Biodiversité

Les oiseaux migrateurs, attirés par les zones éclairées, se trouvent davantage exposés à des produits chimiques toxiques, révèle une étude.

Notre Une est consacrée à la journée mondiale des poissons migrateurs qui a eu lieu le 24 octobre 2020. Un évènement international, qui sensibilise sur l’importance de la continuité écologique et la circulation des poissons migrateurs. Des expositions, des  films, des rencontres sont consacrés pour cette occasion à ces poissons merveilleux qui voyagent sur plusieurs milliers de kilomètres, qui traversent les océans et se reproduisent dans nos rivières.

Scientists have previously implicated neonicotinoid pesticides in declining bee populations. Now a study suggests that songbirds are affected, too.

The study focused for the first time on the impacts that plastic pollution has on animals that live on land and in freshwater environments, in the Asia-Pacific region. The study included case studies on the Ganges and Mekong river basins, which together contribute an estimated 200,000 tons of plastic pollution to the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean every year.

La mission Sphyrna Odyssey 2019-2020, dont les résultats ont été présentés en mars 2021 lors de la Monaco Ocean Week, a mené une étude sur le comportement acoustique des cétacés et a opportunément écouté les fonds marins lors du premier confinement.

With an annual production of more than 300 million tons, plastic is one of the most widely used materials in the world. What often escapes one’s attention is that the plastic is used for its main purpose for only a moment compared with its lifecycle of 20 to 500 years. Lightweight and designed to last, the discarded pieces are easily transported to ecosystems through the forces of nature causing serious threats to migratory species around the world. An estimated 8 million tons of plastic waste enter the world’s oceans each year. To make matters worse, plastic does not simply dissolve. Broken down into small particles by water, sunlight and wind, it often leads to lethal cases of ingestion and entanglement.

Eng et al. tested how exposure to these compounds influenced the behavior of a migrating songbird. Ingestion of field-realistic levels of neonicotinoid insecticides reduced feeding and accumulation of body mass and fat stores, which led to delayed departure from stopover sites. Such delays can lead to reduced migration survival and decreased reproductive success and therefore have the potential to impose population-level impacts.