ScienceDaily: Earth & Climate News |
| A new rapid assessment to promote climate-informed conservation and nature-based solutions Posted: 17 Jun 2021 01:37 PM PDT A new article introduces a rapid assessment framework that can be used as a guide to make conservation and nature-based solutions more robust to future climate. |
| Sulfur enhances carbon storage in the Black Sea Posted: 17 Jun 2021 01:36 PM PDT The depths of the Black Sea store comparatively large amounts of organic carbon. A research team has now presented a new hypothesis as to why organic compounds accumulate in this semi-enclosed sea and other oxygen-depleted waters. Reactions with hydrogen sulfide play an important role in stabilizing carbon compounds, the researchers posit. This negative feedback in the climate system could counteract global warming over geological periods. |
| Sorghum, a close relative of corn, tested for disease resistance on Pennsylvania farms Posted: 17 Jun 2021 01:34 PM PDT With sorghum poised to become an important crop grown by Pennsylvania farmers, researchers tested more than 150 germplasm lines of the plant for resistance to a fungus likely to hamper its production. |
| Passive rewilding can rapidly expand UK woodland at no cost Posted: 17 Jun 2021 11:58 AM PDT A long-term passive rewilding study has shown that natural woodland regeneration could make a significant contribution to meeting the UK's ambitious tree planting targets - potentially at no cost and within relatively short timescales. The research found natural growth due to seed dispersal by birds, mammals and wind can produce biodiverse and resilient woodland. |
| Heat spells doom for Aussie marsupials Posted: 17 Jun 2021 11:36 AM PDT When animals are hot, they eat less. This potentially fatal phenomenon has been largely overlooked in wild animals, explain researchers. |
| Coelacanths may live nearly a century, five times longer than researchers expected Posted: 17 Jun 2021 11:36 AM PDT Once thought to be extinct, lobe-finned coelacanths are enormous fish that live deep in the ocean. Now, researchers have evidence that, in addition to their impressive size, coelacanths also can live for an impressively long time -- perhaps nearly a century. |
| Long-term Himalayan glacier study Posted: 17 Jun 2021 10:38 AM PDT The glaciers of Nanga Parbat - one of the highest mountains in the world - have been shrinking slightly but continually since the 1930s. This loss in surface area is evidenced by a long-term study. The geographers combined historical photographs, surveys, and topographical maps with current data, which allowed them to show glacial changes for this massif in the north-western Himalaya as far back as the mid-1800s. |
| Excess nitrogen puts butterflies at risk Posted: 17 Jun 2021 10:38 AM PDT Nitrogen from agriculture, vehicle emissions and industry is endangering butterflies in Switzerland. The element is deposited in the soil via the air and has an impact on vegetation -- to the detriment of the butterflies, as researchers have discovered. |
| Wild chimpanzee orphans recover from the stress of losing their mother Posted: 17 Jun 2021 10:37 AM PDT Chronic stress could be one reason why some animal orphans have shorter lives and less offspring. Researchers assessed if, as orphan humans, orphan chimpanzees are exposed to chronic stress. They found that maternal loss is stressful but orphans experience little chronic stress since stress hormones return to normal after two years, possibly thanks to care provided by other chimpanzees. |
| Historical climate effects of permafrost peatland surprise researchers Posted: 17 Jun 2021 10:37 AM PDT Peatlands are an important ecosystem that contribute to the regulation of the atmospheric carbon cycle. A multidisciplinary group of researchers investigated the climate response of a permafrost peatland located in Russia during the past 3,000 years. Unexpectedly, the group found that a cool climate period, which resulted in the formation of permafrost in northern peatlands, had a positive, or warming, effect on the climate. |
| 'Unshackled' palm-destroying beetles could soon invade Australia Posted: 17 Jun 2021 08:55 AM PDT A destructive pest beetle is edging closer to Australia as biological controls fail, destroying home gardens, plantations and biodiversity as they surge through nearby Pacific islands. |
| Posted: 17 Jun 2021 08:55 AM PDT Bacteria from an Indian landfill could help eliminate contaminated chemicals. The focus is on pesticides such as lindane or brominated flame retardants, which accumulate in nature and in food chains. Researchers used these bacteria to generate enzymes that can break down these dangerous chemicals. |
| Mutant genes can promote genetic transfer across taxonomic kingdoms Posted: 17 Jun 2021 07:12 AM PDT Researchers now have a better understanding of the mechanism underlying how certain bacteria can transfer genetic material across taxonomic kingdoms, including to fungi and protists. Their work could have applications in changing how bacteria perform certain functions or react to changes in their environment. |
| Best strategy to reduce human-bear conflict Posted: 17 Jun 2021 07:12 AM PDT Conservationists have long warned of the dangers associated with bears becoming habituated to life in urban areas. Yet, it appears the message hasn't gotten through to everyone. News reports continue to cover seemingly similar situations -- a foraging bear enters a neighbourhood, easily finds high-value food and refuses to leave. The story often ends with conservation officers being forced to euthanize the animal for public safety purposes. |
| Alpine plant spins its own flavonoid wool Posted: 17 Jun 2021 07:12 AM PDT Like the movie version of Spider-Man who shoots spider webs from holes in his wrists, a little alpine plant has been found to eject cobweb-like threads from tiny holes in specialized cells on its leaves. It's these tiny holes that have taken plant scientists by surprise because puncturing the surface of a plant cell would normally cause it to explode like a water balloon. |
| New models predict fewer lightning-caused ignitions but bigger wildfires by mid century Posted: 16 Jun 2021 04:15 PM PDT Human-caused wildfire ignitions in Central Oregon are expected to remain steady over the next four decades and lightning-caused ignitions are expected to decline, but the average size of a blaze from either cause is expected to rise, modeling suggests. |
| Ways to tackle water security challenges in world's drylands Posted: 15 Jun 2021 10:21 AM PDT To counter the effects of climate change on drylands, a new study suggests that global access to water should be managed in a more integrated way. |
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