and a poor ecosystem called a dead zone. 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.
#A functional forest ecosystem is more than just treesin 2011 the University of Jyvã¤skylã¤held an academic conference on the ecological restoration of forests.
This kind of activity is called ecological restoration. For example the European union has committed politically to restore 15 per cent of weakened habitats by 2020 if necessary.
In the publication the researchers suggest that to successful ecological restoration should be planned and implemented at the landscape level.
and conflicting financial interests complicate the optimal use of ecological restoration. The main message of the researchers is that a functioning forest ecosystem is much more than just trees.
A natural forest ecosystem consists of a huge amount of different species and functions. For example species dependent on old trees decayed wood
or burned wood have disappeared in many areas says researcher Panu Halme from the Department of Biological and Environmental science at the University of Jyvã¤skylã¤.
¤Halme is the leading author of the article. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland.
Nitrate contamination of aquatic ecosystems can be reduced by farmers following the 4rs of nutrient stewardship:
Now research on tiger habitat in Nepal published this week's Ecosphere journal of the Ecological Society of America again shows that conservation demands not only good policy but monitoring even years down the road.
In 1996 Nepal added a buffer zone next to the park to both improve the area's ecosystem
In essence this means that the largest pool of tropical carbon On earth has been a black box for ecologists
and ecosystem services in the Amazon it also notes that almost none of the 227 hyperdominant species are consistently common across the Amazon.
Ecologist Miles Silman of Wake Forest University another co-author of the paper calls the phenomenon dark biodiversity.
The study s findings are published today (17 october 2013) in the journalfunctional Ecology. Gardens are more important than ever as a source of food for a wide variety of insects who feed on the nectar
#1#Quantifying variation among garden plants in attractiveness to bees and other flower-visiting insects Functional Ecology (October 2013.
Functional Ecology is a journal of The british Ecological Societ2 Other research at LASI in which the researchers decoded the honey bee communication dances had shown that summer is the most challenging season for bees to find flowers
The above story is provided based on materials by British Ecological Society (BES. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Researchers based at Princeton university found that land ecosystems have kept the planet cooler by absorbing billions of tons of carbon especially during the past 60 years.
Had Earth's terrestrial ecosystems remained a carbon source they would have generated instead 65 billion to 82 billion tons of carbon
The study is the most comprehensive look at the historical role of terrestrial ecosystems in controlling atmospheric carbon explained first author Elena Shevliakova a senior climate modeler in Princeton's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Scott Saleska an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Arizona who studies interactions between vegetation
and climate interacted with vegetation soil and marine ecosystems between 1861 and 2005. The GFDL model predicted changes in climate and in atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide based on fossil fuel emissions of carbon.
Unless you really understand what the land-use processes are it's very hard to say what the system will do said as a whole Shevliakova who worked with corresponding author Stephen Pacala Princeton's Frederick D. Petrie Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology;
Sergey Malyshev a professional specialist in ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton; GFDL physical scientists Ronald Stouffer and John Krasting;
and exchange in regional ecosystems than is recognized typically by global carbon models according to a new paper authored by researchers at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&es).
emissions for the same region according to the paper published in the journal Ecosystems. While models typically take into account how plants
or transport of carbon within an ecosystem says Oswald Schmitz the Oastler Professor of Population
and Community Ecology at F&es and lead author of the paper. Historically the role of animals has been underplayed largely
which eventually led to about 80 percent of the ecosystem to burn annually releasing carbon from the plants
or mediate ecosystem processes that then can have these ramifying effects. We hope this article will inspire scientists
when thinking of local and regional carbon budgets said Peter Raymond a professor of ecosystem ecology at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
The Dartmouth-led study which appears in the journal Ecological Monographs reviewed nearly 500 scientific papers dating to the 1950s making it the most comprehensive review to date of climate change's diverse consequences for forests across the United states Canada
Tree-killing insects and plant diseases are natural elements of healthy forest ecosystems but climate change is rapidly altering the distribution and magnitude of forest pestilence and altering biodiversity and the ecosystem.
