and should not goresearchers have created a'large-scale zoning plan'that aims to limit the environmental costs of road expansion
Now an ambitious study has created a'global roadmap'for prioritising road building across the planet to try to balance the competing demands of development and environmental protection.
an'environmental-values'layer that estimates that natural importance of ecosystems and a'road-benefits'layer that estimates the potential for increased agriculture production via new or improved roads.
Roads often open a Pandora's box of environmental problems said Professor William Laurance of James Cook University in Australia the study's lead author.
and other universities for nearly two years to map out the world's most important ecosystems and biodiversity.
The good news is that there are still expanses of the world where agriculture can be improved greatly without large environmental costs said Dr Nathan Mueller of Harvard university USA.
Areas with carbon-rich ecosystems with key wilderness habitats such as tropical forests were identified as those where new roads would cause the most environmental damage with the lease human benefit particularly areas where few roads currently exist.
and Madagascar the environmental costs of road expansion are said massive Christine O'Connell from the University of Minnesota USA.
and strategic planning to reduce environmental damage should be central to any discussion about road expansion.
if they're stored at room temperature in a country where the climate may be somewhat tropical.
The research published in the journal Global Ecology and Biogeography describes the patterns and trends in their spread using global databases to investigate the factors that influence the number of countries reached by pests and the number of pests in each country.
It supports the view of previous studies that climate change is likely to significantly affect pest pressure on agriculture with the warming Earth having a clear influence on the distribution of crop pests.
The findings which appear Aug 28 in the journal Nature could make it easier to feed the world's growing population in the face of climate change.
if climate change makes rainfall patterns increasingly unreliable and farmland in some regions continues to dry up.
The problem is confounded by the fact that drought is accompanied often by heat waves and other stresses that require different coping strategies on the part of the plant Pei said.
and in forests it can survive in widely diverse ecosystems and has been found to impact native plant species invertebrate populations and soil nutrients.
In a new study recently published in the journal Ecology UGA researchers found that Japanese stiltgrass also is affecting arachnid predators:
while earning her doctorate in the Warnell School said people often don't fully realize how much structural changes in an environment can affect how animals interact.
Ecosystems are so incredibly complex that it can be surprisingly difficult to foresee just how environmental changes such as an invasion will affect organisms living in affected areas said Devore who is now a postdoctoral fellow with the University of Sydney in Australia.
Maerz has been interested in the effects of Japanese stiltgrass on forest ecosystems for years When Devore and Maerz originally found lower survival of American toads at eight locations in Georgia where stiltgrass is actively invading they initially speculated that the grass was reducing the toads'food supply by reducing insect populations--few native insects eat the Asian
It's logistically impossible to test the effects on an environmental change on every species that could be impacted Devore said
The paper by Devore and Maerz was featured on the cover of the July issue of Ecology.
The authors acknowledge funding from the Bavarian State Ministry of the Environment and Consumer Protection.
These results published in Nature Climate Change in september 2014 underline the importance of microbial diversity to the functioning of soils
Terrestrial ecosystems contribute to about 70%of N2o emissions at least 45%being linked to the nitrogen-containing products found in agricultural soils (fertilisers slurry manure crop residues etc..
which has no impact on the environment. INRA scientists working in collaboration with Swedish and Irish colleagues have analysed 47 soil samples collected throughout Europe
The large dust grains seen by the GBT would suggest that at least some protostars may arise in a more nurturing environment for planets said Scott Schnee an astronomer with the National Radio astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville Virginia.
The new GBT observations extend across the northern portion of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex a star-forming region that includes the famed Orion Nebula.
Due to the unique environment in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex the researchers propose two intriguing theories for their origin.
These regions compared to molecular clouds in general have lower temperatures higher densities and lower velocities--all of
The material could then have escaped back into the surrounding molecular cloud rather than becoming part of the original newly forming star system.
These data were compared with earlier studies as well as temperature estimates obtain from observations of ammonia molecules in the clouds.
and there could be other explanations for the bright signature we detected in the emission from the Orion Molecular Cloud concluded Brian Mason an astronomer at the NRAO
Since it contains one of the highest concentrations of protostars of any nearby molecular cloud it will continue to excite the curiosity of astronomers.
