Displaying items by tag: biodiversity
Stripes and spots: A tale of two Southern Appalachian skunks
An eastern spotted skunk is seen in its signature defensive handstand. If the stance doesn’t deter predators it will let loose a caustic and malodorous spray akin to mace. Agnieszka Bacal via Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources
Striped skunks thrive as spotted cousins decline
This story was originally published by The Appalachian Voice.
BOONE — A characteristic white stripe on a black pelt is an instant warning to tread gently.
Nature’s stink bomb, the striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) carries this distinctive mark on its back. But Appalachia has a second variety of this master of malodor, marked instead by a blotchy pattern of black and white fur.
The eastern spotted skunk (Spilogale putorius), was not always as rare as it is today. Decades ago, it was relatively common for trappers to catch the polecat, as it’s also known, for its pelt. But spotted skunk populations crashed between 1940 and 1970, according to a landmark paper from the University of Missouri looking at harvest data from trappers. By the 1980s, the study found, harvest numbers had plummeted by 99 percent, reflecting a steep decline in the skunk’s population.
Meanwhile, the spotted skunk’s striped cousin has thrived throughout the United States. So why have their populations diverged so drastically?
A spotted skunk trapped as part of Emily Thorne’s Virginia Tech study of the animals. Emily Thorne
Resisting the alien invasion: Oak Ridge work party highlights threat of invasive plants
Regina Santore with the Wild Ones Smoky Mountains Chapter puts garlic mustard into a bag during an April volunteer event along a greenway in Oak Ridge. Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press
Volunteers fight exotic and invasive garlic mustard on Oak Ridge greenway
OAK RIDGE — Plants from around the world are overrunning the Southeast’s wild places, causing problems for native flora and fauna.
It’s a problem that’s grabbed the attention and work of dedicated organizations. One of them, the Tennessee Invasive Plant Council has many strategies to solve this problem: volunteer weed-pulling events, guides to help gardeners find native plants from which to choose, and even legislation. Its vice president, Jamie Herold, has many thoughts on the issue. She was eager to share them over pizza after a morning of pulling one such invasive, garlic mustard, at an event in Oak Ridge organized by Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning, and Greenways Oak Ridge.
The event involved pulling garlic mustard, a plant originally from Europe, from the edge of the woods behind apartments on West Vanderbilt Avenue. This area includes the Wildflower Greenway, a trail full of wildflowers that locals have been eager to protect from the garlic mustard’s domination.
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- jamie herold
- regina santore
- roger macklin
- wildflower greenway
- tennessee citizens for wilderness planning
- greenways oak ridge
- wild ones smoky mountains chapter
- biodiversity
TWRA fisheries and crayfish expert retires after four decades of service
Carl Williams, a TWRA fisheries technician and self-taught crayfish biologist. TWRA
MORRISTOWN — Carl Williams, a Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency fisheries technician and self-taught crayfish biologist retired after dedicating more than four decades to wildlife and fisheries conservation and management.
Williams began working with TWRA in August 1979 through the Young Adult Conservation Corp (YACC), which was a federally funded program. Initially hired for a one-year assignment, he worked with lands management wildlife biologists on various projects, including white-tailed deer and wild turkey restoration.
The subsequent year marked a shift as he joined TWRA’s Fisheries Division, conducting creel surveys on Cherokee and Douglas reservoirs. In August 1981, he transitioned to the Buffalo Springs Trout Hatchery spending the next seven years propagating and rearing rainbow, brown, brook, lake and Ohrid trout, and distributing them throughout many streams, rivers and reservoirs in East Tennessee.
The Revelator: 10 ways targeted dam removals can help solve the climate change dilemma
Alewives returned by the millions after the Edwards and Ft. Halifax dams were removed in Maine. John Burrows/ASF via The Revelator
By providing both mitigation and adaption, dam removal can lower greenhouse gas emissions and restore carbon sinks.
This article was originally published in The Revelator. Gary Wockner
As the climate crisis escalates, a huge amount of attention and money is being focused on climate solutions.
These can be divided into two categories: solutions that pursue “mitigation,” which lowers greenhouse gas emissions, and those that pursue methods to adapt to climate impacts to increase human and ecological resiliency.