For example pine bark beetles have killed recently trees over more area of U s. forests than wildfires including in areas with little previous experience managing aggressive pests.
or above a critical threshold for ecological damage according to a study published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry
The environmental scientists experts in air quality atmospheric chemistry and ecology have been studying the fate of nitrogen-based compounds that are blown into natural areas from power plants automobile exhaust and--increasingly--industrial agriculture.
Nitrogen that finds its way into natural ecosystems can disrupt the cycling of nutrients in soil promote algal overgrowth
and the University of California Irvine--presents evidence that unchecked increases in nitrogen deposition are already threatening the ecology of federally protected natural areas.
In Eastern temperate forests like those in Great smoky mountains national park the most sensitive elements of the ecosystem are the hardwood trees
When you try to write regulations to protect ecosystems however the damage is much harder to quantify says Jacob.
A paper on the subject was published online in the journal Ecology. Co-authors include CU-Boulder geography Professor Thomas Veblen;
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.
and ant specialist Phil Ward professor of entomology at UC Davis. Despite great interest in the ecology and behavior of these insects their evolutionary relationships have never been clarified fully.
To further investigate how bats fit into this picture the researchers surveyed more than 250 bats in remote forest ecosystems in Liberia Guinea and Cote d'ivoire in Western Africa.
Older forests contain surprises for climate science and ecosystem biology. We need to distinguish past disturbances from today's conditions.
This implies that these plants occurred a broad ecological range. The pollen's structure suggests that the plants were pollinated by insects:
Post added that he and his team intend to study other ecological communities living near sea ice in future research.
The new study published online this month in the journal Environmental science and Technology is the first to examine how biochar affects the chemical signaling that's routinely used by soil microorganisms that interact with plants.
It was like ecological Armageddon said Luke Gibson from the National University of Singapore who led the study.
and pharmaceutical products into waterways is often based on a belief that as the compounds degrade the ecological risks naturally decline.
Once invasive plants become established they can alter soil chemistry and shift nutrient cycling in an ecosystem.
Bioavailable nitrogen is frequently limiting in soils yet many invaded ecosystems have more carbon and nitrogen in plant tissues and soils compared with systems dominated by native plants.
Studying disruptions to ecosystems like those seen in plant invasions provides a window into something--specifically the process of co-evolution--that we normally don't get to observe in a single human lifetime.
and changing the ecosystem in the process. By acquiring soil bacteria S. halepense increases the bioavailable nitrogen
and ecosystem functions like nutrient cycling are connected more intimately to micro-scale influences than we might expect summarizes Rout Rout's fascination with bacterial endophytes continues;
and ecosystem researchever wonder what plants do when you're not around? How about an entire forest or grassland?
Additionally it will be useful in a number of other disciplines including geology archaeology biodiversity glaciology and rangeland ecosystem research.
The study findings were reported July 16 2013 in the journal Environmental science and Technology. The research team took into account the sources of electricity used to charge the electric vehicles in evaluating greenhouse gas emissions.
but it's an environmental disaster in the making said Robert B. Jackson Nicholas Professor of Environmental sciences
whether it might make the weed more prolific as well#said Allison Snow professor of evolution ecology
and knowledge from ecological studies like ours can help inform risk assessment and biosafety oversight.#
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
The paper published Sept. 19 in the journal Environmental science and Technology (EST) Letters and led by John Battles professor of forest ecology at the University of California Berkeley also presents strong evidence that acid rain
This study has important implications that go well beyond the forests of the northeastern United states said Dave Schindler a professor of ecology at the University of Alberta in Canada who was not part of this research.
and can be indicative of pesticide damage throughout the ecosystem. Caiman and other aquatic species have been exposed to pesticides from upstream banana plantations even in remote areas of a national wilderness area concluded Grant.
however their erosion of aquatic ecosystems highlights the need for a developed regulatory infrastructure and adequate enforcement.
and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology have discovered. The findings published this week in the journal Ecology Letters show valuable carbon stores
which lie deep below peaty moorlands are at risk from changes in climate and from land management techniques that alter plant diversity.
