New Insights into Ecosystem Functions

The mastermind behind the new statistical method: mathematician and statistician Anne Chao from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan. Here she is in the university forest of the University of Würzburg on an experimental test plot.
Photo Credit: Simon Thorn/JMU

A DFG research group led by the University of Würzburg has developed a method that makes it possible to analyze the relationship between biodiversity within and between ecosystems and the multifunctionality of entire landscapes.

Ecosystems fulfil a number of vital tasks: They store carbon, clean polluted water, pollinate plants and so on. How well an ecosystem can fulfil these tasks depends largely on its biodiversity, i.e. the variety of plants, animals and microorganisms that live in it. Until now, scientists have only been able to understand the exact nature of this relationship at a local level, for example in relation to individual forest areas, meadows and ponds. The DFG (German Research Foundation) research group BETA-FOR, led by the University of Würzburg (JMU), has now succeeded in developing a statistical method that for the first time can also analyze the contributions of biodiversity between local ecosystems to the multifunctionality of entire landscapes.

Aquatic Insects in Restored Streams Need More Rocks to Lay Their Eggs

A caddisfly egg mass sits on the underside of a protruding rock.
Photo Credit: Brad Taylor, NC State University.

Likening it to providing more runways at busy airports, researchers at North Carolina State University found in a new study that adding protruding rocks to restored streams can help attract female aquatic insects that lay their eggs on the rock bottoms or sides.

More eggs that hatch into larval insects is great news for stream restoration because the re-establishment of organisms, such as insects, is often slower than expected in restored streams, says Brad Taylor, associate professor of applied ecology at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the research. A thriving population of stream insects generally portends good water quality, overall stream health, and provides food for fish, amphibians, reptiles, and even birds, he adds.

Most stream insects use rocks protruding above the water as runways to land on, then crawl underwater and attach their eggs to the underside of the rocks. Because restored streams sometimes fail to regain their abundance of aquatic insects even decades following restoration, researchers were interested in testing whether increasing egg-laying habitat the rock landing areas would increase the abundance and diversity of insect eggs and larvae.

Taylor and NC State graduate student Samantha Dilworth selected 10 restored streams in northwestern North Carolina and added protruding rocks gathered near the streams to five of them; the other five restored streams did not receive additional rocks.

Cutting-edge Biodiversity Models Will Help Assess Nature's Vital Contributions to People

Photo Credit: Pixabay

People depend on nature in a multitude of ways. Crop pollination, pest management, storm buffering, and carbon capturing are all part of nature's contributions to people (NCP). But these contributions are subject to change - species that make vital contributions may migrate or even go extinct due to climate change or habitat loss. Forecasting these changes is challenging, but also essential to ensure that humans are adequately prepared to respond.

Part of what makes this so challenging is that current NCP estimates typically rely on data incorporating the physical environment and omit information on species. Given that biodiversity is a cornerstone of NCP, many scientists recognize that biodiversity information can help us better assess the current and future state of NCP.

In a new opinion paper published in Trends in Ecology and Evolution, lead author Jamie M. Kass, associate professor and head of the Macroecology Lab at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Life Sciences, and an international team of colleagues argue that recent advances in biodiversity modeling and mapping have great potential for improving NCP estimates.

Shedding Light on the Synthesis of Sugars Before the Origin of Life

A recent study reveals that aldonates found in the Murchison meteorite can lead to the generation of pentoses via a non enzymatic process. A new study provides clues about primitive biochemistry and bring us closer to understanding the Origins of Life.
Illustration Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab.

Pentoses are essential carbohydrates in the metabolism of modern lifeforms, but their availability during early Earth is unclear since these molecules are unstable. A new study led by the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, reveals a chemical pathway compatible with early Earth conditions and by which C6 aldonates could have acted as a source of pentoses without the need for enzymes. Their findings provide clues about primitive biochemistry and bring us closer to understanding the Origins of Life.

The emergence of life on Earth from simple chemicals is one of the most exciting yet challenging topics in biochemistry and perhaps all of science. Modern lifeforms can transform nutrients into all sorts of compounds through complex chemical networks; what's more, they can catalyze very specific transformations using enzymes, achieving a very fine control over what molecules are produced. However, enzymes did not exist before life emerged and became more sophisticated. Thus, it is likely that various nonenzymatic chemical networks existed at an earlier point in Earth's history, which could convert environmental nutrients into compounds that supported primitive cell-like functions.

Experts predict ‘catastrophic ecosystem collapse’ of UK forests within the next 50 years if action not taken

Photo Credit: Greg Larcombe

A team of experts from across Europe has produced a list of 15 overlooked and emerging issues that are likely to have a significant impact on UK forests over the next 50 years.

This is the first ‘horizon scanning’ exercise – a technique to identify relatively unknown threats, opportunities, and new trends – of UK forests. The aim is to help researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and society in general, better prepare for the future and address threats before they become critical.

