this post was submitted on 27 Dec 2023
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Biodiversity

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A community about the variety of life on Earth at all levels; including plants, animals, bacteria, and fungi.

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Biodiversity is a term used to describe the enormous variety of life on Earth. It can be used more specifically to refer to all of the species in one region or ecosystem. Biodiversity refers to every living thing, including plants, bacteria, animals, and humans. Scientists have estimated that there are around 8.7 million species of plants and animals in existence. However, only around 1.2 million species have been identified and described so far, most of which are insects. This means that millions of other organisms remain a complete mystery.

Over generations, all of the species that are currently alive today have evolved unique traits that make them distinct from other species. These differences are what scientists use to tell one species from another. Organisms that have evolved to be so different from one another that they can no longer reproduce with each other are considered different species. All organisms that can reproduce with each other fall into one species. Read more...

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62
Buildings kill a billion US birds a year. These architects want to save them (www.theguardian.com)
submitted 10 months ago by GreyShuck@feddit.uk to c/biodiversity@mander.xyz
5 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Chicago’s 82-story Aqua Tower appears to flutter with the wind. Its unusual, undulating facade has made it one of the most unique features of Chicago’s skyline, distinct from the many right-angled glass towers that surround it.

In designing it, the architect Jeanne Gang thought not only about how humans would see it, dancing against the sky, but also how it would look to the birds who fly past. The irregularity of the building’s face allows birds to see it more clearly and avoid fatal collisions. “It’s kind of designed to work for both humans and birds,” she said.

As many as 1 billion birds in the US die in building collisions each year. And Chicago, which sits along the Mississippi Flyway, one of the four major north-south migration routes, is among the riskiest places for birds. This year, at least 1,000 birds died in one day from colliding with a single glass-covered building. In New York, which lies along the Atlantic Flyway, hundreds of species traverse the skyline and tens of thousands die each year.

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[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 3 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

As awareness grows of the dangers posed by glistening towers and bright lights, architects are starting to reimagine city skylines to design buildings that are both aesthetically daring and bird-safe.

After several years of investigation, she found there was little in the way of practical tips for architects, and she teamed up with the conservation group NYC Audubon, to develop a bird-safe building guide.

About a decade ago, Piselli’s firm worked on a half-billion-dollar renovation of New York’s Jacob K Javits Convention Center, a gleaming glass-clad space frame structure that was killing 4,000-5,000 birds a year.

In the Netherlands, the facade of the World Wildlife Fund headquarters, a futuristic structure that looks like an undulating blob of mercury, contains nest boxes and spaces for birds and bats to live.

Earlier this year, Azadeh Omidfar Sawyer, an assistant professor in building technology in the Carnegie Mellon School of Architecture, developed open-source software to help designers create bespoke, bird-friendly glass patterns.

Whether they’re large or small, the challenge of designing buildings that are safe for birds can be “liberating”, said Gang, who has become an avid birdwatcher and now carries a pair of binoculars on her morning jogs.

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