Dams, of course, create enormous environmental harms, many of which have already been described in scientific literature. Equally well documented is the fact that removing dams can restore seriously damaged ecosystems. But missing from almost every climate-solution story and study is how dam removal can be key for both mitigation and adaptation.
Here are 10 reasons how dam removal fights climate change.
- climate action
- dam removal
- the revelator
- gary wockner
- greenhouse gas emission
- methane emission
- natural flow of the river
- river plume
- carbon sink
- reservoir
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- lake mead water level
- colorado river water restriction
‘Where dreams go to die’ — Frozen Head State Park needs your input
Commemorative sign in Frozen Head State Park.
Jim “Gravity” Smith — Hike with Gravity: North Bird Mountain Trail
Written comments will be accepted until Nov. 30, 2023
WARTBURG — Harvey Broome Group of the Sierra Club and Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning want to encourage the public to weigh in on the proposed Tennessee State Management Plan for Frozen Head State Park & Natural Area in Morgan County.
Some of the proposed developments could drastically impact park natural resources and visitor experiences. Frozen Head hosted nearly 400,000 visitors in 2022. It is frequented by many East Tennessee residents and is an important destination tourist attraction. Importantly, it is an outstanding reservoir of biodiversity in the heart of the Cumberland Mountains.
The Management Plan states Frozen Head State Park and Natural Area mission is “to protect and preserve the unique examples of natural, cultural, and scenic resources and to save one of the last vestiges of undisturbed landscapes in the Cumberland Mountain region,” and park management is intended to “restore and maintain the diversity and integrity of the resource.”
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- rocky fork field
Green floater mussels are somewhat safe here but not elsewhere
A green floater mussel (Lasmigona subviridis). Ryan Hagerty/USFWS
WASHINGTON — The green floater, a freshwater mussel native to the waters of Southern Appalachia, is now formally considered at risk of extinction due to the loss and fragmentation of its aquatic habitat.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined the green floater, historically found in 10 eastern U.S. states, is likely to become endangered due to existing and emerging threats. The service is proposing to list the mussel as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The green floater is still found in its native range in North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia. It is considered locally extinct in Alabama and Georgia.
While the species has strongholds in places, green floaters are rare in nearly 80 percent of the watersheds where they naturally occur. More than 75 percent of the nation’s native freshwater mussel species are endangered or threatened, considered to be of special conservation concern, or presumed extinct, according to USWFS.
Hellbent: Little River Watershed Association swims upstream to protect one of Earth’s great rivers
Andrew Gunnoe is seen in the rain on Little River in Blount County, Tennessee. He is board director for Little River Watershed Association. Courtesy LRWA
Andrew Gunnoe helms spirited efforts to preserve beloved Little River but the current is swift
MARYVILLE — For 25 years, the handful of men and women involved with the nonprofit Little River Watershed Association (LRWA) have been protecting the crystal clear waters as they plummet from the Great Smoky Mountains before meandering through Blount County and merging with the Tennessee River.
“We see ourselves as the voice of the Little River, speaking for the river and its health,” said Andrew Gunnoe, president of the LRWA Board of Directors.
From the famous swimming hole at the Wye to the profusion of inner tube rental companies in Townsend, the Little River is one of the region’s most popular spots for water recreation. Further downstream, the waterway becomes an almost perfect spot for fishing, canoeing and kayaking.
For all the popularity as a recreation stop, the 59-mile stretch of water is also a vital habitat for numerous aquatic species and provides the 120,000-plus residents of Blount County with drinking water.
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- blount county
- tennessee valley authority
- escherichia coli
- tva
- e coli
- stream school
- university of tennessee environmental studies and sustainability
- sediment pollution
- water quality monitoring
2016 Smokies wildfires: Six years later, the good and the bad come into focus as natural recovery continues
Journalists and park officials document damage from the November 2016 wildfires that killed at least 15 people and left hundreds of dwellings and businesses in ruins. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press via Knoxville Mercury
How the 2016 Great Smoky Mountains National Park wildfire affected salamanders and other life, six years on
GATLINBURG — The disastrous Chimney Tops 2 wildfire of 2016 occurred some six years ago, but researchers are still looking at its ecological effects.
