Scientists from the University of Bern now identified the most important environmental and species characteristics for plants to colonize
since decades ecologists have suggested that these are important characteristics of successful plants. However it has also been suggested that species characteristics are less important as determinants of plant establishment success than other factors such as seed availability or environmental characteristics like dense vegetation.
In Bern researchers of the Institute of Plant sciences and the University of Konstanz carefully examined the importance of those species characteristics
and competition are relevant for plant establishment the response of many plants to those factors is measured rarely due to the large amount of work comments Markus Fischer professor of plant ecology at the University of Bern.
and the greenhouse the most important species traits and environmental characteristics for establishment success could be identified.
First the nonliving environment the so called abiotic filter constrains establishment of species without certain physiological adaptations.
which can have profound influences on the most significant environmental processes from plant growth and health to nutrient cycles in terrestrial and marine environments the global carbon cycle and possibly even climate processes.
and characterizing single genomes from complex environmental samples of millions of cells to provide a profound leap of understanding the microbial evolution on our planet.
They occupy every conceivable environmental niche from the extreme depths of the oceans to the driest of deserts.
So we have only recently become aware of their roles in various ecosystems through cultivation-independent methods such as metagenomics and single-cell genomics.
This course correction provides insights into how organisms function in the context of a particular ecosystem as well as a much improved and more accurate understanding of the associations of newly discovered genes with resident life forms.
We interpreted millions of these bits of genetic information like distant stars in the night sky trying to align them into recognizable constellations.
and the path ahead in environmental genomics is similarly daunting. There is still a staggering amount of diversity to explore Woyke said.
and offset effects of changes in climate on the lesser prairie-chicken. Scientists looked at modeled predictions of climate change
and reproductive data from lesser prairie-chickens from 2001-2011 to determine how weather conditions affect reproductive success in the Southern High Plains.
Scientists focused on prairie chicken habitat in the southwestern part of their distribution in New mexico and West Texas. The study assessed the potential changes in number of eggs laid in a nest incubation start date
Results from this study are based on current climate projections and it doesn't necessarily mean that lesser prairie-chickens will experience a population decline said Blake Grisham Texas Tech University scientist
and quality of existing habitats over the next few decades may offset the negative effects of a changing climate.
Scientists conducted 1000 model simulations using future weather variables to predict future reproductive parameters for this species. Climate forecasts indicate that the Southern High Plains will become drier with more frequent extreme heat
and climate and larger areas of habitat provide more opportunities for them to survive a difficult climate said USGS scientist
This is the first study to examine how seasonal weather affects reproductive conditions of the lesser prairie-chicken.
#Snakes devour more mosquito-eating birds as climate change heats forestsmany birds feed on mosquitoes that spread the West Nile virus a disease that killed 286 people in the United states in 2012 according to the Centers
and wildlife managers should be aware of complex indirect effects of climate change in addition to the more obvious influences of higher temperatures and irregular weather patterns.
A warmer climate may be causing snakes to become more active and seek more baby birds for food said Faaborg professor of biological sciences in MU's College of Arts and Science.
Increased snake predation on birds is an example of an indirect consequence that forecasts of the effects of climate change often do not take into account.
A large proportion of the ecosystems in the world are limited by water--they don't have enough water during the year to reach their maximum potential growth.
While increased atmospheric carbon dioxide may benefit forests in the short term Richardson emphasized that the overall climate picture would remain grim
and changes in rainfall patterns will in coming decades have very negative consequences for plant growth in many ecosystems around the world..
and water are going into or out of the ecosystem. With more than 20 years of data the towers in the Harvard Forest--which have the longest continuous record in the world--are an invaluable resource for studying how forests have responded to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
and improve predictions of the future of the Earth's climate. Right now all the models we have under-represent this effect by as much as an order of magnitude so the question is:
and how will that affect their projections for climate change? Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Harvard university.
seven-year study findswind power development does not ruffle the feathers of greater prairie chicken populations according to the results of a seven-year study from a Kansas State university ecologist and his team.
