from the Institute for Environmental sciences Landau analysed the impact of pesticides such as insecticides and fungicides on the regional biodiversity of invertebrates in flowing waters using data from Germany France and Victoria in Australia.
New concepts linking ecology with ecotoxicology are needed therefore urgently. The current practice of risk assessment is like driving blind on the motorway cautions the ecotoxicologist Matthias Liess.
To date the approval of pesticides has primarily been based on experimental work carried out in laboratories and artificial ecosystems.
To be able to assess the ecological impact of such chemical substances properly existing concepts need to be validated by investigations in real environments as soon as possible.
Pesticides will always have an impact on ecosystems no matter how rigid protection concepts are but realistic considerations regarding the level of protection required for the various ecosystems can only be made
if validated assessment concepts are implemented. The threat to biodiversity from pesticides has obviously been underestimated in the past.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
Climate change is already happening in the Arctic faster than its ecosystems can adapt. Looking at the Arctic is like looking at the canary in the coal mine for the entire Earth system.
Changes in climate may trigger transformations that are simply not reversible within our lifetimes potentially causing rapid changes in the Earth system that will require adaptations by people and ecosystems.
Historically the cold wet soils of Arctic ecosystems have stored more carbon than they have released. If climate change causes the Arctic to get warmer and drier scientists expect most of the carbon to be released as carbon dioxide.
the joint University of Colorado/National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental sciences Boulder Colo.;
and published today in the Journal of Ecology suggest that as pine stands are fragmented increasingly by widespread tree death surviving trees may be hindered in their ability to produce their usually abundant seeds.
With fewer seeds you get less regeneration says ecologist Joshua Rapp affiliated with NSF's Harvard Forest Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) site
In low-cone years less pollen is released reaching extremely few female cones says Elizabeth Crone senior ecologist at the NSF Harvard Forest LTER site
'Rachael Winfree a leading pollination scientist from Rutgers University New jersey USA comments'This is an interesting timely and comprehensive study that tests several ecological hypotheses to answer an important question:
and planning efforts said Bruno Basso Michigan State university ecosystem scientist and Agmip member. Quantifying uncertainties is an important step to build confidence in future yield forecasts produced by crop models said Basso with MSU's geological sciences department and Kellogg Biological Station.
#White-tailed deer and the science of yellow snownew research from wildlife ecologists at Michigan Technological University indicates that white-tailed deer may be making the soil in their preferred winter homes unfit to grow the very trees that protect them there.
Webster and Bump are on the faculty of Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental science.
Their research results were reported online in the journal Ecology published by the Ecological Society of America.
Altering the nitrogen availability in a hemlock stand may affect its ability to continue functioning as a deeryard by changing the types of plants that grow there said Murray first author on the journal article titled Broadening the ecological context of ungulate-ecosystem interactions:
and before the deer population explosion more recently experienced the ecosystem stayed balanced because there were plenty of deeryards and fewer deer.
It was fascinating to discover such complex interactions which have implications for sustainable management in a seemingly simple ecosystem Murray added Story Source:
Researchers at the Institute of Social Ecology at the AAU have shown that while land is used more efficiently simultaneously the intensity of land use has increased continuously.
and forestry bioenergy production construction of buildings and infrastructures soil degradation or human induced vegetation fires--and thus not available to other ecosystem processes.
and Christoph Plutzar from the Institute of Social Ecology and Tim Searchinger from Princeton university arrived at a surprising result:
The impressive increase in efficiency gains in crop and livestock yields have been achieved at considerable ecological costs.
and putting high pressure on ecosystems The researchers thus call for caution: Caveats are warranted concerning bioenergy strategies.
and we have to be careful to prevent any potential negative consequences of forms land use intensification that further increase the pressure on ecosystems.
