#Decomposing logs show local factors undervalued in climate change predictionsa new Yale-led study challenges the long-held assumption that climate is the primary driver of how quickly organic matter decomposes in different regions
a key piece of information used in formulating climate models. In a long-term analysis conducted across several sites in the eastern United states a team of researchers found that local factors--from levels of fungal colonization to the specific physical locations of the wood--play a far greater role
than climate in wood decomposition rates and the subsequent impacts on regional carbon cycling. Because decomposition of organic matter strongly influences the storage of carbon
or its release into the atmosphere it is a major factor in potential changes to the climate.
The findings underscore a key limitation of using aggregated data across wide geographic areas to predict future climate change said Mark A. Bradford an assistant professor of terrestrial ecosystem ecology at the Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies (F&es) and lead author of the study published in the journal Nature Climate Change.
and measuring such hyper-local ecological factors could significantly improve the effectiveness of climate change projections he adds.
That in turn will weaken the effectiveness of climate prediction. It has long been thought that climate is the predominant factor controlling decomposition mainly
because warmer temperatures increase the activity levels of the decomposer organisms such as microbes that break down dead organic matter.
While scientific studies have revealed the critical importance of climate and temperature in determining decomposition rates across regional and global scales the findings are often based on the mean response of decomposition across large areas.
in order to focus on major differences in the effect of climate across the regional gradient. The average annual temperature in southern New england is about 11 degrees Celsius cooler than Florida.
versus regional factors on decomposition and capture the variability found in forest environments. Most people would try to make sure everything was as standard as possible Bradford said.
while climate explained only about one-quarter contrary to the expectation that climate should be the predominant control.
Since those local factors likely are the primary drivers of decomposition rates Bradford said they should be documented better
and integrated into climate models. The climate modelers know that they can only produce models based on the data sets that we give them he said.
So the message for field ecologists like me is to go out and get much richer data sets with much more information.
We shouldn't aggregate away information. We should make measurements at those local scales to capture all of the importance processes that affect ecosystem functioning.
Then the modelers will have far richer data sets to test their models against and see if they work he adds.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology and the Yale Climate & Energy Institute.
The above story is provided based on materials by Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The original article was written by Kevin Dennehy.
and the expense and environmental concerns associated with them. There had been competing theories about where P. infestans may have evolved with the leading candidates being the Toluca Valley near Mexico city
and the environment Bais says. Rice blast quickly learns how to get around synthetics--most humanmade pesticides are effective only for about three years Bais says.
#Reducing emissions will be primary way to fight climate change, study findsforget about positioning giant mirrors in space to reduce the amount of sunlight being trapped in Earth's atmosphere
or seeding clouds to reduce the amount of light entering earth's atmosphere. Those approaches to climate engineering aren't likely to be effective or practical in slowing global warming.
A new report by professors from UCLA and five other universities concludes that there's no way around it:
We found that climate engineering doesn't offer a perfect option said Daniela Cusack the study's lead author and an assistant professor of geography in UCLA's College of Letters and Science.
Still the study concluded some approaches to climate engineering are more promising than others and they should be used to augment efforts to reduce the 9 gigatons of carbon dioxide being released each year by human activity.
The first scholarly attempt to rank a wide range of approaches to minimizing climate change in terms of their feasibility cost-effectiveness risk public acceptance governability
and ethics the study appears in the latest issue of the peer-reviewed scholarly journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
At stake the study emphasizes are the futures of food production our climate and water security.
and soil ecology teamed up with experts in oceanography political science sociology economics and ethics. Working under the auspices of the National Science Foundation the team spent two years evaluating more than 100 studies that addressed the various implications of climate engineering and their anticipated effects on greenhouse gases.
Ultimately the group focused its investigation on the five strategies that appear to hold the most promise:
and in the ocean storing carbon dioxide in a liquefied form in underground geological formations and wells increasing Earth's cloud cover and solar reflection.
