#Greener Greenland predictedscientists expect the future climate to become warmer and that this will apply to the Arctic in particular.
Here the temperature is expected to increase considerably more than the average On earth according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change average scenario (A1b.
which species will be able to grow in the climate expected in Greenland in 2100. The analysis shows that a majority of 44 relevant species of North american
With the expected climate change by 2100 scientists expect that such flora should be able to grow in large parts of the ice-free areas in the southern half of Greenland.
Forest and scrub will also reduce erosion and affect water run off says Professor Svenning. Trees spread slowlywhy are the trees not already in place in Greenland?
The researchers'models show that it will take more than 2000 years for Greenland's indigenous species of trees to spread to all those areas of the country that will have a suitable climate by 2100.
or wind first arrived a couple of thousand years later. However the researchers'analysis shows that most plants have not yet utilised the Greenlandic countryside following the last Ice age
and that the man-made climate change will rapidly create further opportunities for the plants. Taking advantage of this will be a slow process on their own however.
and resist environmental stress. The report looks in depth at the intimate relationship between microbes and agriculture including why plants need microbes
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.
which hunter-gatherers took ideas from their neighbours remains hotly debated. The researchers say previous evidence about the ownership of domestic animals by hunter-gatherers has so far been circumstantial.
#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.
It is no surprise that these materials hold up well in outdoor field conditions with extreme weather.
In fact unsuspecting materials often make essential environmental research equipment with examples including steel nails used as plant tags
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 day length says Anemaet and this new method is very useful for these kinds of long-term studies.
which is common for environmental field studies that measure variation in tree growth among individuals of one tree species
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.
Paradoxically higher acid levels in rain soil and water caused by human activity are major triggers for these changes in river chemistry said associate professor Sujay Kaushalof the University of Maryland.
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.
This is especially true in the Appalachian mountains where soils are thin steep slopes cause erosion and acid rain from smokestack industries have had a major impact on forests and streams.
and where acid rainfall or drainage was high. The researchers also found that the chemical weathering of these carbonate rocks adds to the carbon burden in rivers
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.
I-CARES a university-wide center that supports collaborative research regionally nationally and internationally in the areas of energy the environment and sustainability.
Tae Seok Moon Phd and Fuzhong Zhang Phd both assistant professors of energy environmental and chemical engineering in the School of engineering & Applied science at Washington University;
This is why most organisms that fix nitrogen work in an anaerobic (oxygenless) environment. Cyanobacteria that both photosynthesize and fix nitrogen separate the two activities either in space or in time.
Thus the environment within the cell oscillates daily between the aerobic conditions needed for capturing the energy in sunlight
Hidden away up mountains in the tropics where they provide food for gorillas just as China's bamboos provide food for the Giant panda there are apparently only 2 species
However a growing concern is that these particles could pose a potential health risk to humans and the environment.
But if in the process the same carbon is converted from carbon dioxide to methane--a gas with a much higher impact on climate--it is then that we need to worry.
while avoiding the serious environmental consequences associated with the overuse of chemical fertilisers. The mixture permits a controlled release of nutrients the regulation of water and an ideal environment for growing crops.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge have demonstrated that with the addition of the biofertiliser biofuel crops can be grown successfully
The results are published in the August issue of the International Journal of Environment and Resource.
The biofertiliser also helps plants develop dense root systems which stabilise the soil against erosion.
In addition to the coal waste the team is working with marginal soils such as those in desert climates
Brazilian savanna fruits high in antioxidantsnative Brazilian fruits grown in arid climates and poor soil have similar antioxidant activity to conventionally grown Red delicious apples according to research published August 21 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Sandra Fernandes Arruda from the University
which grow in the arid climate and poor soil of the Cerrado. Though commonly consumed fruits like apples or strawberries have been studied extensively for their chemical constituents the nutritional benefits of fruits grown in such conditions are not well-known.
#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
Under current agri-environment schemes the UK Government pays farmers to manage their land for the benefit of particular habitats
The above story is provided based on materials by British Ecological Society (BES. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
#After a fire, before a flood: NASAS Landsat directs restoration to at-risk areaswhile the 138000-acre Silver Fire still smoldered forest restoration specialists were on the job.
as soon as the flames die down to help protect reservoirs watersheds and infrastructure from post-fire floods and erosion.
That's because of the coverage of its spectral bands as well as the free availability of the images--he can sort through to find cloud-free views of that forest at a similar time in the growing season for the pre-fire comparison.
In the southwest and southern California there's pretty much anywhere from four to six weeks after fire season before it starts to rain and flood.
So crews scattered barley seeds over 11000 acres dropped mulch on 800 acres closed off roads storm-proofed forest roads
and the natural environment were collected also. From these samples the researchers isolated several influenza viruses and genetically sequenced those of the H7n9 subtype as well as related H7n7 and H9n2 viruses.
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
only a few were moved beyond the vicinity of the parent plant and in all cases they were found less than 5 meters away.
