The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-01)

E2 EZ EE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, MARCH 1 , 2022

SCIENCE NEWS

BY PAULINA FIROZI

The plant sprawls flat along

the ground as it grows, with ar-

rowhead-shaped leaves that radi-

ate from the middle and that can

grow to the size of a dinner plate.

That’s if they even sprout. The

prostrate milkweed, a rare plant

found in southern Texas and

northeastern Mexico, spends

much of its time dormant and

below the surface, a federal scien-

tist said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife

Service recently proposed listing

the species as endangered under

the Endangered Species Act, a

move that would aid in species

recovery and in spreading aware-

ness about the threats to this rare

plant, which include invasive

grass and human-driven develop-

ment. There are 24 known loca-

tions where the plant grows in

Texas and Mexico, though it is

possible there are other popula-

tions of the plant that have not

been observed, said Chris Best,

state botanist with the Fish and

Wildlife Service in Texas.

Michael Robinson, a senior

conservation advocate at the Cen-

ter for Biological Diversity, said

that “we have to pay attention to

the obscure animal and plant

species that together keep our

world alive.” In a statement, he

said he hopes protections “keep

the prostrate milkweed flowering

in South Texas for generations to

come.”

The proposal from the Fish and

Wildlife Service follows a lawsuit

from the center that pushed the

agency to determine whether 241

plant and animal species

“thought to be trending toward

extinction” should be protected

under federal law.

The proposal includes a plan to

designate nearly 700 acres in two

Texas counties as “critical habi-

tat” for the rare milkweed.

Best said the plant spends

“most of its time in dormant

condition,” in walnut-size tubers

underground — that is part of

what makes it a challenge to know

everywhere the plant is. He said

the plant has adapted to a region

that is often in drought and has

wide variations in rainfall.

“The plant just endures these

long droughts... and then you

just get that perfect rain,” he said.

That is when the plant can grow

above the surface and flower.

Like other species of milk-

weeds, it can aid pollinators such

as bees, butterflies and wasps

that visit the plant to drink the

nectar. Best noted that there are

some anecdotal reports of mon-

arch butterfly larvae feeding on

the prostrate milkweed’s leaves,

but the plant is so rare that it’s

hardly an “important larval host.”

Scott Hoffman Black, executive

director of the Xerces Society for

Invertebrate Conservation, said

that “from the point of view of

monarchs or pollinators at a large

PROSTRATE MILKWEED

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service propose

rare plant be listed as an endangered species

BY KASHA PATEL

When the Cameron Peak Fire
ignited in northern Colorado in
August 2020, few could foresee
its longevity. As it burned, sum-
mer turned into winter. Nearly a
semester of school passed. By the
time the fire was fully contained
in December, it had become the
state’s largest on record.
In recent decades, wildfires
have become more intense and
longer lasting amid rising tem-
peratures linked to human-
caused climate change. A key
influence on their growing dura-
tion? Their increasing ability to
survive the night, when tempera-
tures typically dip and humidity
rises.
A study published earlier this
month in Nature shows that a
trend toward warmer and drier
conditions after sundown is help-
ing blazes withstand what should
be unfavorable conditions —
making fire containment more

difficult for responders. Crews

are less able to rely on relief in fire

intensity previously offered by

nighttime cooling.

“The fact that the [Cameron

Peak] fire was burning for

months, to me is an indication

that we were essentially able to

pass through the night,” said

Jennifer Balch, the director of

Earth Lab at the University of

Colorado at Boulder. “We were

able to burn from day to night,

from day to night, and that fire

burned over 200,000 acres.”

Cameron Peak isn’t the only

notable example of nighttime fire

growth. During Australia’s 2019-

2020 bush fire season, fires

seemed to spread more rapidly at

night than during the day for the

Snowy Complex Fire in the south-

east part of the country. In fact,

about three-quarters of satellite

fire detections occurred at night.

In 2017, the Tubbs Fire in

Northern California burned

across 36,000 acres and became

the most destructive fire in the

state at that time. Satellite data

showed more than half of the fire

detections occurred at night.

