whether prehistoric dairy farming was possible in the harsh environment that far north where there is snow for up to four months a year.
JÃ rg Schibler head of the research groups for Integrative Prehistoric and Archaeological Science (IPAS) from the Department Environmental science at the University of Basel.
'and agriculturalists'understanding of the growing patterns of African rice as well as enable the development of new rice varieties that are better able to cope with increasing environmental stressors to help solve global hunger challenges.
and Life sciences with a joint appointment in the UA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
African rice is once more at the forefront of cultivation strategies that aim to confront climate change
and food availability challenges said Judith Carney a professor of geography at the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability at the University of California Los angeles and author of Black Rice.
and more resistant to environmental stress in West african environments than Asian varieties Wing said. African rice already has been crossed with Asian rice to produce new varieties under a group known as NERICA which stands for New Rice for Africa.
because many of the genes code for traits that make African rice resistant to environmental stress such as long periods of drought high salinity in the soils and flooding.
but will have less of an environmental impact--such as varieties that require less water fertilizer and pesticides.
Hardy high-yield crops will become increasingly vital for human survival as the world faces the environmental effects of climate change and an ever-growing global population he added.
After decades of promoting high-yielding Asian varieties the emphasis now is on developing types that combine the former's higher yields with glaberrima's tolerance of environmental stress Carney noted.
Known to be rich in Vitamin c the mango is regarded as one of the most popular fruits from the tropics.
and at Forest Research the research agency of The british Forestry Commission used the UK Climate Projections 2009 data in models to show reduction in forest production by up to 42%by the 2080s due to
climate change. The researchers studied three major tree species: spruce pine and oak which together make up 59%of The british public forest area.
Dr Mark Broadmeadow principal climate change adviser for Forestry Commission England commented We welcome this valuable contribution to our well-developed programme of research into and understanding of the likely effects of climate change on British forests.
and it depends on healthy forest ecosystems. Boerboom: The timing of this study is actually very good
#Climate change and air pollution will combine to curb food suppliesmany studies have shown the potential for global climate change to cut food supplies.
The research was carried out by Colette Heald an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE) at MIT former CEE postdoc Amos Tai and Maria van Martin at Colorado State university.
Their work is described this week in the journal Nature Climate Change. Heald explains that while it's known that both higher temperatures
But in other regions the outcome will depend on domestic air-pollution policies Heald says. An air-quality cleanup would improve crop yields.
Under some scenarios the researchers found that pollution-control measures could make a major dent in the expected crop reductions following climate change.
Denise L. Mauzerall a professor of environmental engineering and international affairs at Princeton university who was involved not in this research says An important finding â#is that controls on air-pollution levels can improve agricultural yields and partially offset adverse impacts
of climate change on yields. Thus the increased use of clean energy sources that do not emit either greenhouse gases
or conventional air pollutants such as wind and solar energy would be doubly beneficial to global food security as they do not contribute to either climate change
#Fire ecology manipulation by California native culturesbefore the colonial era 100000s of people lived on the land now called California
Frank Lake an ecologist with the U s. Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Station will lead a field trip to the Stone Lake National Wildlife Refuge during the Ecological Society of America's 99th Annual
Lake will also host a special session on a sense of place sponsored by the Traditional Ecological Knowledge section of the Ecological Society that will bring representatives of local tribes into the Annual Meeting to share their cultural and professional experiences working on tribal natural resources issues.
Fire exerts a powerful effect on ecosystems including the quality and quantity of water available in watersheds in part by reducing the density of vegetation.
People strategically burned in the fall after the first rain to hit a vulnerable time in the life cycle of the pests
Lake thinks that understanding tribal use of these forest environments has context for and relevance to contemporary management and restoration of endangered ecosystems and tribal cultures.
The above story is provided based on materials by Ecological Society of America. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length h
Researchers valued the human health effects of the reduced air pollution at nearly $7 billion every year in a study published recently in the journal Environmental Pollution.
