SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
When geoecologist Steffen Zuther and his colleagues arrived in central Kazakhstan to monitor the calving of one herd of saigas, a critically endangered, steppe-dwelling antelope, veterinarians in the area had already reported dead animals on the ground.
"But since there happened to be die-offs of limited extent during the last years, at first we were not really alarmed," Zuther, the international coordinator of the Altyn Dala Conservation Initiative, told Live Science.
But within four days, the entire herd — 60,000 saiga — had died. As veterinarians and conservationists tried to stem the die-off, they also got word of similar population crashes in other herds across Kazakhstan. By early June, the mass dying was over.
Are mass-die-offs like these indications of stress in the larger ecosystem?
Original Submission
(Score: 5, Insightful) by frojack on Thursday September 03 2015, @11:40PM
Are mass-die-offs like these indications of stress in the larger ecosystem?
Shouldn't we let the scientists on the ground determine this rather than speculating from half a world away?
Stress usually doesn't kill entire herds, but disease does.
Digging deeper in the links we find:
Because the researchers were on the ground at the time of the die-off, they were able to take detailed tissue samples from the dead animals. These necropsies revealed that bacterial toxins from a few species of pathogen had caused bleeding in all of the animals' internal organs.
The bacteria implicated — particularly one called Pasteurella — is often found in ruminants and rarely causes harm unless their immune system has already been weakened by something else. And genetic analysis suggested this was a garden-variety pathogenic form of the microbe, which has never caused such a rapid, stunning and complete crash in a population before.
Other than a cold, hard winter followed by a spring with lots of lush vegetation and lots of standing water on the ground, there wasn't much unusual in the conditions this year, biologists say.
The story reads like a history of the Plague (black death), and the bumper crop of fleas waiting to hitch rides on wagon train animals because their preferred hosts didn't survive the winter. I seem to remember posting a story about that some time ago [soylentnews.org].
But I'll wait for the official paper.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @03:40AM
I told her to stop sticking dumb questions. Dumbass
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @02:59PM
"Shouldn't we let the scientists on the ground determine this rather than speculating from half a world away?"
Probably but who cares. Though I'm not the original poster we're just talking. People can talk and speculate. This isn't a scientific journal. It's a discussion board.
"The bacteria implicated ... rarely causes harm unless their immune system has already been weakened by something else."
So perhaps 'stress in the larger ecosystem' (yes, that's a broad term) caused immunodeficient antelope which caused them to be more susceptible to disease. Stress to environment -> stress to antelope (perhaps it affected the quality of food supply, weather conditions, etc...) -> disease. Yes, a bunch of speculation but hey this is a discussion board where people should be able to discuss things. It's not a scientific journal. Even if it's wrong it's not like it's the end of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 04 2015, @06:27PM
Hmm... could be some sort of environmentally triggered epiphyte toxin in the grasses they eat, that just happens to have hit all at once, in a large area.