Most recent 40 articles: PHYS.ORG - Biology
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When the first warm-blooded dinosaurs roamed Earth - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 18) |
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May 18 · Now, a new study estimates that the first warm-blooded dinosaurs may have roamed the Earth about 180 million years ago, about halfway through the creatures' time on the planet.
Warm-blooded creatures — including birds, who are descended from dinosaurs, and humans — keep their body temperature constant whether the world around them runs cold or hot. Cold-blooded animals, including reptiles like snakes and lizards, depend on outside sources to control their temperature: For example, basking in the sun to warm up.
Knowing when dinosaurs evolved their stable internal thermometer could help scientists answer other questions about how they lived, including how ... Read more ...
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At Thailand dive expo, fears for coral's future - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 17) |
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May 17 · Jakkapat Yodnil calls out to visitors at a diving expo in Bangkok, eager to share details of his shop's expeditions to the azure waters around the Thai island of Koh Tao.
But behind the friendly sales pitch, the 25-year-old fears that bleaching affecting much of the world's coral this year threatens his livelihood and the marine world he loves.
It's a worry that ripples through the Thai Dive Expo, a major annual event for regional dive operators.
Coral around the world is in the grip of a mass bleaching event that scientists warned this week is expanding and deepening.
Record ocean temperatures have caused parts of reefs in 62 countries and territories to ... Read more ...
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Overlooked coastal marine ecosystems can capture more carbon dioxide than previously thought, finds study - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 17) |
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May 17 · Coastal ecosystems have been shown to be extremely important in combating rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere. This is thanks to their ability to capture and store carbon dioxide, known as blue carbon.
Historically, blue carbon research has focused almost exclusively on seagrass meadows, mangrove forests and tidal marshes, while other ecosystems have been overlooked. The importance of these other ecosystems in mitigating climate change has been underrated, and the total amount of carbon sequestered in the oceans has thus been greatly underestimated.
In recent research published in Global Change Biology led by researchers from Umeå Marine Sciences Center ... Read more ...
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Researchers confirm scale matters in determining vulnerability of freshwater fish to climate changes - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 17) |
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May 17 · "Relative to other species we looked at in the gulf region of the U.S., the silver chub occupied a pretty small geographic area," said Samuel Silknetter, a Ph.D. student in biological sciences. "If we didn't look at the climate sensitivity across multiple spatial scales, a regional analysis alone may miss the bigger context of why a species appears sensitive to climate change at some scales but not others, especially compared to other species."
Silknetter and Associate Professor Meryl Mims recently led a team that explored the influence the spatial extent of research—the geographical coverage of data collected—has on evaluating the sensitivity of different fish ... Read more ...
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AI can help researchers understand what viruses are up to in the oceans and in your gut - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · Communities of microbes are difficult to study in a laboratory setting. Many microbes are challenging to cultivate, and their natural environment has many more features influencing their success or failure than scientists can replicate in a lab.
So systems biologists like me often sequence all the DNA present in a sample—for example, a fecal sample from a patient—separate out the viral DNA sequences, then annotate the sections of the viral genome that code for proteins. These notes on the location, structure and other features of genes help researchers understand the functions viruses might carry out in the environment and help identify different kinds of viruses. ... Read more ...
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Bushfires are changing the 'hidden' understory in Australian forests - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · We often see devastating footage of those eucalypt forests in flames, but we should also be concerned about the effect of bushfires we can't always see—sometimes below ground.
More to forests than trees
Most of our understanding of the impacts of fires comes from the trees that form the overstory of these forests.
For example, we know that more frequent severe fires lead to the loss of fire-sensitive trees like alpine ash and a decline in otherwise fire-tolerant snow gum forests.
The overstory—the layer of vegetation formed by the tallest trees in the forest that typically receive the most sunlight and form the upper canopy of the forest—is ... Read more ...
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Experts say coral reef bleaching near record level globally because of 'crazy' ocean heat - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · More than three-fifths—62.9%—of the world's coral reefs are badly hurting from a bleaching event that began last year and is continuing. That's nearing the record of 65.7% in 2017, when from 2009 to 2017 about one-seventh of the world's coral died, said Derek Manzello, coordinator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch Program.
