Butterfly behaviour shows ways to protect natural habitats in a rapidly changing world

By Charl Deacon, Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Entomology, Stellenbosch University

Natural landscapes are continually transformed to make room for agricultural and urban developments – often at the expense of important habitats and species.

That’s why, to avoid unnecessary species extinctions, it’s crucial to know which habitats to protect. In a recent paper we studied how changes to the landscape affected butterflies in a grassland area of South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.

The sheer speed at which landscapes are being transformed by human activity…

Read complete article

~	South Africa’s youth are a generation lost under democracy – study

~	Why reading and writing poems shouldn’t be considered a luxury in troubling times

~	A Hong Kong Facebook group on shop closure strives to survive allegations of inciting discontent

~	Vaping now more common than smoking among young people – and the risks go beyond lung and brain damage

~	Burkina Faso: Army Massacres 223 Villagers

~	Lebanon: Stepped-Up Repression of Syrians

~	Africa’s High Teenage Pregnancy Rate Demands Strong Response

~	Inflation is slowly falling while student debt is climbing: 6 graphs that explain the CPI

~	‘It bucked our lads up wonderfully’: the lightning-quick battle that marked the birth of the US-Australia military alliance

~	If plastic manufacturing goes up 10%, plastic pollution goes up 10% – and we’re set for a huge surge in production