A new study led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) and the University of Barcelona (UB) shows how a great diversity of marine organisms attach themselves to plastics and, with these, are dragged along by marine currents. A new study led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) and the University of Barcelona (UB) has revealed that marine plastic pollution could contribute to the introduction and transport of non-native species that attach to these particles of anthropogenic…
An international team of experts under the lead of Margrete Emblemsvåg from Møreforsking AS and the Arctic University of Norway and Dr. Karl-Michael Werner from the Thünen Institute of Sea Fisheries in Germany discovered an unexpected connection between bottom fish and the impacts of climate change in East Greenland. While the researchers analysed large time-series of data they observed that ecosystems across the entire depth range from 150-1500 m responded synchronously to changes in the atmosphere, sea ice concentration and…
This is a common press release of Stockholm University and the Alfred Wegener Institute. Single individuals of Atlantic cod and squid occur much further north than previously expected. Scientists participating in the international MOSAiC expedition with research icebreaker Polarstern have found fish and squid in deep water in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. The results from Stockholm University, the Alfred Wegener Institute and colleagues in the European Fisheries Inventory in the Central Arctic Ocean (EFICA) Consortium are published today…
Official kick-off meeting will take place on February 17th and 18th: The second research mission of the German Marine Research Alliance (DAM), “sustainMare” (“Protection and Sustainable Utilization of Marine Environments”) analyzes our utilization of seas and coasts. Rising sea levels, ocean warming and acidification, together with pollution and over-utilization of ecosystems are causing profound problems. Two pilot projects and five collaborative projects investigate the ecological, economic and social impacts of utilization and stressors on the North and Baltic Seas. The…
In northern Spain, wild honeybees use hollow electricity poles as nesting cavities. Natural areas in the surroundings promote the colonies’ chances to survive the winter. Until recently, experts considered it unlikely that the honeybee had survived as a wild animal in Europe. In a current study, biologists Benjamin Rutschmann and Patrick Kohl from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany, show that wild honeybees still exist in the region of Galicia in the northwest of Spain. The researchers describe where to…
Degrading pyrogenic (fire-affected) organic matter is an important ecosystem function of fungi in post-fire environments. The Science Wildfires can cause significant changes in the carbon found in soils. These fires can completely burn carbon away, or they can alter its chemical composition. This fire-affected carbon, called pyrolyzed organic matter (PyOM), is difficult for many organisms to use as food. Although many soil organisms are killed by wildfires, the fungus Pyronema domesticum can grow rapidly after fires. Using RNA sequencing, researchers demonstrated that…
A new study looking at the presence of pharmaceuticals in the world’s rivers found concentrations at potentially toxic levels in more than a quarter of the locations studied. The new study looked at 258 rivers across the globe, including the Thames in London and the Amazon in Brazil, to measure the presence of 61 pharmaceuticals, such as carbamazepine, metformin and caffeine. The researchers studied rivers in over half of the world’s countries – with rivers in 36 of these countries…
Scientists of TU Freiberg trace the Amazon rainforest’s respiration with measuring robot. On March 3, a team of geoscientists at TU Bergakademie Freiberg will travel to Manaus carrying with them a 120 centimetres long measuring device. With the newly developed robot they aim to analyse the gas exchange of carbon dioxide of 13 lakes and ponds in the Amazon Basin. Back in their laboratory, they will also identify the gas flow of methane and nitrous oxide. Having travelled to Manaus…
The Congo Basin is the second largest contiguous tropical forest area on earth. Even though it is so vast and plays such a major role in the global climate system, there is no empirical data on the forest’s gas exchange with the atmosphere. Especially with regard to the greenhouse gases nitrous oxide and methane, research is still in the dark. Other tropical forests are known to be a major source of nitrous oxide and a sink for methane. But because…
Due to climate change, Arctic winters are getting warmer. An international study by UZH researchers shows that Arctic warming causes temperature anomalies and cold damage thousands of kilometers away in East Asia. This in turn leads to reduced vegetation growth, later blossoming, smaller harvests and reduced CO2 absorption by the forests in the region. Switzerland has had relatively little snow so far this winter, but last year was different: Trains and trams stopped running, and tree branches broke under the…
Imagine trying to understand how climate change affects vast tropical forests by determining how many trees die each year. Clouds get in the way of satellite views and on-the-ground estimates are expensive and impractical in remote areas. But researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) are excited by a new analysis that explains variation in tree mortality based on drone images of 1500 hectares of the most-studied tropical forest, Barro Colorado Island, in Panama. There is concern that many…
»SCIP Plastics« Project Worth Millions Launches in Weimar and Bangladesh. Approximately 480 tonnes of waste end up of the streets of Khulna, the largest city in the densely populated Ganges Delta, every day. This waste includes huge quantities of plastic, which then makes it way into the ocean via the adjacent waterways. If nothing is done to stop this, ocean contamination will continue to increase. The goal of this joint project is to establish a sustainable waste management system in…
Melting and sublimation on Mount Everest’s highest glacier due to human-induced climate change have reached the point that several decades of accumulation are being lost annually now that ice has been exposed, according to a University of Maine-led international research team that analyzed data from the world’s highest ice core and highest automatic weather stations. The extreme sensitivity of the high-altitude Himalayan ice masses in rapid retreat forewarns of quickly emerging impacts that could range from increased incidence of avalanches…
An Indo-Swiss research team led by Empa researchers is developing an ecological and solidarity-based business model that reduces the environmental impact of e-waste recycling. In this way, micro-entrepreneurs without investment capital are to be integrated into the value chain. In India, more than 90% of e-waste is handled by the informal sector. While this provides income for many families, it also often has a negative impact on the environment and on workers’ health. Introducing and enforcing standards is difficult because…
In both the Arctic and Antarctic, the contamination with hazardous chemicals has been increasing. The German Environment Agency (UBA) and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon together hosted the workshop „Act now – Legacy and Emerging Contaminants in Polar Regions“. On January 25th and January 26th, experts from four continents met and discussed potential impacts of legacy and new hazardous chemi-cals, which accumulate in snow, ice and wildlife. Today, we live in the “Chemical Anthropocene” and our society, the environment and human health…
Scientists identify key features in microbes that predict how warming affects carbon dioxide emissions. The Science Microbes play an important role in climate because they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when they eat. Bacteria and their main predators, protists, account for more than 40 times the biomass of all animals on Earth. As a result, they have a huge effect on carbon dioxide emissions. However, predicting the size of that effect and how global warming will affect microbial carbon…
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