The article I choose talks about how snake populations is decreasing at an alarming rate and how this will affect their entire ecosystem.
Human intervention is slowly (or maybe not so slowly) destroying the natural world, this is not news to anyone. From time to time we find signs of how this is affecting the entire ecosystems and this time, it's the snake's turn.
Scientist from 5 countries across 3 different continents have been monitoring several populations of these reptiles, in differents kinds of habitats. From 17 populations observed, they say 11 have "declined sharply", 5 remained stable and 1 has increases at a very weak rate.
They believe this is a global phenomenom because all the observed declines occured during the same relative short period of time and this occured in populations living in a variety of climates (tropical, mediterranean an temperate climates).
Even though there are no cause of the losses, they sugest the loss of their habitats and declinal prey might be the main cause. The climate change is supposed to be the common factor on the origin of this threats.
Scientists have been studying snakes's populations for some time now, but this paper is the first reliable evidence of the problem.
This is quite the issue, 'cause snakes play a very important role in the ecosystem. They are top predators within the habitats they are found, meaning that they almost have no predators and help to control plagues like rats and mice. Without the snakes, the balance would be lost and populations of vermins wouldn't have anything to contain them.
This is the first study of this matter, so more information is needed to elaborate a plan of action that would help to prevent and hopefully revert this situation.
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The link is: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/09/scientists-alarm-snakes
I would like Ale and Nacho to comment on this.
Hi Saimon!!! hehehe I think your summary is pretty good! I also read the news item about the snakes!!
I do however have some little corrections to make you:
1. You wrote "snake populations is decreasing" since you talked about populationS you should have continued with "ARE decreasing".
2. In "and 1 has increases at a very weak rate" I think you meant "and 1 has increased at a very weak rate".
3. and finally in "there are no cause of the losses" I think you could have written "there is no cause for the losses" or "there are no causes for the losses".
Aaand That's pretty much it.
I think this whole situation with the snakes is quite depressing. If they disappear... God knows what will happen to so many ecosystems =(
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