The great demand for forest products to use for agriculture by the population of the Ethiopian highlands has resulted in the deforestation of a region with the lowest human development rate in the world.
and has an important environmental and socioeconomic key role in the highlands area. The consumption of eucalypt is been boosted because of its compatibility with the grazing system
Although this test is hurt by atypical adverse environmental factors in the area by restrictions
It has been conducted by tropical ecologists of the University WÃ rzburg Biocenter jointly with colleagues from the LOEWE Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Bik-F Frankfurt/Main) and the Institute for experimental Ecology of the University
and are more resistant to fungiâ#explains Professor Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter a tropical ecologist at the University of WÃ rzburg's Biocenter.
whether and how intensified farming affects these services provided by the ecosystem. This research has been carried out in close cooperation with teams from the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (Frankfurt/Main) and the Institute of Experimental Ecology at the University of Ulm.
The tropical experts conducted experiments in twelve areas on the slopes of Mount kilimanjaro in Tanzania located in all three cultivation systems (Chagga gardens shade plantations and sun plantations.
Shaky foundations in sun plantationsâ#oehowever it is likely that these seemingly stable ecosystem services rest on shaky foundations in the sun plantationsâ#believe the WÃ rzburg scientists.
#They have been produced by a research group that focuses on the ecosystems of Mount kilimanjaro and is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
The green-up indicated productive thriving vegetation in spite of limited rainfall. Now a new NASA study published today in the journal Nature shows that the appearance of canopy greening is caused not by a biophysical change in Amazon forests
and interannual changes in Amazon forests and other ecosystems. Scientists who use satellite observations to study changes in Earth's vegetation need to account for seasonal differences in the angles of solar illumination
when the skies are less cloudy. Unsettled by the lack of definitive evidence explaining the magnitude of the green-up Morton
They culled satellite observations from MODIS and NASA's Ice Cloud and land Elevation Satellite (ICESAT) Geosciences Laser Altimeter System (GLAS)
and to explore the influence of drought on corrected vegetation indices said Scott Goetz an ecologist at Woods Hole Research center in Woods Hole Mass. who was not involved with the Nature study.
and opportunity for remote sensing scientists to work more closely with ground-based ecosystem scientists.
Scaling our knowledge of forest canopies from measurements of individual leaves to satellite observations of the entire Amazon basin requires a deep understanding of both forest ecology
Nobody else can do this kind of work in the'big field'environment and be confident that
Bee colonies act as extremely sensitive environmental indicators. Bees from a single colony may gather nectar and pollen resources from flowers in a 200-square-kilometer area.
The research offers new perspective on evolutionary biology microbiology and the production of natural gas and may shed light on climate change agriculture and human health.
By looking at this one mechanism that was studied not previously we will be able to develop new basic information that potentially has broad impact on contemporary issues ranging from climate change to obesity said Biswarup Mukhopadhyay an associate professor of biochemistry at the Virginia Tech
or volcanoes where environmental conditions mimic those that existed on the early Earth. They found that the protein thioredoxin which plays a major role in contemporary photosynthesis could repair many of the organism's proteins damaged by oxygen.
or localized infections depending on the age and gender of bird immunologic health and various environmental factors.
Environmental conditions including low ph low growth temperature and high acetate concentration have been shown to upregulate the expression of ECP in human E coli strains that cause urinary tract infections meningitis and diarrheal diseases.
and outside of the host and provides an ideal environment for the exchange of genetic material.
The researchers say this theory suggests that mountainous ecosystems have acted like Earth's thermostat addressing the risk of'catastrophic'overheating or cooling over millions of years.
This information was combined then with existing data of monthly temperature humidity rainfall and soil moisture in order to calculate the likely breakdown process of the basalt
They looked at the volcanic eruptions in India 65 million years ago (known as the Deccan traps.
Lead researcher Chris Doughty from the School of Geography and the Environment at the University of Oxford said:
Yet it may contribute to Earth's long-term climate stability. It seems to act like a thermostat drawing more carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere
Co-author Yadvinder Malhi Professor of Ecosystem Science at Oxford University said: This study shows how trees can act as brakes on extreme climate change
and the roots of trees in tropical mountains such as the Andes play a disproportionate role.