Moreover although most of the seeds ended up under the parent cycad almost no seedlings were found within a 1. 5 m radius of adult cycads suggesting that most seeds within the vicinity of the parent perish.
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;
when significant rain causes the wheat grain to germinate before harvest and results in significant crop losses.
The very first year white wheat was grown in the state though there was rain in June
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.
and even flourish in an adverse habitat like the Kunene region in Namibia where the environment is characterised by strong and unpredictable variation in resource availability says David Lehmann doctoral candidate at the German Leibniz
When food was plentiful gemsbok specialised exclusively on grasses and more ephemeral succulent species. In contrast springboks fed on a higher proportion of shrubs and trees than grasses and succulent plants irrespective of environmental conditions.
However by extensively using this poisonous plant gemsbok succeed in surviving environmental challenges. Gemsbok seem to be well adapted to the toxic effects of special plants growing in dry regions
and they benefit from their high water and nutritious content. Because global climate change increases drought periods and enhances desertification in Southern Africa it is crucial to understand how wildlife species respond to the impoverishment of their natural environments and the decline of their food sources.
Furthermore gemsbok and springbok are two of the main protein sources for local communities who would be affected negatively by declining wildlife population sizes.
#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.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Universitaet TÃ bingen. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
along with using nicotine-replacement products the therapeutic environment is balanced more she said. The challenges mental health clinicians have feared
Professor Judith Mank UCL Department of Genetics Evolution & Environment senior author of the paper said:#
and has the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of energy crop conversion for biofuels said Sally M. Benson director of Stanford university's Global Climate and Energy Project.
This research was financed co by the multidisciplinary research partnership'Biotechnology for a sustainable economy'of Ghent University the DOE Great lakes Bioenergy Research center and the'Global Climate and Energy Project'(GCEP.
Based at Stanford university the Global Climate and Energy Project is a worldwide collaboration of premier research institutions
The 2-pound olinguito with its large eyes and woolly orange-brown fur is native to the cloud forests of Colombia and Ecuador as its scientific name neblina (Spanish for fog) hints.
In addition to body features and behavior the team made special note of the olinguito's cloud forest Andean habitat
The cloud forests of the Andes are a world unto themselves filled with many species found nowhere else many of them threatened
We hope that the olinguito can serve as an ambassador species for the cloud forests of Ecuador
People have been living in or near the olinguito's cloud forest world for thousands of years.
Helgen is already planning his next mission into the clouds. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Smithsonian Institute.
It was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC.
#How will crops fare under climate change? Depends on how you askthe damage scientists expect climate change to do to crop yields can differ greatly depending on
which type of model was used to make those projections according to research based at Princeton university. The problem is that the most dire scenarios can loom large in the minds of the public
and development are affected by the environment. Building on similar studies from ecology the researchers found yet more evidence that empirical models may show greater losses
as a result of climate change while mechanistic models may be overly optimistic. The researchers ran an empirical and a mechanistic model to see how maize
and wheat crops in South africa--the world's ninth largest maize producer and Sub-saharan africa's second largest source of wheat--would fare under climate change in the years 2046 to 2065.
Under the hotter wetter conditions projected by the climate scenarios they used the empirical model estimated that maize production could drop by 3. 6 percent
while wheat output could increase by 6. 2 percent. Meanwhile the mechanistic model calculated that maize
Disparities such as these aren't just a concern for climate-change researchers said first author Lyndon Estes an associate research scholar in the Program in Science Technology and Environmental Policy in Princeton's Woodrow wilson School
and address climate change but it also is important that people understand how they are generated
The researchers cite previous studies that suggest climate change will reduce South african maize and wheat yields by 28 to 30 percent--according to empirical studies.
People who are interested in climate-change science should be aware of all the sources of uncertainty inherent in projections
The researchers'work relates to a broader effort in recent years to examine the biases introduced into climate estimates by the models
--and it didn't even examine the impact of climate change. The solution would be to use both model classes
and historical environmental conditions while mechanistic models are built on the physiological understanding of how the plant grows
and require fewer inputs are a staple in studying the possible effects of climate change on ecological systems where the data
These two model classes characterize different portions of the environmental space or niche that crops and other species occupy Estes said.
#Extreme weather events fuel climate changein 2003 Central and Southern Europe sweltered in a heatwave that set alarm bells ringing for researchers.
and drought affected the carbon cycle (the exchange of carbon dioxide between the terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere).
Measurements indicated that the extreme weather events had a much greater impact on the carbon balance than had previously been assumed.
It is possible that droughts heat waves and storms weaken the buffer effect exerted by terrestrial ecosystems on the climate system.
In the past 50 years plants and the soil have absorbed up to 30%of the carbon dioxide that humans have set free primarily from fossil fuels.
The indications that the part played by extreme weather events in the carbon balance had been underestimated prompted scientists from eight countries to launch the CARBO-Extreme Project.
