An international team of scientists has developed crop models to better forecast food production to feed a growing population--projected to reach 9 billion by mid-century--in the face of climate change.
In a paper appearing in Nature Climate Change members of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project unveiled an all-encompassing modeling system that integrates multiple crop simulations with improved climate change models.
and planning efforts said Bruno Basso Michigan State university ecosystem scientist and Agmip member. Quantifying uncertainties is an important step to build confidence in future yield forecasts produced by crop models said Basso with MSU's geological sciences department and Kellogg Biological Station.
and climate models we can understand how increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere along with temperature increases and precipitation changes will affect wheat yield globally.
and developing countries as they adapt to changing climate and create policies to improve food security and feed more people he added.
SALUS is a new generation crop tool to forecast crop soil water nutrient conditions in current and future climates.
and reduce environmental impact such as nitrate leaching and greenhouse gas emission. For the study the team looked at simulated yield from 27 different wheat crop models.
Through SALUS Basso forecasted the impact of changes in temperature precipitation and CO2 emissions on wheat yield from contrasting environment across the planet.
Department of energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California Berkeley.
#White-tailed deer and the science of yellow snownew research from wildlife ecologists at Michigan Technological University indicates that white-tailed deer may be making the soil in their preferred winter homes unfit to grow the very trees that protect them there.
which are among their favorite wintering grounds in the harsh snowy climate of northern Michigan.
Webster and Bump are on the faculty of Michigan Tech's School of Forest Resources and Environmental science.
Their research results were reported online in the journal Ecology published by the Ecological Society of America.
Altering the nitrogen availability in a hemlock stand may affect its ability to continue functioning as a deeryard by changing the types of plants that grow there said Murray first author on the journal article titled Broadening the ecological context of ungulate-ecosystem interactions:
They are thought to provide refuge from deep snow and blustery winds and to help deer hide from predators Murray explained.
Deer instinctively seek deeryards but their choice of location is passed knowledge from mother to fawn.
and before the deer population explosion more recently experienced the ecosystem stayed balanced because there were plenty of deeryards and fewer deer.
It was fascinating to discover such complex interactions which have implications for sustainable management in a seemingly simple ecosystem Murray added Story Source:
Researchers at the Institute of Social Ecology at the AAU have shown that while land is used more efficiently simultaneously the intensity of land use has increased continuously.
and forestry bioenergy production construction of buildings and infrastructures soil degradation or human induced vegetation fires--and thus not available to other ecosystem processes.
and Christoph Plutzar from the Institute of Social Ecology and Tim Searchinger from Princeton university arrived at a surprising result:
The impressive increase in efficiency gains in crop and livestock yields have been achieved at considerable ecological costs.
and water we turned to large-scale industrial animal production systems and put high environmental pressure on land soils and biodiversity Krausmann points out.
and putting high pressure on ecosystems The researchers thus call for caution: Caveats are warranted concerning bioenergy strategies.
and we have to be careful to prevent any potential negative consequences of forms land use intensification that further increase the pressure on ecosystems.
Why Our Ancestor's Diets Matterthe earliest human ancestor to consume substantial amounts of grassy foods from dry more open savannas may signal a major and ecological and adaptive divergence from the last common ancestor we shared with African great apes
reduced yields for U s. cornif the climate continues to evolve as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the United states stands little to no chance of satisfying its current biofuel goals according to a new study by Rice university
and the University of California at Davis. The study published online in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental science
. Brown Professor and chair of Rice's Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. Alvarez is a member of the Science Advisory board of the U s. Environmental protection agency and chair of Rice's Energy and Environment Initiative.
The policy is based on the idea that blending ethanol into gasoline cuts harmful emissions from vehicles
and Rice alumna Rosa Dominguez-Faus found no scientific consensus on the climate-friendly nature of U s.-produced corn-based ethanol
and detailed what they saw as economic environmental and logistical shortcomings in the EISA. Their 2009 feature article in Environmental science and Technology suggested the amount of water required to bring biofuels to market may be prohibitive;
they calculated it takes 50 gallons of water to grow enough Nebraska corn to produce the amount of ethanol needed to drive one mile.
and tied their models to estimates of how climate change--reflected in predicted regional levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide temperature
and Kansas. They also used estimates of carbon dioxide a greenhouse gas and other elements from a number of models including the government's well-tested Environmental Policy Integrated Climate (EPIC) model.