Why Our Ancestor's Diets Matterthe earliest human ancestor to consume substantial amounts of grassy foods from dry more open savannas may signal a major and ecological and adaptive divergence from the last common ancestor we shared with African great apes
and the University of California at Davis. The study published online in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental science
Their 2009 feature article in Environmental science and Technology suggested the amount of water required to bring biofuels to market may be prohibitive;
and plays havoc with ecosystems and biodiversity. ZSL together with collaborators from Queen Mary University of London Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and University of Malaya continues to work closely with Malaysian palm oil producers in determining
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology Jena Germany discovered that the ability of Manduca sexta moths to recognize changes in the profile of volatile compounds released by plants being attacked by Manduca caterpillars allows them to lay their eggs on plants that are less likely
Ideal conditions for Manduca offspringnow the scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology show another interesting effect of the chemical odor conversion:
Ecology and Neurobiology The researchers also identified the neural mechanism that allows moths to detect the slightest changes in the volatile profile of plants that have already been attacked by caterpillars.
The combination of such neurological experiments and ecological field studies are very promising and may provide further insights into odor-guided behavior of insects in nature and agriculture.
The above story is provided based on materials by Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Satellite data reveal how tropical ecosystems may respond to climate extremestree cover in the tropics will likely change in surprising ways as climate change increases the frequency of extreme rainfall events according to a study by scientists from Wageningen University published today in Nature Climate Change.
Understanding how ecosystems respond to climate variability is a priority in a fast changing globe says Marten Scheffer who leads the research program on tipping points.
Climate events can open windows of opportunity for abrupt changes in ecosystems. We are starting to glimpse on the complexity of these patterns says Scheffer.
but there is also evidence of episodic tree recruitment during extreme rainy years says Milena Holmgren leading author of the study and a specialist on plant ecology.
and opportunities that are inherent to the stability properties of these ecosystems that still cover massive parts of the Earth.
The findings have recently been published in the journal BMC Ecology. Gastrointestinal bacteria are important for digestion immune functions and general health.
However very few studies have documented successfully such rapid evolutionary changes in ecosystems that have been modified by human activity.
and structure of ecosystems because critical ecological interactions are being lost said Galetti. This involves the loss of key ecosystem functions that can determine evolutionary changes much faster than we anticipated.
Our work highlights the importance of identifying these key functions to quickly diagnose the functional collapse of ecosystems.
The report by Galetti et al was supported by the Fundaã§Ã£o de Amparo do Estado de SãO Paulo Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientã fico and Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia
But by the end of this century average global temperatures are likely to rise by another 1 F (0. 6 C) leading some scientists to predict the demise of the world's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem.
Restoring degraded ecosystems or planting new forests helps store some of the carbon dioxide that was emitted from past land use activities.
Other researchers included Stuart Pimm Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology Duke university; Grant Harris chief of biological sciences (Southwest region) U s. Fish and Wildlife Service;
It appears in the ACS journal Environmental science & Technology. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change
It appears in the ACS journal Environmental science & Technology. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change
and Policies for Provision of Ecosystem Services Nord n explores the weaknesses of PES programmes
Essays on Behavioral Economics and Policies for Provision of Ecosystem Servicesstory Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Gothenburg.
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)--an independent body modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. Zakri a national of Malaysia who cochaired 2005's landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and serves also as science advisor to his country's prime minister cited fast-growing evidence that we are hurtling towards irreversible environmental tipping points that once passed would reduce the ability of ecosystems to provide essential goods and services to humankind.
The incremental loss of Amazon rainforest for example may seem small with shortsighted perspective but will eventually accumulate to cause a larger more important change he said.
and fires could cause much of the Amazon forest to transform abruptly to more open dry-adapted ecosystems threatening the region's enormous biodiversity and priceless services he added.
and ecosystem services is an important but missing element in the international response to the biodiversity crisis Dr. Zakri told the 7th Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment demonstrated that such an intergovernmental platform can create a clear valuable policy-relevant consensus from a wide range of information sources about the state trends
and outlooks of human-environment interactions with focus on the impacts of ecosystem change on human well-being.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides our baseline he said. The IPBES will tell us how much we have achieved where we are on track where we are not why and options for moving forward.
The above story is provided based on materials by Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES.
