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‘We have to work urgently’: Mexican ecologists start campaign to save axolotl (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 11 months ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to c/biodiversity@mander.xyz

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[-] autotldr 4 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Ecologists from Mexico’s National Autonomous University on Friday relaunched a fundraising campaign to bolster conservation efforts for axolotls, a native, endangered fish-like type of salamander.

Last year’s Adoptaxolotl campaign raised just more than 450,000 pesos ($26,300) towards an experimental captive-breeding program and efforts to restore habitat in the ancient Aztec canals of Xochimilco, a southern borough of Mexico City.

Despite the creature’s recent rise to popularity, almost all 18 species of axolotl in Mexico remain critically endangered, threatened by encroaching water pollution, a deadly amphibian fungus and non-native rainbow trout.

Mexico City’s expanding urbanization has damaged the water quality of the canals, while in lakes around the capital rainbow trout, which escape from farms, can displace axolotls and eat their food.

Calzada said his team was increasingly finding axolotls dead from chytrid fungus, a skin-eating disease causing catastrophic amphibian die-offs from Europe to Australia.

Over its six-year term, the administration of president Andrés Manuel López Obrador will have given 35% less money to the country’s environment department than its predecessor, according to an analysis of Mexico’s 2024 budget.

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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023

199 points (100.0% liked)

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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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