Prior studies in animals had suggested that environmental influences before conception might lead to epigenetic changes in the offspring.
Past research suggested environmental influences could have epigenetic effects during development in humans as well. For instance whether Dutch women suffered through post-WORLD WAR II famines during pregnancy apparently influenced how skinny
However there was little strong evidence that environmental factors could trigger permanent changes to DNA throughout the human body Waterland said.
This misconception has lead to the indiscriminate and unjustified persecution of the species. The scavenging brown hyaenas provide an ecosystem service by cleaning up the carcasses as they eat everything including the skin and bones.
These factors mean that of all South africa s large carnivores it has the ecological attributes to allow co-existence with humans within the unprotected farmlands.
The method doesn t impact on the environment or the animals and produces little disturbance to the survey area or individual target animals.
Camera traps are excellent tools that have grown in popularity with conservation ecologists. However every camera trap needs to be set up monitored
and protected areas to reach the designated camera trap sites come rain or shine. In the farmland acquiring permission to gain access to private land was critical.
which normally ended with many empty photographs of grass moving in the wind. I never lost the excitement
Prolonged drought is one of the hallmarks of a warming climate. Texas has been in the grips of widespread drought since late 2010.
EPA Watersense Rebate Finder Upgrade: Remove your thirsty turf grass and replace it with a beautiful drought-tolerant garden that doesn't need precious drinking water
Again check the EPA Watersense Rebate Finder you might qualify for a rebate for making those switches. 4. Use the dishwasher Hand-washing your dishes can use up to 27 gallons of water per session compared to just 3 gallons for a new Energy star-rated dishwasher
Green roofs porous pavement rain gardens and other water-saving techniques are called green infrastructure. More cities and property owners are choosing to invest in these strategies as a way to save water reduce pollution and save millions or billions of dollars over the cost of building new tanks tunnels and traditional water infrastructure.
Habitat & habits Pumas can adapt to a wide variety of climates and habitats. They are found throughout Central and South america.
These cubs are covered typically with spots that can help them blend in with their surroundings. A female will have a litter once every two years.
or farmers they have a very important role in the environment. They keep populations of animals lower down on the food chain in check.
and studying the other measurements collected during the mission could allow scientists to measure how the Alaskan forests are responding to climate change and increasing wildfire frequency.
It s about cities as an advance guard of climate change. If we can look at scales response to urban warming
I hope we can start watching urban ecosystems for problem insects and using that information to stand forewarned about future ecological changes in natural areas.
The experiments we have made by paving our cities and making them heat up may have much more to tell us about how organisms will handle future warming.
The post first ran on NC State Insect Ecology and Integrated Pest Management blog. This post is based on a new study:
Do cities simulate climate change? A comparison of herbivore response to urban and global warming.
and favorable winds may have helped early human settlers colonize New zealand a pair of new studies shows. The remote archipelagos of East Polynesia were among the last habitable places On earth that humans were able to colonize.
when a 600-year-old canoe with a turtle carved on its hull emerged from a sand dune after a harsh storm.
The 9 Craziest Ocean Voyages Separately another group of scientists discovered a climate anomaly in the South Pacific during this era that would have eased sailing from central East Polynesia southwest to New zealand.
Shifty winds A separate recent study examined the climate conditions that may have made possible the long journeys between the central East Polynesian islands and New zealand.
which can act like prehistoric weather stations recording everything from precipitation to wind patterns to atmospheric pressure
and circulation strength. 10 Surprising Ways Weather Changed History Because of today's wind patterns scholars had assumed that early settlers of New zealand would have had to sail thousands of miles from East Polynesia against the wind.
But when the researchers reconstructed climate patterns in the South Pacific from the year 800 to 1600 they found several windows during the so-called Medieval Climate Anomaly
when trade winds toward New zealand were strengthened That anomaly occurred between the years 800 and 1300.)There are these persistent 20-year periods where there are extreme shifts in climate system the study's head author Ian Goodwin a marine climatologist
and marine geologist at Macquarie University in Sydney told Live Science. We show that the sailing canoe in its basic form would have been able to make these voyages purely through downwind sailing.
which these error-filled virus copies become a sort of cloud of genetically-related variants that seemingly work in concert to determine the pathology of their hosts.
and Chinese researchers said is that such clouds of viral infections in colonies are likely responsible for the collapse of hives.
and Chinese researchers concluded Nesbit's most recent Op-Ed was Will Grizzly-Polar bear Hybrid Wake People Up to Changing Climate?.