They used the simulation to predict crop outcomes over the next 40 years in relation to expectations of climate change.
The researchers found states in the Corn belt (Iowa Illinois Indiana Ohio and Missouri) and the Great lakes (Minnesota and Wisconsin) where corn growth is fed primarily by rainfall would be subject to more intense but less frequent precipitation especially during the summer.
The researchers suggested the growth of crops for ethanol was already questionable because of its impact on the environment.
The projected increases in water intensity due to climate change highlight the need to reevaluate the corn ethanol elements of the Renewable Fuel Standard Dominguez-Faus said.
The peat swamp frog (Limnonectes malesianus) is just one of the declining species threatened due to deforestation.
and plays havoc with ecosystems and biodiversity. ZSL together with collaborators from Queen Mary University of London Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia and University of Malaya continues to work closely with Malaysian palm oil producers in determining
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology Jena Germany discovered that the ability of Manduca sexta moths to recognize changes in the profile of volatile compounds released by plants being attacked by Manduca caterpillars allows them to lay their eggs on plants that are less likely
Ideal conditions for Manduca offspringnow the scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology show another interesting effect of the chemical odor conversion:
Ecology and Neurobiology The researchers also identified the neural mechanism that allows moths to detect the slightest changes in the volatile profile of plants that have already been attacked by caterpillars.
The combination of such neurological experiments and ecological field studies are very promising and may provide further insights into odor-guided behavior of insects in nature and agriculture.
The above story is provided based on materials by Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and her colleagues can image the brains of live birds in a noninvasive environment. MRI is used widely with human beings
Cacao trees are grown throughout the humid tropics in more than 50 countries and cacao beans harvested from the plants'pods are used to produce chocolate as well as in the confectionary and cosmetic industries.
#Effects of interannual climate variability on tropical tree cover: Satellite data reveal how tropical ecosystems may respond to climate extremestree cover in the tropics will likely change in surprising ways as climate change increases the frequency of extreme rainfall events according to a study by scientists from Wageningen University published today in Nature Climate Change.
The study shows that increasing year-to year variability in rainfall is associated to lower tree cover in the moist tropical forests worldwide
but it can open windows of opportunity for tree expansion in some tropical drylands. Understanding how ecosystems respond to climate variability is a priority in a fast changing globe says Marten Scheffer who leads the research program on tipping points.
Climate events can open windows of opportunity for abrupt changes in ecosystems. We are starting to glimpse on the complexity of these patterns says Scheffer.
The overall effects of climate variability are puzzling. On one hand severe drought can produce massive tree mortality
but there is also evidence of episodic tree recruitment during extreme rainy years says Milena Holmgren leading author of the study and a specialist on plant ecology.
Satellite datathe authors used satellite data to look at large scale patterns of tree cover across the tropics of Africa Australia and South america.
They show that increasing rainfall variability is associated to lower tree cover in the moist tropical forests of all continents.
In the dry tropics however the effects of higher year-to year variability in rainfall depend on the specific continent.
Higher overall inter-annual variation in rainfall has positive (South america) negative (Australia) or neutral effects (Africa) on tree cover in dry-lands.
The effects of climate variability in tropical drylands seem to depend on the balance between wet
and dry extreme events as well as on the opportunities trees have to grow during rainy events says Milena Holmgren.
Understanding potential impacts of climate change on the Amazon forest and the savannas surrounding it is one of the major challenges for scientists in the region today explains author Marina Hirota who came to work with the Wageningen team after her studies in Brazil
Our study shows that the forest is fragile to increasing climate variability within a year but also between years.
and opportunities that are inherent to the stability properties of these ecosystems that still cover massive parts of the Earth.
