and related enzyme that put the brakes on germination during hot weather--a discovery that could lead to lettuces that can sprout year-round even at high temperatures.
And because this mechanism that inhibits hot-weather germination in lettuce seeds appears to be quite common in many plant species we suspect that other crops also could be modified to improve their germination he said.
In order to jumpstart seed germination for a winter crop in these hot climates lettuce growers have turned to cooling the soil with sprinkler irrigation
The natural appearance of smooth mutants could be used a ploy by the bacteria to introduce variation into its populations making them able to take advantage of different environments.
Much discussion of the risks posed by the neonicotinoid insecticides has raised important questions of their suitability for use in our environment.
This research is part of the Insect Pollinators Initiative joint-funded by the Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council Defra the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) the Scottish government and the Wellcome Trust under the auspices
of the Living with Environmental Change (LWEC) partnership. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Biotechnology and Biological sciences Research Council.
We're hoping to reform the way that the lists are developed said U of I invasive plant ecologist Lauren Quinn.
Quinn and her team recommend that field trials be done on caution list species before they're released into the environment The team also proposes a negligence-liability scheme in case the plant turns out to be invasive.
I've been looking at how they are likely to disperse in the environment and whether they are able to establish in areas outside of cultivation she said.
and complain'my neighbor is going to plant Miscanthus and I heard on the Internet somewhere that it's invasive
This due diligence not only protects the environment but also protects developers from potential losses due to findings of negligence down the road.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
Wheat is a globally important crop due to its enhanced adaptability to a wide range of climates and improved grain quality for the production of baker's flour.
and coincided with the abrupt climate change that occurred during the Pliocene epoch. They also found the expansion of the micro-RNA mir2275 family may contribute to Ae.
The two studies also represent a major step forward for improving this vital crop in the face of global climate change growing human population and bioenergy.
Paper substrates are better for the environment but have shown limited performance because of high surface roughness or porosity.
However cellulose nanomaterials made from wood are green renewable and sustainable. The substrates have a low surface roughness of only about two nanometers.
Our next steps will be to work toward improving the power conversion efficiency over 10 percent levels similar to solar cells fabricated on glass
Anosy mouse lemurs are close neighbors with grey mouse lemurs and grey-brown mouse lemurs but the genetic data indicate they don't interbreed.
and streams are a scenic and much loved feature of forest ecosystems but long-term data at the U s. Forest Service's Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest suggests that more productive forests might carry considerably less water according to a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
to better understand the ecological consequences of the depletion of available soil calcium. Subsequent studies demonstrated that following the application of a finely ground
As the need for carbon sequestration biofuels and other forest products increases the study suggests that there might be unintended consequences to enhancing ecosystems using fertilization.
Long-term ecological research is important to understanding the health and sustainability of the nation's forests said Michael T. Rains Director of the Northern Research Station.
With a network of more than 80 experimental forests located across the country and decades of monitoring data from this network the Forest Service is contributing invaluable information about forest conditions along a complex rural to urban land gradient as well as discovering other trends through a wide-range
Likens of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and University of Connecticut and Scott Ollinger of the University of New hampshire.
because the climate in India and Africa tended to be hotter and drier than in Europe.
Hillis who raises Longhorns of his own out at the Double Helix Ranch said that the winds of history now seem to be blowing in the Longhorns'direction.
They can survive in hotter drier climates which will become increasingly important as the world warms.
Blake Grisham a post doctoral research associate working with Boal said in terms of wind farms companies already have been trying to do the right thing by staying away from known habitats.
we've been fortunate that the wind energy companies have identified these places as potential problems
A general decline shows that the ecosystem as a whole faces uncertainty and that other species may be affected in the future.
In recent decades peregrine and saker falcons have been listed as endangered due to rapid population declines caused by a wide range of factors including environmental change overharvesting for falconry habitat loss and bioaccumulation of pesticides (e g.