When water gets too hot, coral, which are living creatures, bleach and sometimes die.
In the Atlantic, off the Florida coast and in the Caribbean, about 99.7% of the coral reefs have been hit with "very very severe'' losses in staghorn and elkhorn species, Manzello said Thursday in NOAA's monthly ... Read more ...
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How biodiversity-productivity relationships change along elevation in forests - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · A study published in the journal Forest Ecosystems has revealed that the relationship between biodiversity and forest productivity is not as straightforward as previously thought.
The study conducted in mountain forests across Europe and Asia utilized extensive forest inventory data to explore how tree diversity correlates with forest productivity at different elevations. Surprisingly, the results showed no consistent pattern; biodiversity increased productivity in some areas but not in others.
"Contrary to our expectations, we did not find a consistent positive effect of biodiversity on productivity," said co-author Dr. Ya-Huang Luo from Kunming Institute of Botany, ... Read more ...
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Identifying appropriate pondscapes for protecting amphibians - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · "At last, we have concrete recommendations," says Helen Moor, biologist and head of the Eawag Ecological Modeling research group. They worked to find simple parameters and specific recommendations to provide practitioners with useful aids for planning and building new ecological infrastructures by constructing natural ponds.
As part of the Blue-Green Biodiversity research initiative, she worked with researchers from the aquatic research institute Eawag, the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape (WSL) and the Swiss fauna information center info fauna karch. The study is published in Conservation Biology.
"If you are looking for a site for a new ... Read more ...
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Norway spruce in Finland is susceptible to European spruce bark beetle damage especially near clear-cuts: Study - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · Conducted in an effort to support proper forest management in Finland, the study, published in Silva Fennica, examined the attributes of Norway spruce forests damaged by the beetle, as well as the role of some landscape attributes in the damage.
The scientists analyzed data from Metsäkeskus with 4,691 damage cases from 2012 to 2020, and found that the beetle preferred mature forests, forests in herb-rich heath forest site types, and forests in semi-coarse or coarse heath forest soils.
In addition, the scientists found that Norway spruce forests which have a high age and high mean diameter at breast height, and which are located close to recent clear-cut ... Read more ...
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Seagrass meadows are rapidly expanding near inhabited islands in Maldives - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 16) |
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May 16 · Now, my research, which combined hundreds of hours of fieldwork with thousands of satellite images, has uncovered something unexpected: Maldivian seagrasses have expanded three-fold over the last two decades—and island populations could be playing a part.
I also discovered that seagrass is surprisingly three times more likely to be found next to inhabited islands, rather than uninhabited. So this flowering plant seems to benefit from living in seas close to humans.
Seagrasses grow along coasts all around the world. They can help guard against climate change yet they are frequently underappreciated. In the Maldives, seagrass meadows are dug up to maintain the iconic ... Read more ...
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Climate change could significantly alter distribution of jellyfish and other gelatinous zooplankton in the Arctic Ocean - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · Gelatinous zooplankton, including jellyfish and other diverse, nearly transparent organisms, play important roles in marine ecosystems. Climate change is expected to significantly alter their populations and distributions. New research published in Limnology and Oceanography examines their fate in the Arctic Ocean, one of the fastest warming oceans on Earth.
Investigators coupled three-dimensional species distribution models with oceanographic variables from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6. The analyses allowed the team to identify gelatinous zooplankton species with expanding or contracting habitat ranges in response to climate change in the Arctic ... Read more ...
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Climate change is most prominent threat to pollinators, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · Pollinator populations are declining worldwide and 85% of flowering plant species and 87 of the leading global crops rely on pollinators for seed production. The decline of pollinators seriously impacts biodiversity conservation, reduces crop yield, and threatens food security.
Risk of extinction
According to The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), approximately 16% of vertebrate pollinators, such as birds and bats, and 40% of invertebrate pollinators, such as bees and butterflies, are at risk of extinction.
Dr. Johanne Brunet and Dr. Fabiana Fragoso, authors of the review, argue that efforts to control the ... Read more ...
