Saving the world's forests requires us to close the massive gulf between international promises
tested cultures in the laboratory and water samples from California lakes ponds and streams. The Hyalella amphipods are aquatic crustaceans commonly used by scientists and agencies as an indicator species of a healthy unpolluted environment.
but runoff during rains can enter a lake pond or stream and contaminate a non-target species like H. azteca.
and rivers to avoid detection. The field and CAO data confirmed up to 94%of the CLASLITE mine detections.
In addition to wreaking direct havoc on tropical forests gold mining releases sediment into rivers with severe effects on aquatic life.
just add waterfrom a fish-eye view rice fields in California's Yolo Bypass provide an all-you-can-eat bug buffet for juvenile salmon seeking nourishment on their journey to the sea.
That's according to a new report detailing the scientific findings of an experiment that planted fish in harvested rice fields earlier this year resulting in the fattest fastest-growing salmon on record in the state's rivers.
and laboratory director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis. We still have some things to learn
Most former floodplain wetlands are inundated now only during major floods. The report said access to floodplain habitats
A land sea and space-grant university UNH is the state's flagship public institution enrolling 12300 undergraduate and 2200 graduate students.
#Hypoxia Issues in the Gulf of Mexicothe Mississippi river Basin is home to much of the United states'fertile crop land.
Increasing nutrient levels affects our rivers lakes and oceans. Single cell plants called phytoplankton feed off the increased nutrients
so start a cascade of events that leads to low oxygen levels in the water bodies.
The dead zone in the Gulf of mexico where the Mississippi meets the ocean has received much attention in the last decade and led to the creation of the Mississippi river/Gulf of mexico Watershed Nutrient Task force.
--and specialized wetland systems also reduce nutrient export. Helmers admits the challenges are more complex than changing the inputs to our crops such as corn and soybean.
while positive net revenues could be produced in West Coast and Northern Rockies states with active timber markets the central Rocky mountain states of Colorado Utah and Wyoming
and current grower management practices of the central coast region of California said corresponding author Timothy Hartz.
and there are fish consumption advisories for this contaminant in many Illinois rivers. DDT was banned in the U s. in the early 1970s after decades of widespread use.
Since the otters were collected from counties all over Central Illinois the findings could indicate that some watersheds have a worse contamination problem than others Carpenter said.
and wildlife are being exposed to in different watersheds. More research is needed to understand the factors that contribute to the river otters'exposure to these chemicals Mateus-Pinilla said.
In some watersheds humans may have the same kind of risk because they're eating the same kinds of fish that the otters might be.
School of engineering and Applied sciences (SEAS. It is fully within our power as a nation to reduce our impact.
The team of scientists--comprising researchers from Harvard SEAS the National park service the USDA Forest Service the U s. Environmental protection agency
but they're integral for everything else that's dependent on them explains lead author Raluca A. Ellis who conducted the research as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard SEAS.
outbreak that is tied to long-term changes in sea-surface temperatures from the Northern Atlantic ocean a trend that is expected to continue for decades.
The CU-Boulder study area included sites in the White river Routt Arapaho Roosevelt and Grand mesa national forests as well as in Rocky mountain national park.
The strongest climate correlation to spruce beetle outbreaks was above average annual values for the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation or AMO a long-term phenomenon that changes sea-surface temperatures
In addition to AMO the researchers looked at two other ocean-atmosphere oscillations--the El nino southern oscillation and the Pacific Decadal Oscillation--as well as past temperatures precipitation and aridity to better understand the spruce beetle outbreaks.
#Wetland restoration in the northern Everglades: Watershed potential and nutrient legaciesto most people restoration of Florida's Everglades means recovering
and protecting the wetlands of south Florida including Everglades national park. But what many don't realize is how intimately the fortunes of the southern Everglades are tied to central Florida's Lake Okeechobee and lands even further north.
The Everglades at the southern tip of Florida--the remains of what was once a vast ecosystem--is interconnected with a large hydrologic system that really begins in Orlando with the northern Everglades says Patrick Bohlen a professor of biology at University of Central Florida.
The heart of the system is Lake Okeechobee he continues which collects water from the northern Everglades region.
This water then used to flow from the lake into the Everglades of the south. But this natural path of water has been altered greatly by people leading to a host of environmental problems that state and federal scientists policy makers conservationists
On Nov 4 Bohlen will present Wetland Restoration in the Northern Everglades: Watershed Potential and Nutrient Legacies.
and urbanization and agriculture now send runoff laden with fertilizers and other contaminants into Lake Okeechobee.