The researchers--led by Brett Sandercock professor of biology--discovered that wind turbines have little effect on greater prairie chickens
With the arrival of wind energy projects in Kansas and throughout the Plains Sandercock and his team were part of a consortium of stakeholders--including conservationists wildlife agencies
and wind energy companies--who studied how these wind projects influence grassland birds. We had a lot of buy in from stakeholders
Sandercock and his team started their study in 2006 with three field sites that were chosen for wind development:
site--the Meridian Way Wind power Facility near Concordia--was developed into a wind energy site which gave researchers the opportunity to observe greater prairie chickens before during and after wind turbine construction.
The researchers cooperated and collaborated with private landowners at each site. The researchers studied the birds for seven breeding seasons
whether that increase in female survivorship was due to the effects of wind turbines on predators.
Collaborators on the wind development project include Samantha Wisely associate professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at the University of Florida;
and Lyla Hunt master's student in biology Riverside Calif. The Grassland Community Collaborative Oversight Committee of the National Wind Coordinating Collaborative oversaw the research project.
#Huge iceberg breaks away from the Pine Island glacier in the Antarcticon July 8 2013 a huge area of the ice shelf broke away from the Pine Island glacier the longest
and fastest flowing glacier in the Antarctic and is now floating in the Amundsen Sea in the form of a very large iceberg.
Scientists from the American space agency NASA discovered the first crack in the glacier tongue on 14 october 2011 when flying over the area.
As a result of these cracks one giant iceberg broke away from the glacier tongue. It measures 720 square kilometres
and to better understand the physical processes behind the glacier movements. The researchers were thus able to measure the widths of the gaps
Above the large crack the glacier last flowed at a speed of twelve metres per day reports Humbert's colleague Dr. Dana Floricioiu from DLR.
Using the images we have been able to follow how the larger crack on the Pine Island glacier extended initially to a length of 28 kilometres.
Shortly before the birth of the iceberg the gap then widened bit by bit so that it measured around 540 metres at its widest point.
Glaciers are constantly in motion. They have their very own flow dynamics. Their ice is exposed to permanent tensions
and the calving of icebergs is still largely unresearched explains ice modeller Angelika Humbert. The scientist and her team then compare their simulation results with current satellite data such as from Terrasar-X
. If the model agrees with reality the scientists can conclude for example the gliding property of the ground beneath the glacier ice
are caused ice breaks by climate change? Angelika Humbert does not so far see any direct connection:
The creation of cracks in the shelf ice and the development of new icebergs are natural processes says the glaciologist.
However the Pine Island glacier which flows from the Hudson mountains to the Amundsen Sea was the fastest flowing glacier in the Western Antarctic with a flow speed of around 4 kilometres per year.
however and is more attributable to the fact that the wind directions in the Amundsen Sea have altered.
The wind now brings warm sea water beneath the shelf ice. Over time this process means that the shelf ice melts from below primarily at the so-called grounding line the critical transition to the land ice says the scientist.
For the Western Antarctic ice shelf an even faster flow of the Pine Island glacier would presumably have serious consequences.
Shelf ice The shelf ice which is 200 to 1200 metres thick is created by glaciers sliding into the sea.
and on beaches on the basis that passive smoke is a risk for nonsmokers cigarette butts pollute the environment
In New york city advocates for a smoke-free city drew on a World health organization publication that said implementing 100%smoke-free environments is the only effective way to protect the population from exposure to smoking's harmful effects.
Research continues to grow on the negative impact of secondhand smoke as well as cigarettes'effect on the environment said Cheryl G. Healton Drph president and CEO of The American Legacy Foundation.
When the researchers in Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental science started looking at the question of how nitrogen--widely used as an agricultural fertilizer--affects root growth in plants their goal was to find ways to produce plants that require less nitrogen.
We want to grow poplars that are even more efficient in a low-nitrogen environment says Yordanov.
The study examined how changes in temperature clouds and rainfall affect the number of flowers that tropical forests produce.
