Some more news, up to the date are coming from Australia. It is public theme now that Ian Hume, emeritus professor of biology at Sydney University,estimated that current levels of global carbon dioxide emissions would result in a noticeable reduction in Australia’s koala population in 50 years! Ian Hume said that he and his researchers found that the amount of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rose extremely, when the level of carbon dioxide within a greenhouse increase. Koalas produce one young each year under optimal conditions, but if you drop the nutritional value of the leaves, it might become one young every three or four years,” Hume said. From about more than 600 eucalyptus species in Australia, koalas will only eat the leaves of about 25, Hume said. Changing the toxicity levels in the trees could further reduce the varieties that koalas find palatable, ” continues Ian Hume. This topic is under very big discussions in Australia and it is about human efforts to prevent our own problems. Hume presented his research on the effects of carbon dioxide on eucalyptus leaves to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra today. As you may know “Australia’s cuddly national icon”, the koala, faces extinction in parts of Australia within a decade as development destroys the marsupial’s habitat. Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe, a marsupial physiologist said koalas had already disappeared from parts of Australia but remained plentiful in others and were unlikely to be wiped out by climate change.
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