Deforestation now is responsible for adding 1 gigaton of carbon each year to the atmosphere. Improving soil management is another biological means of carbon sequestration that holds considerable promise
The study's second most promising climate engineering strategy after carbon sequestration was carbon capture and storage particularly when the technique is used near where fuels are being refined.
Reducing the amount of sunlight that is heating up the atmosphere through measures such as artificially increasing Earth's cloud cover
While cloud seeding is cheap and potentially as effective as improving forestry practices the approach and its potential impacts are understood not well enough for widespread use the team concluded.
But we really don't understand what would happen to the climate if we started making more clouds.
Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Los angeles. The original article was written by Meg Sullivan.
while still providing forest cover and wildlife habitat worked equally as well as more intensive treatments in allowing for the protection of homes during the 2011 Wallow Fire a study published in the journal Forest Ecology
and qualitative observations during the Wallow Fire suggest previously implemented treatments did said just that Morris Johnson a research fire ecologist with the U s. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station
This study should help to measure the socioeconomic public health and environmental impacts of livestock and poultry worldwide.
The evaluation of multiple socioeconomic environmental and public health around the livestock sector requires accurate accessible and comprehensive spatial data on the distribution and abundance of livestock.
and Spatial Ecology (LUBIES) Interfaculty School of Bioengineering (EIB Universitã libre de Bruxelles) and Tim Robinson (International Livestock Research Institute Nairobi Kenya) publishes this week
The growing livestock sector places ever greater pressure on our natural resources and the environment. It contributes significantly to global environmental change with a recently estimated 14.5%of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions attributable to the sector as well as through environmental problems associated with manure management and disruption of the nitrogen cycle in the soil water and air.
Also of concern are the public health implications of livestock intensification. The widespread use of antibiotics in livestock for preventive or curative purposes or as growth promoters directly contributes to the increasing prevalence of resistant strains of bacteria to antibiotics both at local and global levels.
This study is the result of a partnership between the Laboratory of Biological Control and Spatial Ecology (ULB LUBIES) the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI Nairobi Kenya) the Food and Agricultural organization of the United nations
#Ecosystem services: Looking forward to mid-centuryas population grows society needs more--more energy more food more paper more housing more of nearly everything.
Those conversions can in turn diminish the health of natural ecosystems and their ability to provide an array of valuable services such as clean air
In one paper Plantinga a professor at the Bren School of Environmental science & Management and colleagues model the future of land-use change in the United states under various scenarios and possible effects on the provision of some important ecosystem services.
In a related publication the researchers develop incentive structures to best encourage landowners to provide ecosystem services.
The first policy provides incentives for reduced deforestation and for afforestation--moving land into forest whether by converting cropland to natural forest or by establishing commercial timber operations.
Projected land-use changes by 2051 will likely enhance the provision of some ecosystem services and decrease the provision of others he said.
In this application ecosystem services are defined as the goods and services provided by nature that are of value to people.
The point is to identify which types of ecosystem services are provided as land use changes he concluded.
but you may need strong incentives to limit declines in the provision of other ecosystem services.
which identifies the best auction structure for securing ecosystem services particularly those provided by private landowners.
Building on established auction theory the paper breaks new ground in structuring an auction that addresses three key challenges to inducing private landowners to provide optimal levels of ecosystem services.
These include the spatial component of ecosystem services. For example adjoining parcels of land may be more valuable from the perspective of providing habitat than three fragmented parcels adding up to the same size.
what are called often payments for ecosystem services. Because forests clean rivers climate regulation and other ecosystem services are freely available to everyone landowners often receive nothing for actions they take on their own land that contribute to the pool of ecosystem services.
Those services may be underprovided due to a lack of price incentives for private activities taken for the public good.
--and the optimal provision of ecosystem services--in situations defined by asymmetric information and spatially dependent benefits.
