Coral reef health may be accurately estimated from sensors on airplanes and satellites in the future, according to a NASA scientist who is the principal investigator in a collaborative project to develop a method to remotely sense coral health.
Sometimes called the “bellwether of the seas,” coral reefs can give first indications of marine ecosystem health. “Scientists can use coral health as a sensitive indicator of the health of the marine environment,” said Liane Guild, a scientist at NASA
Southern vacation resorts encroaching on key winter habitats crucial to success of migratory birds: Queen’s researchers
(Kingston, ON) – The destruction of tropical forests to create vacation resorts for human “snowbirds” who fly south from Canada and the northern U.S. every winter is creating serious breeding problems for real migratory birds, say Queen’s University biologists.
A new study, headed by Ph.D. student Ryan Norris and his advisor, Professor Laurene Ratcliffe, sh
Comparing ecological impacts of fishing gears
Sea turtles, starfish, dolphins, and seabirds are routinely caught and killed or injured in fishing gears aiming to catch other marine life bound for human consumption. This so-called bycatch can outweigh the actual target species by as much as 20 times. In addition, fishing gears inflict damage to corals and other seafloor habitats. “Shifting gears: assessing collateral impacts of fishing methods in US waters,” which appears in this month
The world’s tropical rain forests are under increasing threats from clearing for agriculture, massive slaughter of wildlife, global climate change and the reduction of forests to ever-smaller fragments.
Studying the effects of these changes on the keystone structural elements of these forests, canopy trees, has up to now been difficult, expensive and in some cases even dangerous. Now a tri-national group of researchers lead by Dr. David B. Clark of the University of Missouri-St. Louis
The invasion of Europe by an American cherry tree is helped along by Europeans’ own dirt, according to a new study by scientists at Indiana University Bloomington and the Centre for Terrestrial Ecology in the Netherlands.
Their report, in the December issue of Ecology Letters, suggests it’s what’s in European soils — or more specifically, what isn’t in them — that makes it possible for the American black cherry tree to have invaded the continent.
“We’re se
A research team led by Dr. David Coltman of the University of Sheffield has discovered that hunting may permanently change the physical characteristics of the targeted species.
Dr. Coltman, of the University’s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, is part of a team investigating effects of thirty years of trophy hunting bighorn rams at Ram Mountain in Alberta, Canada. Trophy rams are heavy, with rapidly growing horns, and are a valuable commodity.
Trophy hunting at Ram Mountain
Scientists have developed a system to increase the safety of genetically modified (GM) microbes for release into the environment.
Release of GM micro-organisms is a cause of great concern to many, because the microbes could pass on genes for disease or other harmful traits to others. But, a team of researchers from Spain and Germany believes that it is possible to reduce this risk.
Dr. Eduardo Díaz of Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas-CSIC in Madrid and his colleagues have deve
Atmospheric protection is a big challenge for the 21st century. In teaching scientists to design outputs that become the stuff of hard policy, the impact of EUROTRAC-2 is far-reaching.
Nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and aerosols, major contributors to atmospheric pollution, do not respect national borders. But thanks to EUREKA project E! 1489 EUROTRAC-2, the EU’s largest ever study on atmospheric pollution, we know much more about where such pollutants were created, under what chemical di
Evolution of genetically distinct species that live exclusively on land can be slowed by over-water dispersal following tropical storms, according to a UCLA study that suggests classic theories of island evolution need an overhaul.
In an article published Thursday, Dec. 4, in the journal Nature, postdoctoral fellow Ryan Calsbeek and Professor Thomas B. Smith of the UCLA Center for Tropical Research report that lizards long thought to be evolving independently on Caribbean Islands in fact e
Half of the southern Pacific Ocean is an immense reservoir of warm subtropical water, yet poor in nutrients and little conducive for the development of living organisms.
However, recent satellite observations have indicated the unexpected occurrence of points of unusually high concentrations of chlorophyll, the green pigment contained in phytoplankton. This would indicate the development of phytoplankton in these zones of otherwise low fertility. How can this occurrence be explained? IRD r
Study in Environmental Health Perspectives Also Finds Interference with Sex Hormone Synthesis
Male school children exposed to the pesticide endosulfan showed delayed sexual maturity compared with similar children who were not exposed, according to a study published today in the December issue of the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). Endosulfan also appears to interfere with sex hormone synthesis, according to results of the study of males aged 10-19 years
A new report showing how one regional community can better manage its eco- systems may have implications for regional areas not only across Australia but around the world.
CSIRO researchers have recently explored ’ecosystem services’ in the Goulburn Broken Catchment and found that Australians are developing a new and deeper understanding of how the environment underpins human activities.
“Services that ecosystems provide to humans are necessary to support and fulfi
Italy Hosts Second Meeting Of Group On Earth Observation
The ad-hoc intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) will hold its second meeting this week in Baveno, Italy. The meeting aims to give direction to the continued development of a 10-year plan to implement a comprehensive, coordinated, and sustained Earth observation system or set of systems. The first meeting took place in August 2003 in Washington, DC, immediately after the first Earth Observation Summit, which estab
“We should not count on carbon storage by land ecosystems to make a massive contribution to slowing climate change,” said Dr. Christopher Field, director of the Department of Global Ecology at the Carnegie Institution. “And lower storage of carbon in these ecosystems results in a faster increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, leading to more rapid global warming.”
Future atmospheric levels of the notorious heat-trapping gas, carbon dioxide, remain a controversial topic among environmental
A group of scientists from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), working with the Marine and Coastal Management Branch of South Africa, have perfected an unusual, hands-on method to study great white sharks, where these fearsome predators are gently hauled into research vessels to receive high-tech satellite tags.
According to the scientists, the technique is safe to both shark and researcher, resulting in better data to understand – and ultimately protect – one of nature&#
In the Caribbean Sea, coral reefs — those gorgeous, eye-popping, fish-nourishing, ship-scraping biological wonders that are among the region’s crown jewels — continue to die rapidly, a University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill biologist says. Their future looks bleak.
Dr. John Bruno, assistant professor of marine sciences at UNC, and colleagues at other U.S. universities, believe they have identified one reason why. Results of field experiments they conducted off Mexico’s Yuca
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