and 2011 Princeton graduate Ryan Huynh--challenges predictions that higher global temperatures will result in the widespread extinction of cold-blooded forest creatures particularly lizards.
For the first time the consequences of various extreme climate events on forests bogs grass landscapes and arable areas throughout the world underwent systematic scrutiny.
The researchers also used data from a global network of 500 recording stations some in operation for more than 15 years which record carbon dioxide concentrations and air currents in the atmosphere a few meters above ground or in forest canopies.
Periods of extreme drought in particular reduce the amount of carbon absorbed by forests meadows and agricultural land significantly.
He and his colleagues expect extreme weather events to have pronounced particularly varied and long-term effects on forest ecosystems.
It is also the case that a forest recovers much more slowly from fire or storm damage than other ecosystems do;
Funded by the Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) the project was based in woodlands on the shores of Loch Lomond Scotland
This means that more carbon is accumulating in forests and other vegetation and soils in the Northern hemisphere during the summer and more carbon is being released in the fall
as a result of rising carbon dioxide concentrations warming temperatures and changing land management including the expansion of forests in some regions and the poleward migration of ecosystems.
Other factors may be changes in the amount of carbon in leaves wood or roots; changes in the extent or species composition of ecosystems;
And all wood-and biomass-burning stoves were replaced with cleaner modern stoves that use electricity or natural gas for energy.
#NASA fire towers in space watch for wildfires on the risethe Black forest wildfire this June was one of the most destructive in Colorado history in terms of homes lost.
The U s Forest Service is one of the beneficiaries of NASA's fire detection capability
The Forest Service Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC) in Salt lake city receives and processes MODIS data
USGS and the U s. Forest Service started the program in 2003 after an intense U s. wildfire season highlighted the need for unbiased information to guide decision makers as they allocate resources.
While destructive to property and life the 14000-acre Black forest wildfire in Colorado was relatively small for this year's western wildfire season.
A 100000-acre wildfire used to be unusual you would see one every few years said Carl Albury a contractor with the Forest Service-Remote Sensing
In a study published this week in the journal Biological Invasions U s. Forest Service entomologist Andrew Liebhold
Both for forests and urban trees the emerald ash borer has been devastating said Michael T. Rains Director of the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station and Director of the Forest Products Laboratory.
The Forest Service is helping cities and states prepare for and recover from EAB invasion with research on the insect ash trees'resistance to EAB and biological control.
The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service-Northern Research Station. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Pieter Beck research associate with the Woods Hole Research center in Falmouth Mass . and three collaborators studied animal migration in a novel way which they described in a paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research--Biogeoscences a publication of the American Geophysical Union.
and can tell scientists a lot about an entire forest. Just by looking at a tree's branching pattern it turns out scientists can gather clues about how it functions--for example how much carbon dioxide it exchanges with the atmosphere
and predict functions that cannot be measured directly for an entire forest for example how much carbon dioxide and oxygen the forest exchanges with the atmosphere
and how much water the trees lose through evaporation. According to the authors their study is the first empirical test of a theory UA ecology professor Brian Enquist helped develop in 1998.
If you were to look at an entire forest and wanted to know how much carbon this forest puts out our study supports the idea that you might only have to look at the properties of a few trees representing the
smallest and the largest to figure this out. All of the tree species we studied have very similar branching patterns regardless of their difference in appearance she said.
For their study the researchers harvested a total of nine specimens from forest areas set aside for research purposes.
As data flow, scientists advocate for quality controlas sensor networks revolutionize ecological data collection by making it possible to collect high frequency information from remote areas in real time scientists with the U s. Forest
and Lindsey Rustad of the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station and colleagues make a case for incorporating automated quality control and quality assurance procedures in sensor networks.
and Acting Director of the Forest Products Lab. Science is the backbone of land management planning
As scientists with the Forest Services'Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest in the White Mountains Campbell and Rustad know the promise and pitfalls of sensor networks.