A record number of species use the same odor to exploit each otherthe open-access journal Frontiers in Ecology
climate changeglobal malnutrition could fall 84 percent by the year 2050 as incomes in developing countries grow
and climate change does not severely damage agriculture Purdue University researchers say. The prevalence and severity of global malnutrition could drop significantly by 2050 particularly in the poorest regions of the world said Thomas Hertel Distinguished Professor of Agricultural Economics.
Climate change also adds a good deal of uncertainty to these projections. Hertel and doctoral student Uris Baldos developed a combination of economic models--one that captures the main drivers of crop supply
and demand and another that assesses food security based on caloric consumption--to predict how global food security from 2006 to 2050 could be affected by changes in population income bioenergy agricultural productivity and climate.
The researchers also cautioned that the impacts of a changing climate on crop yields remain uncertain.
But climate change is complicated Hertel said. Up to 2050 there could be some pluses for agriculture he said.
The models show that climate change is a less influential driver of global food security than income population
People living in the most hunger-stricken areas will be the most vulnerable to climate change.
The study appeared in the April 16 2014 online edition of the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology.
There is a mistaken notion that tobacco smoking in a waterpipe is safer than cigarettes said Patrick Breysse Phd professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the study's senior author.
Some of these measurements consistently exceeded air quality standards set by the U s. Environmental protection agency and the World health organization.
and tobacco control policies need to be strengthened to include water pipes said Christine Torrey BA senior research specialist in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences and the study's lead author.
which involves some level of environmental footprint. By the same token he noted that locally produced food may not be the most sustainable choice
to improve crop yield reduce the impact of agricultural practices on the environment and develop food crops that are of high yield
and nutrition and can grow successfully in environments stressed by drought pests diseases or poor soil quality.
and information on the genetic mechanisms that underlie these traits to select strains for breeding that will be more successful in producing hybrid strains with characteristics that are suited highly for growing successfully in different environments.
Dr. Jun Wang Director of BGI added to this saying that the population boom and worsening climate crisis have presented big challenges on global food shortage and safety.
and sustain the most appropriate hybrid strains for different environments. There remains however one additional component to achieve this goal:
This information allows a breeder to make more intelligent choices in strain selection resulting in more accurate and rapid development of rice strains that are suited better to different agricultural environments in poor and environmentally stressed economies.
Moreover it can be observed a progressive decrease of soil fertility probably due to overexploitation or the use of less fertile soils but also to more extreme climate conditions.
After examining bacteria from the dairy environment for more than 15 years Hassan found a strain that mimics fat.
The strain Hassan discovered produces polysaccharides with high water binding capacity that then improve the quality of low-fat dairy products.
#Vines choke a forests ability to capture carbontropical forests are a sometimes-underappreciated asset in the battle against climate change.
As abandoned agricultural land in the tropics is taken over by forests scientists expect these new forests to mop up industrial quantities of atmospheric carbon.
In the first study to experimentally demonstrate that competition between plants can result in ecosystem-wide losses of forest carbon scientists working in Panama showed that lianas
or woody vines can reduce net forest biomass accumulation by nearly 20 percent Researchers called this estimate conservative in findings published this month in Ecology.
Decreased rainfall is one suspect but lianas which are generally more drought-tolerant than trees are increasing in abundance even in rainforests that have not experienced apparent changes in weather patterns.
Findings by Schnitzer and colleagues also published this year in Ecology showed that liana distribution
#Climate change and the future of sweet cherry in Australiapredicted variations in global climates have fruit producers trying to determine which crops are suited best to weathering future temperature changes.
If climate change models are correct the scientists say that these high-value crops could suffer.
Penelope Measham and Nicholas Macnair from the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tasmania along with Audrey Quentin from CSIRO Ecosystems Science published the results of their experiments using two common sweet cherry varieties.
environmentsetting strong standards for climate-changing carbon emissions from power plants would provide an added bonus--reductions in other air pollutants that can make people sick;
and Harvard who mapped the potential environmental and human health benefits of power plant carbon standards.
