Tag

ecosystems

Shale gas development spurring spread of invasive plants in Pa. forests

Vast swaths of Pennsylvania forests were clear-cut circa 1900 and regrowth has largely been from local native plant communities, but a team of researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences has found that invasive, non-native plants are making significant inroads w
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Stanford researchers discover biological hydraulic system in tuna fins

Cutting through the ocean like a jet through the sky, giant bluefin tuna are built for performance, endurance and speed. Just as the fastest planes have carefully positioned wings and tail flaps to ensure precision maneuverability and fuel economy, bluefin tuna need the utmost control
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Native leech preys on invasive slug?

The giant slug Limax maximus is native to Europe and Asia Minor but has spread widely, being found in North America, South America, North Africa, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and other regions. The slug is recognized as a notorious pest because it eats agricultural and garden
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The way rivers function reflects their ecological status and is rarely explored

The Ecología de ríos/Stream Ecology research group of the UPV/EHU’s Department of Plant Biology and Ecology is a group that specialises in the study of the way rivers function; it comprises experts from numerous areas who have combined their knowledge with a broad range of bibli
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Mixed outcomes for plants and animals in warmer 2080s climate

More than three quarters of plants and animals in England are likely to be significantly affected by climate change by the end of the century, say researchers. Researchers showed that given a 2°C increase in average global temperature by the 2080s, 54 per cent of 3000 species in Engla
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Nesting aids make agricultural fields attractive for bees

Farmers are facing a problem: Honeybees are becoming ever more rare in many places. But a lot of plants can only produce fruits and seeds when their flowers were previously pollinated with pollen from different individuals. So when there are no pollinators around, yields will decrease
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Scientists calculate total amount of plastics ever produced

Led by a team of scientists from the University of Georgia, the University of California, Santa Barbara and Sea Education Association, the study is the first global analysis of the production, use and fate of all plastics ever made. The researchers found that by 2015, humans had gener
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Record-breaking marine heatwave cooks Tasmania's fisheries

Climate change was almost certainly responsible for a marine heatwave off Tasmania’s east coast in 2015/16 that lasted 251 days and at its greatest extent was seven times the size of Tasmania, according to a new study published today in Nature Communications. The marine heatwave reduc
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Sea temperature changes contributing to droughts

Fluctuations in sea surface temperature are a factor in causing persistent droughts in North America and around the Mediterranean, new research suggests.  A team from the universities of Exeter, Montpellier and Wageningen analysed data from 1957–2002 and found sea surface temperatures
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Pangolins at 'huge risk' as study reveals dramatic increases in hunting across Central Africa

The hunting of pangolins, the world’s most illegally traded mammal, has increased by 150 percent in Central African forests from 1970s to 2014, according to a new study led by the University of Sussex. The first-ever study of its kind, published in Conservation Letters, shows the true
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