The research provides evidence that dynamic atmospheric chemistry played an important role in past warm climates underscoring the complexity of climate change and the relevance of natural components according to the authors.
or dispute the significant role in climate change of human-generated CO2 emissions. Using sophisticated Earth system modeling a team led by Nadine Unger of the Yale School of Forestry
& Environmental Studies (F&es) calculated that concentrations of tropospheric ozone aerosol particles and methane during the mid-Pliocene epoch were twice the levels observed in the preindustrial era--largely
The discovery is important for better understanding climate change throughout Earth's history and has enormous implications for the impacts of deforestation
and the role of forests in climate protection strategies said Unger an assistant professor of atmospheric chemistry at F&es.
The traditional view she said is that forests affect climate through carbon storage and by altering the color of the planet's surface
thus influencing the albedo effect. But as we are learning there are other ways that forest ecosystems can impact the climate.
The albedo effect refers to the amount of radiation reflected by the surface of the planet.
Climate scientists have suggested that the Pliocene epoch might provide a glimpse of the planet's future
During the Pliocene the two main factors believed to influence the climate--atmospheric CO2 concentrations
But scientists have wondered long why the Pliocene's global surface air temperatures were so much warmer than Earth's preindustrial climate.
Using the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies Model-E2 global Earth system model the researchers were able to simulate the terrestrial ecosystem emissions and atmospheric chemical composition of the Pliocene and the preindustrial era.
According to their findings the increase in global vegetation was the dominant driver of emissions during the Pliocene--and the subsequent effects on climate.
since they would have been washed from the atmosphere by frequent rainfall in the warmer climate. The new study argues otherwise saying that the particles lingered about the same length of time--one to two weeks--in the Pliocene atmosphere compared to the preindustrial.
Unger says her findings imply a higher climate sensitivity than if the system was affected simply by CO2 levels and the albedo effect.
and industrial emissions but in a warmer future world the natural ecosystems are just going to bring the ozone
Reducing and preventing the accumulation of fossil-fuel CO2 is the only way to ensure a safe climate future now.
The above story is provided based on materials by Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. The original article was written by Kevin Dennehy.
Honey bees provide ecosystem services through pollination of crops worth $215 billion annually worldwide. Concern over honey bee declines in recent decades as well as annual losses has sparked debate over their causes
and pathogens play in species declines said Dr. Peter Daszak Disease Ecologist and President of Ecohealth Alliance.
and invasive plants at times can function so well in new environments. Plants are moved often away from their natural provenance
The reason why plants sometimes function very differently in a new environment is a question that many researchers are currently focusing on.
Earlier experiments have looked at why a certain species does better in a new environment than in its natural habitat.
Influences such as religion culture economic status environmental concern food intolerances and personal preferences all play a part in the foods that people choose to consume.
Does its introduction pose any risk to the environment? Results from Federally mandated tests performed at the University of California Riverside now show that Tamarixia radiata is indeed safe for the environment and poses no undue risk to other insects humans or pets.
Our work demonstrates that Tamarixia radiata is very specific to the target it is being released to kill--the nymphs of the Asian citrus psyllid in this case said Mark Hoddle the director of the Center for Invasive Species Research whose lab performed the tests.
Safety testing in biological control is important as the release of natural enemies may pose some type of environmental risk.
and should not cause unwanted environmental damage. There is growing concern over the damage that invasive species cause he said
and approved the 60-page Environment Assessment Report the foundational work that the research paper is approved based on
If herbicides are a key factor in the declining diversity then thriving species would be more tolerant to widely used herbicides than rare or declining species according to J. Franklin Eganresearch ecologist USDA-Agricultural research service.
The researchers who report their findings in the online version of the journal Environmental Toxicology
Egan worked with David Mortensen professor of weed and applied plant ecology and Ian Graham an undergraduate student in plant science.
The study conducted by Gary Mccracken professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and led by UA's Laura LÃ pez-Hoffman is the first to examine how bat ecosystem services change over time.
It is published in this week's edition of the journal PLOS ONE. There are more than 1200 bat species
and technological substitutes such as Bt cotton can affect the value of an ecosystem service even
when ecosystem function in this case bat population numbers may remain constant said Mccracken. The findings fuel a discussion as to
and natural pest control diminish the importance of protecting ecosystems said LÃ pez-Hoffman . While our research shows a diminished value of pest control due to fluctuations in market conditions our larger analyses show that conservation is still economically beneficial.
