#endemics

In the year or so before I actually got the job and moved to South Africa…there were constant clues & encouragement around me. 

The term “back cove” is a colloquial term that describes a terminal point where a revine system meets a U shaped rock shelter with a wet bankment sheltered from the flow of heavy water and debris. The communities tend to be spray cliff and mesic rock shelter communities that don’t mind the frequent humidity and wet conditions but also can’t take much disturbance and soil compaction. I’ve already posted some of the photos from this area; but, I really enjoy it. The embankment is heavily weathered-permeated sandstone and falls into the seep type habitats, specifically a “flush”, where water is coming from a specific aquifer within a layer of rock and seeps out instead of being in a lower depression close to the water table where an aquifer seeps out. This is not considered a spring because the water isn’t flowing up necessarily from an aquifer but instead is coming out of the rock due to stratification issues. I think the term “back cove” was coined because of the diversity of rock shelter types and the fact that the original “cove” describes a protected watery area where a line of land protects the location from the sea, (so like a small bay with a sea break and an opening that lacks a barrier island. Rock shelter naming is always very colloquial as no legitimate definitions are layed out.  

Other rock shelters, 

crepuscular cave- a locality where no, or small amounts, of southern facing light penetrates the open face. These are much darker than normal rock shelters; but, are often referred to as just “rock shelters”. crepuscular means, having to do with twilight. 

Rock house- originally these just referred to slump block caves, where an overhanging rock had broken off to where it was leaning up next to the rock shelter forming a channel/ tunnel. Rock house is generally used synonymously with rock shelters. 

Waterfall splash back/ undercut shelter. - this is an early form of a back cove, these are much smaller and will eventually turn into a back cove or just a deep cut spray cliff depending on the rock it’s formed from.  

^these are the most common, but there are many specific names given to 

Karst land breaks, Karst Shelters.  .- usually deal more with limestone weathering, and have their own unique features. Karst slump blocks are a thing too.

there are other rock shelters dealing with igneous rock as well. 

both bluff shelter and abri are synonymous with the umbrella term rock shelter

As you can probably tell with a back cove by these photos, these are a boon for liverworts, moss species, and ferns. 

Rock shelters are very important for many reasons, the plant species located in some rock shelters are fairly rare and some, although found in abundance in some specific shelters, are extremely threatened by habitat destruction.  Minuartia cumberlandensis -An endemic to Big South Fork Shelters in the Cumberland River(located in right in the border region of Kentucky and Tn. Solidago albopilosa, An endemic to the RRG region of DBNF. Vittaria appalachiana, found in only a few spray cliff and dripline rock shelter communities within Appalachia.  Trichomanes boschianum,which can be found in some back cove communities; but, is also limited to specific rock shelters.  Aconitum noveboracense, an ice age relic forbe that is limited to relatively undisturbed cold drip line rock shelters, back coves, and algific tallused slope communities. There are many others these are just a few examples. 

Many rock shelters are also extremely important for animal sites, early hominid sites, and general archaeology. 

Meet the gargantuan Grey Satinash (Syzygium gustavioides), one of the largest species of endemic Syzygiums one will find in the Wet Tropics. In my time in the Wet Tropics, I have had the rare privilege of seeing this both in flower and in fruit in the canopy, while doing research and plant collections up in the Daintree Rainforest Observatory canopy crane, some 25-30m up in the canopy. That…

COLOMBO — When Uditha Hettige started out doing field excursions in 1990, in search of Sri Lanka’s rich bird life, he would visit Bodhinagala Forest Reserve in the country’s west each week.

Overnighting at a nearby school, he recalls just how common it was to hear the call of species like the Sri Lanka frogmouth (Batrachostomus moniliger) and to encounter the endemic green-billed coucal (Centropus chlororhynchos) in home gardens close to the forest.

“But the forest now has receded by about a mile compared to what it was three decades ago and now I hardly find a frogmouth even within the forest,” Hettige, considered Sri Lanka’s leading wildlife tour guide and a member of the Ceylon Bird Club (CBC), tells Mongabay. “The green-billed coucals are only found closer to the forest,” he adds.

Gillian Flaccus, Christopher Weber, and Terry Tang at AP, via NewsNation Now:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — With COVID-19 case numbers plummeting, Emily Safrin did something she hadn’t done since the pandemic began two years ago: She put her fears aside and went to a concert.

The fully vaccinated and boosted restaurant server planned to keep her mask on, but as the reggaeton star Bad Bunny took the stage and the energy in the crowd soared, she ripped it off. Soon after, she was strolling unmasked in a trendy Portland neighborhood with friends.

Two years after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, changing the world overnight, relief and hope are creeping back in after a long, dark period of loss, fear and deep uncertainty about the future.

“Everyone was supposed to be vaccinated or have a negative test, and I said, ‘What the heck, I’m just gonna live my life,’” Safrin said of her concert experience. “It was overwhelming, to be honest, but it also felt great to be able to just feel a little bit normal again.”

