when the world went on lockdown, nature got a reprieve, or so it seemed. dolphins swam in the hudson river, los angeles’ famed smog dissipated, and wild animals were reportedly reclaiming cities. the narrative presented in the media was clear: the covid-19 lockdowns in 2020 allowed nature and the environment a temporary reprieve. but how much did lockdown really impact air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions? and did animals actually move back into cities?

a year later, researchers around the world are examining data from the lockdowns and publishing their findings. did the natural world really make a brief comeback during lockdown? the answer is complicated.

“the pandemic is bad. it’s causing a lot of troubles for humankind,” said phil yang, a geospatial scientist and professor of geographic information science at george mason university. “but on the other side, this experiment is helping us to be able to observe how human activities have been impacting the earth, the environment and climate change.”

air pollution and lockdowns

for his part, yang looked at air quality in california before covid-19 and during lockdowns, publishing his results in the journal science of the total environment.

he and his multidisciplinary team at george mason university studied concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide (both of which are indirect greenhouse gases) and particulate matter, during the initial california covid-19 lockdown that lasted nearly three months, from march 19 to may 7.

the researchers found that both nitrogen dioxide (no2) and carbon monoxide (co) concentrations dropped significantly during the initial covid-19 lockdown, when compared to the same period for the five years prior. particulate matter initially dropped as well, before increasing significantly toward the end of the study due to california’s historic 2020 wildfires.

during the lockdown that ran from march 19 to may 7, 2020, co concentrations dropped by 49% compared to the three months before lockdown, while no2 concentrations dropped by 38%.

in previous years, concentrations of both co and no2 have dropped during the same period as covered in yang’s study due to seasonal changes, by an average of 24% and 22%, respectively. but the drops during the lockdown were much sharper.

globally, direct greenhouse gas emissions also declined. carbon dioxide (co2) emissions dropped by 2.4 billion metric tons, or down 7% from 2019, according to a study published in earth system science data in december 2020. this represents the biggest annual drop in co2 emissions ever recorded in modern times.

yang said he doesn’t believe this short-term drop in greenhouse gas emissions will contribute toward solving climate change in the long term. however, it has given scientists a new way to confirm something already known: that human activity is causing climate change.

lockdowns proved that when human activity tapered off, so did greenhouse gas emissions. from a research perspective, it wouldn’t have been feasible to ask an entire state, let alone the world, to enter lockdown for more than two months. but the onset of the covid-19 pandemic presented a unique situation.

“we cannot do this type of experiment without the pandemic,” yang said.

animals run wild

reut vardi, a doctoral student pursuing a degree in urbanization at ben-gurion university of the negev in israel, also took the unique opportunity presented by lockdowns to study the absence of human activity.

in her 2021 study in biological conservation, she tested the claim that animals reclaimed cities during lockdown. in contrast with the media’s narrative in the early months of the pandemic, vardi found little evidence of animals invading cities.

“we do have nature in our cities … but suddenly covid has seemed to shine a spotlight on it because people have more time,” vardi said.

she said she suspects that with more free time during lockdowns, people were simply noticing already existing wildlife populations for the first time.

vardi used data from inaturalist, a nature spotting and reporting app, to compare animal sighting data pre-covid-19 and during the initial lockdowns in north america, from march to july of 2020.

vardi tracked reported sightings of black bears (ursus americanus), bobcats (lynx rufus), coyotes (canis latrans), moose (alces alces) and pumas (puma concolor), to determine if these animals were actually moving out of their existing habitats and reclaiming urbanized areas seemingly abandoned by humans.

vardi and her team indeed found that these animals were exploring new areas during lockdowns — but not in the way portrayed in early news stories. using night light as a proxy for urbanization, vardi found that the animals were actually venturing out in more rural areas.

“for four out the five species, the new area they were exploring, reported during covid, were actually in less urbanized areas. and for the most urbanized area [where] they were seen during covid, they were also reported to be seen there before covid as well,” vardi said.

the only animal that increased its exploration of urban areas was the puma, which vardi attributes to the cat’s shy nature. because pumas are usually very wary of humans, the lack of human activity may have encouraged them to explore deeper into urbanized areas at a greater rate than other wildlife.