#Losing wetlands to grow cropsgetting enough to eat is a basic human need--but at what cost to the environment?
& Food security demonstrates that as their crops on higher ground fail due to unreliable rainfall people in countries like Uganda are increasingly relocating to wetland areas.
While the environmental significance of wetland loss is important so are National Food security targets and the Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people who suffer from hunger by 2015.
and Worldwide Agronomy Manager at The Mosaic Co. said To explore the causes of the CCYP we tested a number of different weather-and yield-related measurements for their relationships with the CCYP.
and the maximum yield under non-N limiting conditions) is probably a function of weather conditions particularly during critical growth periods such as ovule determination and grain fill.
N availability corn stover accumulation and unfavorable weather. Given that weather cannot be controlled and the optimum N fertilizer rate can be determined only after crop harvest managing corn stover has the greatest potential for reducing the CCYP said Gentry.
The same research team is collaborating on a follow-up study investigating the effect of stover removal and tillage on the CCYP.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
Researchers at the UAB's Institute of Environmental science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and the Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC) have analysed the potential of different species of microalgae for producing biodiesel comparing their growth production of biomass
microalgae cultures are close to producing biodiesel profitably even in uncontrolled environmental conditions. If we make simple adjustments to completely optimise the process biodiesel obtained by cultivating these marine microalgae could be an option for energy supplies to towns near the sea points out Sergio Rossi an ICTA researcher at the UAB.
so they would present no environmental threat in the event of leakagethird-generation biodieselfirst-generation biodiesel
This study was led by scientists from the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona's Institute of Environmental science and Technology (ICTA) and involved researchers from the Department of Marine and Oceanographic Biology of the Institute of Marine Sciences of the CSIC from the UAB spin-off Inã dit Innovaciã SL in the UAB Research
#Ants rise with temperaturewarm nights might be more important than hot days in determining how species respond to climate change.
Rising minimum temperatures may be the best way to predict how climate change will affect an ecosystem said Robert Warren assistant professor of biology at SUNY Buffalo State.
Cold extremes that once limited warm-adapted species will disappear in a warming global climate.
As climate change occurs we expect species to migrate said Warren . However we need evidence to establish that climate change caused that movement.
To obtain that evidence Warren's team collected a total of 755 ants from 191 colonies.
and Environmental Nutrition is believed to be the first to show a decrease in food insecurity--or a lack of access to nutritional foods for at least some days or meals for members of a household--as the result of an intervention.
It is published in the current issue of the journal Environmental Research Letters. Much of what we know about changes in stream water quality comes from studies where basins have been impacted by human activity said Alba Argerich a postdoctoral research associate with Oregon State university and the study's lead author.
These long-term water quality data from experimental forests are said a treasure Sherri Johnson a research ecologist with the Pacific Northwest Research Station
and husbandry practices have led to modifications of the human--wolf interactions as well as of the social and environmental contexts of human--wolf relationships.
Instead species with wind-dispersed seeds will most likely take over. Ola Olsson stressed that the present study does not give any definite answers to how the composition of the forests could change
because those who live in the vicinity of the forests gather a lot of fruit and nuts he said.
The trees also have other ecosystem functions in the form of carbon sequestration and effects on nutrient cycling and retention.
To the extent that fossil resources are used to generate electricity the report says that the successful implementation of carbon capture
From a conservation point of view both retention forestry and agroforestry are expected to provide a variety of ecological benefits such as the maintenance and restoration of ecosystem heterogeneity.
and Environmental Studies at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) calls for studies addressing cost-effectiveness of different retention and agroforestry systems in relation to biodiversity conservation argues for a stronger
But are they simply reacting to the environment or do they really know what time of day it is?
The research has been led by Dr Charlotte Packman from UEA's school of Environmental sciences in collaboration with the Wildlife Conservation Society Cambodia Program and Birdlife International.
It was funded by the Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund. Dr Packman said: Tropical and flooded grasslands are among the most threatened ecosystems globally.
