Never heard of the acronym OECMs? Then it’s high time you did. It stands for a new instrument for the protection of biodiversity on land and in the sea. Researchers from the U Bremen Research Alliance want to help establish alternative protected areas – for example in the Coral Triangle off Indonesia. The sharks and manta rays of Raja Ampat are a real attraction. Divers from all over the world flock to the archipelago in eastern Indonesia to see them…

More of the world’s coastal glaciers are melting faster than ever, but exactly what’s triggering the large-scale retreat has been difficult to pin down because of natural fluctuations in the glaciers’ surroundings. Now, researchers at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics (UTIG) and Georgia Tech have developed a methodology that they think cracks the code to why coastal glaciers are retreating, and in turn, how much can be attributed to human-caused climate change. Attributing the human role for coastal…

These newly discovered extreme environments offer clues on extraterrestrial life and may hold potential cancer-fighting compounds. Researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science recently discovered rare deep-sea brine pools in the Gulf of Aqaba, a northern extension to the Red Sea. These salty underwater lakes hold secrets into the way oceans on Earth formed millions of years ago, and offer clues to life on other planets. In partnership with OceanX, Sam Purkis, professor and…

Urchins emerge to forage on living kelp when they can’t catch kelp scraps, mowing down swaths of the underwater forest. Purple sea urchins are munching their way through California’s kelp forests at a speed and scale that have stunned scientists, fishermen and divers alike. But the kelp forests have long been home to red and purple urchins, so it’s clear the three species can get along. Researchers at UC Santa Barbara sought to determine what factors disrupt this harmony. “Why…

Data from fossil corals points to changed circulation of ocean currents – an important finding for climate models. Located between Australia and New Zealand, the Tasman Sea is an important but so far neglected component of the global ocean conveyor belt. Now a new study has discovered evidence that this marginal sea in the South Pacific also played an important role in the exchange of water masses between the large ocean basins during the last ice age. These findings will…

Seascape genomics insights to key Australian populations. The first widespread census of the genetic diversity of common dolphin (Delphinus delphis) populations living along 3000km of Australia’s southern coastline has raised key pointers for future conservation efforts. The comprehensive Flinders University study calls for more conservation and policy efforts to preserve adaptive DNA diversity and assist connectivity between these dolphin groups. This will support long-term gene flow and adaptation during ongoing habitat changes – including oceanic conditions affected by climate change…

First long-term record from deep water layers of the open ocean. Scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) for the first time analysed a long-term sample series on microplastic pollution in the Northeast Atlantic from 2000 m water depth with respect to number, size, mass, material and possible origin of the particles. Samples were collected between 2003 – 2015 in the Madeira Basin by a sediment trap. Plastic type and particle amount varied widely, but accounted…

More sustainable e-mobility. Magnets are valuable components. Although functional magnet recycling methods have been developed in recent years, they have not yet been applied in practice and magnets continue to be melted down into steel scrap. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Materials Recycling and Resource Strategies IWKS provide good arguments for why this should change in the future. Their “FUNMAG” project demonstrates that recycled magnets can be used to power engines in the e-mobility sector, without any loss…

A new publication and interactive map summarise the current state of knowledge on the risks posed by permafrost soils – and call for decisive action. How is climate change affecting the permanently frozen soils of the Arctic? What will the consequences be for the global climate, human beings, and ecosystems? And what can be done to stop it? In the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, a team of experts led by Benjamin Abbott from Brigham Young University, USA and Jens…

Results quantify how construction of dams and land use change alters sediment flux to oceans. The way rivers function is significantly affected by how much sediment they transport and where it gets deposited. River sediment — mostly sand, silt, and clay — plays a critical ecological role, as it provides habitat for organisms downstream and in estuaries. It is also important for human life, resupplying nutrients to floodplain agricultural soils, and buffering sea level rise caused by climate change by…

To halt biodiversity loss, the future design of EU agricultural policy could be guided by six basic principles and accompanied by multi-annual agreements and progressive payment systems. These are at the core of recommendations made by over 300 scientists from 23 EU member states who were consulted at the request of the European Commission. The process was coordinated by the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), Thünen Institute of Rural Studies, and…

Research icebreaker departs for a process study in the marginal ice zone north of Svalbard and glacier research off Greenland. Today, the research vessel Polarstern will depart on a seven-week-long voyage to the Arctic, where the onset of summer also marks the beginning of the annual sea-ice melting. Over the past 40 years, the summer sea-ice extent has decreased by 40 percent – making it one of the most visible impacts of climate change. In a process study to be…

University of Tübingen research team uses properties of quartz in sediments to study sedi-mentary cycles and climate dynamics. Global warming and a progressively drier climate in many parts of the world are causing more dust storms. To predict how these storms are caused, researchers are looking into the past to understand where the dust came from, for how long, and over what distances it was transported. An international research team led by Dr. Aditi K. Dave and Professor Kathryn Fitzsimmons…

Scientists are developing artificial photosynthesis to help make food production more energy-efficient here on Earth, and one day possibly on Mars. Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found…

A long-term, increasingly warming pool of water in the northeast Pacific was recently discovered by a team of researchers from Universität Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence CLICCS. It measures three million square kilometers, resulted from increased anthropogenic greenhouse-gas emissions, and is conducive to extreme heatwaves in the northeast Pacific. In a study just released in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, Dr. Armineh Barkhordarian confirms that this systematic warming pool is not the result of natural climatic variations – but…

Southern Africa has a rich bounty of crop varieties, crop wild relatives, orphan crops and underutilised plant species, collectively known as plant genetic resources for food and agriculture (PGRFA), which have sustained generations of local farmers and rural communities and enabled them to cope with changing environmental conditions. The project “Farmer Resilience and Melon Crop Diversity in southern Africa” (FRAMe) aims at a future-oriented agriculture of crop diversity using melons as an example. The German Federal Ministry of Education and…