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New approach expands quantification of nutrient exchange in plant tissues, the rhizosphere and soil - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · A multi-institutional team of researchers has developed and demonstrated a new approach to characterize carbon isotopic distribution within plant tissues, the rhizosphere, and soil. They began by exposing switchgrass plants to 13CO2 in a laboratory setting.
They leveraged a 13C tracer to selectively track photosynthetic materials as they were transferred through the plants' vascular tissues and exuded into the rhizosphere. Then, using laser ablation at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility, they rastered over the material and continuously ablated the sample and combusted the resulting material.
This ... Read more ...
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Novel research sheds light on Amazonian birds' thermoregulatory strategies in a changing environment - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · A pioneering study published in Oikos has revealed novel insights into how a select group of birds in the Amazon rainforest, known as terrestrial insectivores, is coping with the ever-increasing threats posed by global climate change.
Terrestrial insectivores have inexplicably declined in many tropical regions and climate change was long suspected as a contributing factor. Conducted at the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project near Manaus, Brazil, this study is among the few that explore how the most biodiverse yet understudied regions of our planet are responding to environmental disturbances.
"While the vibrant and often observed species such as parrots and ... Read more ...
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Polyglycerol coating offers safer nanoparticle environmental remediation - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · To address this issue, a research team led by Research Professor Masazumi Fujiwara and Assistant Professor Yajuan Zou from Okayama University in Japan has developed a polymer coating that can be applied to NPs to prevent ecotoxicity. By altering the surface chemistry and electric charge of NPs, their binding properties can be modified. Introducing hydrophilic groups to the NP surface creates a barrier, deterring binding to biological molecules and cell surfaces.
While positively charged NPs are known to accumulate more in organisms due to their attraction to negatively charged cell surfaces, recent reports suggest that negatively charged NPs may accumulate more than their ... Read more ...
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Rabies outbreaks in Costa Rica cattle linked to deforestation - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · Deforestation in Costa Rica raises the risk of cattle becoming infected with rabies by vampire bats, finds a new study. Emerging Infectious Diseases published the research by disease ecologists at Emory University.
"A healthy tropical forest has phenomenal diversity - not just among plants and mammals like monkeys and bats, but also among microorganisms," says Thomas Gillespie, Emory professor and chair of the Department of Environmental Sciences and senior author of the study.
"When you destroy parts of a forest, the diversity goes down and the dynamics of disease transmission may change in a way that leads to the emergence of new pathogens or the reemergence of ... Read more ...
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Scientists control daily biological clock of algae, advancing biomedicine - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · Their paper, "Clocking Out and Letting Go to Unleash Green Biotech Applications in a Photosynthetic Host" is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The ultimate solar-powered machines, cyanobacteria are like tiny workshops churning out everything from medicine to fuels. For years, scientists have been working to make cyanobacteria a more fruitful and versatile microbial cell factory. However, research hasn't advanced as quickly as it has on other microbes like E. coli and yeast.
Because the microorganisms' gene expression is tightly controlled by their internal clocks, cyanobacteria have a built-in snooze button. The Johnson Lab reprogrammed the ... Read more ...
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Unwrapping the origin story of the baobab - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 15) |
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May 15 · Genomic and ecological analyses recently completed by a global research team led by the Sino-Africa Joint Research Center, CAS (hosted by Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), suggest that Madagascar is the origin from where all other baobab species hail.
With a deeper understanding of the baobabs' genetics, researchers are hoping to uncover clues to what can be done to aid in the conservation of these phenomenal trees under rapidly changing environments.
Madagascar is known for its intriguing and unique flora and fauna, including the wondrous baobab tree. Their fascinating characteristics have led to the trees gaining the monikers "mother of the ... Read more ...
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Can Philly become a hothouse for bananas and pineapples as the climate warms? - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 14) |
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May 14 · As climate change warms Philadelphia, the plants that can be grown in the city will change, too.
The nonprofit Philadelphia Orchard Project believes that fruits more associated with more southern climates can be raised locally and is experimenting with what's possible to grow.
The Orchard Project has erected two high tunnel unheated greenhouses at the Woodlands estate, a 54-acre protected national historic landmark in West Philadelphia. The group helps 69 partners, mostly community orchards in formerly vacant lots, figure out what to plant, how to plant, and how to harvest.