'The study published this week in the Journal of Applied Ecology looked at data from 94 previous studies covering 184 farm sites dating back to 1989.
and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and was funded partly by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
or chocolate has any environmental benefit.''Story Source: The above story is provided based on materials by University of Oxford.
and the pesticide benomyl a fungicide that has been banned by the U s. Environmental protection agency. That study found that benomyl inhibited an enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH)
which these environmental toxins contribute to Parkinson's pathogenesis especially in genetically vulnerable individuals said study author Beate Ritz a professor of epidemiology at the Fielding School of Public health at UCLA. This suggests several potential interventions to reduce Parkinson's occurrence
The study was funded in part by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (P01es016732 R01es010544 5r21es16446-2 and U54es012078) the National Institute of Neurological disorders and Stroke (NS038367) the Veterans Administration Healthcare
#New maps highlight habitat corridors in the tropicsa team of Woods Hole Research center (WHRC) scientists created maps of habitat corridors connecting protected areas in the tropics to incorporate
biodiversity co-benefits into climate change mitigation strategies. Drs. Patrick Jantz Scott Goetz and Nadine Laporte describe their findings in an article entitled Carbon stock corridors to mitigate climate change
and promote biodiversity in the tropics available online in the journal Nature Climate Change on January 26.
Climate change and deforestation are changing tropical ecosystems isolating organisms in protected areas that will change
along with climate threatening their survival. Nearly every animal and plant species requires travelling some distance for nutrition reproduction
and genetic diversity but few conservation or climate mitigation strategies take the connections between conserved lands into account.
These habitat corridors are essential for longer-term biodiversity conservation while also providing opportunities for climate change mitigation in the form of carbon sequestration
and avoiding emissions from deforestation. According to lead author Dr. Jantz Maintaining connectivity of forest ecosystems provides ecological and societal benefits ensuring long-term species survival
and providing room for ecosystems to reorganize in response to climate change and protecting ecosystem services that people depend on.
Co-author Dr. Goetz sees corridors as avenues for migration of flora and fauna needed for their survival under the climate change we're already committed to.
The team used a high-resolution data set of vegetation carbon stock (VCS) to map 16257 corridors through areas of the highest biomass between 5600 protected areas in the tropics.
For Dr. Jantz the VCS corridor approach informs global frameworks for land management based climate change mitigation by showing
which forests contain significant carbon stocks and are important for tropical biodiversity. Part of the study focused on the Legal Amazon where the team used economic and biological information combining species richness
and endemism with economic opportunity costs and deforestation threats to prioritize optimal corridors. For Dr. Goetz Conserving tropical forests ultimately requires prioritizing the services they provide to people in a local setting.
Identifying lands locally valuable for agriculture or other high-value uses considering biodiversity and the threat of deforestation our analysis provides both maps and a framework for realistic conservation planning.
Dr. Laporte adds Because it is unlikely all remaining tropical forests can be protected the corridors defined by this study provide a way to prioritize lands in the context of the multiple benefits of tropical forest conservation.
According to Dr. Thomas E. Lovejoy a Senior Fellow at the United nations Foundation This represents a significant step towards the kind of integrated planning and management essential for sustainable development.
#Greenhouse time machine sheds light on corn domesticationby simulating the environment when corn was exploited first by people
The environment may have played a significant if serendipitous role in the transition through inducing phenotypic plasticity that gave early farmers a head start.
Phenotypic plasticity is an organism's ability to change in response to the environment causing genetically identical organisms to look very different
As they formulate a new modern evolutionary synthesis in part with concepts that Darwin could not have known of evolutionary biologists continue to debate the importance of the environment and plasticity on evolutionary change and the origins of the diverse forms of life On earth today.
However new evidence shows that these environmental-phenotypic interactions are in a growing number of organisms.
In an article in the February 2014 issue of Environmental Entomology called Using Resistant Prey Demonstrates that Bt Plants Producing Cry1ac Cry2ab
which appears in the February 2014 issue of Environmental Entomology. The aims of the study were to compile a checklist of arthropods that occur on maize in South africa
In order to preserve ancient cities'local character and biodiversity researchers are looking to native plant species that can withstand the low water environments that are necessary in lightweight green roof design.
Xerophytes--species of plants that have adapted to survive in environments with little water--fit well in green roof construction plans creating lightweight roofs that don't compromise ancient buildings'structural concerns.
although these areas would significantly benefit from the ecological and technical functions of this technology Papafotiou explained.
#Well-watered citrus tested in cold-acclimating temperaturescommercial citrus growers are challenged often by environmental conditions in winter including low seasonal rainfall that is typical in many citrus growing regions.