“it’s more complex than what the media is trying to say. it’s not, we go in so the animals come out to play. nature is all over the city and we do need to notice,” vardi said. “i think the great thing covid did was to … help us understand that we need to manage this situation and design our cities in a better way, that can allow for coexistence.”

the environment post-covid

so while lockdown helped tamp down emissions, they didn’t move the needle on wildlife as much as reported. what, then, was the total impact on the environment? a team of scientists in india has weighed the potential positive and negative impacts of covid-19 in a study in environmental sustainability.

due to lockdowns, the researchers recorded that people were making more online purchases and food delivery orders. as a result, demand for plastic packaging materials increased significantly. for example, one plastic packaging company in spain saw sales grow by 40% during the pandemic, while in the u.s. the demand for plastic grocery packaging was expected to rise by 14%.

the study also raised the concerns over medical equipment disposal, reporting that at one point, the city of wuhan, ground zero of the outbreak, was producing an extra 240 tons of medical waste per day. compounding the issue is the fact that personal protective equipment (ppe) is commonly made of single-use plastic, potentially leading to a rise in plastic pollution.

another potential hazard, detailed in the paper, is the rise in soap use. if released into streams, rivers or lakes, soap creates a layer of foam on the water. the foam stops vital re-aeration for aquatic plants by 40% and prevents algae growth that’s vital to local ecosystems.

“although a few positive impacts of covid-19 on the environment were seen, these were the short-term effects induced largely by nation-wide lockdown,” the study says. “indeed, the pandemic is expected to pose long-term adverse effects on the environment in future.”

nevertheless, a number of conservationists say the covid-19 pandemic holds lessons for society.

“covid-19 came from an animal, in large part because of humans’ destruction to ecosystems,” said rachel golden kroner, an environmental governance fellow at conservation international. “situating humans as part of nature helps us think more holistically about our impacts.”

kroner said she noticed increased conservation efforts and interest from the public, the private sector and the government during this period.

“[people need to] keep that going, but in real ways. follow up this commitment with real actions,” she added.

she said a lot of this action comes down to passing legislation and increasing environmental funding, which in both cases the average person may feel they have little capacity to change.

“it’s that dichotomy, maybe a false dichotomy, about individual versus collective solutions,” kroner said. “as an individual, we can tap into making change at the collective level. we are all voters, we are all citizens, we all have representatives that we can elect, advocate to, call, write letters and make our voices heard. make it known that we care.”

beyond this, kroner suggested something less formal: simply talking to friends and family about climate change, threats to our environment, and ways they can reduce their impact and get involved.

citations:

friedlingstein, p., o’sullivan, m., jones, m. w., andrew, r. m., hauck, j., olsen, a., … zaehle, s. (2020). global carbon budget 2020. earth system science data, 12(4), 3269-3340. doi:10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020

ankit, kumar, a., jain, v., deovanshi, a., lepcha, a., das, c., … srivastava, s. (2021). environmental impact of covid-19 pandemic: more negatives than positives. environmental sustainability. doi:10.1007/s42398-021-00159-9

liu, q., harris, j. t., chiu, l. s., sun, d., houser, p. r., yu, m., … yang, c. (2021). spatiotemporal impacts of covid-19 on air pollution in california, usa. science of the total environment, 750, 141592. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141592

vardi, r., berger-tal, o., & roll, u. (2021). inaturalist insights illuminate covid-19 effects on large mammals in urban centers. biological conservation, 254, 108953. doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2021.108953

for pet enthusiasts, buying an exotic, rare or endangered species can be done legally, and many pet owners want to obey the law. the problem is that illegally obtained animals, captured from the wild, are often mixed in with legally obtained animals, making them indistinguishable to a buyer. moreover, sellers sometimes lie about a pet’s true origins.

to combat this, researchers from hong kong university have developed a forensic tool that could help both officials and pet buyers know the truth about an animal’s origins.

