Secrets of the caves</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/130570/original/image-20160714-23336-2vu1nx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Sterkfontein Caves in the Cradle of Humankind.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">MaropengSA/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The circumstances in the Wonder Cave – which is within 10kms of the Rising Star cave complex – offer some important clues to what might have happened to create spots on the Homo naledi remains.</p>
<p>When one walks from the entrance of the cavern into the darkness of the dolomitic solution cavity, the following becomes obvious: </p>
<p>Where there is intense light and heat on dry exposed surfaces outside the cave, there is little or no lichen growth at all. But, in the moister and slightly darker regions of the cave, there is an area where light and moisture appear to be optimal for the present lichen colonists.</p>
<p>Then, in the darkness at the back of the cave where very little light penetrates, there’s a decrease in the mean size of lichens, until there is no lichen growth at all – although there may be some moisture because of water dripping through the phreatic maze of the dolomitic cave system.</p>
<p>All of this suggests that, for the Homo naledi bones in the Rising Star cave to have become spotted with manganese dioxide, they had to have some exposure to light. That could only have happened if light got into the cave. And this was only possible if there was some sort of entrance that has, in the distant past, been covered over. If correct, this would contradict the original team’s proposal that, in prehistory, the Dinaledi Chamber could only be accessed by means of very narrow and circuitous passages, in complete darkness.</p>
<h2>Time to reassess?</h2>
<p>Based on my findings I believe that there was, at some time, a second entrance to the Dinaledi Chamber. This allowed at least some light to penetrate into the cave and to facilitate the growth of lichen and the subsequent deposition of manganese oxyhydroxide on the Homo naledi bones. </p>
<p>I’d further hypothesise that such an entrance, if it existed at all, was temporary. A rockfall in the maze cave system may have subsequently sealed the entrance at some stage in the dolomitic solution cavity. The darkness that settled over the cave would have terminated any lichen growth.</p>
<p>If there was more than one entrance into the Dinaledi Chamber, as suggested by my work and <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248416000282">research</a> conducted by Dr Aurore Val, the “intentional depositional model” will need to be reassessed. It would seem unlikely that the Homo naledi group deliberately deposited or buried its dead.</p>
<p><em>Author’s note: I would like to acknowledge the support of the National Research Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, and the Centre of Excellence for the Palaeosciences.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/62442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Francis Thackeray receives funding from the Mellon Foundation and the National Research Foundation</span></em></p>New evidence suggests that Homo naledi didn’t deliberately deposit their dead in a hidden chamber.Francis Thackeray, Phillip Tobias Chair in Palaeoanthropology, Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/444702015-07-10T04:31:01Z2015-07-10T04:31:01ZMosses and lichens come to the rescue in battle against air pollution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87889/original/image-20150709-10899-19boflc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Plants can play a role in revealing air pollution.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zikhona Ndlovu</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>We cannot avoid breathing in the air around us. When we breathe, tiny air pollutants such as toxic trace elements can penetrate and spread throughout our bodies. These pollutants can also be absorbed by our skin. Once inside, trace elements find their way into our <a href="https://www.teachengineering.org/view_activity.php?url=collection/cub_/activities/cub_biomed/cub_biomed_lesson04_activity1.xml">lungs</a> and enter our blood system. </p>
<p>We might not be able to see these harmful elements with the naked eye, but we can detect them by using plants as well as nuclear physics and related techniques.</p>
<p>There is a rising need for every country to monitor concentrations of pollutants in the air. But studies have focused mainly on classical ones like carbon monoxide. Heavy metals have not received the <a href="http://www.enviropaedia.com/topic/default.php?topic_id=13">attention</a> they deserve despite having been identified as the most <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marina_Frontasyeva2/publication/234064477_Neutron_Activation_Analysis_in_the_Life_Sciences/links/0fcfd50ed1d2c82fb1000000.pdf">harmful</a> active air pollutants by the World Health Organisation.</p>
<p>But new scientific research is making headway into ways of tracking <a href="http://www.euro.who.int/_data/assets/pdf_file/0005/74732/E71922.pdf">less visible</a> air pollutants. A collaborative research initiative is using a simple method called <a href="http://coda-cerva.be/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220&Itemid=214&lang=en">biomonitoring</a> to assess levels of toxic trace elements in the Western Cape area. We are using <a href="http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/mosses.html">mosses</a> and <a href="http://www.lichen.com/biology.html">lichens</a> as air filters. </p>
