Dr Mick Hanley Lecturer in Ecology at Plymouth University said the study showed the continued importance of promoting diversity
Wind and rain splash carry the spores onto the head when it flowers but the weather conditions must be just right--warm humid and wet.
The wheat flower must be open for the fungus to enter Yen explains. In susceptible varieties the fungus kills the infected cells in the head thereby plugging the transport of water and nutrients to the upper part of the head.
Teresa Saura and Ramon Vallejo from the Department of Plant Biology of UB and Santiago Sabatã from the Department of Ecology of UB and the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF.
They belong to several institutions such as the Autonomous University of Barcelona the University of Girona the Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications (CREAF) the Forest Sciences Centre of Catalonia (CTFC) the Natural history Museum
of Barcelona the Estaciã n Experimental de les Zonas à ridas the Mediterranean Centre for Environmental Studies (CEAM) the Oficina Tà cnica de Parcs Naturals
of the Barcelona Provincial Council and the Directorate General for the Environment and Biodiversity of the Goverment of Catalonia.
Peter Kevan School of Environmental sciences are studying bees'ability to learn by themselves and from each other.
when D. suzukii was identified as a pest said Joel Atallah a postdoctoral researcher at UC Davis who carried out the work with Artyom Kopp professor of evolution and ecology and undergraduate researchers Lisa Teixeira Raul
This is shown in a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Trading food involves the trade of virtually embedded water used for production
or the US with different climatic zones and relating varying local conditions regarding water availability and water productivity.
and making global water use more efficient co-author Hermann Lotze-Campen co-chair of PIKÂ's research domain Climate Impacts
The above story is provided based on materials by Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK. Note:
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
That debate began with the discovery in the 1990s that large areas of the forest can be killed off by intense storms in events called blowdowns.
This study looked only at natural processes in Amazonia not at the results of human activities such as logging and deforestation
Santa cruz plant ecologist and her team of undergraduate students. Ingrid Parker the Langenheim professor of plant ecology and evolution at UC Santa cruz got involved in the marsh sandwort recovery effort at the request of the U s. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS.
Although it used to occur all along the west coast from San diego to Washington state this wetland plant with delicate white flowers had dwindled to one population in a boggy wetland in San luis Obispo County.
They published their findings in the April issue of Plant Ecology (available in advance online. Surprisingly the plants tolerated a much wider range of soil moisture
and also in furthering our understanding of wetland ecology she said. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of California-Santa cruz. The original article was written by Tim Stephens. Note:
but are constantly monitoring their environment and taking action to run and hide said Svenson.
Among the new species Liturgusa algorei is named for Albert Arnold Al gore Jr. former vice president of the United states of america to honor his environmental activism
and efforts to raise public awareness of global climate change Liturgusa krattorum is named for Martin
#Researchers take on fighting disastrous consequences of extreme changes in climate before they occurhow can communities dodge future disasters from Mother Nature before she has dealt the blow?
interdisciplinary research technique for approaching climate change vulnerability that's called Multi-scale Interactive Scenario-Building (MISB.
and planning for future ecological hazards and to consider the impact of those decisions. The researchers posed three scenarios involving future drastic climate changes.
The one-on-one interviews involved around 30 people for each region ranging from ranchers to teachers small business owners hunting guides county planners and representatives from federal and state agencies.
Ecologists on the research team would then predict the impact of the suggested planning. The three possible scenarios were:
The Seasons They're a-Changing-Describes changes in seasonality such as significantly increased rainfall in the spring.
Areas like the Big Hole depend on snow to irrigate their hayfields explains Murphy so little snowfall could pose a big problem.
Flood irrigation for example has environmental impacts that are really really good. So we looked at the impact of stopping flood irrigation and switching to center pivot irrigation.
because much of the snow melt there feeds into a lake that's a reservoir for Denver's water.
because despite any temperature increases or other issues it involved continuous rain in the spring.
Murphy is now exploring climate vulnerability in Ohio's Appalachia near the Wayne National Forest in southeast Ohio where he says future flooding could pose a threat.
