Tag

ecosystems

The ohia tree is in trouble

The ʻohiʻa is Hawaii’s iconic tree, a keystone species that maintains healthy watersheds and provides habitat for numerous endangered birds. But a virulent fungal disease, possibly related to a warmer, drier climate, is now felling the island’s cherished `ohi`a forests. Hawaii’s isola
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Sandhill cranes vs windmills

<!– –> The current placement of wind energy towers in the central and southern Great Plains may have relatively few negative effects on sandhill cranes wintering in the region, according to a U.S. Geological Survey study published today. Midcontinental sandhill crane
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Australian river on fire with fracked coal seam gas

<!– –> So much methane is bubbling into a river surrounded by hundreds of fracking wells that it’s a fire hazard! Local campaigners blame the coal seam gas industry for the gas releases which are spreading along Queensland’s river Condamine and gaining in
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Ocean currents push phytoplankton and pollution faster than thought

The billions of single-celled marine organisms known as phytoplankton can drift from one region of the world’s oceans to almost any other place on the globe in less than a decade, Princeton University researchers have found. Unfortunately, the same principle can apply to plastic
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Which trees face death in drought?

Two hundred-twenty-five million trees dead in the southwest in a 2002 drought. Three hundred million trees in Texas in 2011. Twelve million this past year in California.  Throughout the world, large numbers of trees are dying in extreme heat and drought events. Because mass die-offs c
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Clear cutting and its influence on carbon storage

<!– –> lear-cutting loosens up carbon stored in forest soils, increasing the chances it will return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and contribute to climate change, a Dartmouth College study shows. The findings appear in the journal Soil Science. Soil is the wor
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Moths in cities have learned to avoid man-made light

<!– –> The globally increasing light pollution has negative effects on organisms and entire ecosystems. The consequences are especially hard on nocturnal insects, since their attraction to artificial light sources generally ends fatal. A new study by Swiss zoologists
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Reducing food waste could help mitigate climate change

About a tenth of overall global greenhouse-gas emissions from agriculture could be traced back to food waste by mid-century, a new study shows. A team from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research for the first time provides comprehensive food loss projections for countries a
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The North Pole had ice-free summers millions of years ago

An international team of scientists led by the Alfred Wegener Institute Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) have managed to open a new window into the climate history of the Arctic Ocean. Using unique sediment samples from the Lomonosov Ridge, the researchers found th
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Using moss as a bioindicator of air pollution

<!– –> Moss growing on urban trees is a useful bio-indicator of cadmium air pollution in Portland, Oregon, a U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station-led study has found. The work–the first to use moss to generate a rigorous and detailed map of ai
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