#Methane Rising As Funding Cuts Threaten Monitoring Network Levels of methane a climate-changing greenhouse gas have been rising since 2007.
but is about 34 times more potent at trapping infrared radiation (the greenhouse effect) than carbon dioxide which is more abundant
The recent string of La Niã a years has meant more rainfall in the tropics leading to more methane Dlugokencky said.
In 2012 NOAA's climate-monitoring budget woes prompted more than 50 scientists to publish a letter in Science warning that shrinking networks would harm long-term efforts to understand
Yet the network's decline comes as methane is becoming a major climate concern. Here are some examples:
Scientists can't quite figure out what caused the round hole in the cloud above the volcano.
Other possibilities could be the shockwave from the eruption pushed the overlying atmosphere upward punching a hole in the cloud
or the clouds there evaporated as the hot ash rose upward. Satellite images have revealed also the aftermath of the eruption.
And scientists such as Robert Crabtree with the Yellowstone Ecological Research center have found evidence that predators like coyotes respond to lethal persecution by producing more pups
They are important contributors to ecosystems providers for their mates and litters and great sources of awe and appreciation for millions of Americans.
If there is one thing that Americans know about the environment of Brazil it is the decimation of Amazon forests for ranching and agriculture.
Researchers from the Wildlife Conservation Society have documented use of the corridors by white-lipped peccaries an important indicator species that reveals much about the health of the ecosystem.
This takes two primary forms both damaging to the natural ecosystem and its animal inhabitants.
Deforestation causes erosion alters water balance eliminates the food and habitat that wildlife need and increases the chance of conflict between people their cows and predators with fewer and fewer prey options.
What they will find will surely alter their perception of Brazil as a land known more for deforestation than sustainable ranching that supports rather than undermines the protection of local wildlife.
Using satellites to measure atmospheric concentrations of climate change-fueling carbon dioxide originating from coal-fired power plants could help verify other countries claims about their emissions of greenhouse gases helping regulators in the U s
which the plants soon to be subject to new EPA emissions rules pollute the local atmospere.
Both plants together release about 30 megatons of CO2 into the atmosphere each year making the area ravaged by climate change-influenced drought the largest point-source of pollution in both North america and South america.
and its coal use is increasing according to a Climate Central analysis . But there are discrepencies in China's greenhouse gas emissions data
and environmental scientist at Los alamos National Laboratory and one of the lead authors of the study.
The U s. Environmental protection agency is releasing a proposed rule on June 2 that is expected to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants including the two New mexico plants included in the Los alamos study.
You May Also Like Carbon dioxide Passes Global 400 ppm Milestone Climate Change Could Warp Rails With#Sun Kinks Cold U s. Winter Caused By Warm Tropical Waters?
Original article on Climate Central i
#Cancer-Fighting Diet: 6 Tips to Reduce Your Risk Following six diet guidelines can reduce your cancer risk researchers say.
One study by researchers at University of California Berkeley found that anarcardic acid is effective at killing the bacteria that causes acne as well as that which causes tooth decay and the erosion of tooth enamel.
Most of my climate-scientist colleagues also talk incessantly about the need to reduce consumption
now that climate change is upon us and the planet needs saving. It is beyond doubt that we have been ramping up the carbon in land air
If we continue down this path there is a finite probability that irreversible changes in glaciers
since past extinctions actually have led to increases in biodiversity due to the opening of new environmental niches.
The World bank has taken the lead in funding climate adaptation and climate resilience projects all over the world in energy infrastructure transportation and agriculture.
But a Global Environmental Facility report notes the need to monitor some of these actions more carefully.
Some climate adaptation and mitigation actions are no-regret decisions (the cost-to-benefit ratio can easily be justified)
and allow future generations to dream about space travel instead of fearing the end of the world due to climate change.
