Light pollution is more serious than expected: Moths not only lose their orientation directly under street lamps. Their flight behaviour is also disturbed outside the cone of light. The increasing use of artificial light at night is one of the most dramatic man-made changes on earth. Streetlights and illuminated buildings are significantly changing the environment for nocturnal animals. Scientists have identified light pollution as one of the causes of the sharp decline in insects in recent years: many nocturnal insects…

How Climate Change Impacts Contaminants in the Sea. Toxic trace elements such as lead, mercury, arsenic, and cadmium naturally occur in small quantities in coastal seas. However, human activities, such as industry and agriculture, contribute significantly larger amounts. A new study has examined how climate change already affects the distribution and accumulation of these elements and how it could impact them in the future. One of the findings: Climate-related natural events are releasing more contaminants, which pose a risk to…

Plants can extract even the smallest traces of the important nutrient potassium from the soil. A team led by Würzburg biophysicist Rainer Hedrich describes how they achieve this in ‘Nature Communications’. Potassium is one of the nutrients that plants need in large quantities. However, the amount of potassium in the soil can vary greatly: potassium-poor soils can contain up to a thousand times less of this nutrient than potassium-rich soils. To be able to react flexibly to these differences, plants…

WMO report on global water resources: Third State of Global Water Resources report published / Unparalleled low water levels in the river basins of the Mississippi and the Amazon. Not only was 2023 characterized by unprecedentedly high temperatures but also by excessive droughts in many parts of the world as well as floods in other areas. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has now presented its third report on the status of global water resources. According to the report, 2023 was…

Pesticides aren’t always necessary: researchers at the University of Zurich have conducted a comprehensive field study showing that damage from herbivores can be reduced by using biodiversity within a plant species. Different plant genotypes can cooperate to help fend off herbivorous insects. Just like humans, plants interact with the individuals around them. For example, if the people around you are more susceptible to infections, your own risk of getting infected increases, and vice versa. The same is true for plants….

Battle for iron in the oceans of the early Earth. Team from the Universities of Tübingen and Bristol hypothesizes the contribution of different bacteria to form today’s deposits of banded iron ores. Early in the Earth’s development, the atmosphere contained no oxygen. Yet the iron dissolved in the oceans was oxidized in gigantic quantities and deposited as rock. It can be seen today, for example, as banded iron ore in South Africa. A new study investigates how various bacteria excrete…

Despite being widely popular, moths are not always welcome in forests, parks and gardens. Some moth species constitute a real threat to forests when they appear en masse. In the past, they have stripped entire deciduous and coniferous stands bare in many places in Germany. Forest pest monitoring is consequently particularly important to track their reproduction and to protect forests from greater damage. Research scientist from the Fraunhofer IFF are developing a digital, automated pheromone trap together with the Nordwestdeutsche…

Mizzou plant geneticist Ron Mittler is finding ways to breed soybean crops that can handle heat, drought and water-logging stresses, improving yields under pressure. Ron Mittler is on a quest to create a smarter soybean. For years, mid-Missouri has withstood unpredictable weather patterns, including drought, heat waves and flooding — conditions that are known to hamper agricultural yields and make it difficult for farmers to produce. While we can’t control the weather, Mittler and his team are working to harness…

An “invisible forest” of phytoplankton is thriving in part of our warming ocean, new research shows. Phytoplankton are tiny drifting organisms that do about half of the planet’s “primary production” (forming living cells by photosynthesis). The new study, by the University of Exeter, examined phytoplankton at the ocean surface and the “subsurface” – a distinct layer of water beneath – to see how climate variability is affecting them. Published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the findings show these two…

The global production of plastic has increased to such an extent that plastics have become ubiquitous in our environment. Plastic of various sizes are also found on the German North Sea and Baltic Sea coasts. In the citizen science project “Microplastic Detectives”, researchers from the Alfred Wegener Institute, together with citizens, have now collected samples from beaches along the entire German coast to be analyzed for microplastics. The resulting dataset is the first to be large enough to make reliable…

Researchers find that a 32% cut in plastic littering by 2035 is necessary to prevent further water pollution. In a report published in Marine Pollution Bulletin, researchers from Kyushu University have for the first time, provided a clear numerical target for global efforts to tackle marine plastic pollution. By mapping the flow and fate of plastic waste in the oceans, the team found that at a minimum there must be a 32% reduction in plastic littering by 2035 to prevent…

A mysterious type of iron-rich magma entombed within extinct volcanoes is likely abundant with rare earth elements and could offer a new way to source these in-demand metals, according to new research from The Australian National University (ANU) and the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Rare earth elements are found in smartphones, flat screen TVs, magnets, and even trains and missiles. They are also vital to the development of electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies such as wind…

New research out of Southern Cross University has found previously undocumented variation in coral heat tolerance on the Great Barrier Reef, giving hope that corals’ own genetic resources may hold the key for us to help in its recovery and adaptation. New research out of Southern Cross University has found previously undocumented variation in coral heat tolerance on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, giving hope that corals’ own genetic resources may hold the key for us to help in its recovery…

Researchers find that all coral components—including its skeleton—contain microplastics. Researchers from Japan and Thailand investigating microplastics in coral have found that all three parts of the coral anatomy—surface mucus, tissue, and skeleton—contain microplastics. The findings were made possible thanks to a new microplastic detection technique developed by the team and applied to coral for the first time. These findings may also explain the ‘missing plastic problem’ that has puzzled scientists, where about 70% of the plastic litter that has entered…

Human settlement pressure increases disaster risk in mountain regions. Climate change together with population expansion will increase disaster risk especially for people in mountain regions. An underestimated danger in the mountains are slow-moving landslides, which damage buildings and infrastructure and can cause many fatalities in the event of a sudden collapse. The rapidly growing population is increasingly settling on steeper slopes and is therefore exposed to this risk, as researchers from the University of Potsdam and the Potsdam Institute for…

European measurement campaign atmo4ACTRIS launched. The atmospheric lidar ATLID, the last of four instruments on board the EarthCARE satellite launched in May, has now been successfully put into operation. The joint mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Japanese Space Agency (JAXA) is designed to measure clouds, aerosols and radiation more accurately than ever before. Researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) are making an important contribution by developing algorithms that derive the aerosol and cloud…