Organic milk is also a significant source of two other omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DPA but not DHA.
and address environmental issues related to production agriculture. Pandey's research also revealed that when G proteins quantities were elevated in Camelina sativa the plant produced more seeds
#Pine plantations provide optimum conditions for natural forests to develop underneath themif there is any native forest in the vicinity tree fern
and Ecosystem Services group in its research carried out on the pine plantations of Bizkaia.
The work has been published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. In many European countries forestry authorities have started to take the sustainable management of forests into consideration.
as a result of the fall in the profitability of the plantations of exotic rapid-growth species says Ibone Ametzaga member of the UPV/EHU's Landscape Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services group.
when developing the International Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Programme in Bizkaia. This programme involves assessing the services provided by ecosystems.
The benefits that human beings obtain from ecosystems are known as services. Besides their value in terms of leisure landscape and education forests provide food
and timber fix the carbon and thus collaborate in the regulation of global climate systems;
they participate in water purification; form soil and help to slow down erosion etc. In these aspects native forests provide a better service maintaining local biodiversity
or accumulating carbon more. As they are trees with a longer turnover because they grow more slowly than pine plantations their management produces fewer disturbances in the system explained Ametzaga.
Ecological succession is the natural evolution that takes place in an ecosystem and is driven by the competition
and ferns and some herbaceous species are the ones that adapt to that environment best she added.
#Alpine glacier, unchanged for thousands of years, now melting: New ice cores suggest Alps have been strongly warming
Ortles in northern Italy and described their early findings on Monday Dec 9 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San francisco. The Alto dell'Ortles glacier which did not show signs of melting for thousands of years
This is consistent with the rapid ongoing shrinking of glaciers at high elevation in this area. As they drilled into the glacier in 2011 Gabrielli
and his team discovered that the first 100 feet (about 30 meters) of the glacier was composed of firn--grainy compacted snow that had melted partly.
Below that they found nothing but solid and colder ice all the way down to the frozen bedrock.
That suggests that snow was accumulating on the mountaintop and was compacted into ice for thousands of years without ever melting--until about 30 years ago
which is when each year's new deposit of snow began melting. The researchers know that the glacier had remained previously unchanged for a very long time--in part because of the preserved larch leaf
which they found wedged into the ice well beyond the firn layer around 240 feet beneath the surface
because the winter and summer layers of ice accumulation are easily identifiable offering the promise of a high-resolution climate record.
As the highest glacier in the eastern Alps (2. 4 miles or 3. 9 km above sea level) Alto dell'Ortles is located in the heart of Europe--one of the most industrialized and populated areas
whether soot emitted by human activities in central and southern Europe plays a role--perhaps by darkening the surface of the glacier absorbing the sun's heat and melting ice.
if and how regional environmental changes can interact with climatic changes of global significance Gabrielli said.
Dirk HÃ lscher from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena Germany and an international team of researchers have discovered that some banana varieties accumulate specific plant toxins in the immediate vicinity
which not only cause ecological damage but can also have severe negative effects on the health of people who are exposed to these chemicals.
Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and their colleagues from universities in Leuven (Belgium) Jena Kassel-Witzenhausen Halle Bonn and Bremen as well as the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product
The concentration of the most active compound anigorufone however was much higher in the immediate vicinity of lesions on the roots of resistant bananas in comparison to infected root tissues of the nematode susceptible banana plants.
which jeopardize the environment and people's lives. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. Journal Reference e
#Teens publish studies on pest-killing wasps, berry funguswe know more about wildlife this week thanks to research by two Canadian teens.
the fungus may attack Highbush cranberry the most after wet spring weather. Wet springs are predicted to become more common in Daust's region of B c
Dr. Karen Price is an ecologist and Kiri Daust's mom and homeschool teacher. My role is simply to encourage Kiri's curiosity Price explained.
The study conducted by scientists at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) the Rhine-Westphalian Technical University Aachen (RWTH)
and the Technical University of Denmark has appeared recently in the scientific journal Critical reviews in Environmental science and Technology.
they harm the environment have negative effects on the diversity of species and pollute the soil.
Dr. Matthias Kästner Director of the Department Environmental biotechnology at the Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research--UFZ in Leipzig.