Air pollution Changes under Different 111d Options for Existing Power plants use three policy options for the forthcoming EPA rule as a guide to model changes in power plant emissions of four other harmful
The scientists state that the resulting air quality improvements are likely to lead to significant gains in public and environmental health.
This new analysis shows that there is a real opportunity to help reverse decades of environmental damage from power plant emissions
With a mix of stringency and flexibility the new EPA rules have the potential to substantially reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants
This is an opportunity to both mitigate climate change and protect public health. The U s. EPA is expected to release its proposed rules for carbon pollution from existing power plants June 2.
The new Syracuse and Harvard study and maps can be downloaded at: http://eng-cs. syr. edu/carboncobenefits.
--while your friends enjoy the nice summer weather! Traditionally people allergic to grass pollen are advised to be aware of high pollen concentrations during the day
Different species have different patternsconcentrations of grass pollen are influenced by many factors the most important being the weather and the emissions
have been recorded of which around 20 species are likely to be particularly common in urban environments. The emission of pollen from the individual species is driven by different weather parameters e g. the temperature on the previous day
or on the current day some emissions stop when it is raining others release their pollen in response to rain.
Each species flowers intensively for approximately one-two weeks and the total season is around two months.
when the cumulative damages of widening infestations are considered report scientists in Ecological Society of America's journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
or worse than the emerald ash borer said lead author Brian Leung an ecologist at Mcgill University in Montreal Canada.
or ecological values of the trees so the benefits are even greater than our calculations said Leung.
Ash species are important constituents of native forest ecosystems particularly the hardwood forests of the east
The above story is provided based on materials by Ecological Society of America. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
#Wondering about state of the environment? Just eavesdrop on beesresearchers have devised a simple way to monitor wide swaths of the landscape without breaking a sweat:
In the past two decades the European union has spent â1 billion on agri-environment schemes which aim to improve the rural landscape health
not only the environment but also the schemes used to manage that environment. Couvillon and her colleagues led by Francis Ratnieks recorded
More broadly High Level agri-environment schemes were the best places for bees. The researchers were surprised to find that Organic Entry Level agri-environment schemes were frequented the least by bees.
According to Couvillon it may be that the regular mowing required initially to discourage certain plants from growing in those plots might leave few wildflowers for bees.
and provide information relevant to better environmental management the researchers say. It also gives new meaning to the term worker bee.
The new study led by IIASA Ecosystems Services and Management researcher Oskar Franklin in collaboration with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences used a theoretical model to explain the new experimental findings by simulating the interaction between individual fungus and plant.
Understanding boreal forest nutrient cycles is incredibly important for modeling climate change because it influences how much carbon dioxide these regions can absorb as well as how they are influenced by the increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Importance of adapting to climate changea new Stanford study finds that due to an average 3. 5 degrees Fahrenheit of warming expected by 2040 yields of wheat
The results clearly showed that modest amounts of climate change can have a big impact on yields of several crops in Europe said Stanford doctoral student Frances Moore who conducted the research with David Lobell an associate professor
of environmental Earth system science. Moore a student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources described the results as somewhat surprising
because Europe is fairly cool. So you might think it would benefit from moderate amounts of warming she said.
Combining detailed climate records with the farm data they were able to understand how yields
Their research is detailed in the latest issue of the journal Nature Climate Change. By adaptation we mean a range of options based on existing technologies such as switching varieties of a crop installing irrigation
or growing a different crop one better suited to warmer temperatures said Lobell the associate director of the Center on Food security and the Environment at Stanford.
but the novelty of this study was using past data to quantify the actual potential of adaptation to reduce climate change impacts.
Most scientists focus on the uncertainty around future climate conditions but the Stanford team found that the biggest issues are often how quickly farmers in Europe will adapt to climate change (adaptation uncertainty)
and how crop yields will respond to climate change (response uncertainty). In future research Moore and Lobell hope to focus on measuring how quickly farmers are adapting to changing temperatures.
This paper has shown that crops in Europe are sensitive to warming and that adaptation can be important in reducing that impact Moore said.
if farmers are quick to respond to climate signals. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Stanford university.