Across burnable lands globally,

the annual number of flammable

nighttime hours increased by 110

hours over the past four decades

— allowing five additional nights

when flammability does not

cease, the study stated. It also

found that nighttime fires global-

ly increased in intensity by 7

percent from 2003 to 2020.

“Our nights have been warm-

ing more than our days have been

warming as a function of human-

caused climate change, and that’s

having a direct impact on fires,”

said Balch, the lead author of the

study. “We’re losing the brakes on

fires in terms of the cooling and

moisture accumulation that hap-

pens at night.”

Balch and her colleagues ana-

lyzed satellite and hourly climate

data for more than 81,000 fires

globally to pinpoint when condi-

tions become hot and dry enough

for fires to burn at night.

Specifically, the team mea-

sured vapor pressure deficit

(VPD), which essentially indi-

cates how fast the atmosphere is

sucking moisture out of vegeta-

tion and fuels. A lower deficit

signifies cool and moist air, while

a high deficit means the air is hot

and dry and conducive to burn-

ing. The team found the daily

minimum vapor pressure deficit

increased by 25 percent from

1970 to 2020.

“The two things that change

that ability to hold moisture are

temperature, or how hot it is, and

how much moisture is already in

the air,” Balch said.

Some ecosystems were hit

harder by nighttime activity than

others. For instance, nighttime

fire detections were dominant in

temperate evergreen forests,

where 38 percent of fire detec-

tions occurred at night. Cropland

fires, however, mainly occurred

during the daytime.

“In really hot, dry places like

desert systems, you have really

high vapor pressure deficit,”

Balch said. “Then in places that

are hot and moist compared to a

desert... v apor pressure deficit

goes down a little bit just as a

function of the moisture that’s

already in the air.”

The increase in nighttime fire

activity was not necessarily sur-

prising, said co-author John

Abatzoglou at University of Cali-

fornia at Merced, but “the magni-

tude of the change was notewor-

thy” in certain regions.

For example, the U.S. West

stood out against the global aver-

age. Nighttime fire intensity from

2003 to 2020 increased by 28

percent in the region. The West

also experiences around 11 more

flammable nights compared to

four decades ago.

Grasslands and savannas in

South America, Africa and Asia

and open shrub lands in Aus-

tralia also saw an increase in the

number of flammable nighttime

hours.

“People tend to pay more atten-

tion to conditions during the

daytime, when fires are most

active. But there’s not enough

attention put on nighttime, when

cooler conditions tend to slow

fires down or even extinguish

them completely,” said Adam Ma-

hood, postdoctoral researcher at

Earth Lab and co-author on the

paper, in a statement.

The effects of nighttime warm-

ing on fire activity adds to a

growing number of factors,

linked to human-caused climate

change, that are intensifying

fires, increasing their duration

and extending their season. In

California, 18 of the 20 largest

wildfires in state history have

occurred in the past two decades

and many now consider the fire

season, previously mostly re-

stricted to the summer and fall,

as year-round. All 20 of Colora-

do’s largest wildfires on record

have occurred in the past 20

years.

The study states that contin-

ued nighttime warming from hu-

man-caused climate change “will

promote more intense, longer-

lasting and larger fires” in the

future.

Abatzoglou said solutions to

reduce wildfire impacts during

the day or night include more

preparation by communities in

fire prone locations, scaling up

intentional and beneficial offsea-

son fires to better manage forests

and fuels and taking steps to

mitigate our effect on the climate.

“Climate mitigation measures

can bend the curve on increasing

fire weather,” Abatzoglou said.

CAPITAL WEATHER GANG

In heat of the night, wildfires rage

Warmer and drier conditions after sundown are allowing blazes to last longer, according to s tudy

BETHANY BAKER/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Flames cover the Colorado sky during the Cameron Peak Fire in October of 2020. The fire started in August of that year and wasn’t fully
contained until four months later. Nighttime fire intensity in the U.S. West increased by 28 percent from 2003 to 2020.

scale, it may not be the most

important plant — but it is impor-

tant to their own little space.”

Black added that it may be a food

source for insects.

Best described a local botanist

discovering a large wasp called a

tarantula hawk pollinating on a

prostrate milkweed.