It is human ingenuity that has brought us this far albeit with unintended consequences to the environment.
and technology that will allow us to travel in our driverless cars on solar roadways in our smart cities with no negative impacts on the environment.
The author's most recent Op-Ed was Is Climate Change Response'Fight or Flight'or'Rest and Digest'?
when the weather is cold. Hibernation is a deep sleep that allows a bear to live without food for long periods of time.
#Forest Loss and Climate: Empowering Communities Can Help (Op-Ed) Andrew Steer is the president and CEO of the World Resources Institute a global research organization that works in more than 50 countries.
and is a member of the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development.
The need for a successful climate deal has never been clearer change cannot wait until the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris next year.
and a total of $2. 8 trillion in extreme-weather costs since 1980 the evidence of a changing climate is pervasive and alarming.
No solution to climate change can be found without reducing deforestation which accounts for more than 11 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions.
and fight climate change. The research shows that deforestation rates inside community forests with strong legal recognition
and enforcement are dramatically lower than forests outside those areas: In the Bolivian Amazon deforestation was six times lower;
in the Brazilian Amazon 11 times lower; and in the Guatemala Maya Biosphere 20 times lower.
Stronger rights mean less deforestation a lot less. This finding is highly significant. Globally governments recoginize at least 513 million hectares (1. 2 billion acres) of their lands an area approximately twice the size of India as community-owned or controlled.
Extreme Weather Around the World But these community forests account for only about one-eighth of all forested areas
For example outside the border of the designated Parakanp Indigenous Land in central Brazil evidence of deforestation can be seen on WRI's Global Forest Watch online tool as wide pink streaks of forest loss.
But the Parakanp's 350000 hectares (864000 acres) are virtually free from signs of deforestation with a gain in forest cover in some areas.
Why does deforestation stop at the Parakanp border? First the Brazilian government generally protects indigenous peoples'forest rights.
and other areas could prevent 27 million hectares (66 million acres) of deforestation by 2050.
Recognizing and enforcing community forest rights is untapped an opportunity with huge potential to curb climate change.
and mammal hair all crowded together in the amber fragments offering a rich view of the 20-million-year-old forest ecosystem.
The insect fossil record has great potential to inform people about ancient climate and climate change Heads said.
Entomologist Milton Sanderson unearthed the treasure trove of amber chunks in May 1959 in the Dominican republic armed with a government collecting permit Heads said.
No other bird has darkened so impressively the skies and stirred wonder and awe in the immensity of its flocks as did the passenger pigeon.
With awe he recorded that for hours they darkened the sky like a pall of thunder clouds;
What can society say about this seminal episode in environmental history? What have learned we and
Images of Rare Passenger pigeon Museum Specimens That seems the essence of the passenger pigeon's ecology (consuming abundant mast)
The market hunting of mere millions of birds paled in comparison to the loss of billions that once darkened the skies in search of mast.
and define their ecology? Martha alone could not darken the skies. But on the important centenary of her death we need to reflect
and act upon what can be learned from the dramatic extinction of the species she represented. The clouds that were once dense flocks of passenger pigeons remind us of the darker future for us all
if we fail to appreciate species in the context of the wider ecological role they play.
Follow all of the Expert Voices issues and debates and become part of the discussion on Facebook Twitter andgoogle+.
Climate change might affect the way leaf-peeping season shakes out in the future. Simulations featured in the Climate Change Tree Atlas show how some populations of fall favorites might shift.
Sugar maples for example might be nudged from New england to Canada as their suitable habitat in the United states shrinks over the next century.
Climate change might also postpone the onset of leaf-color changes and leave fall hues lingering later into the year.
As climate change stresses ecosystems already rare plant species could sadly go extinct. One solution is to collect plant
Biologist Sean Hoban uses mathematical and computational tools to develop guidelines for ecologists and others engaged in this work.
As a computational biologist I work in several fields of life science primarily in ecology and genetics and particularly with plants.
or answer questions about complex systems such as will species be able to move northward as the climate warms?
I especially like working in ecology as it involves studying the linkages between living things and their environment and because it requires big-picture thinking
in order to address problems of sustainability conservation and agriculture. What inspires me is knowing that the work I do has many real-world applications.
