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Categories: Ecology: Nature, Environmental: Ecosystems
Published Wildfires and animal biodiversity
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Wildfires. Many see them as purely destructive forces, disasters that blaze through a landscape, charring everything in their paths. But a new study reminds us that wildfires are also generative forces, spurring biodiversity in their wakes.
Published Apes may have evolved upright stature for leaves, not fruit, in open woodland habitats
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Anthropologists have long thought that our ape ancestors evolved an upright torso in order to pick fruit in forests, but new research from the University of Michigan suggests a life in open woodlands and a diet that included leaves drove apes' upright stature.
Published Shift to 'flash droughts' as climate warms
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source 'Flash droughts' have become more frequent due to human-caused climate change and this trend is predicted to accelerate in a warmer future, according to new research.
Published Timing of snowshoe hare winter color swap may leave them exposed in changing climate, study finds
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study, which used 44 years of data, shows that as the globe has warmed, altering the timing and amount of snow cover, snowshoe hares' winter transformation may be out of sync with the color of the background environment; this may actually put them at a greater disadvantage.
Published Increased droughts are disrupting carbon-capturing soil microbes, concerning ecologists
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Soil stores more carbon than plants and the atmosphere combined, and soil microbes are largely responsible for putting it there. However, the increasing frequency and severity of drought, such as those that have been impacting California, could disrupt this delicate ecosystem. Microbial ecologists warn that soil health and future greenhouse gas levels could be impacted if soil microbes adapt to drought faster than plants do.
Published Humans need Earth-like ecosystem for deep-space living
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Can humans endure long-term living in deep space? The answer is a lukewarm maybe, according to a new theory describing the complexity of maintaining gravity and oxygen, obtaining water, developing agriculture and handling waste far from Earth.
Published British flower study reveals surprise about plants' sex life
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A study of Britain's native flowering plants has led to new insights into the mysterious process that allows wild plants to breed across species -- one of plants' most powerful evolutionary forces. When wild flowering plants are sizing up others they may often end up in a marriage between close relatives rather than neighbors, a new study has revealed.
Published Study predicts poor survival rates if Ebola infects endangered mountain gorillas
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source If infected with the Ebola virus, less than 20 percent of Africa's endangered mountain gorillas would be expected to survive more than 100 days, finds a new study.
Published World's biggest cumulative logjam, newly mapped in the Arctic, stores 3.4 million tons of carbon
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Throughout the Arctic, fallen trees make their way from forests to the ocean by way of rivers. Those logs can stack up as the river twists and turns, resulting in long-term carbon storage. A new study has mapped the largest known woody deposit, covering 51 square kilometers (20 square miles) of the Mackenzie River Delta in Nunavut, Canada, and calculated that the logs store about 3.4 million tons (about 3.1 million metric tons) of carbon.
Published As rising temperatures affect Alaskan rivers, effects ripple through Indigenous communities
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Six decades of river gage data gathered from nine rivers in Alaska highlight the cumulative and consequential impacts of climate change for local communities and ecosystems in the Arctic.
Published How an African bird might inspire a better water bottle
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source An extreme closeup of feathers from a bird with an uncanny ability to hold water while it flies could inspire the next generation of absorbent materials.
Published Trees in areas prone to hurricanes have strong ability to survive even after severe damage
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The island of Dominica took a direct hit from Category 5 Hurricane Maria. Nine months afterward, researchers found that while 89% percent of trees located in nine previously documented forest stands were damaged, but only 10 percent had immediately died. The most common damage was stem snapping and major branch damage. The damage with the highest rates of mortality were uprooting and being crushed by a neighboring tree. Large individual trees and species with lower wood density were susceptible to snapping, uprooting and mortality. Those on steeper slopes were more prone to being crushed by neighboring trees.
Published Temperature is stronger than light and flow as driver of oxygen in US rivers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The amount of dissolved oxygen in a river is a matter of life or death for the plants and animals living within it, but this oxygen concentration varies drastically from one river to another, depending on their unique temperature, light and flow. To better understand which factor has the greatest impact on the concentration of dissolved oxygen, researchers used a deep learning model to analyze data from hundreds of rivers across the United States.
Published Migratory birds can partially offset climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study demonstrates that birds can partially compensate for climate change by delaying the start of spring migration and completing the journey faster. But the strategy comes with a cost -- a decline in overall survival.
Published Scientists advocate for integration of biogeography and behavioral ecology to rapidly respond to biodiversity loss
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source An interdisciplinary team of researchers is advocating for convergent research that integrates the fields of biogeography and behavioral ecology to more rapidly respond to challenges associated with climate change and biodiversity loss.
Published Rooting out how plants control nitrogen use
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Nitrogen is such a crucial nutrient for plants that vast quantities of nitrogen-containing fertilizers are spread on farmlands worldwide. However, excess nitrogen in the soil and in drainage run-off into lakes and rivers causes serious ecological imbalances. A recent study has uncovered the regulatory mechanisms at work when plants utilize nitrogenous fertilizers in their roots, a positive step in the quest to generate crops that require less fertilizer while still producing the yields needed to feed the world.
Published Scientists show how we can anticipate rather than react to extinction in mammals
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Most conservation efforts are reactive. Typically, a species must reach threatened status before action is taken to prevent extinction, such as establishing protected areas. A new study shows that we can use existing conservation data to predict which currently unthreatened species could become threatened and take proactive action to prevent their decline before it is too late.
Published In Florida study, nonnative leaf-litter ants are replacing native ants
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new look at decades of data from museum collections and surveys of leaf-litter ants in Florida reveals a steady decline in native ants and simultaneous increase in nonnative ants -- even in protected natural areas of the state, researchers report.
Published Woolly mammoths evolved smaller ears and woolier coats over the 700,000 years that they roamed the Siberian steppes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A team of researchers compared the genomes of woolly mammoths with modern day elephants to find out what made woolly mammoths unique, both as individuals and as a species. The investigators report that many of the woolly mammoth's trademark features -- including their woolly coats and large fat deposits -- were already genetically encoded in the earliest woolly mammoths, but these and other traits became more defined over the species' 700,000+ year existence. They also identified a gene with several mutations that may have been responsible for the woolly mammoth's miniscule ears.
Published Environmental impact reports hugely underestimate consequences for wildlife
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Research shows that environmental impact reports hugely underestimate the consequences of new developments for wildlife. This is because they don't take into account how birds and other animals move around between different sites. The research shows how a planned airport development in Portugal could affect more than 10 times the number of Black-tailed Godwits estimated in a previous Environmental Impact Assessment. The team have been studying these Godwits across Europe for over 30 years but they say that any species that moves around is likely to be under-represented by such reports.