The findings have recently been published in the journal BMC Ecology. Gastrointestinal bacteria are important for digestion immune functions and general health.
and will help these stakeholders reduce their environmental impact while maintaining long-term viability. Based in part on growing consumer awareness of sustainability issues in our food supply chain the U s. dairy industry is working to further improve the environmental performance of its production processes
and supply chain in a way that is also economically sustainable said Greg Thoma professor of chemical engineering. Our analysis provides a documented baseline for their improvement efforts.
It is a source for understanding the factors that influence environmental impact. Thoma and an interdisciplinary team of U of A researchers looked at all facets
Specifically changing the bottle cap manufacturing process from injection molding to thermoforming may lower environmental impact.
The pervasive fast-paced extirpation of large vertebrates in their natural habitats is very likely causing unprecedented changes in the evolutionary trajectories of many tropical species. In general researchers estimate that human activity such as deforestation
However very few studies have documented successfully such rapid evolutionary changes in ecosystems that have been modified by human activity.
and cannot withstand projected climate change explained Galetti. But small-gaped birds such as thrushes that populate the fragmented patches of forest are unable to swallow
The researchers considered the influence of a wide range of environmental factors such as climate soil fertility
Long periods of drought and increasingly warmer climate (as predicted by climate model projections for South america) could be particularly harmful to tropical tree populations that depend on animals to disperse their seeds.
and structure of ecosystems because critical ecological interactions are being lost said Galetti. This involves the loss of key ecosystem functions that can determine evolutionary changes much faster than we anticipated.
Our work highlights the importance of identifying these key functions to quickly diagnose the functional collapse of ecosystems.
The report by Galetti et al was supported by the Fundaã§Ã£o de Amparo do Estado de SãO Paulo Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientã fico and Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia
But by the end of this century average global temperatures are likely to rise by another 1 F (0. 6 C) leading some scientists to predict the demise of the world's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem.
When intense volcanic activity produced huge quantities of carbon dioxide 120 million years ago in the mid-Cretaceous period yearly temperatures in the South American tropics rose 9
which is further evidence that tropical forests may prove resilient to climate change. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.
but does not offset fossil fuel emissionsleading world climate change experts have thrown cold water on the idea that planting trees can offset carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels.
Professor Brendan Mackey of Griffith University Climate Change Response Program is the lead author of an international study involving researchers from Australia
and climate change mitigation policy published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change. While protecting and restoring natural forests is part of the solution the reality is that for all practical purposes fossil fuel CO2 emissions are irreversible Professor Mackey said.
Restoring degraded ecosystems or planting new forests helps store some of the carbon dioxide that was emitted from past land use activities.
However no amount of reafforestation or growing of new trees will ultimately offset continuing CO2 emissions due to environmental constraints on plant growth and the large amounts of remaining fossil fuel reserves.
Based on elevation restrictions and forest type requirements as well as ongoing tropical deforestation we already knew that most species have access to far less habitat than typically assumed.
Other researchers included Stuart Pimm Doris Duke Professor of Conservation Ecology Duke university; Grant Harris chief of biological sciences (Southwest region) U s. Fish and Wildlife Service;
but optimizes that information by linking it to the recent flood of data about the environment.
While commercial silicon-based solar cells turn about 20 percent of sunlight into electricity and experimental units top 25 percent there's been an undercurrent of research into polymer-based cells that could greatly reduce the cost
whenever bees try to find their way around an unfamiliar environment the researchers observed. This gene is the insect equivalent of a transcription factor found in mammals.
it increased only in response to the bees'exposure to an unfamiliar environment. Even seasoned foragers had an uptick in Egr activity
when they had to learn how to navigate in a new environment. This discovery gives us an important lead in figuring out how honey bees are able to navigate so well with such a tiny brain said Gene Robinson a professor of entomology
and water sustainability in many parts of the world according to a study published online in Environmental Research Letters May 29 by scientists with the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment (Ione) and the Institute of Crop science and Resource
and crop water productivity by climatic zone for 16 staple food crops: wheat maize rice barley rye millet sorghum soybean sunflower potato cassava sugarcane sugar beet oil palm rapeseed (canola) and groundnut (peanut.
The wide range of variation in crop water productivity in places that have similar climates means that there are lots of opportunities for improving the trade-off between food and water.
