in the U s. since the 1980s according to a new study by ecologists. Last year a pair of researchers linked the drop in the populations of grassland bird species such as the upland sandpiper and the Henslow's sparrow to insecticide use rather than to a rapid decline of grasslands a more commonly accepted theory.
and U s. Department of agriculture researchers now believe that the loss of habitat continues to be the best explanation said Jason M. Hill a postdoctoral research associate in ecosystem science and management Penn State.
Conservation Reserve Program contracts are not being renewed said J. Franklin Egan research ecologist USDA-Agricultural research service who worked with Hill.
Grasslands especially in agricultural landscapes also provide tremendous benefits to humans through erosion reduction and water filtration as well as offering habitat to numerous grassland-obligate species from black-footed ferrets to Dakota skippers.
Hill and Egan also worked with Glenn E. Stauffer a postdoctoral scholar in forest resources and Duane R. Diefenbach adjunct professor of wildlife ecology both of Penn State.
These iconic species are vulnerable to loss of secure habitat from industrial land uses and/or climate change.
Located in northwest Montana adjacent to Glacier national park the 2. 4 million-acre Flathead Forest is a strategic part of the stunning and ecologically diverse Crown of the Continent Ecosystem.
Wildlife and Wild Lands on the Flathead National Forest Montana WCS Senior Scientist Dr. John Weaver notes that these protections may not be enough in the face of looming challenges such as climate change.
and suitable habitat for the rare wolverine--a species highly adapted to persistent snow pack.
and connects large landscapes that have high topographic and ecological diversity. Such a strategy will provide a range of options for animal movements as conditions change.
and beneficial for the survival of African elephants explained first author Robert Pringle a Princeton assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology.
The Holy grail in ecology is these win-win situations where we can preserve wildlife in a way that is beneficial to human livelihoods Pringle said.
As more African savanna is converted into pasture the proliferation of the Sodom apple may only get worse Pringle said which means that the presence of elephants to eat it may become more vital to the ecosystem and livestock.
The Sodom apple thrives on ecological mayhem such as the stress of overgrazing put on the land Pringle said:
Ricardo Holdo a savanna ecologist and assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Missouri said that the researchers present enough data to potentially determine the amount of pastureland that wild Sodom-apple eaters would be able to keep free of
or goes extinct and another species steps in to fulfill the same ecological role This consideration helps ecologists predict the overall effect of extinction on an entire ecosystem.
and we need to understand to what extent these threatened animals have unique ecological functions. The majority of studies on functional redundancy have been conducted in aquatic systems
The Princeton-led study is made more robust by being unusually long by ecology standards he said--the researchers observed similar patterns year after year.
A big part of the reason we don't understand functional redundancy very well in terrestrial ecosystems is
Doing these experiments in the kind of environment like you have in Kenya is really challenging--keeping elephants out of anything is really a huge challenge.
Pringle worked with Corina Tarnita a Princeton mathematical biologist and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology as well as with collaborators from the University of Wyoming the University of Florida the University of California-Davis the Mpala Center
which can induce anthracnose symptoms several months after arrival in the United states. It is known not which environmental factors may trigger the appearance of symptom.
It is published online in Environmental Health Perspectives. This study validates the results of earlier research that has reported associations between having a child with autism
and linking the data to the residential addresses of approximately 1000 participants in the Northern California-based Childhood Risk of Autism from Genetics and the Environment (CHARGE) Study.
While it's impossible to entirely eliminate risks due to environmental exposures Hertz-Picciotto said that finding ways to reduce exposures to chemical pesticides particularly for the very young is important.
Leafing out and climate changeglobal warming is expected generally to bring spring forward but as a new study at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich shows a concomitant influx of plant species from warmer southern latitudes could counteract this effect.
Climate change is already clearly discernible in our part of the world. Data from local weather stations indicate that the average temperature in the Munich region has risen by 1. 5â°C over the past century.
Some 16000 plant species from diverse climate zones are cultivated in the Garden and Renner and her doctoral student Constantin Zohner have taken advantage of this unique resource to monitor the timing of leaf-out in nearly 500 different species of woody plants.