This research has been published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. The Bechstein's Bat (Myotis bechsteinii) has a broad distribution:
and Holocene says Dr Marã a Napal leading author of thepaper published in Forest Ecology and Management.
To test this hypothesis the UPV/EHU researchers studied the ecology of the species in the Mediterranean and Atlantic climate domains of the Iberian peninsula.
More flexible in the Mediterraneanin the Atlantic as well as Mediterranean domain the observations were consistent with the data available on the ecology of the species. M. bechsteinii prefer roosts carved out by woodpeckers in the trunks of living oak trees located inside the forest
This study confirms that the M. bechsteinii is a forest specialist with a relatively narrow ecological niche
Both areas of study offer conditions that meet the ecological needs of the species and it could also be said that
contrary to our expectations and based on the distribution area and data on the ecology of the species available to date in the Mediterranean localities the conditions are even more lax than in the Atlantic points out the researcher.
but ignoring this reality may lead us to draw wrong conclusions about the ecological needs of certain species
and Charles Perrings studied the effects of reforestation on a'bundle'of ecosystem services: dry-season water flows carbon sequestration timber and livestock production.
Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) their study--Bundling ecosystem services in the Panama canal Watershed--examines precipitation topography vegetation
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNET. Simonit and Perrings found that only 37 percent of the currently forested area positively impacts dry-season water flows offering up roughly 37.2 million cubic meters of seasonal flow (equivalent to US $16. 37 million
Water supply is however only one amongst many ecosystem services affected by reforestation of the watershed said Perrings a professor in the School of Life sciences in ASU's College of Liberal arts and Sciences.
and water is not the only ecosystem service supplied. Both natural forest and teak plantations offer benefits in the form of carbon sequestration and timber products among other things and these should be weighed against any water losses said Perrings.
while providing other important ecosystem services. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Arizona State university College of Liberal arts and Sciences.
With few exceptions this and other ultra-small frogs are associated with moist leaf litter in tropical wet forests--suggesting a unique ecological guild that could not exist under drier circumstances.
and as diverse species as possible so that ecosystems are resilient to whatever stresses they face in the future.
Largest ever to be mappedswedish scientists have mapped the gene sequence of Norway spruce (the Christmas tree)--a species with huge economic and ecological importance
Professor Bill Kunin Professor of Ecology at the University of Leeds said: Most observers have been saying that the 1992 Rio Earth Summit targets to slow biodiversity loss by 2010 failed
The study published in the journal Ecology Letters found a 30 per cent fall in local bumblebee biodiversity in all three countries between the 1950s and the 1980s.
A new article published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management by U s. Forest Service scientists synthesizes recent findings on the interactions between fire and climate and outlines future research needs.
Wildfire is a disturbance of ecosystems says Liu. Besides the atmospheric impacts wildfires also modify terrestrial ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration soil fertility grazing value biodiversity and tourism.
The effects can in turn trigger land use changes that in turn affect the atmosphere. The article concludes by outlining issues that lead to uncertainties in understanding fire-climate interactions
which miss much of the fine-scale variation in temperature that individual animals experience on the ground said the article's lead author Michael Logan a Ph d. student in ecology and evolutionary biology.
and other factors increase the severity of cheatgrass invasion in sagebrush steppe one of North america's most endangered ecosystems.
The work was published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology by researchers from Oregon State university Augustana College and the U s. Geological Survey.
and head of the OSU Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society and co-author on the study.
and bunchgrass ecosystem Doescher said. That type of community will protect the native plant and wildlife species and benefit sustainable rangeland use at the same time.
The study outlines the complex ecological processes that can promote cheatgrass invasion and the indirect role overgrazing plays in that process.
and in most cases the native ecosystem never recovers Reisner said. Many of the plant and animal species that were there can disappear mostly replaced by cheatgrass that offers poor forage for cattle.
Continued research is needed to quantify the threshold levels of cattle grazing that would still maintain a healthy native ecosystem.