The interdisciplinary project involved the expertise of anthropologists conservation social scientists ecologists and a hydrologist. Co-researchers on the project are Laurie Yung associate professor of natural resource social science University of Montana;
Carina Wyborn a postdoctoral researcher at University of Montana and visiting fellow Fenner School of Environment and Society Australian National University;
#Climate change will reduce crop yields sooner than thoughta study led by the University of Leeds has shown that global warming of only 2â°C will be detrimental to crops in temperate and tropical regions with reduced yields from the 2030s onwards.
Professor Andy Challinor from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds and lead author of the study said:
Our research shows that crop yields will be affected negatively by climate change much earlier than expected. Furthermore the impact of climate change on crops will vary both from year-to-year
and from place-to-place--with the variability becoming greater as the weather becomes increasingly erratic.
The study published today by the journal Nature Climate Change feeds directly into the Working group II report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report
which is due to be published at the end of March 2014. In the study the researchers created a new data set by combining
and comparing results from 1700 published assessments of the response that climate change will have on the yields of rice maize and wheat.
Due to increased interest in climate change research the new study was able to create the largest dataset to date on crop responses with more than double the number of studies that were available for researchers to analyze for the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.
In the Fourth Assessment Report scientists had reported that regions of the world with temperate climates such as Europe
As more data have become available we've seen a shift in consensus telling us that the impacts of climate change in temperate regions will happen sooner rather than later said Professor Challinor.
The researchers state that we will see on average an increasingly negative impact of climate change on crop yields from the 2030s onwards.
These statistics already account for minor adaptation techniques employed by farmers to mitigate the effects of climate change such as small adjustments in the crop variety and planting date.
Climate change means a less predictable harvest with different countries winning and losing in different years.
#Reindeer grazing may counteract effects of climate warming on tundra carbon sinklocal reindeer grazing history is an important determinant in the response of an ecosystem's carbon sink to climate warming say researchers at the Arctic
Their study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change on 16 march 2014. The research project has been funded by the Academy of Finland.
The consequences of global climate warming on ecosystem carbon sink in tundra are of great interest
because carbon that is currently stored in tundra soils may be released to the atmosphere in a warmer climate.
Carbon balances showed that under the current climate lightly grazed dwarf-shrub-dominated tundra were a stronger carbon sink than heavily grazed graminoid-dominated tundra.
Thus tundra with a long history of intensive grazing showed a weak response to climate warming.
Increased carbon fixation in heavily grazed tundra compensated the warming-induced increase in the carbon dioxide release from the ecosystem.
Grazing alters several ecosystem properties such as plant species composition and soil nutrient availability which in turn alter ecosystem responses to climate warming says Academy Research Fellow Sari Stark from the Arctic Centre.
The significance of reindeer grazing history to tundra carbon balances has not been studied previously. The present results may modify climate models that predict the effects of global warming on global carbon cycles.
The study shows that it is critical to know the grazing history before the responses of tundra carbon balances to climate warming can be understood.
Different tundra systems possess highly varying grazing histories as a result of past and present reindeer management practices.
DCA would do little without the flood of data available since the ability to scan entire genomes became possible and even commonplace in recent decades.
and the upright trunks said Kathleen Foster a Ph d. student in Evolution Ecology and Organismal biology who performed the study.
This has unearthed a lot of questions about ecology evolution how parts of animals evolve and how they respond to their environment.
Though these 2-inch-long green anoles weigh just 5 grams--about the same as a U s. nickel--their muscles work the same way as every other vertebrate.
and environment affect an organism's anatomy. The study found that muscle activity in the green anoles was most consistent on broad vertical surfaces such as tree trunks suggesting that
#Impacts of climate change in Switzerland: Adaptation and climate change mitigation must go hand in handsouthern Switzerland emerges as a hotspot of the effects of climate change.
And the bark beetle is putting spruces all over Switzerland under increasing pressure because an additional generation of pests could hatch each year due to the rising temperatures.
which deals with the quantitative consequences of climate change for Switzerland. It has been produced under the direction of the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research of the University of Bern.
More than 20 research groups from all over Switzerland have worked on the climate change impacts report during the past two years.