With more than 80 percent of Americans living in urban area this research underscores how truly essential urban forests are to people across the nation said Michael T. Rains Director of the Forest Service's Northern Research Station and the Forest
The study considered four pollutants for which the U s. EPA has established air quality standards: nitrogen dioxide ozone sulfur dioxide and particulate matter less than 2. 5 microns (PM2. 5) in aerodynamic diameter.
While it may be obvious that changes in river water discharge across the U s. Midwest can be related to changes in rainfall
what the future may look like says Gabriele Villarini UI assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering assistant research engineer at IIHR--Hydroscience
The potential benefits of understanding river flow are especially great in the central United states particularly Iowa where spring and summer floods have hit the area in 1993 2008 2013 and 2014 interrupted by the drought of 2012.
Large economic damage and even loss of life have resulted says co-author Aaron Strong UI assistant professor in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and with the Environmental Policy Program at the UI Public Policy Center.
Not surprisingly they found that variability in rainfall is responsible for most of the changes in water discharge volumes.
In times of flood and in times of drought water flow rates were exacerbated by more or less agriculture respectively. The authors suggest that
and soybeans over time--translated into a sevenfold increase in rainfall contribution to the average annual maximum discharge
The UI research paper Roles of climate and agricultural practices in discharge changes in an agricultural watershed in Iowa can be found in the April 15 online edition of Agriculture Ecosystems & Environment.
Miller said the objective of the Texas A&m potato breeding program is to develop improved varieties adapted specifically to Texas environmental conditions.
#Climate Change Increases Risk of Crop Slowdown in Next 20 Yearsthe world faces a small
but substantially increased risk over the next two decades of a major slowdown in the growth of global crop yields because of climate change new research finds.
and corn even with a warming climate are not very high. But the risk is about 20 times more significant than it would be without global warming
Climate change has increased substantially the prospect that crop production will fail to keep up with rising demand in the next 20 years said NCAR scientist Claudia Tebaldi a co-author of the study.
Stanford professor David Lobell said he wanted to study the potential impact of climate change on agriculture in the next two decades because of questions he has received from stakeholders and decision makers in governments and the private sector.
whether climate change will threaten food supply as if it's a simple yes or no answer Lobell said.
Lobell and Tebaldi used computer models of global climate as well as data about weather and crops to calculate the chances that climatic trends would have a negative effect of 10 percent on yields of corn and wheat in the next
They found that the likelihood of natural climate shifts causing such a slowdown over the next 20 years is only 1 in 200.
The study appears in this month's issue of Environmental Research Letters. It was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF)
Lobell and Tebaldi set out to estimate the odds that climate change could interfere with the ability of crop producers to keep up with demand.
Whereas other climate research had looked at the crop impacts that were most likely Lobell and Tebaldi decided to focus on the less likely
but potentially more dangerous scenario that climate change would reduce yield growth by 10 percent or more.
The researchers used simulations available from an NCAR-based climate model (developed by teams of scientists with support from NSF
They also used the same model simulations without human-caused increases in carbon dioxide to assess the same trends in a natural climate.
In contrast such temperature increases had a much lower chance of occurring in stimulations that included only natural variability not human-induced climate change.
Although society could offset the climate impacts by planting wheat and corn in cooler regions such planting shifts to date have not occurred quickly enough to offset warmer temperatures the study warned.
But climate change has increased the odds to the point that organizations concerned with food security or global stability need to be aware of this risk.
#Light pollution may affect love lives of birds in the Viennese Forestsartificial light in cities exerts negative effects on humans animals and their environment.
In consequence it could help developing concepts minimizing negative effects on the lives of animals and the ecological system by reducing light sources in specific regions.
The Viennese research team is one of the first to experimentally test the effects of artificial light in the natural environment of animals by actively manipulating ambient light conditions.
Light possibly has impact on the entire ecological system of the woodsmore light may also affect other living beings in the Viennese Forests.
Supports earlier epigenetic findingswhen Skinner and his colleagues exposed gestating rats to methoxychlor at a range typical of high environmental exposures they saw increases in the incidence of kidney disease ovary disease
In recent years the Skinner lab has documented epigenetic effects from a host of environmental toxicants including DDT plastics pesticides fungicides dioxins hydrocarbons and the plasticizer bisphenol-A or BPA.