The high tunnels will serve as living labs to grow more exotic fruits and vegetables, ... Read more ...
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Meet the new insect killing Utah's fir trees: Research models impact of the balsam woolly adelgid - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 14) |
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May 14 · Introduced from central Europe into the Pacific Northwest about a century ago, the balsam woolly adelgid (BWA) was first detected in Utah in 2017 and has been spreading around the Wasatch Mountains, visibly affecting many of the popular recreation canyons outside Salt Lake City.
The study documented a clear relationship between the infestation's severity and temperature, according to lead author Mickey Campbell, a research assistant professor in the Department of Geography (soon to be merged with the Environmental Studies program and renamed the School of Environment, Society and Sustainability.)
"We took that climate-to-severity relationship along with a series of ... Read more ...
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Preventable loss: A billion birds die each year from window strikes - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 14) |
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May 14 · University of Cincinnati ornithologist Ron Canterbury displayed dozens of birds that died from striking glass windows in the city.
It's a tiny fraction of those he and his students have collected in recent years for his long-term study on window-strike mortality. Here were magnolia warblers, American redstarts, white-throated sparrows, tiny hummingbirds and larger mourning doves and woodpeckers.
"It's depressing," he said.
Canterbury said these fatal collisions are having a significant effect on bird populations.
"Silent spring is coming," Canterbury said, referencing the famous Rachel Carson 1962 book that inspired the environmental movement of the 1970s. ... Read more ...
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Young whale's journey highlights threats facing ocean animals - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 14) |
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May 14 · Scientists from Greenpeace and the universities of Exeter and Haifa studied whales and dolphins in the Eastern Mediterranean, off the coast of Israel.
They found Cuvier's beaked whales, bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales—including a young adult male previously seen off southern France.
The distance between sighting locations makes this the furthest recorded movement of a sperm whale in the Mediterranean—and means the whale made a hazardous journey.
Audio analysis provides further evidence that whales off the Israeli coast are part of the wider regional population, as their vocalizations matched the "Mediterranean dialect."
The paper, published ... Read more ...
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A novel flame-retardant, smoke-suppressing and superhydrophobic transparent bamboo for future glasses - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · Professors Yiqiang Wu and Caichao Wan, along with their team from Central South University of Forestry and Technology (CSUFT), have pioneered a transparent material derived from natural bamboo. This material features a three-layered flame-retardant barrier, effectively reducing heat release, slowing flame spread, and restraining the emission of combustible volatiles, toxic smoke, and CO. Their findings have been documented in the journal Research.
Silica glass, a widely used transparent material in the construction industry, has seen increased adoption as an essential building material over the past 50 years. Its versatility is reflected in the global glass production reaching ... Read more ...
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Chinese fruit fly genomes reveal global migrations, repeated evolution - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · "The amazing story about Drosophila melanogaster is their genetic differences among populations mirror how humans spread, from an origin in Africa, followed by migration out of Africa, but it's much more recent," said Andrew Clark, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Population Genetics in the College of Arts and Sciences. Clark is co-corresponding author of the study published April 17 in the journal Science Advances. Jian Lu, a professor of evolutionary biology at Peking University, China, and a former postdoctoral researcher in Clark's lab, is the other corresponding author.
The authors combined their own results with those of previous studies and propose that D. ... Read more ...
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How trash, sprawl and a warming world impact Michigan mosquito seasons - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · Not all of the quintessential characteristics of a Michigan summer are as pleasant as campfires, cookouts and baseball games. There are the mosquitoes, too.
Those insects' itchy bites are making increasingly early appearances. This year, the first round hit in February, a date so early that Michigan State University entomology professor Edward Walker said it's "almost a ridiculous thought."
Except it isn't. As Michigan winters warm, mosquitoes' active season is expanding and some southern species are appearing here.
"Our ambient temperatures are going up, and that means we have an earlier spring and a longer fall," he said. "I can say without any doubt that the ... Read more ...