Southern species develop their first leaves up to a month later than plants from our temperate climate says Renner
Moreover species that are adapted already to our northerly climates are unlikely to undergo leaf-out at ever earlier times
There would also be the environmental benefits of the solar cells themselves. Skreiberg illustrates these with the following maths exercise.
if we take into account the environmental targets adopted by the Norwegian parliament. Its white paper on climate said that there has to be a major focus on bioenergy including a tripling of funds for research combined with a target to double the use of bioenergy from 2008 levels by 2020.
The research funding is in place but we are still trailing behind the target of doubling the use of bio-energy.
#Humans have been changing Chinese environment for 3, 000 years: Ancient levee system set stage for massive,
Now new research from Washington University in St louis links the river's increasingly deadly floods to a widespread pattern of human-caused environmental degradation
and related flood-mitigation efforts that began changing the river's natural flow nearly 3000 years ago.
Human intervention in the Chinese environment is relatively massive remarkably early and nowhere more keenly witnessed than in attempts to harness the Yellow River said T. R. Kidder Phd lead author of the study and an archaeologist at Washington University.
and drainage ditches actually made periodic flooding much worse setting the stage for a catastrophic flood circa A d. 14-17
New evidence from China and elsewhere show us that past societies changed environments far more than we've ever suspected said Kidder the Edward S. and Tedi Macias Professor in Arts & Sciences and chair of anthropology at WUSTL.
The Sanyangzhuang site known today as China's Pompeii was buried slowly beneath five meters of sediment during a massive flood circa A d. 14-17 leading to exceptional preservation of its buildings fields roads
The levees were built in part because of increasing erosion upstream which was caused by more intensive agriculture and the expansion of the growing Chinese civilization.
The sedimentary record shows a vicious cycle of primitive levees built larger and larger as erosion increased and periodic floods grew more widespread and destructive.
Help for understanding climate change's effectskidder an authority on river basin geoarchaeology has gathered data from the Yellow River excavation sites over the last five summers.
and archaeology--offers the potential to make dramatic contributions to our understanding of how climate change
and other large-scale environmental forces are shaping human history. While there are many theories behind the fall of the Western Han Dynasty Kidder's research suggests human interaction with the environment played a central role in its demise.
In this study he offers a big-picture explanation for how a complex mix of well-intentioned government policies
The Yellow River he argues had existed for eons as a relatively calm and stable waterway until large numbers of Chinese farmers began disturbing the fragile environment of the upper river's Loess Plateau.
and Qaidam Basin the plateau has boasted long some of the world's most erosion-prone soils.
and other farm tools while spurring rapid deforestation of timber used in iron refining. Widespread erosion in the river's upper regions caused it to carry incredibly heavy loads of sediment downstream where deposits gradually raised the river bed above levees and surrounding fields.
Implications for modern river managementslowly over thousands of years human intervention began to have a dramatic impact on the river's character.
Periodic breaches of the levee system led to devastating floods with some shifting the river's main channel hundreds of miles from its initial course.
A census taken by China in A d. 2 suggests the area struck by the massive A d. 14-17 flood was populated very heavily with an average of 122 people per square kilometer
or approximately 9. 5 million people living directly in the flood's path. The misery and suffering must have been said unimaginable Kidder.
Historical accounts indicate that communities hit by the flood were soon in complete disarray with reports of people resorting to banditry to obtain food and stay alive.
By A d. 20-21 the flood-torn region had become the epicenter of a popular rebellion one that soon would spell the end of the Western Han Dynasty's five-century reign of power.
The big issue here is that human beings clearly changed the environment and that these changes had real consequences for human history Kidder said.
Human-caused environmental change is nothing new Kidder said. We've been doing this for a very long time
Honeybees and bats are key to the ecosystem. One of every three bites of food in America is related to honeybee pollination according to the United states Department of agriculture.
and deep snow may change into a deciduous forest with winters warm enough for some precipitation to fall as rain according to a new U s. Forest Service assessment of the vulnerability of Minnesota forests to climate change.
