By Oregon State University 6/7/2020 CORVALLIS, Ore. – Pockets of landscape less prone than adjacent areas to disturbances like fire and drought may hold the key for scientists, conservationists and land managers seeking to preserve vulnerable species in a changing climate. These areas, categorized as “disturbance refugia,” are becoming a focal point for ecologists trying to learn why change doesn’t…
By University of Illinois 6/9/2020 CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — For 25 years, Carol Augspurger visited a patch of ancient woods near Urbana to look at the same 25 one-square-meter plots of earth she first demarcated for study in 1993. She surveyed the plots once a week in spring and summer, tracking the major life events of each of the herbaceous plants…
By University of New Mexico 6/8/2020 Fire has been a central component in California’s natural and human history for millennia. Native Americans’ use of cultural burns in landscape management, in addition to lightning-ignited fires that burned unhindered, impacted most of the state’s ecosystems. However, in the late 1800s, California’s landscape underwent an era of Euro-American fire exclusion and suppression. As…
By UC Davis 6/8/2020 Which Lands Stand the Best Chance for Conservation and Wildfire Restoration? Some landscapes can hold their own against climate change better than others. A study from the University of California, Davis, maps these places, called “climate refugia,” where existing vegetation is most likely to buffer the impacts of climate change through the end of the century. It found…
By Penn State University 6/3/2020 The Latin name for brook trout — Salvelinus fontinalis — means “speckled fish of the fountains,” but a new study by Penn State researchers suggests, for the first time, that the larger streams and rivers those fountains, or headwaters, flow into may be just as important to the brook trout. With few exceptions, brook trout…
By Northern Arizona University 6/2/2020 A Northern Arizona University professor co-authored a paper on the importance of springs in a drying climate that is in the inaugural climate change refugia special edition of Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The issue focuses on refugia, which refers to areas that are relatively buffered from current climate change and shelter valued wildlife,…
By MNHN – CNRS 6/2/2020 A team of researchers from the ‘Adaptation and Evolution‘ unit of the French National Museum of Natural History (MNHN – CNRS) has published the results of a novel study in French Guiana on the effects that hunting can have on forest regeneration. They found that when large animals that naturally disperse the seeds of some…
By University of Santa Barbara 6/2/2020 Biologists and fishermen alike know that offshore oil platforms function as de facto habitats for fish. The structures climb hundreds of feet into the water column, creating a prefab reef out in open water. But many of these platforms will soon be decommissioned, and government agencies are considering the potential ecological effects in deciding…
By University of Massachusetts Amherst 6/1/2020 The notion of conserving climate change refugia – areas relatively buffered from current climate change that shelter valued wildlife, ecosystems, and other natural resources – is only about 10 years old, but the field has matured enough that a leading journal has prepared a special issue on the topic. It offers “a look back…
By University of Alberta 6/1/2020 North America’s boreal forests are warming and drying from climate change, but they still hold places that can offer refuge for plants and animals, according to University of Alberta scientists who have taken the lead in creating a guide to identify those areas. The information about these sheltered places known as climate-change refugia—including large lakes,…
By USGS 4/3/2020 Millions of people rely on the Potomac River for drinking water and recreational opportunities. The Potomac is Maryland’s most popular freshwater fishing destination, and the second largest river that enters the Chesapeake Bay. Restoring fisheries is also an important goal for the Chesapeake Bay Partnership restoration efforts. The USGS worked with Maryland Department of Natural Resources (MD DNR)…
By University of Córdoba 4/21/2020 An international study, in which the University of Cordoba participated, assessed the influence of charisma in the handling of invasive species and concluded that the perception people have of them can hinder our control over these species and condition their spread Charisma can launch professional success and improve leadership skills. It can make a difference…
by Rutgers University 5/14/20 Oyster farming as currently practiced along the Delaware Bayshore does not significantly impact four shorebirds, including the federally threatened red knot, which migrates thousands of miles from Chile annually, according to a Rutgers-led study. The findings, published in the journal Ecosphere, likely apply to other areas around the country including the West Coast and Gulf Coast, where oyster aquaculture…
By The National Audubon Society In the first peer-reviewed study of its kind, participants in Audubon’s Climate Watch program helped determine the ongoing impact of climate change to bluebirds and nuthatches. NEW YORK — Today, the journal Ecological Applications published a final version of a study from National Audubon Society scientists demonstrating that climate change is causing a measurable shift of birds’ ranges…
By Pennsylvania State University 4/28/2020 UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Trees, shrubs and woody vines are among the top food sources for honey bees in urban environments, according to an international team of researchers. By using honey bees housed in rooftop apiaries in Philadelphia, the researchers identified the plant species from which the honey bees collected most of their food, and…
By Rutgers University Julie Lockwood, chair and professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, was elected a 2020 fellow of the Ecological Society of America (ESA). The society’s fellowship program recognizes the many ways in which its members contribute to ecological research and discovery, communication, education and pedagogy, and management and policy. Lockwood’s research is helping to…
By University of Bonn (Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) 4/24/2020 Just a few weeks ago, everyone was talking about plummeting insect numbers. Academic discourse focused on three main causes: the destruction of habitats, pesticides in agriculture and the decline of food plants for insects. A team of researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest,…
By Eawag – Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology 4/21/2020 In Lake Constance, Eawag scientists have tracked down a charr species thought to have gone extinct – a surprising rediscovery raising numerous questions. The deepwater charr Salvelinus profundus is a small, pale fish endemic to Lake Constance. With its large eyes and overbite, it is well adapted to life in…
By University of Victoria 4/24/2020 Higher water temperatures linked to climate change slashed a Pacific Ocean coral reef fish community by half, according to a new study led by University of Victoria biologists that is one of the first studies to assess the direct impact of heat stress on reef fish. “The devastating effects of climate change on corals…
By Sarah Farmer, USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station 4/2/2020 With its symbiotic bacteria, black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia) makes its own nitrogen fertilizer – and can share it with other tree species. “In early successional temperate forests, symbiotic nitrogen fixation is often the main source of new nitrogen,” says USDA Forest Service scientist Chelcy Miniat. But drought could slow the rate of symbiotic nitrogen fixation,…