The study was conducted in South korea in two garden environments--a high tunnel and an outdoor area.
and fruit producers are facing significant environmental and sustainability issues and are being challenged to examine traditional production practices
in order to improve product quality while limiting environmental impact. A recent focus on both the positive and negative effects of nitrogen applications has researchers across the globe working to find methods that can increase crops'nitrogen use efficiency (NUE) to contribute to more sustainable responsible
and demonstrates how the environmental impact of intensive agriculture can be minimized without harming fruit yield or quality.
Nitrogen the most important and widely used agricultural nutrient is also a major environmental contaminant. In many regions increased levels of nitrate found in groundwater have been attributed to the high rates of nitrogen fertilizer applied to surrounding crops.
Yasuor and colleagues designed a study to investigate ways to reduce environmental pollution by increasing nitrogen use efficiency in vegetables without negatively affecting fruit yield or quality.
Higher concentrations of nitrogen loaded more nitrogen into the environment while the 56.2-mgâ L-1 concentration was almost completely taken up and used by the plants.
Our results demonstrate how the environmental impact of intensive agriculture can be minimized without harming fruit yield
#Trees diminished resistance to tropical cyclone winds attributed to insect invasionsguam experiences more tropical cyclones than any other state
or territory in the United states. These cyclones--called typhoons in the western Pacific ocean--can be devastating to Guam's dense native forests.
The impact of large-scale tropical cyclones affects the health of managed and unmanaged forests urban landscapes and perennial horticulture plantings for many years after the actual storm.
In fact the island's forests are called often'typhoon forests 'because their health and appearance is defined inextricably by the most recent typhoons.
As recently as 2002 Cycas micronesica was the most abundant tree species in Guam. The species is recognized for its innate ability to recover from damage after a tropical cyclone Resprouting on snapped tree trunks
or direct regeneration enabled C. micronesica to sustain its status as the most abundant tree in Guam through 2002.
Although native tree species like C. micronesica possess traits that enable them to recover from tropical cyclone damage invasive pests
and other environmental challenges are compromising the species'resiliency. Thomas Marler from the College of Natural and Applied sciences at the University of Guam and John Lawrence from the U s. Department of agriculture Natural resources Conservation Service reported on a large-scale study of Cycas micronesica in Hortscience.
The team compared the impact of two tropical cyclones--Typhoon Chaba in 2004 and Typhoon Paka in 1997--on the resilience and health of Cycas micronesica.
They noticed that the proportion of trees exhibiting mechanical failure during Typhoon Chaba--in which peak wind speeds were less than half of those in Typhoon Paka--surpassed the damage documented during the more powerful Typhoon Paka.
We set out to determine how a tropical cyclone with moderate wind speeds could impose greater mechanical damage to a highly resistant tree species than a more powerful event only 7 years earlier explained Marler.
Marler and Lawrence discovered that although Typhoon Paka compromised the ability of the C. micronesica canopy to avoid wind drag it was alien invasions following Typhoon Paka that virtually eliminated C. micronesica's resilience to tropical cyclone damage.
The data showed that stem decay caused by earlier damage from a native stem borer reduced the species'tolerance to external forces resulting in stem failure in Typhoon Chaba.
Invasions of two invasive insects (Aulacaspis yasumatsui in 2003 and Chilades pandava in 2005) were found to be responsible for the 100%mortality of the intact portions of the trees'snapped stems during the 5 years after Typhoon Chaba.
A span of less than one decade allowed two alien invasions to eliminate the incipient resilience of a native tree species to tropical cyclone damage the authors wrote.
This study underscores the fact that many years of observations after tropical cyclones are required to accurately determine trees'resilience.
The complete study and abstract are available on the ASHS Hortscience electronic journal web site: http://hortsci. ashspublications. org/content/48/10/1224. fullstory Source:
The above story is provided based on materials by American Society for Horticultural Science. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.
Despite an average annual rainfall of 55 inches Florida was included on the Natural resources Defense Council's list of states with the greatest risk of water shortages in the coming years;
Universities and municipalities are addressing this critical environmental concern through outreach and extension programs designed to educate the public about water conversation.
For example in the subsample of the low water-use households water use tended to increase following the workshop.