The area around the Tonle Sap lake is the largest remaining tropical flooded grassland in Southeast asia.
and on the marginalised rural communities that depend on the grassland ecosystem. The loss of this entire ecosystem from Southeast asia is imminent without immediate intervention.
In 2009 only 173 km of grassland were under some form of protection but by 2011 even these protected areas were shrinking--with 28 per cent lost to intensive cultivation.
and generate a future pandemic said lead author Trevon Fuller a UCLA postdoctoral research fellow at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability's Center for Tropical Research.
Research and a professor at UCLA's Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the UCLA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
or rain and temperatures that encourage flu transmission. For each type of flu we identified variables that were predictive of the various virus strains Fuller said.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
White Nose Syndrome is arguably the most devastating wildlife disease we've faced said Michael T. Rains Director of the Forest Service's Northern Research Station.
which are so important to agriculture and forest ecosystems. Scientists identified Geomyces destructans as the cause of WNS in 2012.
As the most diverged wild relative of O. sativa (rice) O. Brachyantha has resistance against many rice pathogens and various stress environments.
Their study appears in the ACS'journal Environmental science & Technology. Chensheng Lu and colleagues cite previous studies showing that urban low-income multifamily public housing dwellings are prone to severe pest infestation problems.
The authors acknowledge funding from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by American Chemical Society.
The team demonstrated that it can control butanol production by changing the conditions in the surrounding environment.
The findings which are among the first to speak to the benefits of second-growth logging debris are published online in the journal Forest Ecology and Management.
The study sites are located in the traditional homeland of the Tolowa people in the Smith River basin and vicinity of northwestern California.
#Study predicts lag in summer rains over parts of US and Mexicoa delay in the summer monsoon rains that fall over the southwestern United states
The North american monsoon delivers as much as 70 percent of the region's annual rainfall watering crops and rangelands for an estimated 20 million people.
We hope this information can be used with other studies to build realistic expectations for water resource availability in the future said study lead author Benjamin Cook a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty
Much of the arid U S. Southwest is expected to get even drier as winter precipitation declines under climate change
but the present modeling study predicts that summer rain levels will stay constant over southern Arizona and New mexico and northwestern Mexico.
What will shift is the arrival of the heaviest rains from July and August or so to September and October the study says.
and northwestern Mexico-the timing is the problem here said study co-author Richard Seager a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty.
A delayed monsoon could potentially lower crop yields as rains come later in the growing season when the days are getting shorter.
The study makes use of the latest climate change models (those used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fifth Assessment Report due out next fall) to estimate monthly changes in precipitation by the end of the century 2080-2099.
The researchers hypothesize that future warming will make it more difficult to form clouds and rainfall early in the monsoon when soils are dry followed reduced winter rain
and snowfall thus delaying the onset of the monsoon rains until enough moisture can be moved in from the oceans.
There is some evidence that the monsoon may already be arriving later. A 2007 study in the Journal of Climate led by researcher Katrina Grantz then at the University of Colorado found a decline in July rainfall since the late 1940s and a corresponding increase in August to September rainfall.
Other scientists are cautious about drawing conclusions from a relatively short instrumental record given the monsoon's natural year-to-year variability.
The Sonoran Desert and Sky Islands ecoregion lies at the northern edge of the North american monsoon where vegetation ranges from saguaro-studded subtropical desert in the lowlands to high-altitude boreal forests.
and Atmospheric administration noted in a 2007 study in the Journal of Climate. Though total monsoon rainfall is projected to stay the same warmer summer temperatures under climate change will cause more evaporation leaving less water for crops reservoirs and ecosystems.
It is important to look at the big picture before getting too sanguine about monsoon rainfall staying steady said Jonathan Overpeck a climate scientist at the University of Arizona who was involved not in the study.
Farmers who rely on summer rain will have a trickier time as the rainfall timing and amounts changes-they like predictability.
Ultimately the jury is still out but this is a fine study that gives us more information to plan with.