“imagine the government going to the bird market and requiring samples from bird owners and you could test to see whether these birds have actually been captive-bred or not,” said caroline dingle from hong kong university, co-lead author of a recent study in animal conservation that describes the technology.

for now, dingle and her colleagues have only developed the tool for one species — the yellow-crested cockatoo (cacatua sulphurea), a critically endangered parrot native to indonesia — but it could be developed for other species.

if the technology is fully realized and applied, it would mean a massive step toward properly identifying illegally captured animals and cracking down on the illegal pet trade.

it’s all in the diet

to uncover an individual bird’s origin, the researchers turned to stable isotope analysis, a technique previously used for research ranging from bird migration studies to the diets of prehistoric humans.

stable isotope analysis allows researchers to see the levels of carbon and nitrogen present in a cockatoo’s feathers, which is influenced by the animal’s diet. the difference in these levels between wild and captive cockatoos is wide enough to from a single feather, and works due to the fundamental differences in the diets of wild and captive-raised cockatoos.

“if they are eating things that are mostly [from] grassland areas, they would have a different [carbon] signature than if they were eating off of a forest habitat,” dingle said. “if you’re an herbivore, you have very low levels of nitrogen, and if you’re a top predator, you have very high levels of nitrogen.”

the researchers specifically used feathers because they are inert tissues, meaning the isotope values detected from them represent the diet of the bird when the feather was growing. this offers a view of the bird’s diet over a long period of time, which helps determine if a bird was born in captivity or stolen from the wild.

sometimes the stable isotope analysis isn’t conclusive enough. it requires grinding up the bird’s feather, which is then tested for the average nitrogen and carbon levels. when the differences in just carbon and nitrogen values are too ambiguous, the researchers turn to compound-specific isotope analysis.

this analysis allows them to examine the carbon values of the specific amino acids of a specimen, giving them more data to determine if the bird was wild-caught or captive-bred.

“instead of getting one value from the tissue, you can get 10 to 12 values from the tissue,” dingle said. “we know that the isotopes from those amino acids represent something in their diet.”

to test the forensic tool, the researchers collected feathers from captive and wild populations of yellow-crested cockatoos in hong kong, noting if the bird was wild or captive. the species isn’t native to hong kong, but a local population now exists due to the release of birds, both accidental and deliberate, from the pet trade. the researchers conducted their isotope analysis on these feathers and were able to identify the bird’s origin even from random samples.

surveying bird markets, the researchers found more yellow-crested cockatoos for sale than had been legally imported over the past 13 years, according to data from cites, the global wildlife trade convention. the new forensic tool could identify the true origin of these birds, as there are often reports of poachers stealing the protected cockatoos right out of nests in hong kong.

the illegal wildlife trade is massive. a 2016 united nations report valued it at between $7 billion and $23 billion per year. punishment can be severe in some countries: five to 10 years in prison in the u.s., and 10 years in jail and a $1.2 million (10 million hong kong dollars) fine in hong kong. however, in many countries, convictions of such crimes are rare, and penalties often light.

the implementation question

although the forensic technology successfully distinguished between wild and captive-bred cockatoos based on the collected feathers, the researchers say there’s still work to do before governments should start implementing this testing.

on the upside, stable isotope analysis is cheap and fast compared to other types of testing, the researchers say. once you have a tissue sample, in this case a feather, and the machine necessary to carry out the analysis, the results are ready by the next day.

however, the compound-specific isotope analysis is somewhat of an emerging technology, meaning acquiring the necessary machinery is more difficult. additionally, this deeper look requires a few weeks to yield a result, but dingle said that’s still quite fast compared to other types of testing.

dingle said the next step is simply more testing. speaking as a self-described “overly cautious scientist,” dingle said the technology is novel and exciting, but before it is accepted as forensic evidence in any court, there need to be more trials.

it’s possible to develop the test for other animals, although it will require time to establish baselines for each species’ isotope values, according to dingle. this requires collecting many samples from both wild and captive animals, which can take several years.

