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Categories: Environmental: Ecosystems, Offbeat: Earth and Climate

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Researchers calculated that 74 metric tons of microplastics are dropping out of the atmosphere onto the city annually, the equivalent of more than 3 million plastic bottles falling from the sky.

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Wildlife researchers have completed a study that may settle the question of why, in October 2009, a group of coyotes launched an unprovoked fatal attack on a young woman who was hiking in a Canadian park. Researchers concluded that the coyotes were forced to rely on moose instead of smaller mammals for the bulk of their diet -- and as a result of adapting to that unusually large food source, perceived a lone hiker as potential prey.

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MIT researchers developed a scalable fabrication technique to produce ultrathin, flexible, durable, lightweight solar cells that can be stuck to any surface. Glued to high-strength fabric, the solar cells are only one-hundredth the weight of conventional cells while producing about 18 times more power-per-kilogram.

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An international collaboration of scientists has created the first inventory of flora introduced to the tropics, filling a knowledge gap about invasive plants in the tropics.

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New study finds very few deep reefs have any form of protection, and face a multitude of threats, set only to escalate in the near future. Deep reefs are found below 30m and have a larger geographic range than shallow reefs. Deep reefs are biological hotspots, essential for climate change resilience, ocean health and food security, and a refuge for ocean life threatened in shallow waters.

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The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile's Atacama Desert has inspired engineers at the University of California, Irvine to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars.

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European forest-dwelling bats require complex woodland structures at both the micro-habitat and the landscape level for successful breeding in summer. Particularly, the results from Kharkiv region (Eastern Ukraine) demonstrate that large stands of mature forests older than 90 years improved the breeding activity of bats, their abundance and overall species richness. Abundance and species richness increased from upland plots surrounded by agricultural lands to riverine or waterside plots with high forest cover.

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Kelp forests are one of the most diverse and productive natural ecosystems on the planet, but in the past 50 to 100 years significant swaths have been lost and many of the remaining systems show a declining trajectory.

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Researchers have been studying the effects of the sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred about 8,200 years ago, the so-called 8.2-kiloyear event, with the help of mineral deposits present in White Moon Cave in Northern California. New indications show that oscillations between extreme wetness and aridity in California were closely linked with the occurrence of wildfires. The researchers have concluded that such events are likely to become more common in the face of human-induced climate change.

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Reef corals provide an accurate, high-resolution record of the influence of the El Niño Southern Oscillation on rainfall, flooding and droughts in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam.

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Two-million-year-old DNA has been identified -- opening a 'game-changing' new chapter in the history of evolution. Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone. The ancient DNA has been used to map a two-million-year-old ecosystem which weathered extreme climate change.

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The ability of tropical forests to grow and store carbon is limited, in part, by herbivory. Insects and other animals prefer to feed on nitrogen-fixing trees, reducing the success of fixers and the nitrogen they provide. Experts now recommend accounting for herbivory constraints on nitrogen-fixing trees in climate models and projections of the tropical forest carbon sink.

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Devastating megafires are becoming more common, in part, because the planet is warming. But a new study suggests bringing 'good fire' back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today's wildfires.

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Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals. Fresh insights into dinosaurs' ecosystems -- the habitats and food types that supported their lives -- suggests that their environments were robust and thriving, right up until that fateful day, at the end of the Cretaceous period.

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New research highlights the risks of countries relying on nature-based solutions to achieve net-zero. National climate strategies set out how countries plan to reduce emissions, for example by phasing out fossil-fuel use, to get to net-zero in 2050. The study found, once the bulk of emissions have been reduced, countries plan to 'cancel out' the left-over difficult to decarbonise emissions, such as those from agriculture, by using forests and soils to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

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A new, low-cost staining method enables visual tracking of coral larvae as they disperse and settle in coral reefs, according to a study.

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New research, based on two decades' worth of data, shows that in the ten years after its onset in 2000, the Southwestern North American (SWNA) megadrought caused a 30% change in gravity wave activity in Earth's upper atmosphere.

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An almost limitless supply of fresh water exists in the form of water vapor above Earth's oceans, yet remains untapped, researchers said. A new study suggests an investment in new infrastructure capable of harvesting oceanic water vapor as a solution to limited supplies of fresh water in various locations around the world.

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Experimental physicists growing icicles are closer to understanding why some form with ripples up and down their outsides, while others form with smooth, slick, even surfaces. By growing icicles from water samples with different contaminants like sodium chloride (salt), dextrose (sugar) and fluorescent dye, they discovered that water impurities become entrapped within icicles as they form and subsequently create chevron patterns that contribute to a ripple effect around their circumferences.

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A forest's resilience, or ability to absorb environmental disturbances, has long been thought to be a boost for its odds of survival against the looming threat of climate change. But a new study suggests that for some Western U.S. forests, it's quite the opposite. The results of one of the first large-scale studies of its kind show that while high ecosystem resilience correlates with low mortality in eastern forests, it is linked to high mortality in western regions.