Donald L. Henshaw U s. Forest Service; Mary E. Martin University of New hampshire; Wade. M. Sheldon University of Georgia;
The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service-Northern Research Station. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
Timber rattlers are also top predators in Eastern forests and their numbers are also falling so former University of Maryland graduate student Edward Kabay wanted to know
Kabay used published studies of timber rattlers'diets at four Eastern forest sites to estimate the number of small mammals the snakes consume
The results showed that each timber rattler removed 2500-4500 ticks from each site annually.
In this case the tree Khaya senegalensis commonly known as African mahogany is found in many habitats in Western Africa from forests to savanna woodland
Diffenbaugh and Field both senior fellows at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment conducted the targeted
Given the impacts those kinds of seasons currently have on terrestrial forests agriculture and human health we'll likely see substantial stress from severely hot conditions.
#Mini-monsters of the forest floora University of Utah biologist has identified 33 new species of predatory ants in Central america and the Caribbean and named about a third of the tiny but monstrous-looking insects
The new species were found mostly in small patches of forest that remain in a largely agricultural landscape highlighting the importance of forest conservation efforts in Central america Longino says.
--and live in the rotting wood and dead leaves that litter the forest floors in Central america.
Ant Lords of Leaf Litteramong the newly discovered and named species from forest-floor leaf litter:
The researchers use machetes to chop up dead wood and leaf litter and pour it through sifters
when they are trying to gain weight as rapidly as possible before winter hibernation said William Ripple a professor in the OSU Department of Forest Ecosystems
#Head hits can be reduced in youth footballless contact during practice could mean a lot less exposure to head injuries for young football players according to researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center and Virginia Tech.
-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical engineering and lead author of the study which is published in the current online edition of the Annals of Biomedical engineering.
and it does not seem to change the game said Alexander Powers M d. assistant professor of neurosurgery at Wake Forest Baptist
Funding for the study was provided by the Childress Institute for Pediatric Trauma the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical engineering and Sciences.
of Wake Forest Baptist; Stefan Duma Ph d. Steven Rowson Ph d. Bryan Cobb M. S. of Virginia Tech.
The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The region's Wehea Forest is known a biodiversity hotspot for primates including the Bornean orangutan subspecies Pongo pygmaeus morio the least studied of orangutan subspecies.
The team positioned ground-based cameras across a 38-square-kilometre region of the forest
The amount of time orangutans spent on the forest floor was found to be comparable to the ground-dwelling pig-tailed macaque Macaca nemestrina
which is equally abundant in Wehea Forest. Over 8-months orangutans were photographed 110 times while the macaques were photographed 113 times.
However while the absence of large predators may make it safer to walk on the forest floor a more pressing influence is the rapid and unprecedented loss of Borneo's orangutan habitat.
Borneo is a network of timber plantations agroforestry areas and mines with patches of natural forest said Loken.
The transformation of the landscape could be forcing orangutans to change their habitat and their behaviour.
The orangutan subspecies P. p. morio may be adapted to life in more resource scarce forests having evolved larger jaws
and that some populations may frequently come to the ground to travel they still need forests to survive said Dr. Spehar.
Even in forest plantation landscapes they rely heavily on patches of natural forest for food resources
Wehea Forest is one of the only places in Borneo where ten primates species including five species found only in Borneo overlap in their ranges.
Since Wehea Forest is a biodiversity hotspot paperwork have been submitted to legally change the status of Wehea Forest from production forest to protected forest.
However given that 78%of wild orangutans live outside of protected areas it is critical that all of Borneo's remaining forests are protected
but protecting Wehea Forest and Borneo's remaining forests is vital to the long term survival of the orangutans concluded Loken.
Fortunately 60%of Wehea Forest falls under Indonesia's logging moratorium which helps give legal protection to a large part of the forest for a few more years.
The region's Wehea Forest is known a biodiversity hotspot for primates including the Bornean orangutan subspecies Pongo pygmaeus morio the least studied of orangutan subspecies.
The team positioned ground-based cameras across a 38-square-kilometre region of the forest
The amount of time orangutans spent on the forest floor was found to be comparable to the ground-dwelling pig-tailed macaque Macaca nemestrina
which is equally abundant in Wehea Forest. Over 8-months orangutans were photographed 110 times while the macaques were photographed 113 times.