Minnesota Forest Ecosystem Vulnerability Assessment and Synthesis was published by the U s. Forest Service's Northern Research Station
http://www. nrs. fs. fed. us/pubs/45939the assessment describes effects of climate change that have already been observed;
projected changes in the climate and the landscape; and forest vulnerabilities in a 23.5-million-acre region of forest in northeastern Minnesota.
and ensure that the benefits that forests provide are sustained into the future said Michael T. Rains Director of the Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory.
Changes in Minnesota's climate have been documented over the past century. In general the state is experiencing less snowfall in the area covered by the assessment but more severe winter storms.
Mean minimum and maximum temperatures have been increasing across all seasons with winter temperatures experiencing the most rapid warming.
Precipitation in the spring and fall has increased with more of that precipitation occurring in deluges of 3 inches or more.
and a climate change specialist with the Northern Institute for Applied Climate Science (NIACS). But we already know enough right now to begin planning for a range of possible futures.
Our assessment gives forest managers in Minnesota the best possible science on the effects of climate change so they can make climate-informed decisions about management today.
Soil erosion is the movement of soil by wind or water and it's through erosion that soil is lost.
If it is an organic soil we also lose it by subsidence which happens when an organic soil is drained
It can take roughly 500 to 1000 years to form one inch of soil depending on the climate and the material from which soil forms.
Raindrops can break apart the soil making it easier to move it by wind and water.
Since water flows downhill that's where the soil goes once water erosion begins. Where does the soil end up?
while it is unprotected then wind can pick it up and move it downwind. Organic soils can be drained.
Preventing erosion means taking care of the soil. That means protecting it with mulch and plants not plowing on steep slopes
and the activities of birds insect and other animals and therefore must be factored into climate-change model predictions.
As species distribution and abundance shift due to climate change interspecific differences in leaf-out timing may affect ecosystem processes such as carbon water
and with different climates suggesting that leafing out time is fixed a character of a species like the shape of its leaves or flowers;
Leaf-out phenology affects a wide variety of ecosystem processes and ecological interactions and will take on added significance as leaf-out times increasingly shift in response to warming temperatures associated with climate change the study said.
There is however relatively little information available on the factors affecting species differences in leaf out phenology.
Primack explained that as the climate warms trees will tend to leaf out earlier in the spring perhaps extending the growing season and affecting animal behavior.
ARID the Agricultural Reference Index for Drought could help growers avert catastrophic losses such as those growers suffered in the nationwide 2012 heat wave and drought.
and Jones. ARID takes data including daily rainfall temperature sunlight wind speed and humidity and compares potential
or productivity loss because theyâ##re not based on plant physiology said Ingram also director of the Southeast Climate Consortium.
and others manage climate risks. Drought comes in various forms: Agricultural drought is characterized by insufficient water for maximum crop growth
Ingram Woli Jones director of the UF-based Florida Climate Institute and Gerrit Hoogenboom an agrometeorology professor at Washington state co-wrote the paper.
However researchers of the German Biodiversity and Climate Centre and the Goethe University now found out that the prime example of an invasive species is originally from Central europe and thus no immigrant after all.
In the spring of 2010 researchers of the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre and the Goethe University collected 300 specimens of the snail in 60 locations in France Spain the UK and the Benelux countries
#Livestock gut microbes contributing to greenhouse gas emissionsincreased to levels unprecedented is how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) described the rise of carbon dioxide methane and nitrous oxide emissions in their report on the physical science basis
of climate change in 2013. According to the US Environmental protection agency (EPA) the atmospheric concentration of methane a greenhouse gas some 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide has been steadily growing
since the 18th century and has increased now by 50 percent compared to preindustrial levels exceeding 1800 parts per billion.
The EPA attributes one-fifth of methane emissions to livestock such as cattle sheep and other ruminants.
and Environment Program and a co-author of the study. Isolating H7n9 Risk Factors to Help Control its Spreadthe researchers found that the key factors facilitating the emergence
The maps were developed by ILRI in collaboration with the Food and agriculture organization of the united nations (FAO) the Environmental Research Group Oxford (ERGO) at the University of Oxford and the Universitã Libre de Bruxelles (ULB.
Ellen Cheng of the Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and Environment; Aili Kang of WCS;
Wild yaks are the largest grazer north of the tropics; while weights are known rarely they are larger than bison.
and females respond differently to climate change and biological challenges. But more fundamentally just as people climb mountains in The himalayas
and we by uniting people from different countries have the opportunity to conserve a species not to mention an ecosystem and a landscape that is larger than all of Montana and Nebraska combined.