For the first time the consequences of various extreme climate events on forests bogs grass landscapes and arable areas throughout the world underwent systematic scrutiny.
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.
The team then fed the various readings into complex computer models to calculate the global effect of extreme weather on the carbon balance.
on average vegetation absorbs 11 billion fewer tonnes of carbon dioxide than it would in a climate that does not experience extremes.
That is roughly equivalent to the amount of carbon sequestered in terrestrial environments every year says Markus Reichstein.
Droughts hit vegetation particularly harddroughts heat waves storms and heavy rain have not yet become more frequent
and pronounced as a consequence of anthropogenic climate change. However many climate researchers expect that they will in the future.
This would mean more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a result of extreme weather conditions. Periods of extreme drought in particular reduce the amount of carbon absorbed by forests meadows and agricultural land significantly.
We have found that it is not extremes of heat that cause the most problems for the carbon balance
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.
This means that a few major events dominate the global overall effect while the more frequent smaller events occurring throughout the world play a much less significant part.
For example they want to investigate the way the different ecosystems respond in laboratory and field experiments.
or a storm satellites be directed at the area in question as quickly as possible so that the immediate effect can be recorded along with the long-term impact.
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.
It would be a self-reinforcing effect. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry.
With the Tsimane we see an environment that is more like that in which humans evolved and for
and the environment testosterone levels are closely related to the availability of food energy. When young men skip even a single meal their testosterone levels can drop as much as 10 percent.
The new toxicity test placed groups of mice in room-sized pens nicknamed mouse barns with multiple nest boxes--a much more realistic environment than small cages allowing the mice to compete more naturally for mates
or OPA--uses mice in a more natural ecological context more likely to reveal toxic effects of whatever is being tested he says.
Human-made toxic substances in the environment potentially affect all of us and more are discovered continually Potts says.
and sensitive test to screen the potential toxic substances that are being released into the environment or in our drugs or our food supply.
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:
Previous studies have shown that male blue tits prefer mates that exhibit highly UV-reflectant crown feathers.
Funded by the Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) the project was based in woodlands on the shores of Loch Lomond Scotland
For bees in Northern europe poor weather conditions--combined with these various other factors which impact adversely on bees--are certainly making beekeeping a challenge and survival difficult for honey bees generally.
The difficult weather conditions are a particular problem in Scotland with severe winters followed by long cold wet springs being a problem especially
which were devastated by prolonged winter weather conditions. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Strathclyde.
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.
and descended from a few hundred meters to roughly 12 kilometers (40000 feet) in the skies between the North pole and Antarctica.
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.
The observed change in carbon dioxide amplitude is larger than that simulated by models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC.
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;
#Climate benefit for cutting soot, methane smaller than previous estimatescutting the amount of short-lived climate-warming emissions such as soot and methane in our skies won't limit global warming as much as previous
The study also found a comprehensive climate policy (including methane) would produce more climate benefits by 2050 than
Cutting back only on soot and methane emissions will help the climate but not as much as previously thought said the study's lead author climate researcher Steve Smith of the Department of energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
If we want to stabilize the climate system we need to focus on greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide nitrous oxide and methane.
Concentrating on soot and methane alone is not likely to offer much of a shortcut.
and formed the Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short-lived Climate Pollutants in 2012.
Soot and methane are called short-term climate forcers because they only remain in the atmosphere for a relatively short time:
a couple weeks for soot and up to a decade for methane. Meanwhile the better-known climate change culprit carbon dioxide can stick around for 1000-plus years.
Soot also known as black carbon is made of fine carbon-based particles that are given off by car and truck tailpipes and wood stoves.
or GCAM to evaluate the impact of reducing soot and methane emissions On earth's climate.
Earlier studies of short-lived climate pollutants did not use an integrated dynamic model such as GCAM.
With PNNL's climate model Smith created more than 1400 potential scenarios to reflect the many possibilities surrounding aerosols tiny particles including soot that float in the atmosphere.
The impact of aerosols on past and future climates has yet to be determined definitively. Ongoing PNNL research is evaluating how aerosol particles affect the atmosphere including temperature and precipitation.
if a comprehensive climate policy were enacted. Earlier PNNL research developed such a scenario which includes substantially reducing all greenhouse gas emissions instead of only limiting carbon dioxide as the previous short-lived climate pollutant studies did for their comparative scenario.
While focusing on reducing all greenhouse gas emissions including methane the comprehensive climate policy scenario also reduced the amount of soot in the atmosphere.
As a result the climate policy scenario lowered global average temperatures by 0. 27 degrees in 2050
which is more than when only short-lived climate forcers were controlled. The comprehensive climate policy scenario also provided much larger temperature reductions through 2100.
Focusing on soot and methane may be worth targeting for health reasons as previous studies have identified substantial health benefits from reducing those emissions Smith said.
To stabilize the global climate however the focus needs to be on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
The Environmental protection agency funded this research. PNNL's computer model used in this research GCAM is supported by the Department of energy.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Note:
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