However while the absence of large predators may make it safer to walk on the forest floor a more pressing influence is the rapid and unprecedented loss of Borneo's orangutan habitat.
Borneo is a network of timber plantations agroforestry areas and mines with patches of natural forest said Loken.
The transformation of the landscape could be forcing orangutans to change their habitat and their behaviour.
The orangutan subspecies P. p. morio may be adapted to life in more resource scarce forests having evolved larger jaws
and that some populations may frequently come to the ground to travel they still need forests to survive said Dr. Spehar.
Even in forest plantation landscapes they rely heavily on patches of natural forest for food resources
Wehea Forest is one of the only places in Borneo where ten primates species including five species found only in Borneo overlap in their ranges.
Since Wehea Forest is a biodiversity hotspot paperwork have been submitted to legally change the status of Wehea Forest from production forest to protected forest.
However given that 78%of wild orangutans live outside of protected areas it is critical that all of Borneo's remaining forests are protected
but protecting Wehea Forest and Borneo's remaining forests is vital to the long term survival of the orangutans concluded Loken.
Fortunately 60%of Wehea Forest falls under Indonesia's logging moratorium which helps give legal protection to a large part of the forest for a few more years.
#Traditional forest management reduces fungal diversityin the beech groves of Navarre a team from the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has analysed the influence exerted by forestry management on the fungi populations that decompose wood.
There is a shortage of dead wood in forests because fallen branches and trees tend to be cleared away.
So clearing away the dead wood from the forests is ecologically harmful for the fungi.
wood in various beech groves in Navarre. The main conclusion of the study is that forestry
and classical forest management are harming the community of saproxylic fungi. What is more the researchers have discovered that in the forests being exploited various fungi species are disappearing
and in some cases even whole families are affected. The conclusion of the research is crystal clear:
the clearing away of remains of dead wood is harming the populations of lignicolous or saproxylic fungi.
Nevertheless Isabel Salcedo director of the research has qualified this: You see everything very clearly but you don't accept it that easily.
In forestry only recently did they start to notice this phenomenon while in Europe it began to be proven scientifically about ten years ago.
and the result has been published in the specialised journal Forest Ecology and Management. It is a journal of great quality pointed out Salcedo.
After the classification of the wood in terms of size the next criterion is the level of decomposition.
which is why importance has been attached to the volume of dead wood in the forests when it comes to preserving them.
However according to the research by Salcedo and Abrego the factor that exerts the most influence on the diversity of saproxylic fungi is the diversity of the woody debris not the volume of wood in other words that the nine groups classified should appear the maximum possible number of times.
This conclusion is a result very much to be taken into consideration in forest management stressed Salcedo.
At the same time the influence exerted by forest fragmentation on the presence of fungi is also being analysed.
The main conclusion of the study is that forestry and classical forest management are harming the community of saproxylic fungi at least in the zones studied.
The work of these UPV/EHU biologists specifies the levels of this damage. Story Source:
S. Forest Service researchers have identified what may be a key to unraveling some of the mysteries of White Nose Syndrome:
The study by Andrew Minnis and Daniel Lindner both with the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station in Madison Wis. outlines research on the evolution of species related to the fungus
A marked decline in bat populations in the eastern United states was documented in a study published last month in PLOS One by Sybill Amelon a research biologist with the Forest Service in Columbus Mo
The study is based on a foundation of collaborative research among the U s. Forest Service the USGS National Wildlife Health Center
The above story is provided based on materials by USDA Forest Service-Northern Research Station. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
if the gestation period is said 12 months Tim Cole lead author and a biologist at the Woods Hole Laboratory of NOAA's Northeast Fisheries science Center (NEFSC).
The government halted the conversion of new forest land for agriculture including palm oil in the 1990s.
According to the MPOB the government has committed to preserve 50 percent of Malaysia's total land area as forest.
#Hunting pushing central African forests toward ecological collapsescientists from the Universities of Stirling Oxford Queensland
and the Wildlife Conservation Society warn that current hunting trends in Central African forests could result in complete ecological collapse.