Results showed that clouds mainly have an effect over short-term seasonal growth but longer-term changes of these forests appear to be due to temperature.
While other studies have used long-term flower production data this is the first study to combine these data with direct estimates of cloud cover based on satellite information.
The results of the study Clouds and Temperature Drive Dynamic Changes in Tropical Flower Production was published July 7 in the journal Nature Climate Change.
Tropical forests are thought commonly of as the lungs of the earth and how many flowers they produce is one vital sign of their health said Pau an assistant professor in Florida State's Department of Geography.
and whether that happens depends on how much the tropics will continue to warm. U s. Geological Survey Senior Scientist Julio Betancourt who was involved not in the study described Pau's research as clever.
and cloudiness on local flower production Betancourt said. It confirms other recent findings that in the tropics even a modest warming can pack quite a punch.
Pau led a team of international researchers who studied seasonal and year-to-year flower production in two contrasting tropical forests--a seasonally dry forest on Barro Colorado Island Panama and an ever-wet forest in Luquillo Puerto rico. The seasonally dry site according to Pau
The amount of sunlight reaching tropical forests due to varying amounts of cloud cover is an important factor just not the most important
Clouds are a huge uncertainty in understanding the impacts of climate change on tropical forests Pau said.
With most projections of future climate change people have emphasized the impact on high-latitude ecosystems
The tropics which are already warm probably won't experience as much of a temperature increase as high-latitude regions.
Pau conducted the research as part of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) Forecasting Phenology Working group and with Elizabeth M. Wolkovich of the University of British columbia's Biodiversity Research Centre;
Christopher J. Nytch of the University of Puerto rico's Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies; James Regetz of the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis;
Jess K. Zimmerman of the University of Puerto rico's Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies; and S. Joseph Wright of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Florida State university. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
They say this would minimise the pressure on the environment in a world in which land water
and energy are in short supply highlighting that the environment is often overexploited and used unsustainably.
and agrochemicals as these technologies frequently carry unacceptable environmental costs argue the authors. They say that a range of techniques both old and new should be employed to develop ways of farming that keep environmental damage to a minimum.
The authors of the paper accept that the intensification of agriculture will have some implications for other important policy goals such as preserving biodiversity animal welfare human nutrition protecting rural economies and sustainable development.
Lead author Dr Tara Garnett from the Food Climate Research Network at the Oxford Martin School said:'
''Sustainability requires consideration of economic environmental and social priorities'added Dr Michael Appleby of the World Society for the Protection of Animals.'
Co-author Sonja Vermeulen from the CGIAR Program on Climate Change Agriculture and Food security (CCAFS) said:'
#Climate change deniers using dirty tricks from Tobacco Wars, expert saysfossil fuel companies have been funding smear campaigns that raise doubts about climate change writes John Sauven in the latest issue of Index on Censorship magazine.
Environmental campaigner Sauven argues: Some of the characters involved have worked previously to deny the reality of the hole in the ozone layer acid rain and the link between tobacco and lung cancer.
And the tactics they are applying are largely the same as those they used in the tobacco wars.
Governments around the world have attempted also to silence scientists who have raised concerns about climate change.
#Limiting global warming is not enoughso far international climate targets have been restricted to limiting the increase in temperature.
The ultimate objective of international climate policy is to prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.
To do this greenhouse gases are to be stabilised at a level that is acceptable for humans and for the environment.
This climate goal is expressed commonly as an increase in the global mean temperature by a maximum of two degrees since preindustrial times.
But now a study carried out by climate researchers based in Bern shows that the focus on the temperature increase alone is by no means enough to meet the ultimate overarching objective#to protect the climate system from dangerous anthropogenic interference.
This is because according to the United nations Framework Convention on Climate Change from 1992 the climate system comprises the totality of the atmosphere hydrosphere biosphere geosphere and their interactions.
The Framework Convention also calls for the sustainability of ecosystems and food production. All of this can scarcely be realised by the two-degree target alone.
Thomas Stocker are proposing a combination of six different specific global and regional climate targets in their work
They say that a global temperature target is neither sufficient nor suitable to avoid further damage that is relevant for communities and ecosystem services.
