Highest recorded June temps.

#ClimateChange #Oceans #AnimalScience

Pastruela killed 90% of the species in 2015. Scientists have 2 theories. One, the bacteria, already in the animal (it exists in healthy Saigas at least sometimes, scientists have found), is triggered to grow by something and it kills them. Two, there is an amoeba in the environment that is infected by the bacteria, and then in the wet season the bacteria becomes active, and meanwhile it is somehow consumed when the antelopes grazes.

Saiga populations recover quickly, though. Females at age 1 have one calf. Older females have twins, and the most mature, larger females can have 3.

The current population is estimated at 250,000, just like before the endemic on the Kazakh steppe. People in 2015 worried they might become extinct.

They are now returning to the same grazing ground, though. Experts have little doubt the same plight will affect them again.

They also face a possible new highway through their migration ground, which would connect the Caspian Sea (at Aktau) and the Nur-Sultan (the capital city).

#ecology #AnimalScience #bacteria

UC London and U East Anglia researchers studying wasps ave found that while people generally hate them, that hate is in large part due to ignorance about the benefits they bring.

Their recent study points out that wasps are effective pest controllers. There are 33,000 wasp species. Some are specialized in which aphids, caterpillars or other insects they hunt as food, and can be used as pest control for crops that have to deal with those specific insects. Other wasps hunt insects more generally and can be used for multi-crop farms.

They're also important pollinators, and some plant species are completely dependent on wasps for reproduction.

There is also some evidence, although not much as yet, about various values of wasps for making medicine and as a food source.

#animalscience