#Museum specimens, modern cities show how an insect pest will respond to climate changeresearchers from North carolina State university have found that century-old museum specimens hold clues to how global climate change
Given the shared urban and historical pattern the researchers also predicted that scale insects would be more abundant in rural forests today than in the past as a result of recent climate warming.
The paper Do cities simulate climate change? A comparison of herbivore response to urban and global warming is published in the journal Global Change Biology.
or new methods to clean up the environment. For the first time scientists used GPS technology to understand how sheepdogs do their jobs so well.
'There are numerous applications for this knowledge such as crowd control cleaning up the environment herding of livestock keeping animals away from sensitive areas
The above story is provided based on materials by Natural Environment Research Council. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
and ecological studies published elsewhere by the author of this revision Dr Peter J. de Lange.
The study reported in Environmental science and Technology recalculates the theoretical limit of terrestrial plant productivity
what the natural ecosystem would have produced. But it turns out that in nature very few plants have evolved to maximize their growth rates.
Delucia directs the Institute for Sustainability Energy and Environment at the U. of I. He also is an affiliate of the Energy Biosciences Institute
or managed ecosystems Delucia said but they represent the untapped potential productivity of plants in general.
or natural ecosystems the authors wrote. We're not saying that this is even approachable but the theory tells us that what is possible on the planet is much much higher than
Taking into account global water limitations reduced this theoretical limit by more than 20 percent in all parts of the terrestrial landscape except the tropics Delucia said.
and we shouldn't worry about the environmental consequences of agriculture we shouldn't worry about runaway population growth he said.
All I'm saying is that we're underestimating the productive capacity of plants in managed ecosystems.
Finally in the new statement the association calls for comprehensive and continuous research on e-cigarettes'use their characteristics their marketing and their long-term health effects on individual users the environment and public health.
#Signatures of selection inscribed on poplar genomesone aspect of the climate change models researchers have been developing looks at how plant ranges might shift
and describes a method that could be harnessed for developing more accurate predictive climate change models.
For the U s. Department of energy which is developing biomass crops for biofuels production this knowledge could determine which genotypes--genetic makeup of an organism--of biomass crop may thrive better than others in certain environments.
This is the first time that deep genomics resources have ever been applied to an ecological question in this case:'
and light levels and they examined variation in those genes as they vary across environmental gradients.
and fall bud set from the clonally-replicated poplars growing in three plantations indicated that in warmer climates trees with earlier bud flush and later bud set were favored.
Given the importance of poplar trees not just for their role in the ecosystem for instance in capturing carbon
Honeybees face threats from disease climate change and management practices. To combat these threats it is important to understand the evolutionary history of honeybees
and how they are adapted to different environments across the world. We have used state-of-the-art high-throughput genomics to address these questions
This indicates that climate change has impacted strongly honeybee populations historically. Populations in Europe appear to have contracted during ice ages
whereas African populations have expanded at those times suggesting that environmental conditions there were more favourable says Matthew Webster.
The researchers also identified specific mutations in genes important in adaptation to factors such as climate
and adaptation to climate knowledge that could be vital for protecting honeybees in a rapidly changing world says Matthew Webster.
#Fungus deadly to AIDS patients found to grow on treesresearchers have pinpointed the environmental source of fungal infections that have been sickening HIV/AIDS patients in Southern California for decades.
and American sweetgum--can serve as environmental hosts and sources of these human infections. Just as people who travel to South america are told to be careful about drinking the water people who visit other areas like California the Pacific Northwest
The researchers also found that the C. gattii isolated from the environment were fertile reproducing either by sexual or asexual reproduction.
That finding is important for long-term prevalence in the environment because this fungal pathogen will be able to grow reproduce disperse spores
and sense them in the environment you need acompletely different lock and key. The key looks very different
At first this was a blip then a trend then a puzzle for the climate science community.
because there are so many other things happening due to climate change Tung said. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Washington.
To ensure safe timely and accurate delivery drones would need to deal with a degree of uncertainty in responding to factors such as high winds sensor measurement errors or drops in fuel.