As varied as their respective effectiveness is their effects on the environment are varied equally. Some pesticides are biodegraded quickly
In the current issue of the technical journal Critical reviews in Environmental science and Technology the UFZ research scientists compile their results
This is what we suggested to the German Federal Environmental Agency as well. The initial findings from the UFZ study have already been accepted into the assessment processes of the officials involved in the approval procedure.
and their environmental consequences we still have a lot of work to do says Kästner The problems that we had with DDT (dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane)
The above story is provided based on materials by Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research-UFZ. The original article was written by Nicole Silbermann.
#Carbon capture technology could be vital for climate targetsthe future availability of carbon capture and storage (CCS) will be pivotal in reaching ambitious climate targets according to a new comprehensive study of future energy technologies from IIASA the Potsdam Institute for Climate Change the Stanford Energy Modeling
Forum and researchers worldwide. The study published in a special issue of the journal Climatic Change provides an overview of the results of EMF27 a major research project combining 18 different global energy-economy models from research teams around the world.
It examines the role of technology in future climate mitigation asking which technologies will be needed and when in order to reach different climate targets.
In 2010 coal oil and gas supplied more than 80%of the world's total primary energy supply
and is led by the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research IIASA and other institutes.
These papers touch on issues as diverse as climate policy land use and agriculture and non-CO2 greenhouse gases among others.
This was confirmed by a recent study by the Institute for Environmental sciences Landau. According to the study the level of fungicides measured in surface waters is often much higher than the level predicted by the current calculation model used in the approval process.
The Institute for Environmental sciences Landau already proved last year that there is no statistical or even apparent correlation between theory and practice for insecticides.
and sediments with the environmental concentrations predicted by FOCUS. In 12 to 23 percent of cases the actual measured field concentrations in waters were higher.
and animal life in surface waters nor do they predict properly the level of fungicide concentrations actually found later in surface waters explains Prof Dr. Ralf Schulz of the Institute for Environmental sciences Landau of the University of Koblenz-Landau.
and herbicides relatively little is known about the effects of fungicides on ecosystems. Initial studies indicate though that they may possibly have a strong effect on amphibians such as frogs.
#New recommendations promote nature conservation in Barents Regioncoordinated by the Finnish Environment Institute the Barents Protected Area Network (BPAN) project involved an analysis of the current status of and gaps in the network of protected
in order to secure boreal biodiversity and ecosystem services and adaptation to climate change. These jointly created recommendations concern the northern areas of Finland Sweden Norway and Northwest Russia.
in order to bring a halt to the destruction of species and ecosystems in line with goals of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
The objective is to conserve functional ecological corridors between Finland and Russia. Constructive cooperationthe BPAN project has been funded by the Nordic Council of ministers the Ministries of the Environment of Finland Sweden and Norway and the Barents sea office of WWF Russia.
Protected area analyses for the project were conducted through cooperation between Metsã¤hallitus Natural Heritage Services research and scientific institutes of the participant countries and nature conservation organisations.
Joint nature conservation work coordinated by the Finnish Environment Institute was begun in 1997. Over the years a large amount of information has been generated on valuable natural areas
Environment ministers of the Barents Region highlighted importance for conservation of intact forests and mires in their meeting on 5th december.
Environmental ministers of the Barents Region urged conservation actors in the area to continue their constructive cooperation.
The above story is provided based on materials by Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length g
#Urban sprawl threatens water quality, climate protection, and land conservation gainsa groundbreaking study by Harvard university's Harvard Forest and the Smithsonian Institution reveals that
and limit the natural landscape's ability to protect against climate change. The scientists researched
What we found is that land-use decisions have immediate and dramatic impacts on many of the forest benefits people depend on said Jonathan Thompson Senior Ecologist at Harvard Forest
We know from decades of research that forests are more than a collection of trees they are'living infrastructure'that works 24-hours a day to provide climate protection clean water local wood products and natural areas for people
In addition the environmental bond bill will set conservation funding levels for the next five years. Lambert says the study's findings point to three broad policy directions:
if it benefits both the environment and local communities. Schools and water wells Farmers living close to Serengeti National park get training on how to handle
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
Tomato variety and weather can combine to make what the researchers call a perfect storm for salmonella to proliferate in harvested tomatoes a new study shows.