The epigenome functions like a set of switches for regulating gene expression and can be altered by environmental conditions.
and other stress factors in the environment possibly associated with honeybee dieoffs. said USGS scientist Kathryn Kuivila the research team leader.
but do not break down quickly in the environment. This means they are likely to be transported away in runoff from the fields where they were applied first to nearby surface water and groundwater bodies.
We noticed higher levels of these insecticides after rain storms during crop planting which is similar to the spring flushing of herbicides that has been documented in Midwestern U s. rivers
The U s. Environmental protection agency has classified all detected neonicotinoids as not likely to be carcinogenic to humans.
Research center for Healthy Neighborhoods (PRCHN) at Case Western Reserve University. In 2013 more than 22 percent or one in five high school students report use of any tobacco product within the prior 30 days.
#Strengthening community forest rights is critical tool to fight climate changestrengthening community forest rights is an essential strategy to reduce billions of tonnes of carbon emissions making it an effective way
for governments to meet climate goals safeguard forests and protect the livelihoods of their citizens according to a major new report.
The report called Securing Rights Combating Climate Change: How Strengthening Community Forest Rights Mitigates Climate Change is being published jointly by World Resources Institute (WRI) and Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI.
The paper provides the most comprehensive analysis to date linking legal recognition and government protection of community forest rights with reductions in carbon pollution.
This golden opportunity to address climate change is staring us right in the face. With at least 37 billion tonnes of carbon safely stored in community forests around the world strengthening community rights is good for the climate
and good for people said Dr. Andrew Steer President & CEO WRI. Every head of government minister and climate negotiator should pay attention to this important if often overlooked strategy to address climate change.
It's an approach to climate action that should be right up there with REDD+or increasing energy efficiency.
The report finds that rural communities and indigenous peoples across the world have recognized government rights to forests containing 37.7 billion tonnes of carbon--equivalent to 29 times the annual emissions from all passenger vehicles in the world.
In total deforestation and other land uses represents 11 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Using new high-resolution mapping data the authors analyzed 14 heavily-forested countries including Brazil Indonesia
In Brazil alone the report finds strong legal rights could contribute to preventing 27.2 million hectares of deforestation by 2050 translating to 12 billion tonnes of avoided carbon dioxide emissions--the same as about three years'worth of carbon dioxide
Indeed the study reveals that deforestation rates inside community forests are dramatically lower than in forests outside those areas.
It's tragic that this has not yet been adopted fully as a central climate change mitigation strategy.
For us to get serious about curbing climate change we have to get serious about respecting the rights of local communities to the lands they live
The analysis finds that governments can implement five key recommendations to maximize the climate mitigation potential from community forests:
Compensate communities for the climate and other benefits provided by their forest. The bottom line is clear:
Strengthening community forest rights is a critical policy approach to mitigate global climate change through reduced deforestation
and carbon sequestration said Jennifer Morgan Director Climate and Energy Program WRI. When it comes to tackling climate change land rights must be on the list of tools we use.
The report notes that some countries have made significant progress in recognizing the rights of local communities
But in addition to pointing to countries that have enjoyed the climate benefits from enforcing community forest rights the report offers a cautionary note to governments that undermine those rights.
Indonesia for example the world's second largest emitter of carbon pollution from deforestation and other land uses legally recognizes only one of approximately 42 million hectares of forests held by communities.
These findings also raise concerns about potential pest outbreaks as temperatures increase due to global climate change.
The researchers collected data on a wide variety of ecological variables that could affect gloomy scale populations including habitat characteristics the temperature at each tree site and the abundance of predators and parasitoids.
and other pest species. The research on scale insect abundance is published in Urban warming trumps natural enemy regulation of herbivorous pests which is forthcoming from the journal Ecological Applications.
The Ecological Applications study's findings are also consistent with an earlier study from Frank's lab that found another scale insect species is more abundant at warmer temperatures due to increased survival rates.
and rising temperatures associated with global climate change could lead to increases in scale insect populations which could have correspondingly negative effects on trees like the red maple Dale says.