The Discover Life in America 2023 Colloquium brought together researchers this month from different fields and universities to present findings on research in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Researchers presented on many topics, ranging from trout to the history of the Mingus family in the park.
One such presentation, the first of the day, from William Peterman, associate professor in wildlife ecology and management at Ohio State University, focused on the effects wildfires had on salamander populations, which he described as negative.
Other presenters touched on the wildfire’s effects as well, including its effects on vegetation and its beneficial effects on the diversity of bird species.
“Smoky Mountains is the self-proclaimed salamander capital of the world,” Peterman said. He focused his study on the plethodontid family of salamanders, which breathe through their skin.
“Kind of think of them as a walking lung,” he said.
Dixie Valley toad receives final endangered species protections
Dixie Valley Toad. Patrick Donnelly / Center for Biological Diversity
The Dixie Valley toad — among the most vulnerable amphibians in the country — is an irreplaceable piece of Nevada’s and our nation’s biodiversity, according to an Instagram post shared by the Center for Biological Diversity (@centerforbiodiv). It includes a brief video of the species.
5 big threats to the world’s rivers
A biologist with Conservation Fisheries surveys a stretch of Little River near Walland, Tennessee to determine fish viability and identify rare species for transplantation. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press
Human activities have imperiled our waterways — along with a third of freshwater fish and other aquatic species
This story was originally published by The Revelator.
If we needed more motivation to save our ailing rivers, it could come with the findings of a recent study that determined the biodiversity crisis is most acute in freshwater ecosystems, which thread the Southern landscape like crucial veins and arteries.
Rivers, lakes and inland wetlands cover 1 percent of the Earth but provide homes for 10 percent of all its species, including one-third of all vertebrates. And many of those species are imperiled — some 27 percent of the nearly 30,000 freshwater species so far assessed by the IUCN Red List. This includes nearly one-third of all freshwater fish.
How did things get so bad? For some species it’s a single action — like building a dam. But for most, it’s a confluence of factors — an accumulation of harm — that builds for years or decades.
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- river democracy act
- climate change
- dams
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- pollution prevention
- conservation fisheries
Citizen scientists are taking stock in Smokies, and the inventory keeps increasing
This story was provided by Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Next demonstration on Thursday, Oct. 20
GATLINBURG — Great Smoky Mountains National Park is celebrating the success of a community science project led by nonprofit partner Discover Life in America (DLiA) called Smokies Most Wanted. The initiative encourages visitors to record life they find in the park through the iNaturalist nature app. DLiA and the park use these data points to map species range, track exotic species, and even discover new kinds of life in the park.
“iNaturalist usage in the Smokies has skyrocketed from just four users in 2011, to 3,800 in 2020, to now more than 7,100 users,” said Will Kuhn, DLIA’s director of science and research.
In August, the project reached a milestone, surpassing 100,000 records of insects, plants, fungi, and other Smokies life submitted through the app. Among them are 92 new species not previously seen in the park.
There’s a whole world in the dirt beneath your feet

Dirt is far from just dirt. It’s a foundation for life.
This story was originally published by The Revelator.
Look down. You may not see the soil beneath your feet as teeming with life, but it is.
Better scientific tools are helping us understand that dirt isn’t just dirt. Life in the soil includes microbes like bacteria and fungi; invertebrates such as earthworms and nematodes; plant roots; and even mammals like gophers and badgers who spend part of their time below ground.
It’s commonly said that a quarter of all the planet’s biodiversity lives in the soil, but that’s likely a vast understatement. Many species that reside there, particularly microorganisms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and protists, aren’t yet known to science.
- the revelator
- soil type
- soil moisture
- why is soil important
- drought
- soil microbe
- biodiversity
- soil microorganism
- nutrient cycling
- reading university
- climate change
- soil degradation
- plastic pollution
- genetically modified organism
- pesticide
- artificial fertilizer
- land use change
- compaction
- erosion
- convention on biodiversity
- soil biodiversity observation network
- global soil biodiversity initiative
- ecosystem research
- multidimensionality
- macroecology
- farm to fork strategy
- microbial transplants
- soil quality
- soil sealing
Another look at the parallel war Russia is waging against the natural environment

New York Times: Ukraine environmental holocaust just the latest in ways war scars the Earth
Open armed conflict understandably abrogates immediate concerns about the natural environment.