It was promising news, he said,

because the wasp may have a

“wide forage range,” collecting

pollen from one plant and poten-

tially carrying it to another plant

of the same species miles away.

“What that means for the sur-

vival of this plant is it could

survive in very widely dispersed

populations,” he said.

A key threat to the species, Best

said, is a tough and invasive grass

called buffelgrass that spreads far

beyond where it is planted.

The milkweed has also suffered

from habitat loss in areas that

have been degraded by constant

energy development, road con-

struction and other human activi-

ty, officials said.

“Seems like every year they’re

putting in new cable or water-

lines or power lines,” Best said.

“Every time you disturb the soil,

buffelgrass just jumps in and

takes over.”

Habitat destruction and frag-

mentation, Robinson said, is

“what’s driving a lot of the extinc-

tion crisis that the world is under-

going.”

The benefit of a designation

under the Endangered Species

Act, Robinson added, would be

that federal officials would be

required to develop a recovery

plan for the specific species.

Best said it would also raise

awareness among the general

public that “this is a rare part of

our natural heritage.”

“Keep your eye out for it, and if

conservation is something that

interests you, help us look for it,”

he said.

Hoffman Black, of the Xerces

Society, said people often ask

him, regarding rare species, “Why

care?”

He compared the importance

of diverse habitats and species

resilience to screws on a plane.

“You can lose some screws on a

plane and probably make it fine

and land and then they’ll fix it,” he

said. “At some point, if you lose

enough screws on the plane, it’s

going to crash. It’s the same thing

with ecosystems.”

SAM KIESCHNICK

There are 24 known locations

in Texas and Mexico where the

prostrate milkweed grows.

SCIENCE SCAN

BY ERIN BLAKEMORE

Robots. Drones. Artificial Intel-

ligence.

All three are touted as potential

saviors for farmers, and are al-

ready being deployed on large

farms, where they assist with such

tasks as managing crops, milking

cows and helping farmers make

decisions about their land.

But agricultural AIcould have

disastrous, unintended conse-

quences.

At least that’s the message of a

new analysis in Nature Machine

Intelligence. When an interna-

tional group of researchers exam-

ined AI in agriculture, they found

a variety of possible risks — and

they’re urging farmers to consid-

er them before it’s too late.

“So far no one seems to have

asked the question, ‘Are there any

risks associated with a rapid de-

ployment of agricultural AI?’,”

said Asaf Tzachor, a researcher at

the Centre for the Study of Exis-

tential Risk at the University of

Cambridge, in a news release.

The potential benefits are

huge. Increases in farm produc-

tivity could help feed the approxi-

mately 2.4 billion people around

the world who experience food

insecurity and malnutrition and

revolutionize the way farmers use

their land.

That could come at a cost. The

analysis points out potential

flaws in the agricultural data that

fuels AI-powered systems and the

possibility that autonomous sys-

tems could place productivity

over the environment. That could

lead to inadvertent errors causing

overfertilization, dangerous pes-

ticide use, inappropriate irriga-

tion or erosion, risking crop

yields, water supplies and soil.

And wide-scale crop failures

could exacerbate food insecurity.

Cybersecurity is another po-

tential failure point. The re-

searchers said cyberattacks could

disrupt entire food systems. The

more reliant farm systems are on

intelligent machines, the more

disruption could be created if

they malfunction or are de-

stroyed.

Then there are people — and

without inclusive technology, the

researchers warn, AI could simply

increase inequities that already

exist in farming. As big farmers

profit, small-scale farmers in the

global South, for instance, might

be locked out of farming gains

altogether.

Potential solutions mentioned

by the researchers include data

sharing, citizen input and digital

“sandboxes” where developers

can forecast potential failure

points for farm AI.

“Technological modernization

in farming has achieved much,”

the researchers write. But irre-

sponsible developers could “ig-

nore and thereby perpetuate driv-

ers of nutritional insecurity, ex-

ploitation of labor, and environ-

mental resources depletion.”

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Benefits from agricultural AI are substantial,

but researchers warn farmers of potential risks

Responsible artificial

intelligence in agriculture

requires systemic understanding

of risks and externalities

Nature Machine Intelligence

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