It remains unclear how much each contributes to salmonella's spread but scientists say understanding the process is key to eventually curbing produce-associated outbreaks.
and their random nature argues for a perfect storm scenario the study said. It is now clear that salmonella
which tracks how active a bee species is during cool cloudy and/or windy weather.
and visit a lot of flowers even in poor weather--and there would be a lot of them Burrack says.
and were active during inclement weather. However small native bees did not have high abundance nor appear to have high visitation rates This highlights the importance of incorporating multiple metrics says Dr. David Tarpy an associate professor of entomology at NC State
Ericaceae) Agroecosystems was published online Nov 25 in the journal Environmental Entomology. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by North carolina State university.
Extremely invasivethis is one of the most spectacular examples of the invasion of an entire continent by a foreign species introduced by man says Paul Schmid-Hempel retired Professor of Experimental Ecology at ETH Zurich.
Together with this wife Regula and his colleagues from South america he has published just his work in Journal of Animal Ecology.
The findings show that the European buff-tailed bumblebee spread southwards from central Chile along the Andes at a rate of around 200 kilometres a year--faster than the ecologists would ever have expected.
As however there are often strong winds in Patagonia in the summer Schmid-Hempel believes that it is possible that the insects could be transported easily to many locations.
and it would be almost impossible to remove it from the ecosystem. The consequences for the native fauna and flora are
The European bumblebee could disrupt the ecological balance of southern South america to a major degree. Nor is it stopping either at the boundaries of famous nature reserves like Torres del Paine
and other magnificent landscapes stresses the ecologist. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by ETH Zurich.
#Environmental subsidies do not sufficiently decrease nutrient load from agricultureabout half of Finland's contribution to the nitrogen
The costs of nutrient abatement varied greatly depending on the level of abatement environmental factors the market situation and production sector.
Creating permanent plant cover on erosion-sensitive areas such as steep slopes where nutrients are leached easily is a relatively low cost means of nutrient abatement.
and buffer zones have already been set up at the most vulnerable locations through the environmental subsidy system so nutrient abatement will not be as easy in the future explains Helin.
and enterprises have for giving as an incentive economic resources to countries with preserved forest zones (payment scheme of environmental services).
therefore has better photosynthesis and carbon capture processes. Another important point was confirmed by proving that the leaf's size does influence in the greenery of the trees
Lead researcher Dr Joseph Hawes from UEA's School of Environmental sciences said: We examined dietary data to quantify how much different primate species feed on fruit leaves and insects--particularly in relation to their body size.
throughout the New world tropics. This is also critical to evaluate the roles of primates within forest food webs particularly as seed dispersers for tropical forest plants.
The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of East Anglia.
More logging, deforestation may better serve climate in some areas, study findsreplacing forests with snow-covered meadows may provide greater climatic and economic benefits than
if trees are left standing in some regions according to a Dartmouth College study that for the first time puts a dollar value on snow's ability to reflect the sun's energy.
or deforestation may better serve our planet and pocketbooks in high latitude areas where snowfall is common
and timber productivity is low. Such a scenario could involve including snow cover/albedo in existing greenhouse gas exchanges like the Kyoto protocol or a cap-and-trade program or ecosystem services market in
which landowners are paid to maintain snow cover and produce timber rather than conserve forests and store carbon.
Previous studies have put a price on many ecosystem services --or services that nature provides to humans that have both economic and biological value such as drinking water
and crop pollination--but the Dartmouth study is the first to do so for albedo or the surface reflection of incoming solar energy.
The findings contrast with the dominant paradigm that including forest climate mitigation services such as carbon storage on compliance markets will lead to the conservation of forests.
Instead the findings show that in some areas it is better to have snow act as a natural mirror
if you want to use forests for climate-related purposes. The findings will be presented Dec 12th at the American Geophysical Union's annual fall meeting in San francisco in the Global Environmental Change High Profile Topics session.
Climate change mitigation projects such as the Kyoto Protocol encourage reforestation because growing forests take up carbon dioxide
but previous studies have suggested the cooling aspect of surface albedo could counterbalance the benefits of forest growth.
and carbon by using a sophisticated model of the climate and economy called an integrated-assessment model.