Despite the tens of thousands of human deaths already caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the war’s impact on natural systems can’t be understated.
In some cases, Russian troops have taken up positions in natural parks and protected ecological areas in Ukraine. The Black Sea coast is an important remaining area of biodiversity in Europe. Ukrainian counterattacks, while understandable, have also inflamed environmental consequences.
There are also immediate risks to human respiratory health from the fires sparked by attacks on fuel depots and chemical facilities.
War’s negative environmental impacts are by no means a new thing: See the use of Agent Orange by the U.S. in Vietnam and the wasteland of burning oil fields left behind in the Gulf War.
War is bad for every living thing.
Fire, fog, floods: Scientists probe climate-change impacts in Smokies
Many climate-change related issues have appeared since publication of this vintage map of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Library of Congress
Invasive insects are among the vanguard of noticeable climate changes in America’s most-visited national park
GATLINBURG — Ants scurry beneath the carpet of last year’s leaves in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The native ants are busy spreading the seeds of violets and bloodroot, preparing a new carpet of spring wildflowers to draw thousands of visitors.
But the local insects aren’t alone under there. They have become prey to venomous Asian needle ants that also prowl the leaf litter.
These invaders dine on termites, other ants and insects, while stealing habitat from them. Unlike invasive fire ants, needle ants can live in pristine forests and build large colonies with hundreds of queens. But like fire ants, needle ants have a painful sting that can trigger an allergic reaction.
Climate change is expected to make it easier for invasive species like needle ants to upset the delicate balance of this temperate rainforest full of rare plants and animals. That’s just one example.
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- national ecological observatory network
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- importance of cloud to water balance highelevation ecosystem
- biodiversity
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- sampling plot
New digital maps outline precious pockets of remaining US biodiversity and the threats they face
The endangered Indiana bat is among threatened and endangered species in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Southern Appalachians show red as a warning on new detailed biodiversity maps
This story was originally published by the Sylva Herald.
SYLVA — Great Smoky Mountains National Park has long been known for its abundance of different species of flora and fauna.
Credit old mountains in a warm, sunny and wet region with varying types of climate, soil and stone for that large number.
“The park is almost certainly the most biodiverse national park in North America,” said Paul Super, national park science coordinator. “And certainly the most studied of any national park.”
A group of environmental organizations recently put together a series of maps illustrating the regions with the biggest threats to their biodiversity, and the area around Jackson County and the national park showed up in the red, showing risk. One such map, based on NatureServe data, is among the most detailed maps of endangered and threatened species ever produced.
Zigging and zagging to find the Zigzag
UT doctoral student Bryce Wade examines a Southern zigzag salamander he found at Ijams Nature Center in South Knoxville. Keenan Thomas/Hellbender Press
On the happy herping trail: Bryce Wade searches for salamanders
KNOXVILLE — Bryce Wade scours the nature trail, turning over rocks and logs. On this overcast day at Ijams Nature Center, he searches beneath the leaves on the ground for one creature: salamanders.
Underneath the rocks, logs and leaves, salamanders populate the cool, moist earth, avoiding the sun whenever they can. Wade is looking for a particular type: a winter species informally called the Southern zigzag salamander (Plethodon ventralis).
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Public biological survey searches for the Smokies most-wanted species
A child snaps a photo of a flower beetle on a wild hydrangea in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Valerie Polk
Grab your phone and get to some citizen science
Rhonda Wise writes for the public affairs office of Great Smoky Mountains National Park
Discover Life in America (DLiA), the nonprofit science research partner, is inviting the public to participate in the Smokies Most Wanted program. This initiative allows visitors to help preserve park species by recording sightings of animals, plants, and other organisms from their smartphones using the iNaturalist app.
Lunker sturgeon are out there again: report your catch to receive a certificate
Email sturgeon.reports (at) tn.gov an image of your catch-and-release with the date, location and your name to obtain your official certificate! This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
WBIR: Holston River sturgeon surging
The population of lake sturgeon, a survivor since the Cretaceous Era that barely escaped the ravages of modern dams and reservoirs, is on the upswing in the Holston River and other branches and tributaries of the Tennessee River system. The last record of the fish in the valley before restoration efforts began is about 1960, according to WBIR.