Rethinking the role of foraging in urban ecosystem planning, managementpublished today these exploratory studies point to the importance for planners managers
They began to experiment with green space policies that explicitly seek to integrate social economic and ecological concerns in urban environments recognizing
and ecosystem needs of low income urban neighborhoods that do not have large expanses of undeveloped land
In 2012 the city approved the establishment of an experimental food forest in a neighborhood park
or the type of environment it's in. So we looked at how the width of the peak changes
when nanoparticles are introduced into an electron-accepting environment which in this case is graphene. The Rice lab hopes to optimize the connection between the nanoparticles
#Savanna vegetation predictions best done by continenta one-size-fits-all model to predict the effects of climate change on savanna vegetation isn't as effective as examining individual savannas by continent according to research published in Science this week.
For example greater moisture availability--a combination of rainfall rainfall seasonality and drought indices--meant greater tree density in Africa
But the researchers found some strong counter-intuitive relationships between rainfall and fire frequency namely that more moisture meant more fires.
Hoffmann explained that more rainfall in a savanna meant faster-growing grasses which meant any fires in that savanna would have ample fuel to spread quickly and easily.
if savannas are assumed to behave identically across the tropics. Climate modelers examining atmospheric carbon dioxide levels use these types of models to make projections on carbon storage
which has major global implications Hoffmann says. We're trying to make these models better.
#Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central Americaadd yet another threat to the list of problems facing the rapidly disappearing rainforests of Central america:
When drug traffickers moved in they brought ecological devastation with them. For example the researchers found that the amount of new deforestation per year more than quadrupled in Honduras between 2007 and 2011--the same period when cocaine movements in the country also spiked.
Mcsweeney is a geographer who has done research in Honduras for more than 20 years studying how indigenous people interact with their environment.
The drug trade is not something she would normally investigate but it has been impossible to ignore in recent years she said.
Starting about 2007 we started seeing rates of deforestation there that we had seen never before.
In the Science article Mcsweeney and her co-authors say deforestation starts with the clandestine roads
U s.-led militarized interdiction for example has succeeded mainly in moving traffickers around driving them to operate in evermore remote biodiverse ecosystems.
David Wrathall of United nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security in Bonn Germany; Spencer Plumb of the University of Idaho;
#Deaths attributed directly to climate change cast pall over penguinsclimate change is killing penguin chicks from the world's largest colony of Magellanic penguins not just indirectly--by depriving them of food as has been documented repeatedly for these
and other seabirds--but directly as a result of drenching rainstorms and at other times heat according to new findings from the University of Washington.
but still too young to have grown waterproof feathers downy penguin chicks exposed to drenching rain can struggle
Various research groups have published findings on the reproductive repercussions from single storms or heat waves events that individually are impossible to tie to climate change.
The new results span 27 years of data collected in Argentina under the direction of Dee Boersma UW biology professor with the support of the Wildlife Conservation Society the UW the Office of Turismo in Argentina
It's the first long-term study to show climate change having a major impact on chick survival and reproductive success said Boersma who has led field work
Climate change a relatively new cause of chick death killed an average of 7 percent of chicks per year
Starvation and weather will likely interact increasingly as climate changes Boersma said. Starving chicks are more likely to die in a storm she said.
There may not be much we can do to mitigate climate change but steps could be taken to make sure the Earth's largest colony of Magellanic penguins have enough to eat by creating a marine protected reserve with regulations on fishing where penguins forage
while raising small chicks. Rainfall and the number of storms per breeding season have increased already at The argentine study site said Ginger Rebstock UW research scientist
and the co-author of the paper. For instance in the first two weeks of December when all chicks are less than 25 days old and most vulnerable to storm death the number of storms increased between 1983 and 2010.
We're going to see years where almost no chicks survive if climate change makes storms bigger
and more frequent during vulnerable times of the breeding season as climatologists predict Rebstock said.
Of the Earth's 17 species of penguins 10--including Magellanics--breed where there is no snow it is relatively dry
Punta Tombo is so arid that it gets an average of only 4 inches (100 mm) of rain during the six-month breeding season and sometimes no rain falls at all.
and dry off after heavy storms in November and December when temperatures are likely to dip.
Just back from two months in the field Boersma said heat this season took a greater toll on chicks than storms.
Such variability between years is the reason why the number of chicks dying from climate change is not a tidy ever-increasing figure each year.
Over time however the researchers expect climate change will be an increasingly important cause of death.
Also contributing to increasing deaths from climate change is the fact that over 27 years penguin parents have arrived to the breeding site later
and in the Falkand (Malvinas) Islands breeding ranges they share with some 60 other seabird species. These species also are likely to suffer negative impacts from climate change losing whole generations as the penguins have in the study
Increasing storminess bodes ill not only for Magellanic penguins but for many other species they write.
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