National Museum of Natural Sciences (MNCN, CSIC)

An international research project involving Spanish participation has analysed the distribution of brown bears in Europe and Turkey. To do this, the team studied more than three million locations belonging to some 3,000 bears, with data from 14 European and Turkish subpopulations in very different environments. The main conclusion is that bears occupy areas where the species that form part of their diet are distributed. The study, published in Global Change Biology, shows that the influence of climate change on these species also has an impact on the distribution of bears.

A team from China has analysed the genetic data of more than 450,000 people and identified a variant in a gene that contributed to increased height and basal metabolic rate in modern humans, especially when meat consumption increases. In addition to providing insight into evolutionary processes, the finding ‘also has important implications for understanding susceptibility and resistance to contemporary metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome,’ according to the authors. The results are published in the journal Cell Genomics.

A meta-analysis that brings together data from 628 species of animals, plants and other organisms in terrestrial and marine ecosystems over the last three decades shows that most are losing genetic diversity, especially mammals and birds. ‘The threats affected two thirds of the populations we analysed and less than half are subject to conservation management measures,’ say the authors of the research, published in Nature.

An assessment of the extinction risk of freshwater fauna, covering more than 23,000 species, reveals that around 24% of the species studied are at risk of extinction. The analysis, published in Nature, identifies the main threats from pollution, dams, agriculture and invasive species. Decapods - such as freshwater crabs and shrimps - have the highest percentage of threatened species (30 %), followed by freshwater fish (26 %) and odonates - such as dragonflies (16 %).

A team of researchers has analyzed more than 300 human genomes from the last 50,000 years and has concluded that most of the gene flow we received from Neanderthals is attributable to a single period, which probably occurred between 50,500 and 43,500 years ago. In addition, Neanderthal inheritance underwent rapid natural selection in subsequent generations, especially on the X chromosome, according to a study published in Science.

The DANA that devastated the province of Valencia on 29 October, leaving more than 200 people dead and many missing, has been followed by another one, still located over the peninsula. How can we adapt to these extreme phenomena? What repercussions do they have on public health? How can the public prepare for them? The Science Media Centre España organised a briefing session with two experts and an expert from the CSIC to discuss these questions. 

International research in which CREAF is participating estimates that more than 1,300 bird species will disappear over the next two centuries, which is more than double the number of extinctions recorded to date - 610 species have disappeared in the last 130,000 years. The study, published in the journal Science, shows that, for island endemics, the proportional losses have been and will be even greater. The authors warn that when a species becomes extinct, its role in the ecosystem may disappear with it.

An international team of scientists, including researchers from the CRG and the CNAG (Barcelona), have managed to recover DNA remains from a female woolly mammoth that died in Siberia 52,000 years ago. The novelty is that, for the first time, the remains conserve the three-dimensional structure in the form of chromosomes, which makes it possible to investigate the genes that were active. According to one of the authors of the study, the results of which are published in the journal Cell, this type of discovery "changes the rules of the game, because knowing the shape of the chromosomes of an organism allows us to assemble the entire DNA sequence of extinct creatures and obtain information that was not possible before".

Two-thirds of biological conservation actions improve biodiversity or slow its decline, a meta-analysis claims. The study highlights the effectiveness of interventions focused on invasive species control, habitat loss reduction and restoration, and protected areas. The article, published in the journal Science, brings together the findings of 186 previous studies.   

Eighty-two percent of EU farm subsidies articulated through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) financed high-emission livestock production in 2013, according to a study published in Nature Food. The analysis, which is based on data from 1986 to 2013 - the latest year for which records are available - highlights that 82% went to animal products in the following proportions: 38% directly and 44% for feed production. The authors note that food of animal origin is associated with 84 % of the greenhouse gases emitted by EU food production.