Science Spotlight: Climate Change

Hi everyone,

Before this week's Species Spotlight, I thought I'd do a slightly different post about one of the scientific aspects of this project.

This morning I was on Calon FM talking about Wild Watch and sharing a platform with one of Wild Watch's most prolific recorders, my friend Rachel (rachall1) from Climate Cymru. Climate Cymru are a political action group that are encouraging the Welsh Government to place the climate emergency at the top of their priorities list, and to ensure the concerns of the Welsh public are heard.

On the Calon FM show this morning we discussed how we can help combat climate change, particularly the little things that we can all do. So I thought I'd do a blog post about how Wild Watch can help. I hope this is both informative from a scientific perspective, but also empowering and uplifting - I know that the climate and nature crises can seem utterly overwhelming at times, but it is the very scale of these problems that mean there are plenty of opportunities for us to help.

Wild Watch is, of course, a wildlife data collection citizen science project; indeed that is what iNaturalist itself is. You can watch a short video about citizen science, iNaturalist, and the importance of wildlife data collection here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgizZmqZbho
It is worth re-emphasising that all the pictures you have been uploading are part of a huge citizen science project and that by doing that YOU are taking part in real scientific research!
Let's look in more detail about how these sorts of projects (including Wild Watch) can help combat the climate and nature crises...

Firstly, the greatest strength of these sorts of citizen science projects, from a scientific perspective, is the sheer volume of data we collect (thanks to you guys!). This arms scientists with loads of information to help them make discoveries and analyse what is going on in our ecosystems - the more data the better!

By finding out what species are present in an area, scientists can learn something about how climate change is affecting different species or different areas. For example, it may be that a species' geographic range has now expanded because an area that was once too cold for it to survive is now warm enough. Or it could be that a species is lost from an area due to the climate changing, as the species evolved to live in a particular set of conditions that have now disappeared. In this way the species act as indicators, telling scientists how much the climate is changing in a particular area and what effect this is having on the ecosystem. It's like a doctor diagnosing a patient - by looking out for tell tale symptoms (tell tale species), they can work out what exactly is wrong (how much the climate is changing).

Knowing this helps scientists and environmental organisations make their cases to governments and policymakers. They can show them how bad the issue is, encouraging them to take swift and decisive action, or they can reveal specific problems in an area and come up with suitable solutions.

Species data also helps protect natural areas, or encourage a targeted increase in biodiversity through managed means (such as creating green spaces), as scientists can use the presence of species to advocate for an area to be protected (e.g. to stop a field being built on). This is crucial to fighting the climate and nature crises. The latter is fairly obvious: nature needs a home! But the former is just as important, if a little less obvious - nature is one of our best tools in regulating the climate....

We are all familiar with the carbon trapping abilities of plants, but it's so much more than that. Our ecosystems are complex, dynamic things that have evolved over millions of years to work in harmony with the world around them. By protecting these natural networks, we are helping maintain a balance in so many natural systems, including some we likely don't know about, such as water cycles, nutrient cycles, and air filtering. Furthermore, more diverse ecosystems tend to be better at this, as well as being more resilient to change. So by protecting and promoting biodiversity, we are helping create a healthier planet for all life on Earth.

Promoting biodiversity doesn't have to be done on a grand scale - we can all do our bit in our little patches! Here is a Climate Cymru article from Rachel about how you can promote biodiversity at home by rewinding your garden! https://climate.cymru/rewilding-tackling-the-climate-and-nature-crisis-from-home/

Finally, wildlife spotting helps raise public awareness of nature, particularly local nature (as most spotting is done on your doorstep). Increased awareness is known to lead to an increase in concern and care. I'm sure you can see this from you're own spotting - when you know just how many species are living in your area, you feel a surge of affection towards the area and are more likely to want to take action to protect it. Fostering a sense of belonging with and caring towards nature is absolutely vital if we are to work for real sustainable change - it is only through our collective actions that we can have a truly sustainable society, in which we can appreciate our place as part of the global ecosystem. After all, we share this planet with all the wildlife we spot!

So keep your pictures coming in and enjoy the sights, smells, and sounds of whatever natural areas you have on your doorstep, big or small!

Diolch yn fawr
Kieran

Julkaistu elokuu 31, 2021 03:42 IP. käyttäjältä kieran-182 kieran-182

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