The researchers calculated that in drier regions bringing up the very lowest performers to just the 20th percentile could increase annual production on rain-fed cropland enough to provide food for an estimated 110 million people
and climates total rain-fed food production in Africa could be increased by more than 10 percent without exploiting additional cropland.
Specific solutions for improving crop per drop will vary by location and climatic zone over time however.
It appears in the ACS journal Environmental science & Technology. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change
and illness and death associated with air pollution. That potential exists they say despite serious questions about safety disposal of radioactive waste and diversion of nuclear material for weapons.
By contrast we assess that large-scale expansion of unconstrained natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem
If the role of nuclear power declines significantly in the next 20-30 years Kharecha added the International Energy Agency predicts that achieving the major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are required to mitigate climate change would require heroic achievements in the use
It appears in the ACS journal Environmental science & Technology. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change
and illness and death associated with air pollution. That potential exists they say despite serious questions about safety disposal of radioactive waste and diversion of nuclear material for weapons.
By contrast we assess that large-scale expansion of unconstrained natural gas use would not mitigate the climate problem
If the role of nuclear power declines significantly in the next 20-30 years Kharecha added the International Energy Agency predicts that achieving the major reductions in greenhouse gas emissions that are required to mitigate climate change would require heroic achievements in the use
Daniel Nievergelt a dendrochronologist at The swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL was just having a look at a building site on the southern edge of the city.
The researcher took a closer examination of a few tree stumps on the edge of the loamy building pit in the neighborhood of Zurich Binz that had been discarded by the construction workers as waste timber.
The most recent finds are being incorporated into a global database of environmental archives and may provide important information about a number of research questions:
What was the climate like after the last Ice age? What events left a mark on the area around Zurich and Earth in general?
and precipitation and attest to disturbances such as fires storms and earthquakes. The density and chemical composition of the wood may provide clues to the climate and air composition in the past.
And since relatively recently adna analysis allow trees'evolution to be traced. All the data produced to be publishedthe WSL researchers are now sawing three sections from each useable stump
The above story is provided based on materials by Swiss Federal Institute for Forest Snow and Landscape Research WSL.
#Simplified solutions to deforestation ineffective in long rundeforestation is the second largest source of CO2 emissions after consumption of fossil fuels.
or protect forests have been promoted as a way to reduce deforestation. However the effectiveness of the programmes has been questioned and new research from the School of business Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg Sweden points to potential negative long-term effects and a need for broader guidelines and policies.
PES programmes have been promoted as a cost-effective tool to combat climate change. However the rather limited documentation on the effectiveness of the programmes is discouraging.'
and Policies for Provision of Ecosystem Services Nord n explores the weaknesses of PES programmes
The established climate targets make the measurability of PES programmes appealing--it is tempting to point to results by quantifying forests that would probably have been cut down in the absence of PES programmes.
Paying landowners for abstaining from deforestation is considered the most effective programme design. However this strategy implies that those who are already maintaining their forests are rewarded not.
and combat climate change'says Nord n who calls for better awareness of the effects of different reward systems.
'Yet cash payments can also have negative effects on the climate. Nord n gives an example:'
'Nord n is critical to the narrow focus of climate negotiations on PES programmes.''It seems naive to believe that just one policy will reduce deforestation.
My research points to the importance of complementing the programmes with other tools and measures and of paying better attention to long-term effects.'
Essays on Behavioral Economics and Policies for Provision of Ecosystem Servicesstory Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Gothenburg.
The discovery that changing the bacterial environment or microbiota in the gut can affect the brain carries significant implications for future research that could point the way toward dietary
Our findings indicate that some of the contents of yogurt may actually change the way our brain responds to the environment.
or gut environment than people who eat the more typicalwestern diet that is high in fat
or plain are meant to disperse pollen in the wind which is the route most important for allergy.
and flowering trees like the Bradford pear and Crabapple but they are not typically allergens as they rely on insects instead of the wind to carry their pollen.
and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)--an independent body modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Dr. Zakri a national of Malaysia who cochaired 2005's landmark Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and serves also as science advisor to his country's prime minister cited fast-growing evidence that we are hurtling towards irreversible environmental tipping points that once passed would reduce the ability of ecosystems to provide essential goods and services to humankind.
