Making the most of the SABAP2 website - 5: checking your submissions and accessing your ORFs
SABAP2 workshop: Intaka Island, Century City – ths Saturday 11 May, 09h00 – 15h30
SABAP2 reaches 70% coverage in Limpopo
Making the most of the SABAP2 website - 5: checking your submissions and accessing your ORFs
Making the most of the SABAP2 website - 4: finding those gaps and other interesting pentad information!
SABAP2 workshop: Intaka Island, Century City, Sat. 11 May, 9:00 am - 3:30 pm
Weaver Wednesday: Golden Palm Weaver
Colour Rings on Swift Terns
Gravit8 Weaver Wednesday [44]: Speke's Weaver
Gravit8 Weaver Wednesday: Speckle-fronted Weaver
April Aliens – the Common Myna continues its march across the southern African landscape
April Aliens – if the voracious European Shore Crab reaches the Saldanha Bay-Langebaan Lagoon system, well, dot dot dot
The butterfly to think about on Threat Thursday is the Fraternal Widow
The DARK BLUE news – coverage up to 6%
On this Threat Thursday we pay attention to the Black Stork, a species which is not doing well in our region
67%
Threat Thursday in National Water Week : African Marsh Harrier
The GREENest range-change map of all: Southern Masked Weaver
Gravit8 Weaver Wednesday : Southern Red Bishop
Have you seen an unCommon Sandpiper recently?
Today's Snake Sunday focuses on the Western Stripe-bellied Sand Snake
Time for another SCORPION SATURDAY!! Today we are featuring Opistophthalmus lawrencei
Don't delay. Act today. If you have not yet ordered your butterfly atlas, you should do so now
Two-thirds coverage
The good news Threat Thursday: The "Critically Endangered" Waterberg Copper, thought to be extinct, rediscovered on 2 March 2013
The bad news Threat Thursday: The "Critically Endangered" Table Mountain Copper is probably extinct
Threat Thursday moves to the KwaZulu-Natal coast, and contemplates another aristocratic sounding species, the "Critically Endangered" Pickersgill's Reed Frog
A Mad Mammal Monkey for Mad Mammal Monday!
Butterfly atlas Pre-publication offer
Snake Sunday features the Brown House Snake
Southern Bald Ibises building nests on artificial structures
Weaver Wednesday [36]: Taveta Golden Weaver
Does this carnage in this picture pose a threat to butterflies?
14087 waterbirds of 68 species were recorded on the Vaaldam CWAC last Sunday
It's World Pangolin Day!
OdonataMAP: "What a terrific response" says Warwick Tarboton, faced with 1514 records to identify!
Annual Report for the ADU 2012
SummerMAP has 20 days to run
Hey, it is Snake Sunday, and we are celebrating the remarkable Beetz's Tiger Snake
Zimbabwe becomes part of the SABAP2 family
What do these species have in common?
What is happening to the Rock Kestrel?
Weaver Wednesday: Holub's Golden Weaver
Today is Sappi TREE TUESDAY! We are featuring a species that attracts birds, Halleria lucida, the Tree Fuchsia
Sssssssssnake Sunday! Today, Schlegel's Beaked Blind Snake
60 enthusiastic birders attended the SABAP2 workshop in Harare today
Sixty six per cent!!
Twelve million records in the combined database of the bird atlas projects
Doug Harebottle travels to Zimbabwe to do a series of SABAP2 workshops, and welcome Zimbabwe on board
Important new paper: One-third for the birds
Les Underhill (2011-12-23)
Two of the Animal Demography Unit's Honorary Research Associates, Rob Crawford and Jean-Paul Roux, are co-authors of an important paper published in the leading journal Science today. It provides critical guidance on how fish stocks should be managed in such a way that there is enough left over for the seabirds.
"Fishing can have devastating effects on seabirds. Not only do they get snagged on hooks and tangled in nets, but chronic overfishing can deprive the birds of their prey—the same small fish that boats are catching. Now a study has identified what appears to be a universal threshold for danger: when the biomass of so-called forage fish drops below one-third of its maximum, seabirds of many species start to have fewer chicks.
"'This is one of the most important seabird papers to be published in some time,' comments conservation biologist Dee Boersma of the University of Washington, Seattle, who was not involved in the research. The findings demonstrate the widespread reliance of seabirds on small forage fish, she says. To protect the birds, the papers' authors call for lower harvest levels of forage fish. 'The problem remains that most fisheries are not properly managed and controlled,' says co-author Philippe Cury of the Institute of Research for Development in Sète, France. Worldwide, about 25% of forage fish stocks have collapsed, he adds.
These are the first two paragraphs of the report that appears on the website of the journal Science. Read the full report here.
The abstract of the paper reads like this: "Determining the form of key predator-prey relationships is critical for understanding marine ecosystem dynamics. Using a comprehensive global database, we quantified the effect of fluctuations in food abundance on seabird breeding success. We identified a threshold in prey (fish and krill, termed “forage fish”) abundance below which seabirds experience consistently reduced and more variable productivity. This response was common to all seven ecosystems and 14 bird species examined within the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern Oceans. The threshold approximated one-third of the maximum prey biomass observed in long-term studies. This provides an indicator of the minimal forage fish biomass needed to sustain seabird productivity over the long term." The full reference is Cury PM, Boyd IL, Bonhommeau S, Anker-Nilssen T, Crawford RJM, Furness RW, Mills JA, Murphy EJ, Österblom H, Paleczny M, Piatt JF, Roux J-P, Shannon L.J, Sydeman WJ 2011. Global seabird response to forage fish depletion – one-third for the birds. Science 334: 1703–1706.
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