But the study found that the make-up of the plant community could also play a key role in controlling greenhouse gas emissions from these carbon rich ecosystems as not all vegetation types respond in the same way to warming.
The research supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant took place at Moor House National Nature Reserve high up in the North Pennines a long-term ecological monitoring site for the UK Environmental Change Network.
when heather was present warming increased the amount of CO2 taken up from the atmosphere making the ecosystem a greater sink for this greenhouse gas.
In other words the diversity and make-up of the vegetation which can be altered by the way the land is farmed can completely change the sink strength of the ecosystem for carbon dioxide.
By taking gas samples every month of the year we were able to show that the types of plants growing in these ecosystems can modify the effects of increase in temperature.
and relevance to ecological and climate change scientists and policy makers. Changes in vegetation as well as physical changes in climate should be taken into account
Professor Nick Ostle from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology a joint partner in the research said:
Through carbon credit sales from avoided deforestation the Makira REDD+Project will finance the long-term conservation of one of Madagascar's most pristine remaining rainforest ecosystems harboring rare and threatened plants and animals
According to principal investigators Dr Matthew Struebig and Anthony Turner from the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation Ecology (DICE) these findings challenge a long-held belief that there is limited
Gradient and Comparative Approaches from Borneo'is published In advances in Ecological Research Volume 48 and includes the efforts of Malaysian Indonesian and Canadian researchers in addition to scientists from the University of Kent and the University of East Anglia (UEA) in the UK.
This study is the first field data to be published from the Stability of Altered Forest Ecosystems Project in Sabah Malaysia--a new landscape experiment
The calculations in the Aalto University thesis in systems and operations research show that the ecological footprint of the Finnish economy mainly comes from the primary production of wood energy crops
and ecological footprint are caused by different parts of the economy. It is thought often that reducing environmental impacts would strain the economy Tuomas Mattila says.
For example raw wood's journey through sawmills and wood product manufactories to a new apartment is a production chain that proved to have a significant ecological footprint.
when it comes to influencing atmospheric carbon dioxide said second author Lars Hedin a Princeton professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and the Princeton Environmental Institute.
But they will have harmful effects such as degrading ecosystems and causing food supply problems if other benefits and disbenefits from revegetating agricultural landscapes are taken not also into account in land-use decisions according to an article published in the October issue of Bioscience.
since to Washington University in St louis describe this miniature ecosystem and its players in the Sept. 13 2013 online edition of Nature Communications Our results suggest that successful farming is a complex evolutionary adaptation
#An unprecedented threat to Perus cloud forestsperu's cloud forests are some of the most biologically diverse ecosystems in the world.
and therefore hardest to study ecosystems in the world. To date scientists only believe a fraction of cloud forest tree
Intervention is a strategy conservationists seldom use in this ecosystem but it may be the only way to save it he says.
The author Ashley E. Larsen a Ph d. candidate in the Department of Ecology Evolution and Marine Biology built on an earlier study published in PNAS by extending the temporal dimension of that analysis. That study found a strong positive
Ecological theory suggests that these simplified landscapes should have more insect pest problems due to the lack of natural enemies and the increased size and connectivity of crop-food resources.
There is a debate currently in ecology about what the most efficient land use policy for agricultural production is said Larsen.
and goats is the primary cause of degraded land in the Mongolian Steppe one of the largest remaining grassland ecosystems in the world Oregon State university researchers say in a new report.
and 70 percent of the grassland ecosystem is considered now degraded. The findings were published in Global Change Biology.
The problem poses serious threats to this ecosystem researchers say including soil and water loss but it may contribute to global climate change as well.