So much of the water that historically flowed south from Lake Okeechobee is diverted now to estuaries on Florida's east and west coasts.
while the coastal estuaries receive far too much from the lake. Although a connection hasn't been made definitively heavy flows of nutrient-rich freshwater into the estuaries are suspected in die offs of eelgrass manatees and pelicans;
huge blooms of algae; and zones of oxygen-starved water Bohlen says. The situation reached a crisis this summer
ever since problems with Lake Okeechobee first emerged in the 1980s. During his talk Bohlen will first summarize these issues
Cattle ranching is the main land use directly north of the lake. So one restoration practice is to pay ranchers to restore wetlands
or create ponds to hold water on their lands. This way water from the northern Everglades doesn't flow as quickly or in as large amounts into Lake Okeechobee taking pressure off the lake its dike and the estuaries.
It may also be cheaper to store water in this manner rather than in huge public works projects.
Restored wetlands are generally very good in fact at removing nitrogen from the system. Phosphorus is trickier.
and sea buckthorn according to a new study published today in the Canadian Journal of Plant science.
Thus our work supports the commercial development of buffaloberry chokecherry and sea buckthorn berries. According to the study:
but more than half are under-productive due to excessive saline content from the Aral sea basin. Egamberdieva has been studying soil bacterial communities for more than 10 years.
#Aggressive fungal pathogen causes mold in fruits, vegetablesa research team led by a molecular plant pathologist at the University of California Riverside has discovered the mechanism by
The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Riverside. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Now a research team led by entomologists at the University of California Riverside has published a study that focuses on an anthropogenic pollutant:
The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Riverside. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Blue water is found in lakes rivers reservoirs or aquifers. It is used for many purposes such as drinking water water for homes and businesses and irrigation water for agriculture.
Now researchers at the University of California Riverside have identified these DEET-detecting olfactory receptors that cause the repellency--a major breakthrough in the field of olfaction.
and could one day be used to prevent the transmission of deadly vector-borne diseases such as malaria dengue West Nile virus and yellow fever.
With the help of UC Riverside's Office of Technology Commercialization (OTC) Ray is exploring options for commercializing the technology.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Riverside. The original article was written by Iqbal Pittalwala.
or Okeechobee gourd an endangered wild relative of squash that grows only on the shores of Lake Okeechobee;
The downside of nitrogen fertilization is that run off of nitrates to the surface waters or leaching of nitrates to groundwater cause problems with water quality and eutrophication in lakes.
The recent algal blooms on Lake Winnipeg are a prime example of this nitrogen pollution.
#Caribou may be affected indirectly by sea-ice loss in the Arcticmelting sea ice in the Arctic may be leading indirectly to fewer caribou calf births and higher calf mortality in Greenland according to scientists at Penn State university.
Eric Post a Penn State university professor of biology and Jeffrey Kerby a Penn State graduate student have linked the melting of Arctic sea ice with changes in the timing of plant growth on land
The ongoing decline in sea ice now has been associated with increases in local temperatures inland in many parts of the Arctic.
We therefore hypothesized that sea-ice decline was involved in local warming and the associated advancement of the growing season for plants at the study site and so we set out to test that hypothesis Post said.
and Kerby used the statistically robust relationship between sea ice and the timing of plant growth to hindcast trophic mismatch to 1979
Post added that he and his team intend to study other ecological communities living near sea ice in future research.
Sea ice is part of a broader climate system that clearly has important effects on both plants and animals.
Exactly how sea-ice decline might affect species interactions in this and other types of food webs on land in the Arctic is a question that deserves greater attention Post said.
and excess fertilizer can find its way into rivers and streams damaging the delicate water systems.
and pharmaceutical products into waterways is often based on a belief that as the compounds degrade the ecological risks naturally decline.
and makes its way into waterways mainly through runoff. The steroid has been considered safe due to its rapid degradation with studies pointing to an environmental half-life of less than a day.
The researchers validated the lab results with two experiments in the field--one with water culled from the Iowa River in Iowa City Iowa
and has since been identified in San diego Imperial Riverside San bernardino Orange Los angeles Ventura Santa barbara Kern and Tulare counties resulting in quarantines and restricted areas.
and waterways by agricultural chemicals as well as carbon costs because of vehicles and artificial fertiliser necessary to maintain the pasture.
and more recently embedding ashes in ocean reefs --or even giving the departed a sendoff with a fireworks display that includes ashes.
