Plantains, otherwise known as cooking bananas, are an important food crop in Tanzania and require fertile soil for a good harvest. For around four centuries now, banana-growing land has been enriched by supplements of manure from cattle grazing on nearby pastures. The strongly increasing population pressure in recent decades has led to a decrease in pastureland and, consequently, manure, causing a reduction in banana harvests. Green manure crops such as herbaceous legumes provide a solution em

A new tool based on satellite data shows trends in the way Europeans use our landscape. Seen from the ground these changes appear gradual, but viewed from above they are often dramatic.

Each day new roads or buildings bury the equivalent of 240 football fields of German soil, around 120 hectares of land. This is just one example of the information available from a new virtual atlas of Europe’s landscape based on satellite data.
The European Environment Agency (EEA), assi

The authors of a 30-year study suggest that declines in fish supply in Ghana can lead to regional increases in the hunting, trade and human consumption of wildlife in this West African nation. Declining fish stocks suggest marine resources are nearing collapse due to overfishing by regional and foreign fleets, most notably fleets subsidized by the European Union. A fisheries collapse would have widely felt consequences for regional economies, human food supply and efforts to conserve nature on l

In a study that mimicked the natural order of species loss in a grassland ecosystem, researchers found that declining biodiversity greatly reduced resistance to invasive species and that the presence of even small numbers of rare species had profound functional effects.

The results have important implications for understanding the biodiversity crisis, said researcher Erika S. Zavaleta, assistant professor of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Pr

The loss of seemingly inconsequential animal species in the marine benthos – the top 6 inches or so of mud and sediment on the floors of the world’s oceans – is giving scientists a new look ahead at the consequences of the steady decline of the world’s biological diversity.

In new work published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Science, an international team of scientists describe work in which the ocean mud and the many animals that live there are used to forecast how the

High in the mountains of Antarctica, Ohio State University geologists unearthed the fossil remains of a 180-million-year-old clam-like creature that was preserved in a very unusual way: by the ancient bacteria that devoured it.

And only yards away, they found the first fossil evidence of a completely different kind of bacteria that scientists were unsure even existed as fossils that long ago.

The first find answers one of the most fundamental questions in paleontology —

A long-dry riverbed in northeastern Ohio is preventing a pool of chemical waste from infiltrating the Ohio River, geologists have found.

The finding may call into question the need to clean up similar chemical waste sites. It also indicates a previously unknown interaction between an underground aquifer and the nearby Ohio River. Beneath sand and gravel on the grounds of Barium and Chemical Inc. in Steubenville, OH, lies an aquifer that contains chemicals such as nitrate and bari

Widespread volcanic activity, cyanobacteria and global glaciation may sound like the plot of a new, blockbuster disaster movie, but in reality, they are all events in the mystery surrounding the development of our oxygen-rich atmosphere, according to a Penn State geoscientist.

The most extreme fluctuation in the Earth’s carbon cycle occurred about 2.2 billion years ago, according to Dr. Lee R. Kump, professor of geosciences and member of the Penn State Astrobiology Resear

A spot on the sun is bursting with large flares and tremendous coronal mass ejections, sending charged solar particles to Earth. The waves of particles descending on the planet are responsible for the aurora displays that have been visible as far south as the Carolinas.

Aurora forecasters at the Geophysical Institute (GI) predict maximum aurora activity until Friday, Nov. 12, and possibly into the weekend. The aurora should be visible in regions far south of the Arctic, includin

A recent report on an unexpected sharp rise in atmospheric CO2 levels has raised the possibility of rapid global warming, but researchers at King’s College London warn that some UK businesses, government departments and voluntary sector organisations are better equipped than others to respond to an increased risk of flooding, storms and extreme temperatures.

According to the research, which was funded by ESRC, the key to an effective response to environmental crises lies i

A Johns Hopkins University graduate student may have solved a problem that has been baffling marine biologists and paleontologists for years: Why do coral reefs disappear from the fossil record during the beginning of the Cretaceous period — 120 million years ago — only to reappear after its end 35 million years ago?

The possible answer: Ancient seawater’s low magnesium-to-calcium ratio during this interval made it difficult for the marine animals — which build their sk

Chimpanzees are renowned for their complex tool using behaviors and wide array of tool assemblages. However, the tool using repertoire of these apes in central Africa’s Congo Basin has remained an enigma, based mainly on indirect evidence and fleeting observations.

In this study, a new type of remote video technology was used to study chimpanzee behavior at termite nests in the Goualougo Triangle, Republic of Congo. From six-months of remote video surveillance at termite nests,

Most wild species experience considerable variation in habitat quality. Ecological theory that considers how organisms disperse between good and bad habitats has shown that such spatial structure can strongly influence population dynamics, but real-world implications have rarely been found. In this study, researchers from the University of California Santa Cruz show that the spatial structure of Peregrine Falcons in California has profoundly influenced the management and recovery of this species.

Global research highlighting the most important areas for albatross migration and breeding may yet help save these magical birds from extinction.

Satellite tracking data for 16 species of albatross and three petrel species, all of them threatened by commercial and pirate longline fishing, have been collated by BirdLife International, an alliance of conservation groups. Its report, Tracking Ocean Wanderers, highlights areas where longline fleets are putting seabirds at most risk. T

Rice U. geologists probe impact of rising seas along US Gulf Coast

New research presented at this week’s annual meeting of the Geological Society of America shows that rising sea levels of as little as a half-meter per century have been sufficient to dramatically change the shoreline of the U.S. Gulf Coast within the past 10,000 years. The findings are significant because half-meter increases are within the moderate range of predictions for the Gulf Coast during this century.

NASA scientists recently found the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the main driver of the change in rain patterns all around the world.

The NASA and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite has enabled scientists to look around the globe and determine where the year-to-year changes in rainfall are greatest. The TRMM is a joint mission between NASA and JAXA designed to monitor and study tropical rainfall.

Resear