The unprecedented project was initiated and coordinated by the Oeschger Centre of the University of Bern;
it was supported financially by the Federal office for the Environment (BAFU) and Meteoschweiz. In its investigations into seven subject areas--from glaciers and water balance to woods biodiversity
and agriculture to health and energy--the researchers took the so-called CH2011 Scenarios as their starting point for the future development of temperature and precipitation in Switzerland.
From these climate scenarios they derived concrete impacts. With this uniform basis the numerous research groups were feed able to the same data into their models
This approach provides valuable foundations for the development of adaptation strategies says Christoph Raible from the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research of the University of Bern which coordinated the project.
The results of the CH2014-Impacts project confirm existing knowledge concerning the consequences of climate change
For example previous assessments concerning changes in The swiss glaciers have been corroborated clearly: if no radical climate policy measures are taken around 90 percent of The swiss glaciers will disappear by the end of this century.
Around half of the remaining glacial ice will already have melted away by 2035. Winners and losers in the forestch2014-Impacts shows differentiated developments for forests:
This also reduces the protective effect against avalanches and rockfalls. Things look different on the alpine treeline where tree growth is increasing.
Major regional differencesthe CH2014-Impacts report clearly shows the major regional differences in the effects of climate change.
According to another result of the report the sensitive south of Switzerland has to expect striking effects of climate change
--Even if globally effective climate protection measures are taken says Raible. On The swiss Plateau on the other hand as long as effective climate policies manage to keep the effects within bearable limits positive effects are also to be expected.
In wine-growing for example where warmer conditions will allow the cultivation of additional grape varieties. Without climate protection measures it is to be expected that problematic consequences will be dominant.
For example stronger fluctuations must be expected in the outflows of rivers and the temperature of the groundwater may rise--with possibly negative consequences for drinking water quality.
or without climate protection Switzerland will not be able to do without adaptation. This also includes improved management such as in agriculture for example--including the choice of varieties
But climate change is also presenting forestry with new challenges. The changing conditions necessitate an adaptation of forest tending and the promotion of biodiversity.
Adaptive measures and improved management are not enough however for coping with climate change. A reduction of greenhouse gas emissions still remains an urgent priority.
adaptation and climate protection must go hand in hand. If we manage to limit climate change adaptation to its consequences will as a result be easier to achieve
and cheaper says Raible in summary. The report CH2014-Impacts can be downloaded free of charge at www. ch2014-impacts. ch.
and create biochar a highly porous charcoal said project principal investigator Karl Linden professor of environmental engineering.
Linden is working closely with project co-investigators Professor R. Scott Summers of environmental engineering and Professor Alan Weimer chemical and biological engineering and a team of postdoctoral fellows professionals
and solar energy work environmental engineers for waste treatment and stabilization mechanical engineers to build actuators and moving parts and electrical engineers to design control systems Linden said.
#Tropical grassy ecosystems under threat, scientists warnscientists at the University of Liverpool have found that tropical grassy areas which play a critical role in the world's ecology are under threat as a result of ineffective management.
According to research published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution they are misclassified often and this leads to degradation of the land
Greater area than tropical rain foreststropical grassy areas cover a greater area than tropical rain forests support about one fifth of the world's population
which all generate a unique and complex set of ecological processes and interactions not found in other habitats.
Dr Kate Parr from the School of Environmental sciences said: The distinctive evolutionary histories and biodiversity values of these areas needs to be recognised by conservation managers and policy makers.
Whilst it is assumed generally that'more trees are better'in tropical rainforest this is not necessarily the case for tropical grassy ecosystems and so the outcomes of global carbon and conservation initiatives
and its Reducing Emissions and Deforestation Forest Degradation schemes need to be considered better when they are applied to tropical grasslands.