<p>Once the invisible toxic trace elements in air have been revealed, certain air quality standards can be enforced. Industry will be encouraged to invest in technologies that emit fewer pollutants. Moreover, people will be encouraged to find ways of reducing the air pollution emissions like unrestricted waste burning. </p>
<h2>Dangers of air pollution</h2>
<p>Air pollution can cause chronic diseases, degrade the environment and even destabilise economies. Vehicle emissions and industrial growth are the major causes of <a href="http://eschooltoday.com/pollution/air-pollution/causes-of-air-pollution.html">air pollution</a>. </p>
<p>At high concentrations, the effects of heavy metals in the air can lead to <a href="http://www.livescience.com/1853-pollution-40-percent-global-deaths.html">mortality</a>. The World Health Organisation has linked premature mortality and reduced life expectancy to air pollution <a href="http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/">exposure</a>. Air pollution also leads to <a href="http://www.air-quality.org.uk/15.php">forest decline</a> and loss in agricultural production.</p>
<p>Unfortunately air pollution is not always <a href="http://www.explainthatstuff.com/air-pollution-introduction.html">noticeable</a>. Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury carry the highest and most dangerous toxicity and can be found in clean-looking <a href="http://mg.co.za/article/2014-08-15-look-beyond-the-visible-air-pollution">air</a>. </p>
<h2>Why mosses and lichens</h2>
<p>What makes mosses and lichens especially suitable for studying air pollution is their underdeveloped root system. As a result they get their nutrients from the air through atmospheric dry and wet <a href="http://bryophytes.science.oregonstate.edu/page3.htm">depositions</a>.</p>
<p>Both mosses and lichens are non-vascular plants that act as <a href="http://gis.nacse.org/lichenair/index.php?page=literature">natural air filters</a> against toxic trace elements. They can be thought of as analogues to air filters. Their underdeveloped root system minimizes their contact with soil and so the amount of pollutants they get from the soil can be considered negligibly small. To survive they accumulate trace elements from atmosphere. In this way they are able to accumulate and retain air pollutants.</p>
<p>Mosses are green land plants with small leaf-like structures. Mosses lack some of the adaptations to dry environments that are found in the vascular plants and so are only able to grow and reproduce in wet environments. </p>
<p>Lichens are a complex life form that have an interdependent partnership with fungus and algea. Lichens do not have any roots, stems or leaves. They usually create disc-shaped structures and often have a grey or pale white appearance. </p>
<p>To identify the toxic trace elements in plants, we bombard them with neutrons, in a nuclear physics technique called neutron activation <a href="http://nmi3.eu/neutron-research/techniques-for-/chemical-analysis.html">analysis</a>. Once the accumulated trace elements in the plants absorb the bombarded neutrons, they become unstable. However, the trace elements prefer to exist on a less excited state which has energy higher than the absolute minimum also known as the ground state. Once they are radioactive, they de-excite by emitting high energy photons called <a href="http://www.livescience.com/50215-gamma-rays.html">gamma rays</a>. These help in identifying different elements in the sample.</p>
<p>Each element will give a gamma-ray of its own unique energy. Gamma-rays indicate the presence of a specific element in the sample under study. Gamma-rays are presented in a spectrum in a form of peaks at particular energies and the intensity of each peak is related to the concentration of that particular element. In that way, scientists can be able to identify an element in the sample as well how much of it is there. </p>
<p>Apart from just identifying the kinds of toxic pollutants available in air, it is also important to know how much of those pollutants are there. This is because the extent to which one is affected by air pollution depends on the length of exposure and the amount of pollution in the air.</p>
<p>That is where mosses and lichens are unique. Their air pollutant fighting capability can be used worldwide. </p>
<p>This is important because, on a larger scale, long term results of air pollution will affect the planet’s ability to sustain life. Fresh air, pure water and unpolluted earth are the basic needs for humanity to continue to <a href="http://www.etu.org.za/toolbox/docs/development/sustainable.html">exist</a>. Hence all living creatures have the right to an environment that is not harmful to their health and nations have a responsibility to keep the quality of air in a good state.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44470/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zikhona Ndlovu is affiliated with Stellenbosch University and iThemba LABS. She works as a Junior Research Scientist of iThemba LABS in Cape Town. For her PhD studies at Stellenbosch University, she has been receiving funding from Stellenbosch University and National Research Foundation.</span></em></p>Mosses and lichens have the ability to accumulate and retain air pollutants.Ntombizikhona Beaulah Ndlovu, PhD Student in Physics, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.