In simulations involving multiple deliveries under various environmental conditions the researchers found that their drones delivered as many packages as those that lacked health-monitoring algorithms--but with far fewer failures or breakdowns.
Interestingly in our simulations we found that even in harsh environments out of 100 drones we only had a few failures.
MDP he says works reasonably well in environments with perfect measurements where the result of one action will be observed perfectly.
For example even if a command is given to turn 90 degrees a strong wind may prevent that command from being carried out.
and map a large environment and accurately predict the collision and failure probabilities on different routes.
which drones were tasked with delivering multiple packages to different addresses under various wind conditions and with limited fuel.
Several blood biomarkers were assessed to reflect the consumption of different key components of the diet such as serum alpha linoleic acid as a biomarker of canola oil consumption EPA and DHA reflecting fatty
and sustainable withdrawals from groundwater said Forrest Melton a research scientist in the Ecological Forecasting Lab at NASA Ames Research center in Moffett Field California.
whose irrigation comes partially from rain or snowmelt. For these parts of the world where farmers have little data available to help them understand current conditions SMAP's measurements could fill a significant void.
If farmers of rain-fed crops know soil moisture they can schedule their planting to maximize crop yield said Narendra Das a water and carbon cycle scientist on SMAP's science team at NASA's Jet propulsion laboratory in Pasadena California.
#Signs of deforestation in Brazilmultiple fires are visible in in this image of the Para and Mato grosso states of Brazil.
Deforestation is the removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is converted thereafter to a nonforest use.
Examples of deforestation include conversion of forestland to farms ranches or urban use. The herringbone-patterned tan lines cutting through the dark green of the Amazon Rainforest in the middle of the image are evidence of deforestation in the Brazilian state of Parã¡.
deforestation in Parã¡follows the Brazialian national motorway BR 163 passing by cities such as Novo Progresso.
The lower half of the image shows the state of Mato grosso. The beginning of the forest loss coincides with a 1979 decision by Brazil's Program of National Integration to build roads across the forest
Images of the fishbone deforestation in Rondã'nia state were publicized widely and have become the visual shorthand for tropical deforestation worldwide as evidenced in this Aqua image.
In recent decades the locus of deforestation in Brazil has shifted east to the states of Mato grosso and Parã¡(
(seen in this image) where large tracts of land are being cleared for mechanized agriculture rather than small-hold farming.
Even so Brazil's overall rate of deforestation has slowed in recent years. This natural-color satellite image was collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aboard the Aqua satellite on August 15 2014.
or thousands of years while releasing toxic components with the potential to harm the environment and human health.
just as accurately as we now can forecast the next day's weather. My vision is that just like you have fairly reasonable weather predictions today for
what is going to happen tomorrow that have evolved to be compared very accurate to where they started out in the 1940s
and that is because we can predict the weather with a large degree of confidence. When wildland fuel distribution
and the effects of climate change drive up the total acres burned nationwide and also the average size of each fire ballooning the number of on-call U s. Forest Service firefighters
what is going to dictate the fluid dynamics in the vicinity. In turn the fluid dynamics of the air and combustible hydrocarbons as fire progresses could point the way to where the fire will spread.
California's seasonal combination of Santa anna winds and rising temperatures both serve to dry the fuel for combustion and drive the fire's process once underway.
and how proximity and wind can influence their combustion characteristics. We light the shrub then figure out how much time it takes to burn out Dr. Mahalingam says.
what the wind's effects are. It turns out that for cases with no wind you really have to get the shrubs close together for one to affect the other.
Dahale A.;S. Padhi; B. Shotorban; S. Mahalingam Flame merging in two neighboring shrub fires Paper 070fr-0198 presented at the 8th U s. National Combustion Meeting Salt lake city UT May 19
#How steroid hormones enable plants to growplants can adapt extremely quickly to changes in their environment.