Any changes to the balance between human livelihoods and ecosystem function would have an impact on the use of land the availability of resources
and would affect the way the land functions including its climate. The vast extent of tropical grasslands and the reliance of human welfare on them means that they deserve far more research
Tropical grassy ecosystems are associated with savannas and upland grasslands in Africa and savanna-type grasslands in India Australia
Loss of natural habitat changes in land use pesticides the potential for bird diseases and even climate change have all been mentioned
#Lignin breakthroughs serve as GPS for plant researchresearchers at North carolina State university have developed the equivalent of GPS directions for future plant scientists to understand how plants adapt to the environment
and the shrubs between the two have some features of both said U of I microbial ecologist Tony Yannarell.
And because of the close proximity with the same overall climate conditions and soil origin they could rule out a lot of factors that would normally affect a change in microbial community structure.
We don't know yet what kind of long-term impact this could have on the environment Yannarell said.
As the environment becomes unfavorable for certain microbes those microbes will die off he said. The shrubs could be driving out grass-loving fungi in favor of shrub-loving fungi.
Influence of Shrub Encroachment on the Soil Microbial Community Composition of Remnant Hill Prairies was published in the February 2014 issue of Microbial Ecology.
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
longer playing hours lower maintenance costs and greater resilience to harsh weather conditions. Despite these advantages many elite professional soccer teams are reluctant to install artificial turf because of a perception that injuries occur more often on these types of surfaces.
while carrots and dip were popular in benign outdoor weather. String cheese suffered from being tucked away in a refrigerator.
The study--published in The british Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology-is the first to show that seed-dispersing bats avoid feeding in light-polluted areas.
This has important implications for forest regeneration in the tropics. Bats play a key role in pollinating plants
By reducing foraging of fruit-eating bats in lit areas light pollution is likely to reduce seed rain he commented.
#Mongol Empire rode wave of mild climate, but warming now may be tipping region into unparalleled droughtresearchers studying the rings of ancient trees in mountainous central Mongolia think they may have gotten at the mystery of how small bands of nomadic Mongol horsemen united to conquer much of the world within a span of decades
The rise of the great leader Genghis khan and the start of the largest contiguous empire in human history was propelled by a temporary run of nice weather.
when the empire rose the normally cold arid steppes of Central asia saw their mildest wettest weather in more than 1000 years.
Energy flows from the bottom of an ecosystem up the ladder to human society. Even today many people in Mongolia live just like their ancestors did.
In just a matter of years he united the tribes into an efficient horse-borne military state that rapidly invaded its neighbors and expanded outward in all directions.
because they were fleeing harsh weather at home --but Pederson and colleagues found the opposite. In 2010 Pederson and coauthor Amy Hessl a tree-ring scientist at West virginia University were studying wildfires in Mongolia
They knew that on such dry nearly soil-less surfaces trees grow very slowly are exquisitely sensitive to yearly weather shifts
and rainfall so they could read past weather by calibrating ring widths of living trees with instrumental data from 1959-2009 then comparing these with the innards of much older trees.
Then from 1211 to 1225--exactly coinciding with the empire's meteoric rise--Mongolia saw sustained rainfall
The transition from extreme drought to extreme moisture right then strongly suggests that climate played a role in human events said Hessl.
The tree rings show that after the empire's initial expansion Mongolia's weather turned back to its more normal dryness and cold though with many ups and downs over the hundreds of years since.
The tree rings show that the most recent drought from 2002-2009 compares in length and paucity of rainfall only to those of the pre-empire 1120s and 1180s.
Climate models predict that as the world warms heat in inner Asia will continue to rise substantially faster than the global mean.
and other extreme weather will probably worsen and become more frequent. This could further reduce livestock
--even if rainfall doesn't change the landscape is going to get drier. Previous studies by others have advanced the idea that climate swings can change history.
These include events such as the disappearance of the Maya the expansion and fall of Roman imperial power and in a separate Lamont-led study the 13th-century collapse of Southeast asia's Angkor civilization.
Most focus on droughts floods or other disasters that arguably have cut off empires; the new study is one of the few to explore the more complex question how climate might have invigorated one.
The researchers make a compelling argument that climate played a role in facilitating the Mongol migration said David Stahle a paleoclimatologist at the University of Arkansas who has studied the mysterious disappearance of The english Roanoke colony off North carolina coinciding with
what tree rings show was a disastrous drought. But said Stahle we live in a sea of coincidence--something like that is hard to prove.