The incremental loss of Amazon rainforest for example may seem small with shortsighted perspective but will eventually accumulate to cause a larger more important change he said.
Experts warn that ongoing climate change combined with land use change and fires could cause much of the Amazon forest to transform abruptly to more open dry-adapted ecosystems threatening the region's enormous biodiversity and priceless services he added.
It has been clear for some time that a credible permanent IPCC-like science policy platform for biodiversity
and ecosystem services is an important but missing element in the international response to the biodiversity crisis Dr. Zakri told the 7th Trondheim Conference on Biodiversity.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment demonstrated that such an intergovernmental platform can create a clear valuable policy-relevant consensus from a wide range of information sources about the state trends
and outlooks of human-environment interactions with focus on the impacts of ecosystem change on human well-being.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment provides our baseline he said. The IPBES will tell us how much we have achieved where we are on track where we are not why and options for moving forward.
Causes of genetic erosion in domestic animals are the lack of appreciation of the value of indigenous breeds
and as a changing environment makes it more important than ever to have a large genetic pool to enable organisms to withstand
Biodiversity and the Sustainable Development Goalsaccording to Dr. Zakri the most important outcome of last year's Rio+20 international environmental summit of nations was agreement to set new multi-year
And I agree that many of the services the environment provides like clean water and air are irreplaceable necessities.
The above story is provided based on materials by Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES.
This research has been published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. The Bechstein's Bat (Myotis bechsteinii) has a broad distribution:
and Holocene says Dr Marã a Napal leading author of thepaper published in Forest Ecology and Management.
and consolidation of its decline coincided with the deforestation caused by the intensification of agriculture
However in the north of the Peninsula where the climate and vegetation are more similar to those of Central europe their centre of distribution it is much more difficult to find them.
To test this hypothesis the UPV/EHU researchers studied the ecology of the species in the Mediterranean and Atlantic climate domains of the Iberian peninsula.
More flexible in the Mediterraneanin the Atlantic as well as Mediterranean domain the observations were consistent with the data available on the ecology of the species. M. bechsteinii prefer roosts carved out by woodpeckers in the trunks of living oak trees located inside the forest
This study confirms that the M. bechsteinii is a forest specialist with a relatively narrow ecological niche
Both areas of study offer conditions that meet the ecological needs of the species and it could also be said that
contrary to our expectations and based on the distribution area and data on the ecology of the species available to date in the Mediterranean localities the conditions are even more lax than in the Atlantic points out the researcher.
Our data suggest that the current distribution pattern of the M. bechsteinii in Europe reflects not only the climate changes that have taken place over the most recent thousands of years
This is a clear demonstration of the effect that a prolonged history of deforestation and degradation of the forestry systems can have on the populations of forestry specialists like the Bechstein's bat.
but ignoring this reality may lead us to draw wrong conclusions about the ecological needs of certain species
Just as tree rings record the environment in which a tree grew traces of barium in the layers of a primate tooth can tell the story of
The work was funded by the U s. Environmental protection agency U s. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences U s. National Science Foundation Australian National Health and Medical Research Council Australian
and Charles Perrings studied the effects of reforestation on a'bundle'of ecosystem services: dry-season water flows carbon sequestration timber and livestock production.
Published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) their study--Bundling ecosystem services in the Panama canal Watershed--examines precipitation topography vegetation
Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Training Network (BESTNET. Simonit and Perrings found that only 37 percent of the currently forested area positively impacts dry-season water flows offering up roughly 37.2 million cubic meters of seasonal flow (equivalent to US $16. 37 million
Water supply is however only one amongst many ecosystem services affected by reforestation of the watershed said Perrings a professor in the School of Life sciences in ASU's College of Liberal arts and Sciences.
and water is not the only ecosystem service supplied. Both natural forest and teak plantations offer benefits in the form of carbon sequestration and timber products among other things and these should be weighed against any water losses said Perrings.
while providing other important ecosystem services. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Arizona State university College of Liberal arts and Sciences.
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