#Climate change: Soil respiration releases carbonthe planet's soil releases about 60 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year which is far more than that released by burning fossil fuels.
and Christian Giardina of the U s. Forest Service used an expansive whole-ecosystem study the first of its kind on tropical montane wet forests in Hawaii to sort through the many processes that control soil
Their work is published in Nature Climate Change. The team revealed that higher temperatures increased the amount of leaf litter falling onto the soil as well as other underground sources of carbon such as roots.
Unlike tropical trees the soil seems to be on the sidelines in the climate adaptation game.
and the aggregate response examined before an understanding of ecosystem carbon balance in a warmer world can be achieved.
#An increase in temperature by 2050 may be advantageous to the growth of forage plantsa 2â°C increase in temperature around the world by 2050 according to one of the scenarios predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC
The outcome of a thematic project conducted under the FAPESP Research Program on Global Climate Change (PFPMCG) the study has just been published in the journal Environmental and Experimental Botany.
The 2â°C increase in temperature in the environment in which Stylosanthes capitata Vogel was cultivated experimentally promoted photosynthesis
This plant species is highly drought resistant and able to grow in sandy environments. With global climate change it is estimated that a moderate temperature increase of slightly greater than 2â°C could have damaging effects on the plant's physiology and growth under cultivation in tropical environments such as Brazil.
To test these hypotheses the researchers conducted an experiment in which they cultivated plants in open fields in a normal-temperature environment and in a temperature-controlled area using a temperature free-air controlled enhancement system known as T-FACE.
The system comes equipped to control heat emission from the crown of the plants through infrared heaters that enable the temperature of the growing environment to remain at a steady 2â°C over ambient temperature.
After cultivating the plants with these temperature differences for 30 days the researchers measured photosynthetic energy dissipation and conducted aboveground biochemical and biomass analyses.
but also conduct photosynthesis more efficiently and even increase growth under the new climate conditions. The results of the study indicated that a temperature increase of up to 2â°C could be advantageous for growth of some species of tropical plants such as Stylosanthes capitata Vogel Martinez stated.
By cultivating the plant in an environment with 200 ppm carbon above current levels in a FACE system set up at the Embrapa Environmental Division in Jaguariã na in inland SãO Paulo State the researchers observed an increase
This could have a series of implications for the use of this plant as a forage plant found in over 80 million hectares of Brazilian pastureland said Raquel Ghini researcher at the Embrapa Environmental Division and one of the study's authors.
According to the assessment by Martinez the potential impact of global climate change on plants used as pastureland needs to be investigated
If climate change affects the yield of tropical crops and pastureland there will be significant economic consequences for Brazil
The impacts of climate change on pasture areas are very serious and are already occurring said Martinez.
or the use of drought-resistant species that can adapt to climate changes the researcher told.
and ecosystems said NHAES researcher Adrienne Kovach research associate professor of natural resources at UNH. New england cottontails have been declining for decades.
The majority of research on New england cottontails has come out of UNH much of it under the leadership of John Litvaitis professor of wildlife ecology who has studied the New england cottontail for three decades.
Kovach's research expands on this knowledge by using DNA analysis to provide new information on the cottontail's status distribution genetic diversity and dispersal ecology.
This research which was funded in part by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station is presented in the article A multistate analysis of gene flow for the New england cottontail an imperiled habitat specialist in a fragmented landscape in the journal Ecology and Evolution.
which is predicted to continue in the coming decades as a consequence of climate change. We are sounding an early warning to the problem
The data was compared then with climate and temperature information for the area to examine the effect on growth and development of the crop.
but Erika Nowak and her team at Northern Arizona University are determined to aid in its recovery recently rescuing several snakes from ash-filled floods in Oak Creek Canyon following the Slide Fire.
As a result of the Slide Fire the burned areas of Oak Creek were at risk for ash-filled flooding due to monsoon rains.
He and Neuroscience Program graduate student Claudia Lutz measured the foraging activities of bees in several locations including some in hives in a controlled foraging environment.
Small-scale farming is the main livelihood for many people in the region who depend on rainfall to water their crops.
To understand how climate change may affect the availability of water for agriculture researchers at Princeton university analyzed trends in the water cycle in maize-growing areas of 21 African countries between 1979 and 2010.
