yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Everest Biology - Life is on the Rise | National Geographic


3m read
·Nov 11, 2024

[Music]

Mountainous environments are living laboratories to study environmental change. We're up here to document whether species are moving upward. What we're finding in mountainous environments is that species, from plants to animals to insects, are actually rising in elevation and adapting to these thermal niches. We're trying to understand how climate change is impacting them.

[Music]

I'm leading a biology team to perform a comprehensive biodiversity survey of the Kumbu Valley. What we're doing up here is trying to understand what species are living up in these extreme environments. Having our researchers go up higher to survey for things like plants, rodents, and insects, comparing it to historical data from previous expeditions can give us a lot of information about whether we can actually define how quickly these species are already moving upwards.

[Music]

The two types of surveys we'll be doing are water filtration, collecting water samples, doing things like turning over rocks, looking underneath and seeing what's there. As a biologist, I focus in on the micro scale to really look for my new little details. It's great working with Anton as a partner because he can step back and look at it from a more holistic understanding background, looking at the climatology of landscapes. That helps us understand better the organisms that we're studying in the context of the landscape.

In terms of the ability to respond to climatic changes, different species have different capacities for response. To use a local example, purebred yaks can no longer live at the elevation of where they used to live. My whole family has lived in these mountains their whole life. They have seen changes themselves and they've lived through changes before.

We could see yaks down to Namche, but now they are no longer able to tolerate the warming climate here, so they have to move around. These small minute observations are actually very much important for any sort of scientific based understanding.

[Music]

When we come up here to do our visual encounter surveys, we'll pick a piece of habitat that looks really good for our species. The soil will be well developed; there will be plants. We'll turn over rocks. Well, that's a bristle tank; you got him! When we find something, we'll collect the animal in a plastic tube so we can photograph and measure it and document it.

He's got these sticking up; the slope is incredibly unstable, rocks constantly in motion. There are pebbles and rocks covering the surface, but when you remove them, look underneath. We're finding that basically soils are developed; there's mosses, there's little tussock grasses—basically, an ecosystem seems to actually be developing under the surface of this very unstable rocky substrate. There’s much more life up here than meets the eye at first glance, that's for sure.

When we get back to the lab, we'll do analysis combined with reaching out to local experts like entomologists and botanists to be able to identify all the species at the taxonomic level.

[Music]

If there are any micromore organisms in here, they'll be throughout the solution. What we're trying to do is gather as much information as possible to really understand how can we adapt to climate change. How can people adapt to living up here? How are species adapting? This climate change study doesn't end here.

As scientists, we want to provide the impetus so that these studies can continue on for years to come, so that people can have a better understanding of what's happening and how to adapt as we move forward.

[Music]

More Articles

View All
Cave Art 101 | National Geographic
[Narrator] Wooly mammoths, step bison, and other large mammals once roamed alongside people across Eurasia. Tens of thousands of years later, we may have a glimpse into this Ice Age world through the cave art left behind by early humans. (tinkling music) …
Is Space Weather a Thing? | StarTalk
Another kind of weather more traditional way to think about whether is what the air is doing on planets that have atmospheres. And moons don’t have an atmosphere, so we don’t think about them. Whether Mars has an atmosphere, Jupiter has an atmosphere, Sa…
Farming for the Planet | Podcast | Overheard at National Geographic
[Music] I’m going to tell you about this place that 10 years ago didn’t even exist. And what created this wasn’t brilliance; it was freedom to allow nature to show us a better way. That’s exactly how my wife Molly and I rebuilt this whole farm over the la…
Comparative advantage worked example | Basic economics concepts | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
The countries of Kalos and Johto can produce two goods: shiny charms and berries. You got to love these worlds created in these economic questions. The table below describes the production possibilities of each country in a day. So, here it tells us that…
Step inside the $20,000,000 Falcon 7X. 🛩
This is a $20 million plane, and this is Steve. He’s selling it. Should we go take a look inside? Let’s go. So, we are now inside the aircraft. Steve, could you please tell us a little bit more? Sure! Most of these airplanes have these first four forwar…
Why I Left California | The Aftermath
What’s up guys, it’s Graham here. So a few months ago, I made a video announcing that I was leaving California and moving full-time to Las Vegas, Nevada. That was a decision I never thought I would make because prior to now, I’ve spent my entire life in L…