The researchers attributed this to the low timber productivity and substantial snowfall in the White Mountain National Forest.
Thus they expect that in high latitude sites where snowfall is common and forest productivity is low valuing albedo may mean the optimal forest size is near zero.
and other ecosystem services so they recommend forest managers take those factors into account as they try to maximize the flow of timber carbon storage and albedo in mid-and high-latitude temperate and boreal forests.
Using behavioural assays researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena Germany
eggs and larvae are henceforth at the mercy of their environment; their range is limited usually.
The study took into account differences in yield that were the result of annual weather changes (primarily heat and precipitation both of which increased growth.
because it doesn't have the same erosion problems of an annual crop. You're not plowing the land every year
As well as being productive aboveground Miscanthus was shown in Illinois to accumulate more roots over a period of five years than fallow land or even a native prairie ecosystem.
or hot weather and provide refuge from encroaching human activities like deforestation she said The remarkable thing about our study was that over a six-year period the same troops of ring-tailed lemurs used the same sleeping caves on a regular daily basis
but as a direct result of extreme deforestation moving from cave to cave every few days.
Centered at the roughly 1500-acre Beza Mahafalay Special Reserve the research focuses on how climate-and human-induced change affects lemur biology behavior and survival.
Unfortunately habitat destruction including deforestation is increasing in many parts of Madagascar. In southwestern Madagascar trees are being harvested for cattle forage construction materials
and Ecology led the genomics team of collaborative researchers from four institutions. The posting of the genome and comparative sequence analysis on the publicly accessible Spottedwingflybase Web portal could lead to more species-specific weapons to combat the destructive pest Chiu said.
and the Frank Zalom lab both in Department of Entomology and Nematology and David Begun's drosophila evolutionary genetics lab in the Department of Evolution and Ecology.
However a new article in the open-access Journal of Integrated Pest Management called Ecology Taxonomy and Pest Management of Billbugs (Coleoptera:
Billbug feeding can destroy orchardgrass depending on the size of the billbug population and weather conditions. In addition to causing direct injury to the plant feeding can also provide the opportunity for infection by rot-inducing bacteria and fungi.
#More extreme weather events likely: Climate projections of unparalleled accuracy for the whole of European international team including CNRS M t o-France CEA UVSQ
and INERIS 1 has carried out and analyzed 2 a group of climate projections for the whole of Europe at an unprecedented resolution of 12 km by downscaling the global simulations carried out for the 5th IPCC
report. These simulations for the 21st century now provide a much more detailed representation of local phenomena and extreme events.
Initial analyses confirm that there will be a significant increase in the frequency of extreme events such as heavy rainfall heatwaves and droughts.
This should lead to more precise studies of the impact of climate change in Europe on air quality hydrology
Ten regional climate modelslaunched in 2011 as part of the international CORDEX initiative the EURO-CORDEX project has produced an ensemble of climate projections for Europe in the 21st century at very high
To do this ten regional climate models were used including two by The french community 4. The projections were carried out according to three baseline scenarios selected from the four scenarios in the 5th IPCC report.
Around a hundred simulations of Europe's climate in the 21st centuryin all around a hundred simulations were carried out for EURO-CORDEX.
This degree of accuracy makes it possible to better show local phenomena such as heavy rainfall that are crucial to climate change.
Better information is thus available for future studies into adaptation to climate change in Europe.
It is planned now to study the impacts of climate change on air quality and on other key sectors of the economy such as energy and agriculture.
The data has now been made available in particular to the scientific community and to climate services with the aim of providing climate information to economic industrial and political stakeholders.
which collects data about predicted climate change in France. From global to local Global climate models are used to produce climate projections on the scale of continents like those presented last September in the first volume of the 5th IPCC report.
However given the current power of supercomputers their resolution remains limited to 200 km which makes it impossible to describe phenomena taking place on the kilometer scale such as torrential autumn rainfall high wind episodes
and events taking place near coasts and higher ground. Using regional models makes it possible to increase resolution.
The simulation of European heat waves from an ensemble of regional climate models within the EURO-CORDEX project.
