this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2023
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Biodiversity

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Welcome to c/Biodiversity @ Mander.xyz!

A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.



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Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.

Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


More than 90% of emperor penguin colonies are predicted to be all but extinct by the end of the century, as the continent's seasonal sea-ice withers in an ever-warming world.

But the research team watched as sea-ice under emperor rookeries fragmented in November, before thousands of chicks had had time to fledge the slick feathers needed for swimming.

Antarctic summer sea-ice has been on a sharp downturn since 2016, with the total area of frozen water around the continent diminishing to new record lows.

Between 2018 and 2022, roughly a third of the more than 60 known emperor penguin colonies were affected in some way by diminished sea-ice extent - whether that's ice forming later in the season or breaking up earlier.

She links the causes for the current decline to anomalously warm ocean water around the continent and a particular pattern of winds, which in the case of the Bellingshausen, has pushed ice back towards the coast, making it difficult to spread.

Currently, emperors are classified as "Near Threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the organisation that keeps the lists of Earth's most endangered animals.


The original article contains 767 words, the summary contains 190 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!