The authors maintain that the current rate of unsustainable hunting of forest elephants gorillas and other seed-dispersing species threatens the ability of forest ecosystems to regenerate
and that landscape-wide hunting management plans are needed to avoid an environmental catastrophe. The study appears in the latest version of Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society B. The authors include:
K. A. Abernethy of the African Forest Ecology Group of Stirling University; L. Coad of the University of Queensland and the University of Oxford;
and Fiona Maisels of the Wildlife Conservation Society and the African Forest Ecology Group. Humans have lived in the forests of Central africa for thousands of years until recently practicing subsistence hunting for the needs of their communities said Kate Abernethy lead author of the study.
Over the past few decades this dynamic has changed drastically. Much of the hunting is driven now commercially
In particular mammals such as forest elephants gorillas forest antelopes and others play a major role in seed dispersal for most tree species;
Furthermore previously untouched swathes of forest are being penetrated by roads and subsequently degraded by logging and agriculture.
In other areas forests are cleared and replaced by single-species plantations of oil palm rubber trees and crops for biofuels.
Another emerging problem for Central africa's forests is the migration of large numbers of people into remote forests around the new plantations
A top priority the researchers assert should be the protection of megafauna such as forest elephants
Otherwise the loss of wildlife will result in a disastrous spiral of forest degradation that will reduce the storage of carbon and the resilience of rainforests to climate change.
However severe ecological changes below the forest canopy driven by hunting are already occurring. The removal of seed-dispersing megafauna such as elephants
and apes could reduce the ability of forests to sequester carbon. The clock is ticking on the future of large mammals in Central africa's Congo Basin Rainforest
and with them on the future of the forests themselves and all the people who depend on them said Dr. James Deutsch Executive director of WCS's Africa Program.
The people the forests and the wildlife need an emergency effort to bring illegal and unsustainable hunting under control.
and is replaced soon by scrub and woodland. In some regions of northwestern Europe grassland butterflies are restricted now almost to road verges railway sidings rocky or wet places urban areas and nature reserves.
The approach provides much-needed technical support for carbon-based economic activities such as the United nations Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) program in developing countries.
and diverse ecosystems (ranging from grasslands and mangroves to shrublands and dense forests). As a result Panama is an ideal laboratory to develop
First Panama is an outstanding place for testing carbon mapping approaches due in part to the long-term forest studies that have been undertaken by our partners at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI.
and estimating the amount of carbon locked up in plants from dense forests to shrublands. The researchers then were able to scale up the plot and Lidar data with freely available satellite data on topography rainfall and vegetation to model carbon stocks at the national level.
For instance the scientists found that highest carbon levels are in humid forests on the Caribbean side of Panama often exceeding 110 tons of carbon per hectare (2. 5 acres.
#Most flammable boreal forests in North america become more soa 2000-square-kilometer zone in the Yukon Flats of interior Alaska--one of the most flammable high-latitude regions of the world
The new findings add to the evidence that relatively frequent and powerful fires are converting the conifer-rich boreal forests of Alaska into deciduous woodlands.
Whether the shift to deciduous forests will overcome the fire-inducing effects of a warming climate remains to be seen the researchers said.
The researchers found that the composition of tree species in the Yukon Flats gradually shifted during the MCA--from forests dominated by coniferous trees to woodlands populated by relatively fire-resistant deciduous trees.
because boreal forests cover more than 10 percent of Earth's land surface and contain a vast amount of carbon primarily in the soil Kelly said.
There is more carbon in the boreal forests than in the atmosphere he said. And one of the main ways that the carbon that's accumulated over thousands of years gets out of the soil is through burning.
And the transition may be indicative of what will happen throughout much of the North american boreal forests in the decades to come.
Ryan's study area is covered already by deciduous forest because so much spruce has burned recently--it's already different than the vast majority of boreal forests Hu said.
The climate today appears to be warmer than in the past 10000 years in that region and we know that the climate is continuing to warm up.
As warming continues Hu said it's plausible that even deciduous forests will become highly flammable.
#Loss of African woodland may impact on climate, study showsdeforestation in parts of Africa could be reversed with changes to land use a study suggests.