“it took about five years for us to get enough wild cockatoo samples,” said astrid andersson, the other co-lead author of the study and a postgraduate researcher at hong kong university. “and they’re right in the center of hong kong … it wasn’t that hard, not as hard as going to find them in the wild.”

in hong kong, feathers from wild birds can be collected from the ground, and those from captive birds can be obtained from willing pet owners. for something like tigers, andersson said, it would be far more difficult to collect enough wild tissue samples to build a baseline picture of their diet.

but given enough samples, from both wild and captive animals, researchers can develop a robust stable isotope analysis for theoretically any animal, as long as the wild and captive diets are sufficiently different. animals whose diets change seasonally pose a slight challenge, but a baseline of the isotope values can still be established with enough testing.

the tool even works with humans. dingle noted that a professor at hong kong university performed an isotope analysis on himself when he was in the united states and again when he was back in hong kong, and there was a clear difference. in the u.s., he had a very corn-based isotope profile, while in hong kong, his isotopic values changed to reflect a rice-based diet.

besides pushing for the development of this forensic tool, dingle said she’d like to see owners of rare or exotic pets educate themselves on where the animals come from.

“we surveyed pet owners, and a lot of people aren’t really aware that a species that they own are threatened somewhere else. and that there’s a potential that by buying a pet bird or pet frog or lizard, that you could be contributing to that decline,” she said. “there’s just a disconnect, people think that it came from a pet shop so it’s bred just like a dog or a cat.”

with stable isotope analysis not yet available for pet owners or prospective buyers to verify the provenance of their animals, dingle suggests just asking for paperwork from the seller. in their survey of pet owners, dingle and andersson found most owners aren’t even aware that paperwork exists to confirm an animal has been raised in captivity.

“the [hong kong] government is looking for support and ways to deter [animal trafficking] from happening in the city, and i’m sure in other parts of the world it’s the same,” andersson said. “this tool can be part of that solution.”

citation:

andersson, a. a., gibson, l., baker, d. m., cybulski, j. d., wang, s., leung, b., … dingle, c. (2021). stable isotope analysis as a tool to detect illegal trade in critically endangered cockatoos. animal conservation. doi:10.1111/acv.12705

scientists describing a new species of ant, strumigenys ayersthey, have broken with conventional naming traditions and used the pronoun “they” instead of the traditional male or female form to promote nonbinary gender inclusivity.

the new ant, described in a recent paper in zookeys, was named after the late artist and human rights activist jeremy ayers. traditionally, a species named after a person would have an “i” appended at the end of the name for males, or “ae” for females; in this case, ayersi or ayersae. instead, the researchers went with ayersthey.

they did this to honor ayers and the large number of people who do not identify with either the male and female genders, according to study author douglas booher, a yale postdoctoral researcher, and co-author philipp hönle, a doctoral student at the technical university of darmstadt, germany.

“in contrast to the traditional naming practices that identify individuals as one of two distinct genders, we have chosen a non-latinized portmanteau honoring the artist jeremy ayers and representing people that do not identify with conventional binary gender assignments, strumigenys ayersthey,” the authors wrote in the study.

ayers was an eclectic artist, publishing photography books, authoring a column in andy warhol’s interview magazine, and writing lyrics for both r.e.m. and the b-52s. indeed, r.e.m. lead singer and songwriter michael stipe joined booher in writing the etymology section of the paper explaining the decision to use the pronoun “they” to honor the artist. ayers is remembered today as a fixture of the athens, georgia, art community, according to a local paper.

hönle first encountered the ant while working on his doctoral thesis at darmstadt, researching ant communities in the chocó area of ecuador. of the specimens he looked at, one stood out for its unique shiny exoskeleton, for which hönle couldn’t find a matching species. hönle then contacted booher, an expert on the ant genus strumigenys, also known as trap-jaw ants for their trap-jaw mandibles. booher quickly identified the specimen as a potentially undescribed species, kicking off the work to describe the new ant.