After being struck by lightning for example a tree can grow back its entire crown. But there is one major downside to life as a plant:
The digital catalog is a compilation of spectroscopic abundance data from 84 literature sources for 50 elements across 3058 stars in the solar neighborhood within 500 lightyears of the Sun. It essentially lists the compositions of stars
--or F-G-or K-type (the Sun is A g-type star)--that are relatively near to the Sun. This catalog can hopefully be used to guide a better understanding of how the local neighborhood has evolved explains Natalie Hinkel who graduated from ASU in 2012 with her doctorate in astrophysics
While constructing the catalog Hinkel noticed that the stars in the solar neighborhood reveal unexpected compositions
In other words the solar neighborhood does not appear to be mixed a salad; it's a layered salad.
In analysis of the five year period between 2001-2006 coastal areas accounted for 43 percent of all land cover change in the continental U s. This report identifies a wide variety of land cover changes that can intensify climate
and includes environmental data that can help coastal managers improve community resilience. Land cover maps document
By showing how that land cover has changed over time scientists can determine how these changes impact our plant's environmental health said Nate Herold a NOAA physical scientist who directs the mapping effort at NOAA's Coastal Services Center
The ability to mitigate the growing evidence of climate change along our coasts with rising sea levels already impacting coastlines in ways not imaged just a few years ago makes the data available through the Land Cover Atlas program critically important to coastal resilience planning said Margaret
Davidson National Ocean Service senior advisor for coastal inundation and resilience science services. C-CAP data identify a wide variety of land cover changes that can intensify climate change risks-for example forest
or wetland losses that threaten to worsen flooding and water quality issues or weaken the area's fishing and forestry industries.
The atlas's visuals help make NOAA environmental data available to end users enabling them to help the public better understand the importance of improving resilience.
and causing a drastic change in the ability of ecosystems to produce food--specifically meat.
While the phenomenon of woody plant invasion has been occurring for decades for the first time we have quantified the losses in ecosystem services said Osvaldo Sala Julie A. Wrigley Chair and Foundation Professor with ASU's School of Life sciences and School of Sustainability.
And to account for the effects of different socioeconomic factors researchers quantified the impact of tree cover on livestock production in two areas of the world that have similar environments but different level of economic development.
While ranchers clearly depend on grasslands to support healthy livestock ecosystems also provide a range of other services to humans.
Fire reduction grazing intensity climate change and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are held some widely beliefs as to the cause.
I'm interested in how rainforest hunter-gatherers have adapted to their very challenging environments said George H. Perry assistant professor of anthropology and biology Penn State.
Mutations which have positive influence on individuals making them more fit for their environment tend to spread through the population.
Led by Professor Brendan Mackey Director of the Climate Change Response Program at Griffith University in Queensland Australia the authors are experts in forest ecology conservation biology international policy
and ecological processes have not been disrupted significantly. These forests are home to an extraordinary richness of biodiversity with up to 57 percent of all tropical forest species dependent on primary forest habitat
and the ecological processes they provide. The analysis shows that almost 98 per cent of primary forest is found within 25 countries with around half of that located in five developed countries:
In the absence of specific policies for primary forest protection in biodiversity and climate change treaties their unique biodiversity values
and ecosystem services will continue to be lost in both developed and developing countries. Co-author James Watson of the Wildlife Conservation Society says:
2 Incorporate primary forests into environmental accounting including the special contributions of their ecosystem services (including freshwater
3 Prioritize the principle of avoided loss--emphasize policies that seek to avoid any further biodiversity loss and emissions from primary forest deforestation and degradation;
4 Universally accept the important role of indigenous and community conserved areas--governments could use primary forest protection as a mechanism within multilateral environmental agreements to support sustainable livelihoods for the extensive populations
As a data collection toolleaf measurements are often critical in plant physiological and ecological studies
Job loss was not simply a proxy for other aspects of the state's economic climate
Now as part of the largest quail disease study ever undertaken in the U s. scientists at The Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University believe they have found a major culprit.
if it's possible for a parasite to move that quickly through a population on a large area said Ron Kendall professor of environmental toxicology at Texas Tech and lead investigator.
Kendall said spring rains in 2010 brought the prairies to life with increased habitat and insect numbers for the quail to eat and for a time quail numbers swelled.