Specifically some species can only be preserved outside of their natural environments as their wild habitats are in great danger.
and eventually propagate the saved seeds into a future environment. What do you like best about your work?
and large-scale ecosystem processes such as decomposition and nutrient cycling. We are beginning to learn that the genetic diversity of keystone species such as common tree species is very important for the resistance of an ecosystem to disturbance as well as its ability to bounce back after disturbance.
There are still few examples of direct connections from genes to the ecosystem level but this is a whole new realm for both ecologists and geneticists.
Who is your#1 hero and why? Charles darwin of course! He is a hero not only for his contributions to science
but also for his fascinating life story his diligence and tenacity the challenges he faced in bringing radical ideas to the pretty conservative scientific audience of his time and sailing around the world!
Research has shown that male prolactin levels can also surge according to a 2008 review on male lactation published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
Biological and ecological factors may drive emergence of the virus from the forest but clearly the sociopolitical landscape dictates where it goes from there an isolated case
or other pathogens are not usually in the vicinity of humans but rather deep in the forests with little chance of coming into contact with people.
More in depth analysis is needed to better understand the weather conditions this year in Guinea but inhabitants in the region do indeed anecdotally report an exceptionally arid and prolonged dry season Bausch said.
This may be due in part to the extreme deforestation in the area over recent decades he said.
A second grader is about to start learning environmental science along with a cute purple alien named Plum and Plum s friends.
As the program which is designed for children ages six to nine introduces core science concepts#particularly related to ecosystems it models key habits of mind scientists
Our goal was to give kids an understanding of the science underlying healthy ecosystems and sustainability
and clouds fascinate Blorbians; they including Plum have been longing to experience nature On earth. So Plum commandeers a space ship
Soon she s sending them on missions to four different ecosystems the Australian desert the Canadian Rockies the Belizean mangrove swamp and the Bornean jungle.
and learn about the biodiversity of the ecosystems the animated characters are discovering. Children also are encouraged to investigate their real-world surroundings
and document their progress using the web game Nature Sketchpad or the mobile app Plum s Photo Hunt (iphone ipod Touch ipad) allowing children to draw scenes
#oeplum Landing#also provides parents and educators environmental science activities and curricula. A flexible digital curriculum offers informal educators (those at after school programs clubs
and playing the games online but also exploring different aspects of their own environments to date they ve submitted about 70000 photos and drawings.
which we have a user-friendly Cloud-based administration for review editing and posting#Wolsky said.
and explore their surroundings. In July an outside evaluator the Concord Evaluation Group (CEG) will conduct an evaluation to measure the impact of Plum Landing#resources on kids and their families.#
During this time we have seen also an expansion of interest in projects that have environmental science curricula.
If the weather conditions continue to be good for armyworms (generally scattered showers and warm), he says,
the weather conditions may turn against the armyworms and things may gradually subside.
Cutting out the chemicals: Nature Newsozone experts are exploring ways to curb powerful greenhouse gases of their own making under the Montreal Protocol,
arguing that direct regulation would be faster and cheaper than using carbon markets under a global climate treaty.
The idea has been bouncing around in the environmental community for years, but Argentina, the United states and others garnered support to formally explore the idea during the annual Montreal Protocol conference last November in Doha, Qatar.
and government delegates have invited climate negotiators to attend a workshop on the topic in Geneva, Switzerland, in July.
climate change is expanding the Montreal Protocol's horizons. In fact, the Montreal treaty's links to global warming go all the way back to its preamble,
) The team, led by Guus Velders at The netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency in Bilthoven, expects to release another analysis of HFCS in advance of the Geneva workshop this summer.