what sets s. ayersthey apart from other ants in the genus is its signature shiny and smooth outer “skin,” or cuticle, as well as its long trap jaws, described by the researchers in the paper as a “biological mousetrap.”

the strumigenys genus itself is quite diverse. the various species’ trap-jaw mandibles can range from short to long, with the newly described species having large mandibles; some species lack the trap jaw entirely. one common identifying feature of the genus is a sponge-like structure toward the base of the abdomen. according to booher, the function of the sponge structure remains a mystery to scientists.

in a study published in plos biology in march 2021, booher explores the evolution of the trap-jaw mechanism and its gradual increase in length. the trap-jaw mechanism itself is one of the fastest movements in any living creature, with the jaws snapping shut at a rate of up to 1.2 million meters per second squared.

the newly described species is found in the chocó region of ecuador, a biologically rich and diverse coastal rainforest that is simultaneously understudied and under threat due to human activities. logging, mining and oil palm plantations have resulted in a 61% reduction of the chocó region’s forests.

“[the chocó] features a plethora of endemic species. there is one critically endangered subspecies of [brown-headed] spider monkey, ateles fusciceps fusciceps, that only lives in the forests of this part of ecuador,” hönle said. “however, the insect fauna and especially the ants there are poorly known, as only very few researchers did sample the area.”

the region is so understudied that last year hönle and other scientists described another species of native ant, odontomachus davidsoni, calling this one “large and conspicuous.”

hönle’s fieldwork collecting specimens in the chocó takes place on land preserved by jocotoco, an ngo that buys threatened land to conserve it.

“the fact that no one has described this species before highlights how much else might be out there. the new strumigenys is just one more little piece toward a more complete understanding of the fauna,” hönle said.

––

citations:

booher, d. b., gibson, j. c., liu, c., longino, j. t., fisher, b. l., janda, m., … economo, e. p. (2021). functional innovation promotes diversification of form in the evolution of an ultrafast trap-jaw mechanism in ants. plos biology, 19(3), e3001031. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3001031

booher, d. b., & hönle, p. o. (2021). a new species group of strumigenys (hymenoptera, formicidae) from ecuador, with a description of its mandible morphology. zookeys, 1036, 1-19. doi:10.3897/zookeys.1036.62034

hönle, p. o., lattke, j. e., donoso, d., von beeren, c., heethoff, m., schmelzle, s., … blüthgen, n. (2020). odontomachus davidsoni sp. nov. (hymenoptera, formicidae), a new conspicuous trap-jaw ant from ecuador. zookeys, 948, 75-105. doi:10.3897/zookeys.948.48701

over the course of the summer, i wrote six articles. for each one, i conducted interviews, researched assigned topics, and analyzed research papers. once a draft was completed, i sent it to my editor, jeremy hance, who provided me with constructive feedback that always pushed me to be a better writer. jeremy’s edits went beyond what i typically receive as a reporter, as the edits were written to help me improve as a writer, in addition to helping my article improve.

to me, this internship experience meant a place to grow and refine my scientific reporting skills. being encouraged to explore a topic in ways i find newsworthy was quite liberating. the constructive feedback genuinely improved my writing ability, while the complex topics challenged my explanatory skills.

these complex topics were the challenge of my internship experience. when you become so enveloped in a topic, you forget the baseline knowledge readers often have. explaining the relationship between rising temperatures, climate change, and a high african wild dog mortality rate becomes more difficult the more you learn. for this specific story, my editor and i went back and forth, draft after draft, attempting to adequately explain how a study approached this subject. 

a personal highlight for me was having an article republished with nowthis. when i was in high school, nowthis was a publication i came across often due to their short explanatory, and often viral videos. seeing an article i wrote for mongabay published by them was somewhat of a full-circle moment for me. the fact that another publication wanted to republish my article also meant that someone else thought my writing was at the least intriguing!

mongabay really allowed me to develop as a reporter on my own. the topics challenged me, my editors pushed me to be better, and i am finishing my internship confident in my scientific reporting ability.

to read my reporting for mongabay, click here.