#More frequent extreme, adverse weather conditions threaten Europes wheat productioneuropean wheat production areas have to prepare for greater harvest losses in the future
when global warming will lead to increased drought and heat waves in southern Europe and wet and cool conditions in the north especially at the time of sowing.
More frequent extreme weather conditions in Europe also threaten global food security since it produces almost a third of the world's wheat.
On the other hand cool and wet weather conditions can increase plant disease pressure and the lodging of the crop making the crop difficult to harvest as well as complicating the management of soils.
Effects of extreme and adverse events difficult to assessrã tter and his colleagues have studied the risks to crops caused by climate change in the ongoing Cropm/FACCE MACSUR project.
Most crop yield simulation models currently in use are not yet suitable for the impact assessment of the various adverse weather conditions or extreme events.
New diverse varieties needed for future environmentshigher frequency of extreme weather conditions makes it more difficult not only to predict harvests
but also to breed crop plants that can better cope with future climate. Drastic regional variations in climatic conditions also require regional strategies to climate change adaptation.
In some areas we need to be able to cultivate varieties that are resistant to heat;
and their integration for accelerating delivery of new diverse varieties of wheat for the different future environments argues Reimund RÃ tter.
Similar risks apply to other crops as wellthe FACCE MACSUR project runs regional pilot studies throughout Europe on the effects of climate change and adaptation of farming practices on future crop production and food supply.
Although our results highlight the potential of adverse impacts of changing climate on wheat similar risks apply to other crops as well for their growing times
rodenticides (SGARS) substances the Environmental protection agency has moved recently to regulate more strictly. Veterinarians at the Tufts Wildlife Clinic performed Ruby's necropsy
and published research in 2011 that has been cited frequently by the EPA. The paper showed anticoagulant rodenticide residues in 86 percent of 161 birds that were tested over five years at the Tufts Wildlife Clinic.
In light of high numbers of children accidentally exposed to second-generation rat poisons as well as the risk to wildlife the EPA tightened the safety standards for consumer use of household rat
After a prolonged battle with the EPA the last manufacturer to comply with the safety standards agreed in May to stop producing its second-generation poisons for sale to residential consumers by the end of the year.
and monitor any long-term changes in rodenticide exposure in birds of prey as a result of the new EPA regulations said Murray.
Those are the findings of a new University of Michigan study that surveyed vacant lots in several Detroit neighborhoods for ragweed counting the number of ragweed plants
When we surveyed vacant lots we found that some mowing is worse than no mowing said Daniel Katz a doctoral candidate at the U-M School of Natural resources and Environment.
Katz's co-authors on the vegetation study are SNRE's Benjamin Connor Barrie and Tiffany Carey of the U-M Program in the Environment.
Findings of the land use study were published online in April in the journal Science of the Total Environment.
In Detroit vacant lots are most common in low-income neighborhoods that have large minority populations.
which raises questions about environmental justice. The U-M studies found that vacant lots are the main habitat for ragweed in Detroit:
The vegetation survey looked at 62 vacant lots in several neighborhoods including Mexicantown Kettering and Core City.
and neighborhood-level problem even though public health officials have treated for decades it as a regional problem Katz said.
and an Ecological Society of America SEEDS Undergraduate Research Fellowship (funded by the National Science Foundation).
Rapid population growth and expansion of agriculture has fueled deforestation of more than 80 percent of the original forest cover according to doctoral student Francis Dwomoh of the Geographic Information science Center of Excellence at South dakota State university.
and Space science Fellowship to support his research on deforestation in West Africa. Using satellite imagery Dwomoh will examine the effect of human encroachment climate change
and fire on the Upper Guinean forests during the last 40 years and look at how fires may impact the remaining forest fragments.
Dwomoh will use Landsat imagery to track deforestation and information from NASA tropical rainfall and fire data to analyze the impact of fires on the region.