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Indian Ocean sea-surface temperatures found to be accurate predictor of dengue outbreaks - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · In their study, published in the journal Science, the group modeled connections between climate patterns and the magnitude of dengue epidemics in parts of both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne flavivirus disease, affecting nearly half the world's population. Currently, there are few treatments and no cure. Outbreaks of the disease are most common in Asia and South America and happen during the rainy season, when mosquito populations rise.
The magnitude of outbreaks can vary widely, which makes it difficult for health officials to prepare each season. Current attempts to predict the magnitude of an outbreak for any given year are ... Read more ...
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Madagascar's ancient baobab forests are being restored by communities - with a little help from AI - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · Tropical ecologist Seheno Andriantsaralaza has been researching the seed dispersal of baobab trees in Madagascar since 2009. She is the president of the Group of Specialists Passionate about Baobabs of Madagascar and a founder and principal investigator of the Assessment-Research-Outreach Baobab Project. She explains how the project works with women to replant baobab seedlings and harvest the fruit of existing trees sustainably.
Why are baobab trees so important in Madagascar?
Baobab trees are symbols of our landscape, profoundly significant to our ecosystem and cultural heritage. They are valuable to rural women who pick their fruit and sell it to companies for use in ... Read more ...
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Nitrogen pollution is less harmful to mixed forests, study shows - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · In a study published in the journal Plant and Soil, researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have shown that mixed larch and deciduous forests are more resistant to soil acidification—a decrease in soil pH—than pure larch forests.
This finding suggests that mixed forests, which contain a variety of tree species, may be a more effective forest management strategy to combat soil acidification.
Human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and the use of chemical fertilizers have led to high levels of nitrogen deposition, the transfer of nitrogen from the atmosphere to the Earth's surface, in many regions of the ... Read more ...
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Why climate change is making parasitic diseases harder to predict - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 13) |
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May 13 · Some of them are carrying a virus of sheep and other animals called bluetongue. You are not personally at risk of bluetongue, but farming systems are vulnerable.
Bluetongue is a problem in many countries and, as the climate changes, is expected to spread further, particularly in central Africa, the US and western Russia. The first cases in the UK were detected in 2023.
Bluetongue is one of many infectious diseases likely to be affected by climate change. As part of the World Health Organization's task team on climate change, malaria and neglected tropical diseases, I recently contributed to a review of climate change, malaria and over 20 neglected tropical ... Read more ...
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Researchers share road map promoting sustainable fishing - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 11) |
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May 11 · The road map, recently published in the Annual Review of Animal Biosciences, can also be used to monitor the genetic diversity of any species—not just fish.
"Fishing is a very important component of our food security" said Dr. Leif Andersson, a professor in the VMBS' Department of Veterinary Integrative Biosciences. "The marine food chain is also very interconnected, so having low numbers of one type of fish can be detrimental for many other species.
"Unfortunately, over a third of the world's fish populations are in decline due to factors like overfishing and global warming," he said. "Our road map can help the fishing industry keep a closer eye on fish ... Read more ...
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Feral horses in Australia's high country are damaging peatlands, decreasing carbon stores - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 10) |
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May 10 · Under the right conditions, peat soils accumulate from carbon-rich, semi-decomposed plants. But if things go wrong, the carbon balance can be tipped in the other direction, releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
We wanted to know if feral horse grazing and trampling is reducing the amount of carbon Australia's alpine peatlands can store. These peatlands are found in alpine and mountainous regions of Tasmania, Victoria, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory. But they're quite rare on the mainland, restricted to areas such as those frequented by feral horses in the Snowy Mountains.
In our new research, we sampled peat soils from areas with and without feral ... Read more ...
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Researchers investigate impact of elevated CO2 concentration on subtropical trees - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 10) |
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May 10 · In a study published in Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and their collaborators investigated the effects of elevated CO2 concentration on leaf gas exchange, nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, leaf and stem hydraulic conductivity, and seedling growth of four evergreen and four deciduous tree seedlings in the Ailaoshan subtropical forest in Yunnan.
After one year of treatment, they measured the leaf gas exchange, leaf nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, leaf hydraulic conductance, and stem hydraulics of the four evergreen and four deciduous species.
It was ... Read more ...