The temporal and spatial scope of the study--15 years and entire watersheds--is unique
The researchers reported that trees in the calcium-treated watershed produced 21 percent more wood and 11 percent more leaves than their counterparts in an adjacent control site.
Moreover watersheds along the eastern corridor of the United states had been exposed to more acid rain because of the greater number of coal-burning power plants in the region.
and the Adirondacks of New york. For the Hubbard Brook study a helicopter spread 40 tons of dry calcium pellets over a 29-acre watershed over several days in October 1999.
The calcium was designed to slowly work its way into the watershed over many years. This was restoration not fertilization said Battles.
Researchers monitored the forest over the next 15 years comparing the treatment area with an adjacent watershed that had the same characteristics
The trees in the calcium-treated watershed were able to recover faster from a severe ice storm that hit the region in 1998.
Both Schindler and Battles noted that the high cost of adding calcium to the soil would likely limit its use to targeted watersheds rather than as a treatment for vast areas of affected forests Prevention is always preferable
or washing application equipment in rivers also contributes to contamination downstream. The team collected blood samples from 14 adult caiman and analyzed them for traces of 70 types of pesticide.
In addition Makira's forests serve as a zone of watershed protection providing clean water to over 250000 people in the surrounding landscape.
#Strategies for improved management of fresh market spinachthroughout California's fertile central coast region fresh spinach is a high-production high-value crop.
and cause yields in Coast Province to fall as much as 25 percent. Another model offered a very different scenario.
and into lakes and streams) could harm aquatic life. Although conventional wastewater treatment processes were designed not to remove trace pyrethroid residues we found in an earlier study of our existing treatment processes that the treatment processes were quite effective at pyrethroid removal he explained.
while a second group from a lake in British columbia preferred hiding out and were less able to maintain the precisely parallel formation required for schooling.
Gan and colleagues at the University of California-Riverside launched the study because drought and water shortages in the American southwest and in other arid parts of the world are using water recycled from municipal sewage treatment plants to irrigate food crops as the only option Water from toilets
Traditionally however sewage treatment plants simply discharge the water into rivers or streams. The effluent still may contain traces of impurities including the remains of ingredients in prescription drugs antibacterial soaps cosmetics shampoos
For instance there are some areas along the river that contribute too much fertilizer runoff. An unexpected consequence of the payouts was that some farmers flush with cash over-fertilized their fields to boost crop yields.
The program is now using RIOS software developed at Stanford by the Natural Capital Project to pinpoint high-risk areas.
Another way of envisioning the volume of the resource potentially available worldwide each year is to imagine 14 months watching the outflow from the Mississippi river into the Gulf of mexico.
More than half was used for environmental purposes such as landscape irrigation recreation and river maintenance. Wastewater use in agriculture and industry is not substantial accounting only for 7%and 1%of the treated wastewater respectively.
which Endres holds a leadership role is looking at how the value of sustainability practices can be measured at the watershed eco-shed or air-shed level rather than on the scale of individual farms.
The region is downwind of the Ohio river Valley coal power plants and experienced high amounts of acidic pollution--caused by sulfur dioxide emissions--in the 20th century.
Researchers analyzed tree rings back to the early 1900s when sulfur dioxide deposition throughout the Ohio river Valley began to increase.
and the Ohio river Valley had reduced fossil fuel emissions. Similar to the post-1980 data data from the 1930s showed improved tree growth and physiology.
and is mediated by interactions with the ocean and atmosphere. The fast effects of aerosols on clouds have been studied intensely
but their long-term ocean-mediated effect has received little attention. A team of scientists at the IPRC and Scripps has provided now important new insights based on results from experiments with three state-of-the-art climate models.
Even though aerosols and greenhouse gases are concentrated in vastly different regions of Earth all three models revealed similar regional effects on rainfall over the ocean.
and greenhouse-gas-induced changes in rainfall appear to be mediated by the spatial patterns of sea surface temperature.
Although much of the aerosol research has focused on microphysical processes over the ocean the climate response to aerosols appears to be insensitive to details of the micro-processes in clouds Xie said.
and by aerosols share a common set of ocean-atmospheric feedback structures explaining the spatial resemblance between the two types of response.
We want to probe the ocean-atmosphere interaction mechanisms that mediate these rainfall patterns and to determine what forms the foundation.
