Archives: World News

Jilin province of China and neighbouring Primorsky province in Russia have agreed to collaborate formally in working towards the first transboundary Amur tiger protected area amidst celebrations for the second annual Amur Tiger Cultural Festival in the northeastern Chinese city of Hunchun. The recently signed agreement, facilitated by WWF, will help wildlife authorities eventually establish a transboundary protected area – a cooperative conservation network that crosses country borders - in the provinces that are home to the world’s largest big cat. The population of the highly endangered Amur tiger is currently estimated at 500.

One in five species of plants and animals that live in fresh water in Africa is threatened with extinction. This is the conclusion of a comprehensive assessment of 5,167 freshwater species by 200 scientists over the past give years, according to Wetlands International. Some of the biggest threats to African freshwater species come from pollution and increased water abstraction for agriculture, the construction of dams and invasive alien species that threaten the local animals and plants. Wetlands International, one of the partners in this study coordinated by IUCN, emphasises that these data are vital to use in decision making about the increasing number of developments projects in wetlands, such as the building of dams.

Scientists at the University of Oregon have determined the fine-scale genetic structure of the first animal to show an evolutionary response to rapid climate change. They used a high-throughput sequencing technique called Restriction-site Associated DNA (RAD) tagging to make the discovery. Their results, which focus on the pitcher plant mosquito, Wyeomyia smithii, have been published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). RAD tagging is an effective and straightforward way of barcoding sections of genomic material, much as grocery items are coded at the local supermarket, say the scientists.