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Getting dirty to clean up the chemical industry's environmental impact - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · The article, "Insulator-on-Conductor Fouling Amplifies Aqueous Electrolysis Rates," was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Most chemical reactions involving electricity and organic materials can't be done efficiently using water because the organic materials don't dissolve well, forcing industry to use fossil fuels to provide heat rather than electricity or use alternative substances to water, which add environmental and safety risks.
However, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Simone Ciampi, from Curtin's School of Molecular and Life Sciences, has found chemical reactions in water can be dramatically sped up by adding a ... Read more ...
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Nepal's nature threatened by new development push: conservationists - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · Nepali conservationists condemned on Thursday new regulations permitting hydropower and hotel projects in protected nature reserves, saying they threatened to damage the habitats of tigers and other endangered animals.
A fifth of the Himalayan republic's total lands have been designated as protected areas established to forbid infrastructure projects that could damage the environment.
Nepal has been praised worldwide for combating poachers and conserving wildlife, allowing it to bring several animal species back from the brink of local extinction.
However, the government enacted an ordinance last month allowing it to approve infrastructure projects in national ... Read more ...
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Report: There are no good or bad oil crops, only good and bad practices - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · Few topics have provoked as many polarized views and headlines as oil crops. These controversies span conservation, human rights, and nutrition. What does the evidence reveal?
A report by the IUCN Oil Crops Taskforce dives deep into the often controversial environmental, social, economic, and nutritional impacts of vegetable oil crops. Their research shatters the myth that crops like oil palm, soybean, or rapeseed are inherently good or bad. Instead, the report reveals it's all about how these crops are grown, processed, and traded. It's the practices, not the plants, that make the difference.
Palm oil and soya have particularly bad reputations. But while it's true that ... Read more ...
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Researchers: Heat is coming for our crops - we have to make them ready - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · Unchecked, climate change will make it harder to produce food on a large scale. We get over 40% of our calories from just three plants: wheat, rice and corn. Climate change poses very real risks to these plants, with recent research suggesting the potential for synchronized crop failures.
While we have long modified our crops to repel pests or increase yields, until now, no commercial crop has been designed to tolerate heat. We are working on this problem by trying to make soybean plants able to tolerate the extreme weather of a hotter world.
What threat does climate change pose to our food?
By 2050, food production must increase by 60% in order to feed the 9.8 ... Read more ...
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Saturated soils could impact survival of young trees planted to address climate change - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · They have also shown that the UK's uplands could in future see significantly more annual rainfall than is currently being predicted in national climate models.
Dr. Thomas Murphy, Lecturer in Environmental Sciences at the University of Plymouth, is the study's lead author. He said, "In recent years, there have been increasing calls to plant more trees as part of the global effort to combat climate change. Restoration and expansion of temperate rainforests, which are a globally rare ecosystem, is seen as one of the potential solutions.
"But with our previous work also predicting an increase in future rainfall we wanted to know if the woodlands we create will support ... Read more ...
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Study reveals changes in soil carbon and nutrient stocks in desert oasis farmland - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · The study is published in Geoderma.
In addition, carbon and nitrogen stocks in the 0–40 cm soil layer and phosphorus stocks in the topsoil layer, stopped increasing after 60 years of conventional cultivation.
This study highlighted that despite significant improvement in soil quality after desert reclamation, the long-term effectiveness of this improvement is limited by conventional management practices.
Therefore, conventional management system of oasis farmland in arid regions should incorporate appropriate conservation tillage practices to ensure sustainable soil production.
More information: Dengke Ma et al, Long-term conventional cultivation after ... Read more ...
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Transformation of ocean management is underway, study finds - PHYS.ORG - Biology (May 9) |
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May 9 · Despite its benefits and recognition as a keystone practice of ocean stewardship and conservation, adoption of EBM has been slow to take hold. The first mention of EBM was included in U.S. fisheries management guidance documents more than 20 years ago.
Resource managers and policymakers need a proof-of-concept that this approach can occur incrementally with existing resources and tools. Previous management efforts have been implemented sector by sector focused on fisheries or navigation, but a transformation in ocean management to enable more ecosystem-based approaches is underway.
To support this change in ocean management, a group of researchers and practitioners, ... Read more ...
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