They've provided an incredibly important climate record and put the idea out there so it will stimulate a lot of historical and archeological research.
Hanqin Tian an ecologist at Auburn University in Alabama who studies modern grasslands is working on models to correlate ancient grass production with the tree-ring records of weather.
Even with snow still on the ground trees have started budding and are the first to produce pollen creating major problems for people with allergies said David Rosenstreich M d. director of the Division of Allergy and Immunology at Montefiore Medical center.
but can be almost year-round in warmer climates. Grass pollen allergies typically arise in late spring
Ragweed is often one of the biggest offenders in most regions as it can grow in nearly every environment.
and make the most of the warm weather. Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by Montefiore Medical center.
#Predation on invertebrates by woodland salamanders increases carbon capturewoodland salamanders perform a vital ecological service in American forests by helping to mitigate the impacts of global warming.
and found that woodland salamander predation on invertebrates suppressed some populations of invertebrates and released others with the overall result of increased litter retention and carbon capture in the soil.
and raise awareness of the ecological role woodland salamanders play in the forest carbon cycle. The renowned evolutionary biologist E. O. Wilson once said it is the little things that run the world Dr. Welsh said.
mitigate effects of climate change in Africaagroforestry can help to achieve climate change mitigation and adaptation while at the same time providing livelihoods for poor smallholder farmers in Africa.
In a special issue of Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability scientists say that in most parts of Africa climate change mitigation focuses on reforestation
and forest protection however such efforts to reduce deforestation conflict with the need to expand agricultural production in Africa to feed the continent's growing population.
Under such circumstances any measures that will be put in place to mitigate the effects of climate change should also improve food production.
This mixture shows the role that agroforestry can play in addressing both climate mitigation and adaptation in primarily food-focused production systems of Africa says Dr. Cheikh Mbow Senior Scientist Climate Change
and Development at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) and lead author of the article. It has been demonstrated by science that
if you develop agroforestry it has the potential to buffer the impact of climate change.
For example a farm with trees will suffer less to the impacts of climate change because it will absorb some of these impacts
so agroforestry is a good response to develop resilience of agrosystems to the challenges brought about by climate change he says.
With food shortages and increased threats of climate change interest in agroforestry is gathering for its potential to address various on-farm adaptation needs.
therefore attract more attention in global agendas on climate change mitigation because of its positive social and environmental impacts.
and passage of wind says Prof. Barbara. Another interesting observation Prof. Barbara points to is that those IBS patients who have several clear-cut gut symptoms have also more profound changes in their gut microbiota as compared to other patients
whose hills are characterized typically by erosion--for the moment at least because the so-called badlands of Tuscany are endangered acutely.
Erosion is threatening the many small peaks known as biancane'due to their whitish color. They are marked by a bleak strongly declining south side and a less declining north side overgrown by herbs Prof.
Every year one to two centimeters of the loose bare ground on the south side of the slope are being eaten away by wind and weather.
and therefore they are affected more easily by the rain. The result: less stability and more erosion.
An additional reason can be found in the vegetation itself. In places where something once grew organic material finds its way into the ground
and protects the ground from erosion Peggy Bierbaã says. Moreover the vegetation leads to a better overall wetting mesh
Ecological theory asserts that grazers can counteract the effects of over-fertilizing in most cases
These differing strategies create a diverse grassland ecosystem. In the human-altered world where nutrients are always plentiful plants that put their effort into growing tall to capture sunlight have an advantage.
and digging up the dirt Cornell researchers have discovered that a burgeoning deer population forever alters the progression of a forest's natural future by creating environmental havoc in the soil
In fact the deer are preventing forests from establishing says Anurag Agrawal Cornell professor of ecology
Co-author Antonio Ditommaso Cornell associate professor of weed ecology and management and research technician Scott Morris gathered soil cores--from both within and outside of fenced deer exclosures
but it's like an iceberg. There are major effects below the soil surface. We are seeing a divergence of seeds contained within the soil from what should be there says Ditommaso We are not seeing the seeds of woody plants.
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