Beginning around two million years ago early stone toolmaking humans known scientifically as Oldowan hominin started to exhibit a number of physiological and ecological adaptations that required greater daily energy expenditures including an increase in brain
Through a combination of the forest biomass removal itself and the resulting climate change which feeds back on the ecosystem productivity the researchers calculate that biomass on the ground could decline by up to 65 per cent for the period 2041-2060brazil faces a huge
however as the natural ecosystems sustain food production maintain water and forest resources regulate climate
scientists at the Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory (Coweeta) located in Otto North carolina published online in the journal Ecological Applications and available now in preprint format.
and plant communities in riparian habitats but ecosystem function throughout these areas. The study was conducted at the U s. Forest Service Coweeta Hydrologic Laboratory in the Nantahala Mountains of western North carolina.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
#Plants talk to plants to help them growhaving a neighborly chat improves seed germination finds research in Biomed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology.
and food safety where none need exist say scientists for The Nature Conservancy writing in the Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Farming practices for food safety that target wildlife are damaging valuable ecological systems despite low risk from these animals said lead author Sasha Gennet.
An overabundance of fertilizer has created problems for domestic drinking water as well as the ecosystems of the Salinas River watershed and its outlet Monterey Bay.
The policies that these distributors are forming are very narrow said Lisa Schulte Moore an agricultural ecologist at Iowa State university who is affiliated not with the Nature Conservancy study.
The above story is provided based on materials by Ecological Society of America. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
--and the ecosystems that depend on them--will move from one area to another as global temperatures rise.
Boreal ecosystems encircle the planet's high latitudes covering swaths of Canada Europe and Russia in coniferous trees and wetlands.
Scientists use incredibly complex computer simulations called Earth system models to predict the interactions between climate change and ecosystems such as boreal forests.
This means that boreal ecosystems are expected to store even more carbon than they do today. But the Berkeley Lab research tells a different story.
The difference lies in the prediction that as boreal ecosystems follow the warming climate northward their southern boundaries will be overtaken by even warmer
I found that the boreal ecosystems ringing the globe will be pushed north and replaced in their current location by
Here boreal ecosystems will have to race poleward in order to keep up with their climates. They'll also be encroached by warmer climates from the south.
because they're implicit in the spatial distribution of ecosystems. In addition Earth system models predict carbon loss by placing vegetation at a given point and then changing various climate properties above it.
A genetic resource for cultivated plantsa symbol of Saharan mountain ecosystems the Laperrine's olive tree is a source of wood for local populations.
This research into the ecology and evolutionary history of the Laperrine's olive tree helps to better identify the danger facing this tree--endemic to the Sahara desert
There are several alternatives to using neonicotinoids and other pesticides according to Simon Potts professor of biodiversity and ecosystem services at Reading University UK.
This relationship is explored by David Wilson of Ecology and Heritage Partners and Anna Wilson from the University of Melbourne in Australia in a paper published in the Springer journal Human ecology.
and have unexpected and damaging effects on natural ecosystems. Additionally new research from the zoo's Urban Wildlife Institute reveals how the presence of the invasive shrub in forest preserves and natural areas correlates to increased prevalence of carnivores.
In some areas like Lake County Forest Preserve District where Sacerdote-Velat works regularly ecologists and land managers have been committed to removing buckthorn from the area.
While we've made a lot of progress in understanding the ecological consequences to animals that are exposed unintentionally to insecticides the evolutionary consequences are understood poorly said study principal investigator Rick Relyea Pitt professor of biological sciences and director of the University's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology.
The experiments were conducted at Pitt's Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology from 2009 to 2012. Story Source:
#Traditional ranching practices enhance African savannathat human land use destroys natural ecosystems is cited an oft assumption in conservation
but ecologists have discovered that instead traditional ranching techniques in the African savanna enhance the local abundance of wild native animals.
The team of ecologists based at the Mpala Research center in Kenya found that trees close to the edges of glades grew faster
which is described in Ecology's April issue. Our findings are given particularly exciting how long glades persist in the savanna.
This means that even decades after the pastoralists move on they leave fertile footprints across the landscape that significantly alter the dynamics of the entire ecosystem.