Dr. Beth Middleton of the U s. Geological Survey National Wetlands Research center and Evelyn Anemaet of Five Rivers Services Inc. discovered a way to simplify the construction of dendrometer bands.
Baldcypress swamps are an ecosystem that once spread across the southeastern and eastern United states. They are currently being restored in some areas of the Gulf Coastal plain after years of degradation from agriculture saltwater intrusion and pests like the tent caterpillar.
#Changing river chemistry affects Eastern US water suppliesuman activities are changing the basic chemistry of many rivers in the Eastern U s. with potentially major consequences for urban water supplies
In the first survey of its kind researchers looked at long-term records of alkalinity trends in 97 streams and rivers from Florida to New hampshire.
Over time spans of 25 to 60 years two-thirds of the rivers had become significantly more alkaline
Paradoxically higher acid levels in rain soil and water caused by human activity are major triggers for these changes in river chemistry said associate professor Sujay Kaushalof the University of Maryland.
and even concrete sidewalks dissolving alkaline particles that wash off into streams and rivers. Scientists have studied the effects of increased chemical weathering in small mountain streams tainted by acid runoff where the process can actually help rebalance streams'ph levels.
But researchers have not looked at the accumulating levels of alkalinity in downstream reaches of numerous major rivers
It's like rivers on Rolaids Kaushal said. We have some natural antacid in watersheds.
In headwater streams that can be a good thing. But we're also seeing antacid compounds increasing downriver.
Alkalinity has risen over the past several decades in rivers that provide water for Washington D c. Philadelphia Baltimore Atlanta and other major cities the researchers reported.
Also affected are rivers that flow into water bodies already harmed by excess algae growth such as the Chesapeake bay.
But meanwhile there are these lagging effects of river alkalinization showing up across a major region of the U s. How many decades will river alkalinization persist?
The team focused on Eastern rivers which are often important drinking water sources for densely populated areas
The researchers also found that the chemical weathering of these carbonate rocks adds to the carbon burden in rivers
Nitrogen-rich fertiliser runoff is the primary cause of oxygen depletion in oceans lakes and rivers leading to aquatic'dead zones.'
'This is a whole new approach to plant nutrition says Dr Peter Leggo of the Department of Earth sciences who developed the material.
and watershed improvement program leader based in Albuquerque N m. Red means high-severity fire she explained
--and the red areas were concentrated in a watershed drainage that fed communities west of Las Cruces N m
as soon as the flames die down to help protect reservoirs watersheds and infrastructure from post-fire floods and erosion.
The teams focus on areas at unacceptable risk she said which typically means that post-fire flooding would damage communities watersheds and infrastructure.
and topographical maps that identify steep slopes and watersheds. After the Silver Fire for example they identified severely burned areas upstream of a community campgrounds and forest roads.
It's how you figure out what the watershed response is going to be. For more information about Landsat visit:
Given the biomass of crocodiles in many subtropical and tropical wetlands and their capacity for ingesting large numbers of fruits we consider it likely that crocodilians function as significant seed dispersal agents in many freshwater ecosystems.
The fossilized R. eurasiaticus that Yuan and his team unearthed was preserved in lake sediments suggesting that the creature may have lived on the shores.
This research was financed co by the multidisciplinary research partnership'Biotechnology for a sustainable economy'of Ghent University the DOE Great lakes Bioenergy Research center and the'Global Climate and Energy Project'(GCEP.
field records showed that it occurred in a unique area of the northern Andes mountains at 5000 to 9000 feet above sea level--elevations much higher than the known species of olingo.
And when these dead massive trees topple into adjacent streams they disrupt water flow forcing the gushing river around over and under these new obstacles.
a combination of deep slow-moving backwaters and shallow fast-moving channels that provide important microhabitats critical to salmon in different developmental stages.
Moreover conservation of Primorye's forests and rivers sustains habitat for many other species: including eight salmon and trout species that spawn there;
Blakiston's fish owl is a clear indicator of the health of the forests rivers
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
Other examples include exhaust rising from a chimney sewage flowing into the ocean and the oil spilling underwater in the 2010 Deepwater horizon disaster.
In all these events a fluid rises into a density-stratified environment like the atmosphere or the ocean.
or how fast oil is gushing from a hole in the sea floor. Baines is now working with volcanologists in Britain to apply his model to historic eruptions like the Campanian event
or ponds instead of catching them from the oceans or streams--and scientists have been trying to figure out how to make growing fish sustainable.