Globally however all ecosystems have a distinct function in world climate he said. Vegetation cools the landscape
The study was published in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Ecology Letters. The work was authored co by Stanford biology Professors Gretchen Daily Paul Ehrlich and Elizabeth Hadly;
Though the land use history of the northeastern United states is documented well its ecological consequences remain poorly understood.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
The report appears in ACS'journal Environmental science & Technology. Junguo Liu and colleagues point out that food waste is a global problem with an estimated one-third to one-half of food produced worldwide being lost
and establishing plans for conservation and ecosystem restoration. The study appearing today in PLOS Biology describes a significant challenge for the project which is expected to produce an initial draft tree by the end of the year.
improving forestsa collaborative project involving a Kansas State university ecologist has shown that the Clean Air Act has helped forest systems recover from decades of sulfur pollution and acid rain.
The other level of significance is that environmental legislation can have a tremendous impact on an entire ecosystem.
When it did we saw an entire ecosystem recover from years of acidic pollution. Another interesting finding from the tree ring analysis:
It's kind of interesting that those two very important periods in our history match up perfectly in terms of the responses seen throughout this whole forest ecosystem Nippert said.
This came as a big surprise to us reflected lead-author Shang-Ping Xie a professor of climate science and first Roger Revelle Chair in Environmental science at Scripps.
and ecosystem health has moved now to wheat. Considered a new disease wheat blast is sharply reducing wheat yields in Brazil.
The study Quantifying the legacy of foliar winter injury on woody aboveground carbon sequestration of red spruce trees was published earlier this year in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
#Woodland salamanders indicators of forest ecosystem recoverywoodland salamanders are a viable indicator of forest ecosystem recovery according to researchers from the U s. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station.
when woodland salamanders are found in high abundance it indicates a healthy forest having undergone ecological advancement and ecosystem recovery.
There have been concerns about using indicator species as metrics of ecosystem conditions; however amphibians are increasingly becoming accepted as researchers verify their applicability and usefulness.
Old-growth forests sequester carbon pollution and support the world's most diverse ecosystems. Mill Creek is an old-growth forest located in Del Norte Calif. in a geographically limited coastal redwood forest bioregion
New technologies are making plant-microbe ecosystems easier to study and investment in this area of research could have dramatic benefits says Marilynn Roossinck Pennsylvania State university who helped organize the colloquium.
#New technique for measuring tree growth cuts down on research timetree growth is measured to understand tree health fluxes in carbon sequestration and other forest ecosystem functions.
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.
The swamps provide vital ecosystem functions like carbon storage and water purification. We wanted to be able to look at how baldcypress trees respond to changes in their environment such as differences in temperature water salinity
and aquatic ecosystems a University of Maryland-led study has found. 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.
Kaushal a geologist is the lead author of a paper about the study published August 26 in the online edition of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental science and Technology.
I did not expect that said noted ecologist Gene Likens a co-discoverer of acid rain in 1963 who collaborated with Kaushal on this research.
which is I think increasingly worrisome said Likens a Unversity of Connecticut distinguished research professor and founding director of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies.
The research was funded by NASA Carbon cycle & Ecosystems the National Science Foundation's Long term Ecological Research Program and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
#Ecologists get first bumblebees eye view of the landscapeecologists have produced the most detailed picture yet of how bumblebees use the landscape thanks to DNA technology and remote sensing.
To work out how far bumblebees forage from their nests a team of ecologists from the Centre for Ecology
The above story is provided based on materials by British Ecological Society (BES. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
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 ecological distribution pattern of many living cycads today suggests they have limited and ineffectual seed dispersal.
when it comes to the spatial ecology of plants could it be useful to think of some plant species as also forming
so it's plausible that cycad seed dispersal ecology and colony forming behavior may be extremely ancient
and echo the ecology of dinosaur-plant interaction he concludes but of course we now enter into the realm of speculation.
Hall's interest in the spatial ecology of'colony'forming plants does not stop at cycads;
and leaves but their ecosystem should also be able to process other agricultural byproducts and forestry waste.