Significantly older fish were identified during a recent inventory of sturgeon, giving hope that some fish were closing in on reproductive maturity. The gradual recovery is largely the result of Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency and Tennessee Valley Authority restoration efforts, WBIR reports.
“It makes our valley richer; that fish is supposed to be here,” one researcher told WBIR about the significance of the so-far successful restoration of native sturgeon habitats.
Oak Ridge National Laboratory land is an international treasure of biodiversity
Aquatic ecologist Natalie Griffiths studies nutrients and contaminants in the Weber Branch watershed, which is in the Oak Ridge Environmental Research Park. Courtesy Carlos Jones/ORNL
ORNL research lands are an international ecological benchmark and diverse wonderland of trees, plants, mammals, reptiles and amphibians
Abby Bower is a science writer for Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a hub for world-class science. The nearly 33,000-acre space surrounding the lab is less known, but also unique. The Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR) is a key hotspot for biodiversity in the Southeast and is home to more than 1,500 species of plants and animals.
At the intersection of Anderson and Roane counties is an important subset of the reservation — the Oak Ridge National Environmental Research Park, or NERP — a 20,000-acre ORNL research facility that has been internationally recognized by UNESCO as an official biosphere reserve unit.
“The National Environmental Research Park is a living laboratory and a major resource for conducting ecological studies,” said Evin Carter, an ORNL wildlife ecologist and director of the Southern Appalachian Man and the Biosphere Program, or SAMAB. The NERP has been a core part of SAMAB, which has focused on sustainable economic development and conserving biodiversity in Southern Appalachia since 1989.
With ORNL researchers and scientists from government agencies and academia using the NERP for diverse experiments each year, the park lives up to its status as a living laboratory.
It also lives up to its reputation as a biodiversity hotspot. As one of seven DOE-established environmental research parks reflecting North America’s major ecoregions, it represents the Eastern Deciduous Forest. The NERP comprises parts of this ecoregion that have been identified repeatedly as priorities for global biodiversity conservation, Carter said.
This designation means more than ever as climate change alters ecosystems and biodiversity declines worldwide. According to a landmark international report, on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, around one million plant and animal species are currently threatened with extinction.
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Scott Schlarbaum speaks for the trees and the future of Tennessee forests
Tennessee Tree Improvement Program director Scott Schlarbaum stands among a collection of grafted and cloned native trees at the program’s grafting facility off Alcoa Highway. Thomas Fraser/Hellbender Press
2-minute video on hemlock genetic diversity conservation added to this article on September 2, 2021
UT Tree Improvement Program prepares for its greatest grafting season yet
“What you have here is the future of Tennessee forests,” said Scott Schlarbaum, a professor and director of the University of Tennessee Tree Improvement Program.
You can tell from a chuckle he thinks his statement might sound hyperbolic and a bit dramatic, but it’s really not.
He gestured across an unassuming but important UT facility just off Alcoa Highway tucked within the East Tennessee AgResearch and Education Center that will be the main base for a historic tree-grafting effort that will commence this winter.
The goal: Create trees with high-quality genetic traits ranging from wildlife and habitat qualities to timber value.
Heavy traffic hissed down the nearby highway as it passed by the modest understock yard, greenhouse, raised beds and small house containing offices used as the main grafting facility for the UT Tree Improvement Program (TIP). At least 50,000 vehicles pass by the site every day but most drivers and passengers are oblivious to the existence of this small but important outpost of forest conservation skirted by a Knox County greenway.
The Tree Improvement Program was first established in 1959. It survives as a notable exception to the cost-cutting of such projects in other states at both university and government levels.
“These days we tend to look only at the short term. UT did not.”
Beginning in January, Schlarbaum, director of the program since 1983, will oversee grafting efforts on some 3,600 trees. Last year, during which TIP efforts were disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, about 2,000 trees were grafted.
“We are gearing up for our biggest grafting year ever. That’s a huge deal,” Schlarbaum said.