#Disappearance of coral reefs, drastically altered marine food web on the horizonif history's closest analog is any indication the look of the oceans will change drastically in the future as the coming greenhouse world alters marine food webs
Scripps Institution of Oceanography UC San diego paleobiologist Richard Norris and colleagues show that the ancient greenhouse world had few large reefs a poorly oxygenated ocean tropical surface waters
and food webs that did not sustain the abundance of large sharks whales seabirds and seals of the modern ocean.
Aspects of this greenhouse ocean could reappear in the future if greenhouse gases continue to rise at current accelerating rates.
Tropical ocean temperatures reached 35 C (95 F) and the polar oceans reached 12°C (53°F)--similar to current ocean temperatures offshore San francisco. There were no polar ice sheets.
Scientists have identified a reef gap between 42 and 57 million years ago in which complex coral reefs largely disappeared
and the seabed was dominated by piles of pebble-like single-celled organisms called foraminifera. The'rainforests-of-the-sea'reefs were replaced by the'gravel parking lots'of the greenhouse world said Norris The greenhouse world was marked also by differences in the ocean food web with large parts of the tropical and subtropical ocean ecosystems supported by minute
picoplankton instead of the larger diatoms typically found in highly productive ecosystems today. Indeed large marine animals--sharks tunas whales seals even seabirds--mostly became abundant
when algae became large enough to support top predators in the cold oceans of recent geologic times.
The tiny algae of the greenhouse world were just too small to support big animals said Norris. It's like trying to keep lions happy on mice instead of antelope;
Notably despite the disruption to Earth's ecosystems the extinction of species was remarkably light other than a mass extinction in the rapidly warming deep ocean.
In many respects the PETM warmed the world more than we project for future climate change so it should come as some comfort that extinctions were limited mostly to the deep sea said Norris. Unfortunately the PETM also shows that ecological disruption can last tens of thousands of years.
and the atmosphere and oceans have already been heated. There is already some inertia in place Diffenbaugh said.
As a result the world overheats boiling its oceans and filling its atmosphere with steam
In addition nitrate pollution is a health hazard and also causes oxygen-depleted'dead zones'in our waterways and oceans.
Many marine fish species spend their larval stage near the ocean's surface#n environment completely different than the one they are in as adults.
#Are North Atlantic right whales mating in the Gulf of Maine? Using data obtained during six years of regular aerial surveys
and genetics data collected by a consortium of research groups scientists have strengthened evidence pointing to the central Gulf of Maine as a mating ground for North Atlantic right whales according to a study recently published online in the journal Endangered
A high proportion of potential mates aggregated in the central Gulf of Maine between November and January and these same individuals produced a calf a year later.
We are still seeing right whales in the central Gulf of Maine just not in the same numbers.
Mothers and calves are detected during intensive aerial surveys conducted from December through March off the coasts of Florida Georgia South carolina and North carolina.
Increased ocean noise from coastal development could also impact the species by triggering behavioral changes that negatively impact reproduction.
#Rapid upper ocean warming linked to declining aerosolsaustralian scientists have identified causes of a rapid warming in the upper subtropical oceans of the Southern hemisphere.
and preceding cooling trends to ocean circulation changes induced by global greenhouse gas emissions and aerosols predominantly generated in the Northern hemisphere from human activity.
Mr Tim Cowan lead author of the study says his group was interested initially in the three decade long cooling below the surface of the Southern hemisphere subtropical oceans from the 1960s and 1990s.
But what really caught our eye was a rapid warming of these subtropical oceans from the mid-1990s most noticeably in the Indian ocean between 300 m to 1000 m depth said Mr Cowan.
This delay in the modelled Indian ocean warming is likely due to the presence of atmospheric aerosols generated through transport emissions biomass burning and industrial smog together with natural emissions of sea salt
This in turn increases the movement of heat from the Southern hemisphere oceans to the Northern hemisphere oceans via a global oceanic conveyor belt travelling south from the subtropical Indian ocean passing the southern tip of Africa into the south Atlantic
Together with a greenhouse gas-induced southward shift the Indian subtropical ocean gyres towards the Antarctic these processes delay the Indian ocean warming in the models Dr Cai said.
What makes this work fascinating is the fact that human-emitted aerosols have such a large impact on remote ocean temperatures says Mr Cowan.
despite the observed rapid ocean warming quantifying exactly how much is due to declining aerosols or increasing greenhouse gases remains difficult
The research has been supported by the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans National Research Flagship The Australian Climate Change Science Program and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Climate System Science.
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