Ice, Ice, Baby

From Port Clinton, Ohio, Kenn writes: We braved the intense cold and the ice-covered roads last night to go to band practice, and then the weather socked us anyway: Sully, our lead guitar player, was called away for an emergency having to do with pipes freezing and bursting. The rest of the band spent a while working out chord progressions of new material anyway before calling it a night.

At some point, messing around, I started playing the famous bassline from the hit "Under Pressure" by David Bowie and Queen -- the same bassline that was lifted, essentially note for note, by Vanilla Ice for his hit single rap classic "Ice Ice Baby." Kim had performed this song a couple of times with her old band, Four Thorn Rose, not as a planned part of the show but to fill in time while someone changed a broken guitar string. Sure enough, as soon as I started playing the bassline, Kim jumped in with the lyric, delivering it with tons of rapper attitude: Will it ever stop, yo -- I don’t know ... Deadly, when I play a dope melody, anything less than the best is a felony ... Girls were hot wearin' less than bikinis, Rockman lovers drivin' Lamborghinis ... ice, ice, baby ... On and on, a rap anthem, all the more authentically gangsta-ish because it’s based on a stolen bassline. Fletch jumped in on drums, and the handful of other people hanging around at Mango Mama’s watched in awe as Kim rapped out this long long song without missing a beat.

We can’t help thinking about ice right now. It has been wickedly cold the last few days; on Sunday, when we had expected to do the Fremont Christmas Bird Count, the temperature went down to 4 Fahrenheit with wind chills of 25 below zero. The ice storm that we had Friday morning -- the last time the temp was barely above freezing -- coated everything with thick ice that’s still there. In a separate post, we’ll talk about how the birds are faring in this weather. But for anyone who keeps bird feeders, this is the weather in which the birds need help the most. They can find food under snow, but when ice locks things up, the birds can be in serious trouble.

After all this cold weather, we’re looking forward to going away -- to Antarctica! I know from previous experience that the weather is surprisingly mild at this season. We travel by ship along the coastline, and the temperature rarely gets much below freezing. It would be different, it would be unimaginably cold, if we went to the Antarctic interior, but we wouldn’t be seeing birds there. So we’ll explore the islands and the coast, and we’ll see lots of ice, but we won’t encounter the kind of intense cold that has hit the American Midwest the last few days.

Coronation Island, in the South Orkney Islands, off the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Kenn took this photo on his third Antarctic trip in 1992.

Antarctica vs. Galapagos: clash of claims

Adelie Penguins: Cool birds, but they're not in a biodiversity hotspot

From Birding Central, Kenn writes: If you follow news of the natural world online, you’ve probably seen the stories within the last week: "Antarctic islands surpass Galapagos for biodiversity." The headline has been repeated on dozens of websites and blogs. Everyone is marveling at this news because the Galapagos Islands lie on the Equator, and the generally accepted wisdom has been that biodiversity is greatest in the tropics and decreases toward the poles. That the South Orkney Islands, near the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula, should support more species than the Galapagos Islands is an idea that seems totally amazing.

It would be amazing, if it were true. But it isn’t true.

We live in an era when information can be flashed around the globe in an instant, perpetuated and multiplied a millionfold, whether it’s accurate or not. If it’s a remarkable piece of information and it seems to come from a reliable source, it will be repeated verbatim forever.

Here’s the background. Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Hamburg carried out a detailed study of life on the South Orkney Islands and in the surrounding seas, down to a depth of 1500 meters. Between their own findings and a search of published records, they documented 1224 species of animals in the area, including five species new to science. All of this is very impressive, and the researchers are to be congratulated for their discoveries. It’s important for us to know that biodiversity at the edge of the Antarctic is higher than previously believed.

However, there was a problem with a press release from the British Antarctic Survey on December 1, 2008. This press release mentioned the Galapagos comparison just as a brief aside, but other news stories made this the headline. NewScientist presented it this way: "Antarctic islands surpass Galapagos for biodiversity." PlanetEarth Online said: "More Biodiversity in Antarctica than the Galapagos." Science Daily and LiveScience both said: "Antarctica Has More Species Than Galapagos." Dozens of websites, blogs, and newspapers repeated variations of the same.

It simply isn’t true, and I’ll give you the data in a minute, but it’s odd to me that so many news outlets repeated this uncritically. Certainly any birder on the news desk would have questioned it. After all, birders tend to be more aware of the realities of the world than most nonbirders. And I know I’m not the only birder who has been to both the Galapagos and the Antarctic.

Yes, the Galapagos Islands are arid and isolated. Diversity is not overwhelming there. Putting aside migrants and strays, the number of nesting bird species on the Galapagos is only about 60 -- but on the South Orkneys, the number is fewer than 20. What about insects? Birders often notice insects, if only for the fact that they’re often good bird food. The Galapagos have only about 400 species of beetles, to mention one insect group, but I guarantee that the South Orkneys have fewer than that. What about plants? After all, biodiversity involves all living things, not just animals. I don’t have figures for the South Orkneys, but it sticks in my mind that the number of flowering plant species on the Antarctic Peninsula is two. The Galapagos, arid and isolated though they are, have at least 550.

In fact, the figure given for the South Orkney Islands study, 1224 species of animal life, falls far short of what’s on the Galapagos. A study by Stewart B. Peck published in 1997 listed 1859 species of marine invertebrates in Galapagos seas, 2257 species of invertebrates on the islands and in fresh waters, and 431 species of vertebrates, for a total of over 4500 species. With new discoveries in the last ten years, the current number would be even higher. Add in the 1467 species of plants, fungi, and lichens listed in the Stewart Peck study, and the Galapagos are home to over 6000 known species of living things. The 1200-plus species around the South Orkneys are impressive, all right, but they don’t surpass the Galapagos.

Please understand that I’m not trashing the Antarctic region. The South Orkneys may have fewer than 20 species of breeding birds, but these probably add up to well over a million nesting pairs. Kim and I are leaving for the Antarctic in less than a month, and we’re insanely excited to be going. But I predict that ten years from now, people will still be repeating this false idea that the Antarctic has more biodiversity than the Galapagos, and I’ll still be wondering: How could so many news outlets repeat this without checking its accuracy?