The US Environmental protection agency says that the resulting greenhouse-gas reductions could equate to around 2. 6 billion tonnes of CO2,
and the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to avoid having to pay the full market value for HFCS.
when he and others floated the idea at the UN climate meeting in Poland last month,
Mack Mcfarland, global environmental manager for Dupont's fluorochemicals business, says policy-makers are beginning to recognize the problems created
By contrast, the Lieberman-Warner climate legislation introduced in the US Senate last year proposed a stricter phase-down for HFCS than for other greenhouse gases,
better industrial processes and, ultimately, the development of new, more climate-friendly chemicals, says Mcfarland.
and financing of climate technologies that is based largely on the Montreal Protocol. The proposal sets up the same kind of governing board, with equal membership representing developed and developing nations,
They also proposed that developing nations put an eye-popping 0. 5-1%of their gross national product into a climate fund to support these and other actions each year.
causing erosion, threatening the survival of rare plants and trees and competing with native fauna, such as giant tortoises.
says ecologist Daniel Simberloff of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, who blames pessimism for a lack of earlier attempts on this scale.
This subtle trend correlates with climate change in the region, which has warmed by between 0. 3 and 0. 4 degrees Celsius every decade since the 1970s.
Study co-leader Phillip van Mantgem of the Western Ecological Research center in Arcata California explains the mortality increase in financial terms:
Even if rainfall is stable, higher temperatures can suck those same scanty centimeters of precipitation through the tree faster,
and then replanting with species that are suited slightly more to the changing climate. Mantgem agrees.
But some scientists question whether these so-called'secondary'forests can truly forestall the extinction of species left homeless by deforestation.
a team led by ecologist Robin Chazdon of the University of Connecticut in Storrs has found that 90%of tree species from the original landscape can also be found in secondary forest.
and environmental organization representatives to address controversy arising from a 2006 paper. In that, Joseph Wright of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Balboa, Panama,
says Carlos Peres, a conservation ecologist at the University of East Anglia, UK, who has worked with Chazdon.
Gregory Asner, an ecologist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington who is based in Stanford, California,
it suggests that regrowth is still in the geographic minority compared to deforestation and logging.
said at the symposium that the greatest threat to tropical species today is climate change.
When he maps global climate data onto forest area data Wright says, virtually no forest exists in areas with a mean annual temperature above 28 degrees Celsius.
as at present, an assessment of the risk to health and the environment posed by their application.
Environmental groups and many members of the European parliament believe that the new regulation will lead to the eventual banning of many substances that are in use today.
On the basis of climate modelling they calculate that the planet would cool by a modest 0. 11 Â C. It's very small on the global average,
but a drying out of the soil in some parts of the subtropics. Ridgwell points out that climate models do not predict future precipitation well on a regional basis
and treats the latter results more as evidence that there might be effects far from the fields being changed than as a clear indication that there would be damaging consequences.
and increasing the reflectivity of clouds over the ocean. Although Ridgwell's approach is less powerful than some previous suggestions,
They are also thinking of trying much higher resolution climate modelling to see whether more-reflective crops could have specific regional benefits by reducing the likelihood of extreme events,
The idea that what goes on on farms can alter climate is not new, and by the standards of what has gone before the Bristol idea is quite modest.
And in 2007, Robert Hamwey of the Centre for Economic and Ecological Studies in Geneva
This kind of approach will be at best a minor niche player in our overall response to the climate-carbon problem.
A former Greenpeace activist, he has no qualms about looking at ways to minimize the effects of climate change
</br>Lecture, 2004 On climate change: Holdren: The most dangerous and difficult of all environmental problems that have ever been created by human beings
and probably ever will be created full stop.</</br>Lecture, 2007 Lawrence Summers: My children are alarmed very about
This tremendous moral energy that is being inculcated in our youth is being channelled, almost exclusively in the United states to environmental questions.
And I don't deny the force of environmental questions but I think there are equally compelling
</br>Lecture, 2008 On the environment and population: Lubchenco: We can no longer afford to have the environment be accorded marginal status on our agendas.
The environment is not a marginal issue, it is the issue of the future, and the future is here now.</
</br>In Science, 1998 Holdren: To ignore population today because the problem is a tough one is to commit ourselves to even gloomier prospects 20 years hence,
when most of the'easy'means to reduce per capita impact on the environment will have been exhausted.</
We should be quadrupling to ten-tupling the amount of money we are putting in energy research and development on alternatives to provide the energy that people need to be prosperous without wrecking the climate.</
To reduce climate change we really do need a combination of incentives to drive correct behaviour,
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