#Monsoon failure key to long droughts in Southwestlong-term droughts in the Southwestern North america often mean failure of both summer and winter rains according to new tree-ring research from a University
and summer rains were sparse year after year. One of the big questions in drought studies is
This is the first time researchers have used tree rings to take a closer look at the monsoon in a large and important area of the American Southwest said Griffin who also is an EPA STAR Research Fellow at the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.
Those droughts had major environmental and social effects Griffin said pointing out that the late-16th-century megadrought caused landscape-scale vegetation changes a 17th-century drought has been implicated in the Pueblo Revolt of 1680
The National Science Foundation the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration and the U s. Environmental protection agency supported the research.
Until recently most tree-ring researchers known as dendrochronologists have looked at the total width of trees'annual rings to reconstruct past climate.
Few teased out the seasonal climate signal recorded in the narrow part of the growth ring laid down in late summer known as latewood.
The team's climate analyses focused on NAM2 which covers most of Arizona western New mexico and northern parts of the Mexican states of Sonora and Chihuahua.
Griffin said Before I moved to the Southwest I didn't realize how critically important the summer rains are to the ecosystems here.
The summer monsoon rains have allowed humans to survive in the Southwest for at least 4000 years.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences.
In the most comprehensive assessment yet of the risk of tropical forest dieback due to climate change the results have important implications for the future evolution of tropical rainforests including the role they play in the global climate system and carbon cycle.
To remain effective programmes such as the United Nation's Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation+scheme require rainforest stability in effect locking carbon within the trees.
The research team comprised climate scientists and tropical ecologists from the UK USA Australia and Brazil and was led by Dr Chris Huntingford from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in the UK.
Dr Huntingford and colleagues used computer simulations with 22 climate models to explore the response of tropical forests in The americas Africa and Asia to greenhouse-gas-induced climate change.
They found loss of forest cover in only one model and only in The americas. The researchers found that the largest source of uncertainty in the projections to be differences in how plant physiological processes are represented ahead of the choice of emission scenario and differences between various climate projections.
Although this work suggests that the risk of climate-induced damage to tropical forests will be relatively small the paper does list where the considerable uncertainties remain in defining how ecosystems respond to global warming.
Lead author Dr Chris Huntingford from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in the UK said The big surprise in our analysis is that uncertainties in ecological models of the rainforest are significantly larger than uncertainties from differences in climate projections.
Despite this we conclude that based on current knowledge of expected climate change and ecological response there is evidence of forest resilience for The americas (Amazonia and Central america) Africa and Asia.
Co-author Dr David Galbraith from the University of Leeds said This study highlights why we must improve our understanding of how tropical forests respond to increasing temperature and drought.
Different vegetation models currently simulate remarkable variability in forest sensitivity to climate change. And while these new results suggest that tropical forests may be quite resilient to warming it is important also to remember that other factors not included in this study such as fire
and deforestation will also affect the carbon stored in tropical forests. Their impacts are also difficult to simulate.
It is therefore critical that modelling studies are accompanied by further comprehensive forest observations. Co-author Dr Lina Mercado from the University of Exeter
and the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology said Building on this study one of the big challenges that remains is to include in Earth system models a full representation of thermal acclimation and adaptation of the rainforest to warming.
The research team came from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UK) National Center for Atmospheric Research (USA) The Australian National University (Australia) CCST/Inst Nacl Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE)( Brazil) James Cook
The above story is provided based on materials by Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Amplified greenhouse effect shaping North into Southan international team of 21 authors from 17 institutions in seven countries has published just a study in the journal Natural Climate Change showing that as the cover of snow
On the amplified greenhouse effect Prof. Ranga Myneni Department of Earth and Environment Boston University and lead co-author says A greenhouse effect initiated by increased atmospheric concentration of heat-trapping gasses--such as water vapor carbon dioxide
and methane--causes the Earth's surface and nearby air to warm. The warming reduces the extent of polar sea ice
and snow cover on the large land mass that surrounds the Arctic ocean thereby increasing the amount of solar energy absorbed by the no longer energy-reflecting surface.
