Most recent 20 articles: Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems
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How 'assisted migration’ could help species survive climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Mar 12) |
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Mar 12 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Among the most consequential effects of a warming globe is the disruption or even destruction of habitats for plants and animals, from the blue whales and giant sequoias to the tiniest of bacteria. Some species are mobile and flexible enough that they can move or adapt on their own - by, say, moving uphill or toward the poles. Others, like sequoias, are not so lucky; woven into their current locations by multiple factors, they lack the capacity to change as quickly as the climate and ecosystem around them. These species may need a little help from humans. ... Read more ... |
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Amphibians are in trouble - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Jan 2) |
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Jan 2 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections There are more than 8,000 known species of amphibians: newts, salamanders, big warty toads, and frogs of every color. These semiaquatic critters provide food for birds, snakes, and fish. And they help humans by eating insects, including disease-spreading mosquitoes. But many amphibians are in trouble. According to the latest Global Amphibian Assessment, about 40% of species are considered globally threatened. Della Togna: “And I think it’s very important for the public and for the community to understand that this is a very ... Read more ... |
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These cryopreserved baby corals are the first to reach adulthood - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Dec 11) |
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Dec 11 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Arah Narida leans over a microscope to gaze into a plastic petri dish containing a hood coral. The animal - a pebbled blue-white disk roughly half the size of a pencil eraser - is a marvel. Just three weeks ago, the coral was smaller than a grain of rice. It was also frozen solid. That is, until Narida, a graduate student at National Sun Yat-sen University in Taiwan, thawed it with the zap of a laser. Now, just beneath the coral’s tentacles, she spies a slight divot in the skeleton where a second coral is beginning to bud. That small cavity is evidence that ... Read more ... |
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Inmates are nurturing sagebrush seedlings - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Oct 27) |
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Oct 27 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections At correctional facilities in Idaho, Oregon, and other Western states, inmates are growing sagebrush. “From sowing the seeds in May to boxing up the seedlings in October … they’re in charge of fertilizing, watering, thinning, and checking out for diseased plants,” says Alyson Singer of the Sagebrush in Prisons Project in Idaho and eastern Oregon. Scrubby sagebrush landscapes provide critical habitat for hundreds of plant and animal species. But many of these areas are threatened by the growing risk of wildfire. And after a fire, ... Read more ... |
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Climate change could increase pressure on declining American kestrel population - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Oct 9) |
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Oct 9 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections The American kestrel is North America’s smallest falcon. In many areas, you can spot the petite hunter swooping over a field to snatch up a grasshopper, beetle, or even a mouse to bring back to its nest and feed its babies. “Historically, predators like kestrels time their reproduction to coincide with peaks in prey availability,” says Julie Heath, a professor at Boise State University. She was part of a team that looked at how the timing of kestrel nesting across North America affected the birds’ reproductive success. They found that when ... Read more ... |
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How green roofs can help cities adapt to climate change - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Oct 6) |
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Oct 6 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In cities, you may notice some roofs that are covered with plants. Many of these green roofs are planted with a low-lying ground cover like sedum. Kathryn McConnell of Brown University says other, more elaborate ones include a variety of plants, ranging from small flowers, grasses, or shrubs, to trees. Replacing dark rooftops with vegetation can provide many benefits. “Green roofs can help control stormwater runoff if you have sort of a sudden precipitation event,” McConnell says. “Green roofs can provide amazing pollinator habitat ... Read more ... |
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A mission to protect thorn forests in the Rio Grande Valley - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Sep 29, 2023) |
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Sep 29, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections When Gisel Garza goes to work, she heads into the thorn forests of the Rio Grande Valley. Bucket in hand, she scours the dense, shrubby landscape for about 40 different kinds of seeds. “Some of the species that we do collect for are Texas ebony, Texas persimmon, granjeno, guayacan,” she says. “Sometimes I pick them with my hand, or sometimes I can use a stick to cause them to fall down into my bucket.” Garza works for the nonprofit American Forests, which helps restore thorn forests in Texas. She says the area is incredibly diverse. It’s ... Read more ... |
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When salt marshes erode, they can release carbon dioxide to the atmosphere - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Sep 04, 2023) |
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Sep 04, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Scattered along the Eastern seaboard and Gulf Coast, grassy salt marshes provide habitat for birds and marine life. They help protect coastal communities from flooding by absorbing wave energy and soaking up water. And they store a lot of carbon because when marsh grasses die, they fall into waterlogged soils. It’s a low-oxygen environment where plants break down very slowly, so all that carbon-rich material builds up over time. “Our wetlands have been here for thousands of years and they’ve just been piling up organic matter,” says ... Read more ... |
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Healthy mangrove forests can help protect inland areas from hurricane damage - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Aug 24, 2023) |
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Aug 24, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections During a hurricane, tropical mangrove forests can help buffer inland areas from wind and reduce erosion. In the process, these forests themselves may suffer a lot of damage. Strong winds can rip leaves from branches and topple whole trees. Ken Krauss of the United States Geological Survey says that how fast mangrove forests recover after a storm depends on how healthy they were beforehand. “If they’re healthy before the storm hit, they regenerate fairly quickly,” he says. But he says many of the world’s mangrove forests are not ... Read more ... |
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The race to save 'awe-inspiring’ giant sequoias - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Aug 23, 2023) |
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Aug 23, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Giant sequoia trees can grow hundreds of feet tall and live for thousands of years in secluded groves along California’s Sierra Nevada. “When you walk into a giant sequoia grove, it’s really awe-inspiring,” says Ben Blom of the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League. He says sequoias evolved to thrive in wildfire-prone areas. But now some wildfires are so intense that they can kill even these massive trees. That’s because, over the past century, land managers have worked to prevent forest fires. So over time, leaves and branches have ... Read more ... |