This loss of forests threatens the ecosystem and the livelihood of populations. Scientists suggest that the situation could be alleviated by using sustainable fuel instead of charcoal
and ending the practice of burning forests to support agriculture and livestock. Loss of trees could impact on climate change as forests store carbon in their stems
Tracking changes in woodland across the continent may help scientists better understand their effect on weather patterns
--while most forests and woodlands in the south are losing tree cover many north of the equator are gaining trees.
Increase in forest cover north of the Congo basin might have been caused by migration to cities resulting in fewer fires and more hunting of large mammals reducing tree destruction.
Land use in Africa influences how much its forests can grow--and their capacity for absorbing carbon emissions.
If humans reduce burning and cutting forests and savannas these will grow and help to limit the impact of carbon emissions
but instead in many places people are impacting more on woodlands and forests adding to carbon emissions.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Edinburgh. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#New way to measure cumulative effect of head hits in footballscientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical center have developed a new way to measure the cumulative effect of impacts to the head incurred by football players.
and magnitude of all impacts said senior author of the study Joel Stitzel Ph d. chair of biomedical engineering at Wake Forest Baptist
and associate head of the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest University School of Biomedical engineering and Sciences.
In the Wake Forest Baptist study the researchers measured the head impact exposure in 40 high school football players by using sensors placed in their helmets to record linear and rotational acceleration.
M d. of Wake Forest Baptist. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wake Forest Baptist Medical center.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Irish potato famine-causing pathogen even more virulent nowthe plant pathogen that caused The irish potato famine in the 1840s lives on today with a different genetic blueprint
#80 percent of Malaysian Borneo degraded by logginga study published in the July 17 issue of the journal PLOS ONE found that more than 80%of tropical forests in Malaysian Borneo have been impacted heavily by logging.
The Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak were thought already to be global hotspots of forest loss
and degradation due to timber and oil palm industries but the rates and patterns of change have remained poorly measured by conventional field or satellite approaches.
and previously unmapped extent of heavily logged forest. CLASLITE's high-resolution satellite imaging uncovered logging roads in Brunei and in the Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.
and team has the unique ability to convert satellite images of seemingly dense tropical forest cover into highly detailed maps of deforestation and forest degradation.
The user-friendly monitoring system has been made available to hundreds of governments nongovernmental organizations and academic institutions for use in mapping tropical forests.
Analysis of satellite imagery collected from 1990 and 2009 over Malaysian Borneo showed approximately 226000 miles (364000 km) of roads constructed throughout the forests of this region.
This finding contrasted strongly with neighboring Brunei where 54%of the land area maintained intact unlogged forest.
There is a crisis in tropical forest ecosystems worldwide and our work documents the extent of the crisis on Malaysian Borneo.
Only small areas of intact forest remain in Malaysian Borneo because so much has been logged heavily or cleared for timber or oil palm production.
Rainforests that previously contained lots of big old trees which store carbon and support a diverse ecosystem are being replaced with oil palm or timber plantations or hollowed out by logging.
Only 8%and 3%of land area in Sabah and Sarawak respectively was covered by intact forests in designated protected areas.
Very few forest ecosystems remain intact in Sabah or Sarawak. But Brunei has excluded largely industrial logging from its borders
and has been comparatively successful in protecting its forests. Greg Asner commented: The results are sobering.
The problem with previous monitoring reports is that they have been based on satellite mapping methods that have missed most of the forest degradation in Malaysian Borneo and elsewhere throughout the tropics.
I'm talking about heavy logging that leaves a wake of forest degradation even though the area may still look like forest in conventional satellite imagery.
With the CLASLITE system we can see the effects of logging on the inner canopy of the forest.
The system revealed extremely widespread degradation in this case. Co-author of the study Phil Shearman said:
The extent of logging in Sabah and Sarawak documented in our work is breathtaking. The logging industry has penetrated right into the heart of Borneo
Most of Brunei's forests are still intact as a result of largely excluding the logging industry from its borders.
The situation in these tropical forests is now so severe that any further sacrifice of intact ecosystems to the logging industry should be off the table.
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