and loss of sea ice and snow cover thus amplifying the base greenhouse effect. The amplified warming in the circumpolar area roughly above the Canada-USA border is reducing temperature seasonality over time
because the colder seasons are warming more rapidly than the summer says Liang Xu a Boston University doctoral student
and vegetation productivity in some parts of the North as the ramifications of amplified greenhouse effect--including permafrost thawing frequent forest fires outbreak of pest infestations
Based on analysis of 17 state-of-the-art climate model simulations diminishment of temperature seasonality in these regions could be more than 20 degrees in latitude by the end of this century relative to the 1951-1980 reference period.
Since we don't know the actual trajectory of atmospheric concentration of various agents capable of forcing a change in climate long-term projections should be interpreted cautiously says co-author Bruce Anderson Professor of Earth and Environment at Boston University.
These changes will affect local residents through changes in provisioning ecosystem services such as timber and traditional foods says Research Professor Bruce Forbes University of Lapland Rovaniemi Finland.
They will also impact the global community through changes in regulatory ecosystem services relating to emissions of greenhouse gases.
Any large-scale deep-thawing of these soils has the potential to further amplify the greenhouse effect says co-author Philippe Ciais Associate Director Laboratory of Climate and Environmental science Paris France.
African lions and villagers would benefit from fences to protect them from each other according to a new study by University of Minnesota researcher Craig Packer published online by Ecology Letters on March 5.
Even though lion habitat has been reduced by at least 75 percent over the last century more still remains than can possibly be conserved said Packer a professor in the Department of Ecology Evolution and Behavior.
Because the findings from the Ecology Letters paper present such an enormous challenge for African governments and conservationists the best hope may be to advocate for a Marshall Plan for African wildlife conservation Packer said.
Population declines among bees have serious consequences for natural ecosystems and agriculture since bees are essential pollinators for many crops
and reduce phosphorus pollution in the environment. After developing the initial line of Enviropigs researchers found that the line had certain genes that could be unstable during reproduction or impractical in commercial use.
Forsberg said using Enviropigs could improve food production and the environment. When transgenic food animals are accepted by consumers the Enviropig perhaps would be one of the first innovations to be introduced into swine production said Forsberg.
The two species represent extremes regarding both vagility and ecological flexibility. C. flavoplumosa provides a useful example of extreme habitat flexibility occupying habitats from forests to semideserts.
The reasons for this ecological divergence however are unknown. The newly described species C. kei is associated very closely
which govern the multiphase gas-liquid-ice environment the model incorporates the dynamics and effects of thawing sap dissolving gas bubbles and an osmotic pressure gradient between two components (vessels and fibers) in the tree's nonliving vascular tissue.
What effect will recent climate changes have on future sap yields? Why does a light snow cover around the trunk have such a big influence on stem pressures?
Why does sap flow drop immediately after a west wind? These are questions we can't answer yet he says.
But our aim is to come up with a model that will! Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Society for Industrial and Applied mathematics.
Petra Staiger Phd co-investigator from Deakin University added Data and class observations also suggested that the social environment of the class increased children's willingness to try new foods.
The study led by bat ecologist Winifred Frick of the University of California Santa cruz was published in the journal PLOS ONE on March 6.
Bats make up a large component of mammalian diversity in forest ecosystems where they play an important role as insect predators.
Studies that show how animals respond to fire help inform the ongoing public policy debate over the role of fire in ecosystem management
or allowed to burn on public lands according to coauthor Joseph Fontaine a fire ecologist at Murdoch University in Perth Australia.
A great deal of tension exists between public land managers environmental groups and other stakeholders--including homeowners ranching interests
Lead researcher Dr Paul Dolman from UEA's school of Environmental sciences said: Deer management is often based on guesswork.
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