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Beavers fight climate change, one wetland at a time - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Aug 02, 2023) |
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Aug 02, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections If you are reading these words, you are probably safe (at least at the moment) from the potentially dire effects of summer heat. But you might still want to immerse yourself in a cooling topic. Here is one good choice: beavers. A venture into the mazes of the internet may capture you with tales of ancient beavers. Muskrat-sized Paleocastor lived some 30 million years ago and dug vertical, human-sized, corkscrew-shaped burrows. Casteroides lived up to some 12,000 years ago and were the size of black bears. Neither seems to have built dams. Or you ... Read more ... |
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Nonprofit plants thousands of ‘super trees’ along Houston’s shipping channel - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Jul 21, 2023) |
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Jul 21, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections The Houston Ship Channel is a bustling corridor of industrial activity, with ships traveling from all over the world to the city’s factories and fossil fuel refineries. But even in this petrochemical hot spot, nature has a foothold. “Surprisingly enough, there was a lot of open green space,” says Ana Tapia of the nonprofit Houston Wilderness. Her group partners on the Houston Ship Channel Trees Program, an effort to use this open green space for tree-planting projects. “One of the goals is to do forestation-style planting, so we’re ... Read more ... |
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Intense winter storms caused 'heartbreaking’ losses in Western monarch population - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Jun 01, 2023) |
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Jun 01, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Each winter, Western monarch butterflies migrate to the California coast, where they cluster together in clumps of orange and black to survive the cold months. But this year, their winter habitat was hit by intense storms. “We have seen photographs of monarchs that were completely wet and cold, trying to survive, and they were just falling on the ground,” says Rebeca Quiñonez-Piñón of the National Wildlife Federation. She says the storms were a blow to the Western monarch population, which has declined drastically since the ... Read more ... |
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Hoopa Tribal member fights to save California’s Trinity River and its salmon - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Apr 24, 2023) |
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Apr 24, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections For 19-year-old Danielle Frank, California’s Trinity River is a cultural lifeline. “We are water people. We are river people,” she says. “And we believe that when our river drains and there is no more water left, we will no longer be here.” Frank is a Hoopa tribal member and Yurok descendant. The Trinity River runs through her homeland. “Our river has been declining in health for decades,” she says. The river has been dammed, and water from the Trinity is often diverted to the Central Valley. Frank says those diversions - combined ... Read more ... |
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12 books for Earth Day - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Apr 12, 2023) |
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Apr 12, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Climate change was not on the agenda for the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970. Pollution, population, and wildlife preservation were the causes proclaimed on the posters. Now those causes cannot be separated from climate change. For Earth Day 2023, Yale Climate Connections offers a bookshelf on the intersections between climate change and the issues that animated the participants in that founding event of modern environmentalism. The list begins with two looks back. The United States was still fighting in Vietnam on that first Earth Day. In ... Read more ... |
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Trout-stocking programs could aid fish populations as the climate warms - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Mar 31, 2023) |
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Mar 31, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections In spring, many anglers head to northern streams to fish for trout. They often find plenty to catch because state agencies stock popular fishing locations. This means they supplement the natural trout population with fish that were raised in captivity. “We want to make sure that there’s enough out there to both support the environment as well as the take that’s going to happen of fish being harvested,” says Amy Teffer, a researcher from the University of Massachusetts. She says existing stocking programs could provide an opportunity ... Read more ... |
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‘How will global warming change springtime?’ - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Mar 28, 2023) |
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Mar 28, 2023 · Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Dear Sara, I would like to read your prediction of the effects of climate change on the traditional four weather seasons. From a lifestyle preference, it has been nice for me to know that in the summer, there will be the warmth of the ocean. In the fall, we see the shedding of the leaves and the beauty of the trees when they’re bare. In the winter, there may be snow or outdoor sports. In the spring, we see the wonderful flower gardens that people have planted – and the beauty of that can be predicted. I ask the question because I have some ... Read more ... |
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Can saving animal and plant species help protect the climate? - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Mar 27, 2023) |
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Mar 27, 2023 · Take the Yale Climate Connections audience survey today. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections Does helping animals also help the climate? Yes! The climate and biodiversity crises overlap in many ways, and so attention to one can create solutions to both. Keeping in mind that the term biodiversity may encompass both the variety and the abundance of living animals, plants, and even ecosystems, read on for an introduction to the big picture, several fascinating (and surprising) examples, and some promising new policy developments. Start here for some ways attention to ... Read more ... |
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Armadillos are showing up farther north as the climate warms - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Mar 21, 2023) |
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Mar 21, 2023 · Take the Yale Climate Connections audience survey today. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections When homeowners in Illinois see a freshly dug hole in their lawn, few suspect it’s an armadillo. But in recent decades, these small, armored animals have established populations as far north as southern Illinois and Indiana. These areas were once thought to be too chilly. Armadillos are hairless, so they’re vulnerable to low temperatures. When it’s cold, they also struggle to find food because the worms and bugs they eat burrow deep underground. But Agustín Jiménez of Southern ... Read more ... |
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You can help track the impacts of climate change in your yard - Yale Climate Connections - Ecosystems  (Mar 17, 2023) |
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Mar 17, 2023 · Take the Yale Climate Connections audience survey today. Stay in the know about climate impacts and solutions. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter. Yale Climate Connections As global temperatures warm, many plants flower earlier in the spring. And lots of animals are changing their migration or nesting schedules. It’s impossible for professional scientists to be on the ground everywhere tracking all the changes. So trained volunteers are helping monitor more than 1,000 species through a program called Nature’s Notebook. Alyssa Rosemartin is with the USA National Phenology Network, which runs the program. “Folks go out in their backyards or ... Read more ... |
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