Blogs / Discoblog

Yesterday we wondered whether the U.S. Navy’s plan to intentionally sink some of its old warships, so that they’d become new homes for fish and attractions for recreational divers, would be such a great idea in the long run. Today, a new study looking at a different shipwreck suggests that not only might intentionally sinking old ships be a bad idea, but officials might have to remove shipwrecks from sensitive ecosystems before they cause too much harm.

Back in 1991, a 100-foot-long ship sank in Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge near Hawaii. Now, 17 years later, scientists studying the area say the coral reef is under attack by an organism called Rhodactis howesii. It is a corallimorph, a relative to anemones and corals that clears out competitors with it stinging tentacles. Rhodactis is an invasive species to the Palmyra Atoll, and it doubled its presence between 2006 and 2007, pushing out the diverse mix of corals that is native there.

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Once again it appears that sometimes, trying to suppress large forest fires might be creating unintended negative consequences.

Last month we wrote that fighting fires in the pine forests of the American West could actually decrease the amount of carbon the forest could sequester by allowing smaller trees to survive, and thus compete with the larger trees that absorb most of the CO₂. Now, a new study says that huge, raging fires can be the best weapon to get rid of pesky and damaging invasive species in California’s chaparral.

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Here’s another case from the “pitting one animal against another” file: Japanese conservationists want to use bees to protect terns from crows.

Seabirds called little terns nest near Tokyo’s airport after migrating north from Australia, New Zealand, and Papua New Guinea. But National Geographic reports that are area’s crows are bad neighbors, prone to attacking and killing young terns.

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California residents need no longer worry that anti-moth pesticides will rain down from the sky onto their houses. But they should still be on the lookout for thousands and thousands more moths.

The light brown apple moth, native to Australia, invaded northern California in March 2007 and state agricultural officials say it is a major threat to many different crops proceeded to chow down on crops. Initially, the state planned to spray moth-infested areas, including residential ones, with a chemical that acts as a phony pheromone, mimicking the female scent and throwing the males off course so they don’t mate. According to The New York Times, there were “numerous complaints” of respiratory problems after the chemical was sprayed last November. And after an outcry from Northern Californians who didn’t want it in their town, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger relented and changed course.

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Another week, another story right out of “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.”

First, U.S. Forest Service scientists in Hawaii, beset by the invasive strawberry guava tree that has taken over native Hawaiian ecosystems, proposed introducing a Brazilian insect that harms guava and slows its growth. The Forest Service representatives claimed that the Brazilian scales, as they’re called, will attack only guava and spare the native species. But they might want to take a word of caution from Australian scientists, who are now seeing scores of crocodiles die as a result of similar tactics.

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