Realistic development pathsthe main culprit in relation to these environmental changes is the emission of the greenhouse gas CO2
in order to meet each and every one of the additional climate targets#for example stable production on agricultural land
And the researchers ask the crucial question of what would be required in order for all of the climate targets to be met.
Important basis for informing policythe three researchers all of whom are members of the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern recommend that further studies of this type be carried out.
However further relevant climate targets need to be set out by policy makers and by society they say.
Ultimately the magnitude of environmental changes we are able to cope with and the amount of risks we are prepared to take is a social and political question.
The climate physicists emphasise the fact that it is important for political decision-makers to link different climate targets to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions in a quantitative manner.
which inform about local and regional consequences of climate change. For example these include extreme occurrences such as flooding and heatwaves.
This information is needed to formulate many additional climate targets#for example to prevent the acidification of the oceans in the Tropics.
From this rich set of simulations the researchers have estimated probabilities of meeting specific climate targets.
and morphologically well adapted to harsh environmental conditions however they experience a severe energy challenge during the cold sub-Antarctic winter
and Prof Damien Roussel at the Ecology of Natural and Man-impacted Hydrosystems laboratory in France looked for the first time at how the king penguin chicks'mitochondria in skeletal muscle the main heat producing tissue in birds function during fasting in the winter.
but to multiple antibiotics--including antibiotics that are used to treat human infections said Christopher Heaney Phd corresponding author of the study and assistant professor of Environmental Health Sciences and Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
Researchers found that S. aureus that were multidrug-resistant were roughly twice as prevalent among individuals exposed to the industrial compared to the antibiotic-free livestock operation environment
and bad weather then it is likely to increase the rate of development failure. The study was funded by The Cooperative Group as part of its Plan Bee campaign.
and manure management and the installation of biogas recovery systems have contributed all to reducing the environmental impact of beef.
#Mapping the benefits of our ecosystemswe rely on our physical environment for many things--clean water land for crops or pastures storm water absorption and recreation among others.
Yet it has been challenging to figure out how to sustain the many benefits people obtain from nature--so-called ecosystem services--in any given landscape
Two ecologists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison report this week (July 1) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences a novel approach to analyzing the production
and location of 10 different ecosystem services across a landscape opening the door to being able to identify factors governing their synergies and tradeoffs.
and surface water quality handling floodwater preventing erosion and storing carbon). They focused on the Yahara River watershed
We found that the main ecosystem services are not independent of each other. They interact spatially in very complex ways says Qiu lead author of the new study.
Preliminary analysis of these win-win areas suggests that factors like flat topography a deep water table less field runoff soil with high water-holding capacity more adjoining wetlands
The work was undertaken as part of a larger project to improve water sustainability in a mixed urban and agricultural landscape supported by the Water Sustainability and Climate Program of the National Science Foundation (NSF.
This paper is an initial assessment that gives us a picture of the spatial distribution of ecosystem services in contemporary times a starting point for comparison says Chris Kucharik a UW-Madison professor of agronomy and environmental studies
If climate changes or land use changes what's going to happen to the values that we care about?
but we've shown that you can use the signature in animal tissues left over from nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere to study modern ecology
Ted Turlings an author of the study and head of the Laboratory for Fundamental and Applied Research in Chemical Ecology Institute of Biology at the University of Neuchã¢tel Switzerland.
and take little risk exploring the environment to discover the best food source --so they avoid maize that is already under attack.
#Environmental policy: Tallying the wins and losses of policyin the past decade China has sunk some impressive numbers to preserve its forests
but until now there hasn't been much data to give a true picture of how it has affected simultaneously both the people and the environment.
Michigan State university partnered with the Chinese Academy of Sciences has capitalized on their long history of research in the Wolong Nature Reserve to get a complete picture of the environmental and socioeconomic effects of payments for ecosystem services programs.
Performance and prospects of payments for ecosystem services programs: evidence from China has been published in the Journal of Environmental Management.