Climate Dynamics doi: 10.1007/s00382-01-1714-z; Jacob D. et al. 2013 EURO-CORDEX: New high-resolution climate change projections for European impact research Regional Environmental change doi:
10.1007/s10113-013-0499-2; Colette A. et al. 2013: European atmosphere in 2050 a regional air quality and climate perspective under CMIP5 scenarios.
Atmos. Chem. and Phys. doi: 10.5194/acpd-13-6455-2013 3 Volume 1'Climate Change 2013:
the Physical science Basis'of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report was presented on 27 september 2013 following the adoption of the Summary for Policymakers. 4 ARPEGE-Climat developed by CNRM-GAME
which brings together several environmental science laboratories attached to CNRS including LSCE. 5 The three scenarios selected are RCP2. 6 4. 5 and 8. 5. RCP stands for'Representative Concentration Pathways'.
RCP4. 5 is an intermediate scenario. 6 The international scientific community has taken action especially through the World Climate Research Program (WCRP) to design
and carry out a simulation exercise of past and future climate covering the entire planet: CMIP5.
#Rapid climate changes at end of last glaciation, but with 120 year time lagregional climate changes can be very rapid.
A German-British team of geoscientists now reports that such a rapid climate change occurred in different regions with a time difference of 120 years.
Investigation in the west German Eifel region and in southern Norway demonstrated that at the end of the last glaciation about 12240 years before present climate became warmer first recognised in the Eifel region and 120 years later
in southern Norway. Nonetheless the warming was equally rapid in both regions. The team around Christine Lane (Oxford university) and Achim Brauer from the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences reports in the latest volume of Geology that within the younger Dryas the last about 1100-year
The volcanic ash was distributed by strong winds over large parts of northern and Central europe and we can find them with new technologies as tine ash particles in the sediment deposits of lakes.
Furthermore lake sediments are very accurate climate archives especially when they contain seasonal bands similar like tree rings.
and analyse thousands of these thin layers under the microscope to reconstruct climate year-by-year far back in time illustrates Brauer.
The ash of the Katla volcanic eruption thus was deposited at the same time in the Eifel and in Norway.
while it is seen in the southern Norwegian lake sediment 20 years after the volcanic eruption. The same warming but with a 120 difference in timing between the about 1200 km distant locations?
We can explain this difference with the shift of hemispheric wind systems. Climate changed in both regions very rapid
but the polar front that is the atmospheric boundary layer between cold polar air and the warmer air of the mid-latitudes required more than 100 years to retreat from its glacial position at about the location of the Eifel at 50°N to its southern
Norwegian position at 62°N. Hence the study provides evidence for a rapid change that slowly moved northwards.
The result of this study has some implications on the understanding of both past and future climate change.
The assumption of an everywhere and always synchronously changing climate must be questioned and climate models have to better consider such regional aspects.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Helmholtz Centre Potsdam-GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences.
and a friendly regulatory environment said Charles Ray assistant professor of wood products operations Penn State.
The scientific community can make an important contribution to conservation in deserts by establishing baseline information on biodiversity and developing new approaches to sustainable management of desert species and ecosystems.
#Himalayan flowers shed light on climate changeflower color in some parts of the world including The himalayas has evolved to attract bees as pollinators research has shown for the first time.
In a study published in the Journal of Ecology biologists from Monash University and RMIT University have investigated the evolution of flower colors due to the bee's color vision.
They researched in the understudied Nepalese steep mountainous terrain and other subtropical environments. The study also has implications for understanding the effects of climate change on plant pollination.
Associate professor Adrian Dyer of Monash and RMIT said previous studies had shown that flower color evolved to attract bees as pollinators in temperate environments
but the story for either subtropical or steep mountainous environments had been unknown. Mountainous environments provide an ideal natural experiment to understand the potential effects of changing climatic conditions on plant-pollinator interactions
since many pollinators show preferences for localised conditions and major pollinators like honeybees do not tend to forage at high altitudes Associate professor Dyer said.
Dr Mani Shrestha from Monash University and his colleague Prakash Bhattrai from the Tribhuvan University Kathmandu collected spectral data from more than 100 flowering plants in Nepal over a range of altitudes from 900
The research could shed light on how flower colors may continue to evolve in particular environments depending upon the availability of the most effective pollinators.
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