The team examined both levels of rainfall and the evaporative demand of the atmosphere--the combined effects of evaporation and transpiration
The greater availability of water generally resulted from a mixture of increased rainfall and decreased evaporative demand.
Some places like parts of Tanzania got a double whammy that looks like a declining trend in rainfall as well as an increasing evaporative demand during the more sensitive middle part of the growing season said Lyndon Estes the study's lead
author and an associate research scholar in the Program in Science Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow wilson School of Public and International affairs.
The analysis was published in the July issue of the journal Environmental Research Letters. A key goal of the study was to incorporate reliable data on factors that influence evaporative demand.
Brown Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the study's senior author. The PGF merges a variety of weather
and satellite data and covers all land areas at a resolution of three hours and one degree of latitude or longitude (one degree of latitude is about 70 miles).
To do this he used statistical techniques based on the principle that areas close to one another are likely to have similar weather.
which can create what appear to be sudden jumps in temperature or wind speed. When you're dealing with gridded global weather data they come with many warts Estes said.
but thought lower wind speeds would have a greater impact than drops in net radiation.
and Wood showed that diminished wind speeds have helped to offset the effects of rising temperatures that would
Another study found that decreasing wind speeds contributed to declining evaporative demand in South africa The current study only examined water availability during the maize growing season
Comparing environmental costs of livestock-based foodswe are told that eating beef is bad for the environment
New research at the Weizmann Institute of Science conducted in collaboration with scientists in the US compared the environmental costs of various foods
Though many studies have addressed parts of the issue none has done a thorough comparative study that gives a multi-perspective picture of the environmental costs of food derived from animals.
Their idea was to calculate the environmental inputs-the costs-per nutritional unit: a calorie or gram of protein.
and thus approximate the true environmental cost for each food item. The inputs the researchers employed came from the US Department of agriculture databases among other resources.
The environmental inputs the team considered included land use irrigation water greenhouse gas emissions and nitrogen fertilizer use.
Each of these costs is a complex environmental system. For example land use in addition to tying up this valuable resource in agriculture is the main cause of biodiversity loss.
Nitrogen fertilizer creates water pollution in natural waterways. When the numbers were in including those for the environmental costs of different kinds of feed (pasture roughage such as hay
and concentrates such as corn) the team developed equations that yielded values for the environmental cost-per calorie and then per unit of protein for each food.
The calculations showed that the biggest culprit by far is beef. That was no surprise say Milo and Shepon.
In total eating beef is more costly to the environment by an order of magnitude-about ten times on average-than other animal-derived foods including pork and poultry.
And the tool the team has created for analyzing the environmental costs of agriculture can be expanded
#Climate: Meat turns up the heat as livestock emit greenhouse gaseseating meat contributes to climate change due to greenhouse gasses emitted by livestock.
New research finds that livestock emissions are on the rise and that beef cattle are responsible for far more greenhouse gas emissions than other types of animals.
when it comes to climate change. It is released by vehicles industry and forest removal and comprises the greatest portion of greenhouse gas totals.
It might be better for the environment if we all became vegetarians but a lot of improvement could come from eating pork or chicken instead of beef.
'The study appears in the journal Environmental Toxicology & Chemistry. Researchers who studied the vegetation-caribou-wolf food chain in the Bathurst region of Canada say that currently use pesticides enter the food chain
#Filter bed substrates, plant types recommended for rain gardensurban stormwater runoff is causing problems for the world's water sources.
In the United states the Environmental protection agency found stormwater runoff to be one of the top 10 causes of compromised environments in rivers streams lakes ponds reservoirs bays and estuaries.
Rain gardens--also known as bioretention cells--are depressions in the landscape that trap stormwater runoff so microbial activity filtration/adsorption
The filter bed substrate is the foundation of the rain garden and gives it the ability to infiltrate runoff slow drainage support plant growth
The research team constructed 12 rain gardens filled with one of three filter bed substrates. The gardens were planted with 16 plant species
The researchers determined that 11 of the 16 species used in the experiments grew well in the rain gardens.
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