In it Wu Yang a doctoral student in Michigan State university's Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability and center director Jianguo Jack Liu the Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability outline the wins
and the environment from as big a picture as trends of the forest from decades of land cover maps to surveying individual households to understand how their behaviors changed as policies were introduced.
Payments for ecosystem services programs--programs in which people were given incentives to change their behavior so the forest around them could recover--have been an enormous effort in China and worldwide.
The work found that China's offering people incentives to change how they live to boost the environment did benefit the forest
and the environment--but not without a toll on the people who live there. The article emphasizes the importance of integrating local conditions
and understanding underlying mechanisms to enhance the performance of payments for ecosystem services programs. The article also notes that understanding some of the impacts raises questions for future policy--about
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation NASAMICHIGAN State university's Environmental science and Policy Program and Graduate Office.
#Climate change: Disequilibrium will become the norm in the plant communities of the futurethe forest we are used to looking at is not at all in equilibrium.
when glaciers retreat or the climate changes. In future such disequilibrium will become the norm in the plant communities On earth.
Professor Svenning explains In the climate debate even researchers have had a tendency to overlook the fact that ecological dynamics can be slow.
The climate will change considerably in the course of a single tree generation so we should not assume that the forest we're looking at in a given place is suitable for the climate.
Future climate will constantly shift which will increasingly result in these strange situations of disequilibrium.
Even fast spreaders such as some invasive exotic plants remain in disequilibrium for decades or centuries.
because the climate has shifted to become suitable for another set of species. This also makes it challenging to adhere to a management plan granting preservation status to a particular type of nature at a certain site.
or another and also for the researchers who are used to working with ecosystems that are balanced much more.
Plant life and ecosystems will become much more dynamic and often out of sync with the climate.
We're causing so many changes to the climate but at the same time nature is SO slow. Just think of a tree generation.
Our entire culture is based on something that was if not in complete equilibrium then at least relatively predictable.
and climate are matched reasonably well. In future this equilibrium will shift on an ongoing basis
#El nino unusually active in the late 20th century: Is it because of global warming? Spawning droughts floods
and other weather disturbances worldwide the El Niã o--Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impacts the daily life of millions of people.
During El Niã o Atlantic hurricane activity wanes and rainfall in Hawaii decreases while Pacific winter storms shift southward elevating the risk of floods in California.
The ability to forecast how ENSO will respond to global warming thus matters greatly to society.
Reconstructions of ENSO behavior are usually missing adequate records for the tropics where ENSO develops.
Tree-rings have been shown to be very good proxies for temperature and rainfall measurements. An international team of scientists spearheaded by Jinbao Li
and Shang-Ping Xie while working at the International Pacific Research center University of Hawaii at Manoa has compiled 2222 tree-ring chronologies of the past seven centuries from both the tropics and mid-latitudes in both
Their work is published in the June 30 2013 online issue of Nature Climate Change. The inclusion of tropical tree-ring records enabled the team to generate an archive of ENSO activity of unprecedented accuracy as attested by the close correspondence with records from equatorial Pacific corals and with an independent Northern hemisphere
temperature reconstruction that captures well-known teleconnection climate patterns. These proxy records all indicate that ENSO was unusually active in the late 20th century compared to the past seven centuries implying that this climate phenomenon is responding to ongoing global warming.
In the year after a large tropical volcanic eruption our record shows that the east-central tropical Pacific is followed unusually cool by unusual warming one year later.
Like greenhouse gases volcanic aerosols perturb the Earth's radiation balance. This supports the idea that the unusually high ENSO activity in the late 20th century is a footprint of global warming explains lead author Jinbao Li.
Many climate models do not reflect the strong ENSO response to global warming that we found says co-author Shang-Ping Xie meteorology professor at the International Pacific Research center University of Hawaii at Manoa
Our results now provide a guide to improve the accuracy of climate models and their projections of future ENSO activity.
If this trend of increasing ENSO activity continues we expect to see more weather extremes such as floods and droughts.
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