Hydroelectric schemes usually generate a barrage of criticism from conservationists. But the flooding of a Venezuelan valley 20 years ago has provided ecologists with the ideal outdoor laboratory to answer one of ecology’s oldest and thorniest questions: why is the world green?

Reporting their results in the March issue of the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology, a team lead by Professor John Terborgh of Duke University says that the role of predators is the

During migration, polar bears reach mainland by ice. The exit to the coast is extremely important for them, as bears find food there – remains of walrused perished at coastal breeding-grounds, remainder of aboriginal population’s sea fishery, ringed seal (Pusa hispida). Pregnant females come out to the locations of hiding into maternity dens. Lagging of ice sheet arrival in the south makes a lot of bears reach mainland by swimming.

In 2005, reports appeared that polar bears were more frequ

While biologists sort out what levels of noise go unnoticed, are annoying or cause harm to marine mammals, physical oceanographer Jeff Nystuen is giving scientists and managers a way to sift through and identify the sounds present in various marine ecosystems.

Nystuen, from the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory, presented his latest findings this week at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu.

Knowing what sound is already there is needed when tr

Tagging program records ‘longest movement’ — Double previous distance

While a bonefish catch is always gratifying for the avid angler, one caught in the Bahamian flats off southwestern Andros Island in December proved even more satisfying for the researchers who study bonefish migration at Bonefish and Tarpon Unlimited (BTU) and the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. The fish was a record catch, representing the longest movement by a bonefi

New research into a missing link in climatology shows that the Earth was not overcome by a greenhouse period when dinosaurs dominated, but experienced rapid fluctuations in temperature and sea level change that resulted in a balance of the global carbon cycle. The study is being published in the March issue of Geology.

“Most people think the mid-Cretaceous period was a super-greenhouse,” says Darren Gröcke, assistant professor and Director of the Stable Isotope Biogeochemistry L

In response to challenging targets to reduce household waste, Guildford Borough Council commissioned The Environmental Psychology Research Group at the University of Surrey to undertake research on waste recycling.

This research aimed to identify influential information that affects public participation in Guildford Borough Council’s Kerbside Collection Scheme; to provide locally meaningful information to understand the recycling habits of Guildford Borough residents; and to create

The University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the Italian National Committee for relations between the Italian Government and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), on occasion of the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the FAO award

*50 grants for scientific research papers, of the amount of 2000 Euro each.
Deadline: 30.06.2006

*10 grants for postgraduate research, of the amount of 17 000 Euro each.
Deadline: 31.03.2006

Applications a

“Efficient flue gas purification equipment at large waste incineration plants can reduce flue gas emissions, and cut the amounts of fine particles and heavy metals containing harmful compounds, to the levels required by the Waste Incineration Directive,” explains senior research scientist Carl Wilen of the Technical Research Centre of Finland. Fine particle emissions from waste incineration and their purification have been studied as part of the Tekes FINE Particles technology programme.

First passive recordings from ocean gliders provide insight into whale behavior for some endangered species

Like robots of the deep, autonomous underwater vehicles, or AUVs, are growing in number and use in the oceans to perform scientific missions ranging from monitoring climate change to mapping the deep sea floor and surveying ancient shipwrecks. Another use for these versatile platforms has now been found: monitoring the lives of whales.

Marine mammals are major

An alternate method of processing certain liquid wastes into a solid form for safe disposal has been developed by researchers at Penn State University and the Savannah River National Laboratory. The solidified form has been called a hydroceramic and is an improved alternate to other forms and processes. This research is published in the Journal of the American Ceramic Society.

The new process uses low temperatures (less than or equal to 90°C) to solidify and stabilize high al

Is pollution causing regional coral extinctions?

Since the 1980s, researchers have hypothesized that nutrient levels rather than temperature are the main factor controlling the latitudinal bounds of coral reefs, but the issue remains controversial. New results from an extensive survey of reefs in South Florida by a Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution research team strongly support this hypothesis. The research suggests that, by supporting blooms of harmful seaweed, increasing

Research into how volcanoes erupt led by Durham University’s Earth Sciences Department is taking volcanologists a step closer to being able to predict when and on what scale volcanoes will erupt.

In the three-year EU Erupt Project, funded by almost half a million euros of EU Framework 5 funding, scientists from seven European universities are working on four volcanoes. They have developed new techniques to examine what happens underground before a volcano erupts and how magma dev

Important rivers usually have a number of tributary streams which have their sources in the mountains. It is not just water that goes on the journey but sediments, stones and other material. These materials are transported dissolved, in suspension or deposited as sediment at the bottom of the river.

A research team from the Department of Geodynamics at the University of the Basque Country (EHU-UPV) have begun a study in order to find out the amount of sediments transported fro

Researchers use high-tech acoustics to make marine-protected areas better

Rosenstiel School fisheries researchers will embark on state-of-the-art research at the end of February to track black and red grouper in the Dry Tortugas National Park to develop a better understanding of species’ movement and habitat require-ments, so they can help more efficiently design and assess future marine-protected areas. Through funding from the National Park Service and transportation support f

Atlantic expeditions uncover secret sex life of deep-sea nomads

For centuries scientists have thought of deep-sea pelagic fish as nomadic wanderers, in part because information about them was so limited. However, new results from the ongoing Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystems program (MAR-ECO), a Sloan Foundation-sponsored component of the Census of Marine Life, have revealed that these fishes may in fact be gathering at features such as ridges or seamounts to spawn. The research has im

Bill Hopkins, fisheries and wildlife associate professor in Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources, and colleagues doing research at the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory and in the field, have demonstrated that amphibians are exposed to contaminants through maternal transfer, as has been proven for other vertebrates.

The research has been published in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) journal, Environmental Health Perspectives (“Reproduction, Embryonic Develop