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Resurrecting The Tasmanian Tiger | Earth Wise

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Tasmanian tigers earned their nickname because of the stripes along their back, but they were not felines.  In fact, they were carnivorous marsupials, the type of Australian mammal that raises its young in a pouch.

Tasmanian tigers, also known as thylacines, were once native to the Australian mainland, as well as the islands of Tasmania and New Guinea.  Dog-like in appearance, Tasmanian tigers were extensively hunted after European colonization.  The last known Tasmanian tiger died in captivity in 1936.

Nearly 100 years after its extinction, the Tasmanian tiger may live once again.  Scientists in Australia and the United States have launched an ambitious multimillion dollar de-extinction project to genetically resurrect the Tasmanian tiger.

In order to bring back the animal, researchers will have to take stem cells from a living species with similar DNA – like the fat-tailed dunnart – and use gene editing techniques to turn them into “Tasmanian tiger” cells – or the closest approximation possible.  The team will need new assisted reproductive technologies to use the stem cells to make an embryo, which will then have to be transferred into an artificial womb or a dunnart surrogate to gestate.  The research team is optimistic that there could be a hybrid baby Tasmanian tiger in 10 years. 

The ambitious project is a partnership between scientists at the University of Melbourne and the Texas-based company Colossal Biosciences.  This is the second de-extinction undertaking by Colossal Biosciences, which announced last year it planned to use its technology to recreate the woolly mammoth, and return it to the Arctic tundra.

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Scientists want to resurrect the extinct Tasmanian tiger

Tasmanian tiger: Scientists hope to revive marsupial from extinction

Photo credit: E.J. Keller, from the Smithsonian Institution archives, courtesy of Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Beavers Are Flooding The Warming Arctic | Earth Wise

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The accelerating warming in the Arctic has transformed the region into a warmer, wetter, and more diverse environment.  Warming temperatures have encouraged the increasing growth of vegetation, particularly shrubs that provide beavers with bark to eat and branches to build with.  Warming temperatures also mean that lakes and streams freeze solid for shorter periods of time or not at all, allowing beavers to pursue their construction projects for longer periods during the year.

Prior to the mid-1970s, residents of the Alaskan Arctic encountered few beaver ponds.  In 2018, researchers using satellite imagery mapped 12,000 beaver ponds in Alaskan tundra.

Beavers are causing major changes in the streams and floodplains that many small Alaskan villages depend upon for food, water, and navigation.  As the rodents transform lowland tundra ecosystems, they are eliminating food sources, deteriorating water quality, and making it difficult to navigate waterways.

The migration of beavers across the Arctic landscape is largely a result of climate change.  But it is also becoming one of the factors amplifying climate change.  Scientists are trying to figure out the degree of permafrost thawing that beaver dam-and-den building is causing and how fast these defrosted organic soils will degrade and release trapped carbon and methane.

Beaver dams alter the hydrology of streams by slowing the flow, storing and spreading water to create wetlands, raising the water table, and lowering the oxygen content of the water. 

Climate-driven changes in species distributions affect human well-being as entire ecosystems continue to change.  Shifts in animal habitat stimulated by climate change could have profound consequences across the globe.

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Beavers Are Flooding the Warming Alaskan Arctic, Threatening Fish, Water and Indigenous Traditions

Photo, posted June 12, 2018, courtesy of Peter Pearsall/USFWS via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Danger For North American Biomes | Earth Wise

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Biomes are large, naturally occurring communities of flora and fauna that occupy a major habitat.  Examples include several different kinds of forests, grasslands, deserts, and tundra.  According to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology, the resilience of North America’s plant biomes is declining, which means that they are in danger of succumbing to a major extinction event.

The research analyzed over 14,000 fossil pollen samples from 358 sites across North America for the purpose of reconstructing their “landscape resilience”, meaning the ability of the habitats to persist or quickly rebound in response to disturbances.

Some 13,000 years ago, North American ecosystems were destabilized by the one-two punch of the retreat of glaciers at the end of the last ice age along with the arrival of humans.  That combination resulted in the extinction of large terrestrial mammals on the continent. 

Today, there is a comparable one-two punch created by the rapidly changing climate combined with the dramatic expansion of the footprint of human civilization.   The result could again be the demise of some of North America’s biomes.  In past eras, forests persisted longer than grasslands, but also took longer to reestablish after disruptions.  Overall, only 64% of historic biomes regained their original ecosystem type.

The scientists said that strategic conservation effects could help counteract or slow down the impacts of climate change in the coming decades.  In particular, efforts focusing on improving landscape and ecosystem resilience by increasing local connectivity and concentrating on regions with high richness and diversity could have the greatest positive effect.

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North American Biomes Are Losing Their Resilience, With Risks for Mass Extinctions

Photo, posted January 9, 2020, courtesy of Tony Webster via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.

Carbon From The Alaskan Tundra

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The soils that encircle the northern reaches of the Arctic are a vast repository for carbon in the form of undecayed organic matter from dead vegetation.  The enormous amount of material trapped in the permafrost contains enough carbon to double the current amount of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere.

[Read more…] about Carbon From The Alaskan Tundra

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