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Categories: Ecology: Sea Life, Environmental: Ecosystems
Published Whales give up singing to fight for love
(via sciencedaily.com) Male whales along Australia's eastern seaboard are giving up singing to attract a mate, switching instead to fighting their male competition.
Published North American mountain vegetation is rapidly shifting higher as the climate warms
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source In mountainous western North America, vegetation cover has moved upward at a rapid rate over the past several decades, according to a new study. Understanding such shifts in species distribution could provide insights on the velocity of climate change and aid conservation planning.
Published Amazon mammals threatened by climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Most land-based mammals in the Brazilian Amazon are threatened by climate change and the savannization of the region.
Published How the fastest fish hunts its prey
(via sciencedaily.com) Scientists have designed a novel electronic tag package incorporating high-tech sensors and a video camera in order to document a detailed view of exactly how sailfish behave and hunt once they are on their own and out of view of the surface.
Published Whale warning as clock ticks towards deep-sea mining
(via sciencedaily.com) Seabed mining could soon begin in the deep ocean -- but the potential impact on animals including whales is unknown, researchers have warned.
Published New technique maps large-scale impacts of fire-induced permafrost thaw in Alaska
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have developed a machine learning-based ensemble approach to quantify fire-induced thaw settlement across the entire Tanana Flats in Alaska, which encompasses more than 3 million acres. They linked airborne repeat lidar data to time-series Landsat products (satellite images) to delineate thaw settlement patterns across six large fires that have occurred since 2000. The six fires resulted in a loss of nearly 99,000 acres of evergreen forest from 2000 to 2014 among nearly 155,000 acres of fire-influenced forests with varying degrees of burn severity. This novel approach helped to explain about 65 percent of the variance in lidar-detected elevation change.
Published Coral reefs in the Eastern Pacific could survive into the 2060s
(via sciencedaily.com) Scientists found that some reefs in the tropical Pacific Ocean could maintain high coral cover into the second half of this century by shuffling the symbiotic algae they host. The findings offer a ray of hope in an often-dire picture of the future of coral reefs worldwide.
Published Biodiversity engine for fishes: Shifting water depth
(via sciencedaily.com) Fish, the most biodiverse vertebrates in the animal kingdom, present evolutionary biologists a conundrum: The greatest species richness is found in the world's tropical waters, yet the fish groups that generate new species most rapidly inhabit colder climates at higher latitudes. A new study helps to explain this paradox. The researchers discovered that the ability of fish in temperate and polar ecosystems to transition back and forth from shallow to deep water triggers species diversification. Their findings suggest that as climate change warms the oceans at higher latitudes, it will impede the evolution of fish species.
Published Due to their feed, chicken and farmed salmon have remarkably similar environmental footprints
(via sciencedaily.com) We love our chicken. We love our salmon. Thanks to how we farm these two popular proteins, their environmental footprints are surprisingly similar.
Published 'It's me!' Fish recognizes itself in photographs, say scientists
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have demonstrated that fish think 'it's me' when they see themselves in a picture. The researchers found that the determining factor was not the fish seeing their own body but seeing their face.
Published Fossil discovery reveals complex ecosystems existed on Earth much earlier than previously thought
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source About 250 million years ago, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction killed over 80 per cent of the planet's species. In the aftermath, scientists believe that life on earth was dominated by simple species for up to 10 million years before more complex ecosystems could evolve. Now this longstanding theory is being challenged by a team of international researchers.
Published The cod population off the coast of Sweden is not extinct
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Through DNA analyses, researchers have identified that there are still juvenile coastal cod off the west coast of Sweden. However, it is still difficult to find any mature adult cod in the area.
Published Endangered Bahamas bird may be lost from island following hurricane
(via sciencedaily.com) The endangered Bahama Warbler may be surviving on just one island following Hurricane Dorian's devastation in 2019, according to researchers. A new study shows the bird's distribution and ecology on Grand Bahama before the hurricane struck. But the team says that the warbler may now only survive on neighboring Abaco island, after hurricane Dorian destroyed the bird's forest habitat on Grand Bahama. The research comes from the same team that found what is thought to have been the last living Bahama Nuthatch, previously thought to have been extinct.
Published Marine reserves unlikely to restore marine ecosystems
(via sciencedaily.com) Protected marine areas are one of the essential tools for the conservation of natural resources affected by human impact -- mainly fishing --, but, are they enough to recover the functioning of these systems? A study now highlights the limitations of marine reserves in restoring food webs to their pristine state prior to the impact of intensive fishing.
Published Reducing pesticide pollution and the intensity of harvesting can increase crop yield and contribute to climate change mitigation
(via sciencedaily.com) Researchers have found that carbon sequestration and plant resilience as well as forage pasture yield can be increased through key adjustments in agricultural management. The results provide a roadmap for reducing pesticide loads in soils and the first steps towards increasing climate change mitigation while improving crop yield in grasslands.
Published New research suggests drought accelerated empire collapse
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The collapse of the Hittite Empire in the Late Bronze Age has been blamed on various factors, from war with other territories to internal strife. Now, scientists have used tree ring and isotope records to pinpoint a more likely culprit: three straight years of severe drought.
Published Surprises in sea turtle genes could help them adapt to a rapidly changing world
(via sciencedaily.com) Around 100 million years ago, a group of land-dwelling turtles took to the oceans, eventually evolving into the sea turtles that we know today. However, the genetic foundations that have enabled them to thrive in oceans throughout the world have remained largely unknown.
Published Plastic debris in the Arctic comes from all around the world
(via sciencedaily.com) In the course of five years, citizens who went on sailing cruises to the Arctic surveyed and collected plastic debris that had washed up on the shores of Svalbard. This has now been analyzed. According to the findings, one third of the plastic debris which still bore imprints or labels allowing an analysis of their origin came from Europe, and much of that number from Germany.
Published Long-term restoration of a biodiversity hotspot hinges on getting seeds to the right place at the right time
(via sciencedaily.com) New research shows that degraded savanna ecosystems can reap lasting benefits from a single seeding of native understory plants. Once a diverse understory of savanna plants became established, its long-term persistence was relatively unaffected by environmental factors -- with one exception. Higher temperatures during the height of the growing season were associated with poorer long-term survival among some species, indicating one threat posed by a warming climate.
Published More frequent atmospheric rivers hinder seasonal recovery of Arctic sea ice
(via sciencedaily.com) The Arctic is rapidly losing sea ice, even during winter months when temperatures are below freezing and ice should be recovering from the summer melt. A new study found powerful storms called atmospheric rivers are increasingly reaching the Arctic in winter, slowing sea ice recovery and accounting for a third of all winter sea ice decline, according to a team led by Penn State scientists.