While humans across the world are in lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been a lot of reports in the media recently of events that seem to show the natural world "resurging" to fill the empty space left by us. If you've been watching news or social media recently you might have seen images of clear canals in Venice, lions on the roads in South Africa's Kruger park, and even kangaroos hopping down the main street here in Adelaide!www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00965-x
The earth is become less noisy too - seismologists are finding that the earth is trembling less with "social noise" that is normally caused by traffic, public transport and human footfalls, leading to a greater ability to accurately detect "signal" in the form of real earthquake activity.
With vastly reduced shipping, the oceans are expected to be a more convivial habitat for whales and other species. Ambient noise from ships has been shown to increase stress levels in right whales, potentially affecting reproduction rates. The noise also affects whalesong: humpbacks have been shown to pause their underwater song when ships pass by, and resume afterwards. But researchers are now hoping to see increased complexity of whale song, and perhaps a temporary resurgence in populations.
Now there are reports from the UK that the temporary absconding of humans could be beneficial to bees and other pollinators, with local councils there neglecting to trim roadside verges, which would normally have been mowed down in spring before their seeds have had the chance to ripen. This is expected to lead to an upsurge in wild plants and also benefit the animals that pollinate them, and conservation charities there are urging the councils to make reduced trimming a permanent change.
Many commentators seem to be taking a hopeful view, that seeing a glimpse of nature with less human intervention can lead to a permanent shift in people's views on how our activities impact on nature. I wonder whether that's really going to happen; maybe it's more realistic that the current time is just an ideal window for researchers to gather as much data as they can about the damage done to ecosystems by human activity, before it all reverts back to normal again. Making long-term changes will probably still be a political issue rather than a scientific one.