In research to be published in the journal Ecology --and currently posted online as a preprint--Thomas Givnish a professor of botany at the University of Wisconsin-Madison attempts to resolve this debate by studying how tree height resource allocation
and physiology vary with climate in Victoria state located in southeastern Australia. There Eucalyptus species exhibit almost the entire global range in height among flowering trees from 4 feet to more than 300 feet.
and how those constraints and maximum height vary with climate. One of the species under study Eucalyptus regnans--called mountain ash in Australia
Southern Victoria Tasmania and northern California all share high rainfall high humidity and low evaporation rates underlining the importance of moisture supply to ultra-tall trees.
But the new study by Givnish Graham Farquhar of the Australian National University and others shows that rainfall alone cannot explain maximum tree height.
A second factor evaporative demand helps determine how far a given amount of rainfall will go toward meeting a tree's demands.
and Givnish and his colleagues found a tight relationship between maximum tree height in old stands in Australia and the ratio of annual rainfall to evaporation.
The scientists examined the issue by measuring the isotopic composition of carbon in the wood along the intense rainfall gradient in their study zone.
This study was the first to ask'How does the maximum tree height vary with the environment and why?'
and Environment Limited the James Hutton Institute and Aqua Enviro Limited builds upon research originally conducted by Stopford looking at using a mixture of digestates derived from anaerobic digestion and ash from burnt biomass as an alternative to existing crop fertilizers.
As well as providing significant environmental benefits by reducing reliance on fossil fuels a successful digestate-ash fertilizer would also reduce costs
Professor Kirk Semple from the Lancaster Environment Centre is leading the project. He said: The aim of this research is to modify the by-products from anaerobic digestion
The three-year project has received £856484 funding from NERC--the Natural Environment Research Council Research due to start this year will take place in labs at Lancaster University and in field trials.
Dr Ben Herbert Director of research and Environment at Stopford Energy and Environment an independent consulting company based in offices at Lancaster University's Environment Centre said:
Previous studies by Stopford Energy & Environment have shown that biomass-ash and digestate can be useful nutrient sources for crops in conditions low in nutrients.
it also provides environmental benefits managing in a year to capture 14 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare.
The environment surrounding the atom-thick carbon material can influence its electronic performance according to researchers at Rice
For any future device designs using graphene we have to take into account the influence of the surroundings said Kono.
Researchers simulated a wild environment within greenhouses in Crete and studied the impact of releasing Oxitec flies.
and we have shown they are healthier than the flies traditionally used for SIT. â#oewe simulated a wild environment within secure eight-meter greenhouses containing lemon trees at the University of Crete.
Populations of healthy males and females can be produced in controlled environments by the addition of a chemical repressor.
It was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council and Oxitec Ltd. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of East Anglia.
#Roadside research from pinelands and coast to coastroads are essentially the primary feature of human civilization at this point according to Dane Ward a doctoral student in environmental science at Drexel University who is presenting research at the Ecological Society
and Sciences took advantage of a cross-country roadtrip from Philadelphia to the meeting in Sacramento this week for some extra ecological data collection.
While traveling across the country and passing through different types of environments we stopped every few hundred miles to evaluate the immediate roadside vegetation and comparing that to the plants in the natural environments 20 meters away from the road.
Their cross-country look at roadside ecology is a new venture but their scientific work closer to home in the New jersey Pinelands also has a relationship to the road.
The Pine Barrens gentian species (Gentiana autumnalis) thrives after its ecosystem has experienced disturbance as one of the earliest species to begin re-inhabiting empty spaces--a phase known as early succession.
That is one of the questions Rebozo is addressing in research he will present at the Ecological Society of America meeting on Aug 13.
For his research he worked with the New jersey Air National guard to implement prescribed burns for experimental purposes at the Warren Grove Range where Drexel's Laboratory of Pinelands Research conducts environmental research.
and significantly alter the cycling of carbon and nutrients in woodland ecosystems according to a new study.
This effect is much larger than expected due to variation in temperatures and rainfall among years.
and also climate change will influence whether forests are a carbon source or sink. The southern UK has a temperate climate with moderate temperatures and rainfall.
Similar studies in different parts of the world from the warm tropics to the cooler boreal regions are needed to understand how edge effects on decomposition vary globally.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Exeter. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
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