It is important to note that overgrazing can have myriad detrimental impacts on ecosystems. This project simply demonstrates that traditional corralling techniques in Kenya leave a landscape-scale legacy that can bolster local abundances of native plants and animals.
We must strive to find ways that our impacts on ecosystems can work in concert with natural processes.
or to eutrophication of aquatic ecosystems through water run off. The biologists said crops could be made more efficient in using water through discoveries in plant transport proteins that regulate the stomatal pores in the epidermis of leaves where plants lose more than 90 percent of their water through transpiration.
Discrete event simulations are used to model irregular systems with behavior that cannot be described by equations such as communication networks traffic flows economic and ecological models military combat scenarios and many other complex systems.
but this also means that one-third of the plots had introduced no species said Beth Schulz a research ecologist at the Pacific Northwest Research Station who led the study
or escaped cultivation nonnative plants ultimately can become invasive displacing native species degrading habitat and altering critical ecosystem functions.
Such a process is used broadly for human-health and ecological risk assessments throughout the federal government.
As a major fruit-eater the white-lipped peccary plays an important ecological role in rainforests and other habitats as a seed predator and disperser and it is a favorite prey of jaguars and pumas.
question in plant ecology. In addition to explaining how fires lead to regeneration of forests and grasslands their findings may aid in the development of plant varieties that help maintain
and restore ecosystems that support all human societies. This is a very important and fundamental process of ecosystem renewal around the planet that we really didn't understand says co-senior investigator Joseph P. Noel professor and director of Salk's Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical
Biology and Proteomics. Now we know the molecular triggers for how it occurs. Noel's co-senior investigator on the project Joanne Chory professor and director of Salk's Plant Molecular and Cellular Biology laboratory says the team found the molecular wake-up call for burned forests.
This created an intensely competitive environment that was ultimately detrimental to the entire forest ecosystem.
when plant ecosystems started to flourish on the terrestrial earth and fire became a very important part of ecosystems to free up nutrients locked up in dying and dead plants.
More research is needed to understand exactly how the change in shape of the KAI2 protein activates a genetic pathway that regulates germination says Chory the Howard H. and Maryam R. Newman Chair in Plant Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical
and how plant ecosystems forests and grasslands renew themselves. The work was supported by the National institutes of health grants 5r01gm52413 and GM094428 National Science Foundation awards EEC-0813570 and MCB-0645794 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
#Ecological knowledge offers perspectives for sustainable agriculturea smart combination of different crops such as beans and maize can significantly cut the use of crop protection agents
Integrating ecological knowledge from nature with knowledge of crops opens up the prospect of a sustainable strategy that will increase yield per hectare at reduced environmental costs.
This was the assertion of Prof Niels Anten in his inaugural speech upon accepting the post of Professor of Crop and Weed Ecology at Wageningen University on Monday 22 april.
'We need to conduct much more research to better understand how to utilize the potential provided by natural ecological processes'said Professor Anten.
'In his inaugural address entitled'Crop ecosystems as diverse playing fields'Professor Niels Anten discusses the parallel development of two fields the ecology of natural systems such as forests and the ecology of agriculture.
and Weed Ecology he will be looking at the connections between these areas of study for the benefit of sustainable crops with high yields.
'We will need therefore also to look at other more ecological solutions'says Professor Anten.''In short in order to achieve a sustainable increase in food production we will need to deploy all the weapons in our arsenal;
among these the opportunities produced by ecological interactions have to date been neglected largely.''Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Wageningen University and Research Centre.
#Ecology buys time for evolution: Climate change disrupts songbirds timing without impacting population size (yet) Songbird populations can handle far more disrupting climate change than expected.
But without (slow) evolutionary rescue it will not save them in the end says an international team of scientists led by The netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW) in Science this week.
It's a real paradox explain Dr Tom Reed and Prof Marcel Visser of The netherlands Institute of Ecology.
--and ecological mismatch are linked and it is a real eye-opener. Reed: It all seems so obvious once you've calculated this
The above story is provided based on materials by Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO-KNAW. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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