Geography and the existence of so-called food deserts (neighborhoods or regions with limited access to affordable healthy food) appear to have little bearing on the obesity trend in general
This is equivalent to 40%of the yearly carbon loss from deforestation --when entire forests are chopped down.
and belowground carbon loss from selective logging and ground level forest fires in the tropics based on data from 70000 sampled trees and thousands of soil litter and dead wood samples from 225 sites
Once the forest has been logged the many gaps in the canopy means it becomes much drier due to exposure to the wind
So far climate change policies on the tropics have effectively been focusing on reducing carbon emissions from deforestation only not accounting for emissions coming from forest degradation.
and policy makers who are concerned primarily with deforestation. Yet our results show how these disturbances can severely degrade the forest with huge amounts of carbon being transferred from plant matter straight into the atmosphere.
Oldani and other student team members recently traveled to Washington D c. to showcase their project at the EPA's 10th annual National Sustainable Design Expo for the People Prosperity and the Planet competition.
because it is not only good for the environment but it is good for our health
and a sea anemone that lives under an Antarctic glacier are among the species identified by the SUNY College of Environmental science and Forestry's (ESF) International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) as the top 10 species discovered last
and a wide-eyed teddy bear lives secretively in cloud forests of the Andes mountains in Colombia and Ecuador.
Its apparent dependence on cloud forest habitat means deforestation is a threat. Kaweesak's Dragon tree:
Antarctica A species of sea anemone living under a glacier on the Ross Ice shelf in Antarctica raises questions by its very existence.
With longer limbs a more slender body and larger eyes than other Saltuarius species this one has mottled a coloration that allows it to blend in with its surroundings.
which are actually sponge fragments from its surroundings and uses them like so many Lego blocks to construct a shell.
if something disappears moves in response to climate change or invades new habitats. As long as we remain ignorant of the vast majority of species we unnecessarily limit our effectiveness at conservation goals. â#¢Billions of years of natural selection have driven plants
and the single most important step we can take in preparation for an uncertain environmental future.
The above story is provided based on materials by SUNY College of Environmental science and Forestry. The original article was written by Claire B. Dunn and Karen B. Moore.
or female offspring depends on the weather according to a study led by Joffrey Moiroux and Jacques Brodeur of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological sciences.
We know that climate affects the reproductive behaviour of insects. But we never clearly demonstrated the effects of climate change on sex allocation in parasitoids Moiroux explained.
The study was carried out in collaboration with Guy Boivin of the Horticulture Research and development Centre of Agriculture
To know whether this particular behaviour is modified by climate the researcher exposed female Trichogramma to three different temperatures:
However in a hot environment offspring are smaller. This is why females tend to use hosts found in hot areas to produce males and reserve hosts in colder areas (e g. in the shade of hedges) to produce females.
Predators and parasitoids are more sensitive to climate change and this is why many researchers expect an increase in episodes of phenological asynchrony.
which species of soybean pests could come to Quebec in the coming years due to climate change.
#Ape ancestors teeth provide glimpse into their diets and environments: Helped apes move to Eurasia,
Their diet closely relates to the environment in which they live and each type of diet wears the teeth differently.
and changes in the environment but that this specialization may have ultimately lead to their extinction
when more drastic environmental changes took place. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by PLOS.
but the forests on top of it are providing clean water clean air climate regulation and a host of other ecological values.
We need to maintain them as healthy functioning ecosystems while extracting the gas. We hope our research will help to determine where thresholds of change occur
or minimal at best to protect these valuable ecological services that are provided free of-charge to all of us.
In the natural world the mechanism may influence the motion of icebergs floating on the sea
The finding was unexpected an outcome of research on other effects of temperature differences such as the way winds form over glaciers in a valley Peacock says.
These winds are generated by natural convection that arises from temperature differences between a fluid and a heated or cooled boundary.
In the valley winds previously considered the object was either a glacier or a valley wall heated by the sun
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