Field work will also be done in Ghana. The results will help government agencies and conservation groups determine how best to conserve these tropical forest remnants.
and cassava a tuber that is the third-largest source of carbohydrates in the tropics.
and the longest dry season among tropical ecosystems worldwide Dwomoh explained. Since the 1970s temperatures have increased
But Dwomoh said those distinctions are fading with climate change. That increases the vulnerability of the forest fragments
#Discovery of bud-break gene could lead to trees adapted for a changing climatescientists have confirmed the function of a gene that controls the awakening of trees from winter dormancy a critical factor in their ability to adjust to environmental changes
associated with climate change. While other researchers have identified genes involved in producing the first green leaves of spring the discovery of a master regulator in poplar trees (Populus species) could eventually lead to breeding plants that are adapted better for warmer climates.
The results of the study that began more than a decade ago at Oregon State university were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists from Michigan Technological University and Oregon State.
when they go dormant--help trees adapt to changes in environmental signals like those associated with climate
While trees possess the genetic diversity to adjust to current conditions climate models suggest that temperature
said Strauss. That depends on the natural diversity that we have and how much the environment changes.
Will there be sufficient genetic diversity around to evolve populations that can cope with a much warmer and likely drier climate?
because it brings extra rain and moisture into the core crop-growing areas O'Neil said.
Air pollution is a complex and pervasive public health problem notes John Groopman Phd Anna M. Baetjer Professor of Environmental Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public health
and survive a broad range of environmental toxins. This strategy may also be effective for some contaminants in water and food.
The results of the study by Thomas Newsome and William Ripple in the Oregon State university Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society were published in the Journal of Animal Ecology by The british Ecological Society.
whether the dingo can provide positive ecological benefits. Where dingoes have been removed the impacts of introduced red foxes
and Americans can learn from the ecological role of the dingo Newsome said. As coyotes have expanded in North america they have become a major cause of concern for the livestock industry.
This study gives us a whole other avenue to understand the ecological effects of wolves on landscapes
He and his colleagues have shown that the removal of top predators can cause dramatic shifts within ecosystems.
and temperate zones and has over 700 species that are rich in genetic variation. Combing through the 36000-plus genes found in Eucalyptus (nearly twice as many as in the human genome) the researchers homed in on those that may influence the production of secondary cell wall material that can be processed for pulp paper biomaterials and bioenergy applications.
In addition insights into the trees'evolutionary history and adaptation are improving our understanding of their response to environmental change providing strategies to diminish the negative environmental impacts that threaten many species. We have a keen interest in how wood is formed said ORNL's Jerry Tuskan.
This along with its keystone ecological status and ability to adapt to marginal terrain make Eucalyptus an excellent focus for expanding our knowledge of the evolution and adaptive biology of perennial plants.
#Somatic embryogenesis system to propagate pine hybrids able to tolerate water stressneiker-Tecnalia in collaboration with the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country has in recent years been studying the high water stress tolerance of hybrids of the Radiata
These trees appear to be a very interesting alternative for the forestry sector in view of the modifications ecosystems are undergoing
and will be undergoing as a result of climate change. To obtain new specimens of these trees in a rapid productive way the Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and development Neiker-Tecnalia
This location and the cases of extreme meteorological phenomena are creating an environment in which hybrid trees could be a valuable commercial resource for the future owing to their capacity to withstand water stress and adverse climate conditions.
The techniques used by Neiker-Tecnalia and SCION are being considered by various governments as an interesting tool to be used by public and private companies.
and plant matter adapted to future climate conditions. In Canada the National Network of Somatic Embryogenesis Laboratories (NNSEL) has been set up within the Canadian Forestry Service for the purpose of effectively transferring the advances in biotechnology to the forestry sector.
because it had suffered ecological disaster during the mid-20th century: acid rain as a result of the local nickel smelting industry.
Despite moves to reduce environmental impact many areas of vegetation surrounding the lake are still in recovery.
The area is part of the boreal ecosystem: a vast subarctic climate system that rings round most of the top of the Northern hemisphere--full of huge ancient forests vital to the carbon cycle of Earth.
More than 60%of the world's fresh water is in the boreal areas such as Canada Scandinavia and large parts of Siberia.
and forest fires resulting from climate change--all occurrences predicted to intensify in coming years said Tanentzap.
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