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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Geoscience: Geology
Published The key to why plants flower early in a warming world
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have unveiled a new mechanism that plants use to sense temperature. This finding could lead to solutions to counteract some of the deleterious changes in plant growth, flowering and seed production due to climate change.
Published Developer dollars not enough to save species
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Financial payments made by land developers to offset their impacts on threatened species may fall short, according to new research.
Published Roots are capable of measuring heat on their own
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Plant roots have their own thermometer to measure the temperature of the soil around them and they adjust their growth accordingly. Through extensive experiments, a team was able to demonstrate that roots have their own temperature sensing and response system. In a new study, the scientists also provide a new explanation for how roots themselves detect and react to higher temperatures. The results could help develop new approaches for plant breeding.
Published Conservation in Indonesia is at risk, a team of researchers who study the region argues
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Indonesia, home to the largest tropical rainforest in Southeast Asia and over 17,500 islands, is a country packed with biodiversity and endangered species. However, scientists studying the region's species and ecosystems are getting banned from Indonesia, and conservation plans are being blocked. A team of conservation researchers with long-term experience in Indonesia discuss scientific suppression and other research challenges they have witnessed while working in the region. They offer suggestions for how to promote nature conservation, protect data transparency, and share research with the public in this and other regions of the world.
Published Madagascar hippos were forest dwellers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Extinct dwarf hippos that once roamed Madagascar lived in forests rather than open grasslands preferred by common hippos on mainland Africa. The findings suggest grasslands that now cover much of the enormous island off the eastern coast of southern Africa were a relatively recent change facilitated by people rather than a natural habitat sustained in part by these famously large vegetarians.
Published Queensland native forestry can help achieve global environment goals
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Research has revealed that Queensland native forestry, including timber harvesting, could actually help conserve biodiversity and mitigate climate risks.
Published Why there are no kangaroos in Bali (and no tigers in Australia)
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers are using a new model to clarify why millions of years ago more animal species from Asia made the leap to the Australian continent than vice versa. The climate in which the species evolved played an important role.
Published Why the day is 24 hours long: Astrophysicists reveal why Earth's day was a constant 19.5 hours for over a billion years
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Astrophysicists have revealed how the slow and steady lengthening of Earth's day caused by the tidal pull of the moon was halted for over a billion years. They show that from approximately two billion years ago until 600 million years ago, an atmospheric tide driven by the sun countered the effect of the moon, keeping Earth's rotational rate steady and the length of day at a constant 19.5 hours. Without this billion-year pause in the slowing of our planet's rotation, our current 24-hour day would stretch to over 60 hours. The paper offers a new perspective on how global warming will affect the length of our day and validates global circulation models as a climate modelling tool.
Published Earth's Inner Core: Earth's solid metal sphere is 'textured'
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists used seismic data discovered Earth's inner core displays a variety of textures that it acquired will it formed from within the fluid outer core. The data set was generated over the past 27 years by a network of seismometers set up to enforce the nuclear test ban treaty.
Published World's most threatened seabirds visit remote plastic pollution hotspots
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Analysis of global tracking data for 77 species of petrel has revealed that a quarter of all plastics potentially encountered in their search for food are in remote international waters -- requiring international collaboration to address.
Published Water storage capacity in oceanic crust slabs increases with age, researchers find
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source An international research team has discovered that a subduction zone's age affects the ability for it to recycle water between the Earth's surface and its inner layers. The more mature the subduction zone, the bigger the water storage capacity.
Published Amazon dolphins at risk from fishing, dams and dredging
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Amazon river dolphins are under threat from fishing and proposed new dams and dredging, research shows.
Published Estimating the long-term effects of whale shark feeding practices
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Increasing opportunities for up-close encounters with sharks and other animals are making wildlife tourism one of the fastest growing tourism sectors -- leading ecology experts to venture to one of the world's main sites to investigate the effects of tourism on endangered whale sharks. At Oslob in the Philippines, Flinders University's Southern Shark Ecology Group and Global Ecology Lab joined local Filipino researchers to measure how the daily feeding regimes for resident whale shark population might have affected their behaviour and physiology by assessing their activity and metabolic requirements.
Published Research reveals sources of CO2 from Aleutian-Alaska Arc volcanoes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have wondered what happens to the organic and inorganic carbon that Earth's Pacific Plate carries with it as it slides into the planet's interior along the volcano-studded Ring of Fire. A new study suggests a notable amount of such subducted carbon returns to the atmosphere rather than traveling deep into Earth's mantle.
Published Climate change will increase impacts of volcanic eruptions
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Volcanic disasters have been studied since Pompeii was buried in 79 A.D., leading the public to believe that scientists already know why, where, when and how long volcanoes will erupt. But a volcanologist said these fundamental questions remain a mystery.
Published Researchers unearth the mysteries of how Turkey's East Anatolian fault formed
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source An international team has, for the first time, accurately determined the age of the East Anatolian fault, allowing geologists to learn more about its seismic history and tendency to produce earthquakes.
Published What are the characteristics of foreshocks for large earthquakes?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Seismologists agree that foreshocks are the most widely identified signal of an upcoming mainshock earthquake. But do these foreshock sequences have distinctive characteristics that separate them from aftershock sequences, and could these characteristics be used to help forecast mainshocks?
Published European bird communities move to cooler areas, but mountain ranges and coastlines 'control the traffic'
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A recent study shows that European bird communities have shifted northeastward in the past 30 years. These shifts are faced with obstacles such as mountain ranges and coastlines. Overall, bird communities are moving towards cooler areas but not fast enough to keep up with increasing temperatures.
Published Humans' ancestors survived the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A Cretaceous origin for placental mammals, the group that includes humans, dogs and bats, has been revealed by in-depth analysis of the fossil record, showing they co-existed with dinosaurs for a short time before the dinosaurs went extinct.
Published Research in a place where geological processes happen before your eyes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Taiwan experiences some of the world's fastest rates of mountain building -- they are growing at a faster rate than our fingernails grow in a year. The mountains also see frequent and significant earthquakes, the region experiences about four typhoons per year on average, and in some places, it receives upwards of several meters of rain annually.