The world is finally emerging from a brutal stretch of winter dominated by the highly contagious omicron variant, bringing a sense of relief on the two-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic.

It was March 11, 2020 when the WHO issued its declaration, driving home the severity of the threat presented by a virus that at that point had wreaked havoc primarily in Italy and China. The U.S. had 38 confirmed coronavirus deaths and 1,300 cases nationwide on that date, but reality was starting to sink in: Stocks tanked, classrooms started closing and people began donning masks. In a matter of hours, the NBA was canceling games, Chicago’s huge St. Patrick’s Day parade was scuttled and late-night comedians began filming from empty studios — or even their homes.

Since then, more than 6 million people have died globally, nearly 1 million in the U.S. Millions have been thrown out of work, students have endured three school years of disruptions. The emergence of the vaccine in December 2021 saved countless lives but political divisions, hesitancy and inequality in health systems have kept millions of people around the world from getting inoculated, prolonging the pandemic.

The situation is improving, however.

Hospitalizations of people with COVID-19 have plummeted 80% in the last six weeks across the U.S. since a mid-January pandemic peak, dropping to the lowest levels since July 2021, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Case counts have followed the same trend line to the lowest counts since last summer as well. Even the death tally, which typically lags behind cases and hospitalizations, has slowed significantly in the last month.

In its latest pandemic report, the WHO said infections and deaths are down across the globe, with only one region — the Western Pacific — seeing a rise in cases. The Middle East and Africa saw cases drop by 46% and 40%, respectively.

Another positive: The omicron wave and vaccinations have left enough people with protection against the coronavirus that future spikes will likely require much less disruption to society, experts say.

Nowhere is the shift in the pandemic more apparent than in the nation’s hospitals, where critical care units were overflowing with desperately ill patients just months ago.

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Mask mandates, vaccine requirements and other COVID-19 measures are being eliminated everywhere. The last statewide mask mandate in the U.S., in Hawaii, will end in two weeks.

But health experts are also urging some caution.

Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious-disease physician and epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, said it’s certainly good news that the U.S. seems to be at the tail end of a peak. But he cautioned against any victory declarations, especially with the potential of another variant lurking around the corner.

“We have new variants emerge and those new variants fuel large waves, epidemic waves,” Ko said. “The big question is, are they going to be as mild or less severe as omicron? Are they going to be potentially more severe? Unfortunately, I can’t predict that.”

In Portland, people are heading back to movie theaters, concerts and gyms after a long, dark winter and bars and restaurants are filling up once more. Safrin said many customers are telling her it’s their first time dining inside in months.

Two years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic. At that time, COVID-19 mainly impacted Italy, Japan, China, South Korea, and Iran, and cases really began to explode in the USA.

In the US and throughout the world, lives began to be upended in all aspects (if it wasn't already the case at that point, esp. Italy), such as school, work, religious activities, socialization, dining out, and sports, as closures and capacity restrictions were enacted. Mask mandates, social distancing, and later vaccine mandates were added to the COVID mitigation toolbox during the last 2+ years.

The night of March 11th, 2020 was when it became obvious that COVID was something that can't be ignored in our lives, as Oklahoma City Thunder player Rudy Gobert testing positive for COVID that led to the NBA suspending the remainder of the 2019-20 season and actor Tom Hanks testing positive for it. The following day, March 12th, 2020, all the sports leagues in the US that had their seasons followed the NBA's lead to postpone their seasons.

Two years later, COVID-19 remains a pandemic, but the trends are moving towards making COVID-19 an endemic, as mask mandates, vaccine mandates, and other COVID mitigation measures have mostly elapsed or are in the process of doing so in the USA.

Char’Nese Turner and Alex Caprariello at NewsNation Now: 

(NewsNation Now) — This week the state of California lifted its mask mandate for the vaccinated. It is the latest move in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s “endemic” policy, a new approach to the coronavirus pandemic, emphasizing on prevention and quick reactions to outbreaks.

“This is exactly what people are going to be asking in the next few weeks: Are we in a new phase? How do we live with this disease without living in fear?” Newsom said.

The next phase of California’s COVID-19 response shifts away from crisis mode. Instead, the state is readying itself to living with the virus long-term, it includes maintaining stockpiles of masks, vaccines, test kits and therapeutics to fight any future waves.

The plan calls for a continued emphasis on efforts in vulnerable and underserved populations that have experienced disproportionately high death rates. And it includes new education, including “myth-buster videos” to fight misinformation and disinformation and help interpret ever-evolving precautions for a confused public whiplashed by safeguards that seemingly shift by the day and vary across county lines.

It relies on continued testing sites including in schools, more over-the-counter virus tests, building and tracking strategic stockpiles of testing kits, surgical and K95 masks, hospital gowns and gloves and ventilators to help the most seriously ill breathe. In coordination with the federal government, it calls for a first-in-the-nation study of the pandemic’s direct and indirect long-term impacts on both people and communities.

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