The team managed to get 1. 88 grams of isobutanol per liter of fluid in the ecosystem the highest concentration reported to date for turning tough plant materials into biofuels.
#Do herbicides alter ecosystems around the world? Scant research makes it hard to provethe number of humans on the planet has doubled almost in the past 50 years
Can the biochemical effects of pesticides upset entire ecosystems? Professor Heinz KÃ hler and Professor Rita Triebskorn from the University of TÃ bingen's Institute of Evolution and Ecology (Eve) have published a study on the link between pesticides and changing ecological systems
in the latest edition of Science. The two ecotoxicologists cite deficits in the research which have prevented recognition of the consequences of biochemical pesticide effects on a species population or on the composition of biological communities.
and ecosystems changing because of pesticides there are few studies proving the connection without a doubt KÃ hler
and ecological changes in biological communities and ecosystems in regions where intensive farming is practiced. An important role is played by number of rare studies combining experimental fieldwork and research on sections of ecosystems as well as a broad selection of chemical and biological analyses.
An interdisciplinary approach can plausibly demonstrate connections between the effects of chemicals in humans and animals and the often indirect consequences on the population community and ecosystem levels.
KÃ hler and Triebskorn also postulate interdependent effects between pesticides and global warming. The researchers forecast changes to natural selection the spread of infections and the sexual development and fertility of wild animals.
This in turn could have a knock-on effect on populations ecosystems and food chains. The researchers say it is a further challenge for science to show how strongly the effects of pesticides are influenced by climate change
--and to find out which ecological processes are especially sensitive to this interdependence. The links to the effect of pesticides at every level of increasing biological complexity require more thorough research say KÃ hler and Triebskorn.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
Building on similar studies from ecology the researchers found yet more evidence that empirical models may show greater losses
and require fewer inputs are a staple in studying the possible effects of climate change on ecological systems where the data
and drought affected the carbon cycle (the exchange of carbon dioxide between the terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere).
and storms weaken the buffer effect exerted by terrestrial ecosystems on the climate system. In the past 50 years plants
Satellites and recording stations document extreme eventsthe researchers working with Markus Reichstein took different approaches to their study from the ecosystem perspective.
so that they can perform photosynthesis. From this they were able to determine how much biomass the ecosystem in question accumulates during or after an extreme weather event.
Calculations from these values indicate how much carbon an ecosystem absorbs and releases in the form of carbon dioxide.
He and his colleagues expect extreme weather events to have pronounced particularly varied and long-term effects on forest ecosystems.
or storm damage than other ecosystems do; indeed grasslands are unaffected completely by high winds. The researchers also discovered that serious failures to absorb carbonare distributed according to a so-called power law like avalanches earthquakes and other catastrophic events.
For example they want to investigate the way the different ecosystems respond in laboratory and field experiments.
As extreme climate events reduce the amount of carbon that the terrestrial ecosystems absorb and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere therefore continues to increase more extreme weather could result explains Markus Reichstein.
or OPA--uses mice in a more natural ecological context more likely to reveal toxic effects of whatever is being tested he says.
The results of the study are published in the journal Behavioral Ecology. Author Dr Kathryn Arnold from the University of York's Environment Department said:
but it's a clear signal of widespread changes in northern ecosystems The atmospheric carbon dioxide observations are important
because they show the combined effect of ecological changes over large regions says Graven. This reinforces ground-based studies that show that substantial changes are occurring
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.
changes in the extent or species composition of ecosystems; or changes in the timing of plant photosynthesis and respiration.
Simulating complex processes in land-based ecosystems with models is a challenge scientists have found.
While this underestimate does not call into question the response of climate to carbon dioxide concentration in the IPCC models the researchers say it does suggest that a better understanding of what happened during the last 50 years could improve projections of future ecosystem changes.
and colleagues is that Northern ecosystems appear to be behaving differently than they did 50 years ago.
Colm Sweeney of NOAA and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder;
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