Dr Eleanor Tew, first author, visiting researcher at Cambridge’s Department of Zoology and Head of Forest Planning at Forestry England said: “The next 50 years will bring huge changes to UK forests: the threats they face, the way that we manage them, and the benefits they deliver to society.”

Forestry England, a part of the Forestry Commission, collaborated with the University of Cambridge on the study, which was published today in the journal, Forestry.

TUM makes first daily current measurements of changes in the earth's rotation

The ring laser in Wettzell has been continuously improved since its commissioning.
Photo Credit: Astrid Eckert / TUM 

Researchers at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have succeeded in measuring the earth's rotation more exactly than ever before. The ring laser at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell can now be used to capture data at a quality level unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The measurements will be used in determining the earth's position in space, will benefit climate research and will make climate models more reliable.

Care to take a quick step down to the basement and see how fast the earth has been turning in the last few hours? Now you can at the Geodetic Observatory Wettzell. TUM researchers have improved the ring laser there so that it can provide daily current data, which until now has not been possible at comparable quality levels.

What exactly does the ring laser measure? On its journey through space the earth rotates on its axis at slightly varying speeds. In addition, the axis around which the planet spins is not completely static, it wobbles a bit. This is because our planet is not completely solid, but is made up of various component parts, some solid, some liquid. So, the insides of the earth itself are constantly in motion. These shifts in mass accelerate or brake the planet's rotation, differences which can be detected using measurement systems like the TUM ring laser.

Why do climate models underestimate polar warming? ‘Invisible clouds’ could be the answer

Polar stratospheric clouds, also called nacreous or mother-of-pearl clouds, are not normally visible to the naked eye.
Photo Credit: Alan Light
(CC BY 4.0 DEED)

Stratospheric clouds over the Arctic may explain the differences seen between the polar warming calculated by climate models and actual recordings, find researchers from UNSW Sydney.  

The Earth’s average surface temperature has increased drastically since the start of the Industrial Revolution, but the warming effect seen at the poles is even more exaggerated. While existing climate models consider the increased heating in the Arctic and Antarctic poles, they often still underestimate the warming in these regions. This is especially true for climates millions of years ago, when greenhouse gas concentrations were very high. 

This is a problem because future climate projections are generated with these same models: if they do not produce enough warming for the past, we might underestimate polar warming – and therefore the associated risks, such as ice sheet or permafrost melting – for the future. 

This missing information caught the attention of scientists from the UNSW Climate Change Research Centre. 

How Mega-Floods can be Predicted

Flooding in Germany 2021
Photo Credit: Martin Seifert
Public Domain

When floods are predicted only on the basis of local data, there may be unpleasant surprises. A new method makes it possible to significantly improve predictions - using international data from hydrologically similar areas.

What can we expect in the worst-case scenario? In regions with a high risk of flooding, this is an important question: what extreme events should the protective measures be designed for? Often this is answered simply by looking at history: The worst flood events of the past decades or centuries are regarded as a realistic upper limit for what can be expected in the future.

However, this can be misleading, as so-called "mega-floods" have shown in recent years. Time and again, extreme flood events occur, extraordinary outliers that were not considered possible on the basis of local data. However, a major research project carried out under the leadership of TU Wien (Vienna) has now been able to demonstrate: If one considers the entire European continent, these local surprises are no longer surprising at all. If data from other regions with similar hydrological conditions is taken into account, the extent of these "mega-floods" suddenly becomes predictable. This has drastic consequences for the way in which flood protection must be dimensioned. The results have now been presented in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The kids aren't alright: Saplings reveal how changing climate may undermine forests

A University of Arizona-led experiment exposed different species of trees to heat and drought to study how young trees respond to climate change. After 20 weeks of drought and a one-week heat wave, this Douglas fir sapling was dry and brittle.
Photo Credit: Alexandra Lalor

UArizona researchers studied how young trees respond to a hotter, drier climate. Their findings can help shape forest management policy and our understanding of how landscapes will change.

A University of Arizona-led experiment exposed different species of trees to heat and drought to study how young trees respond to climate change. After 20 weeks of drought and a one-week heat wave, this Douglas fir sapling was dry and brittle. Alexandra Lalor

As climate scientist Don Falk was hiking through a forest, the old, green pines stretched overhead. But he had the feeling that something was missing. Then his eyes found it: a seedling, brittle and brown, overlooked because of its lifelessness. Once Falk's eyes found one, the others quickly fell into his awareness. An entire generation of young trees had died.

Falk – a professor in the UArizona School of Natural Resources and the Environment, with joint appointments in the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research and the Arizona Institute for Resilience – refers to this large-scale die-off of the younger generation of trees as a recruitment failure. This is particularly devastating for a population of trees because the youngest are essential for forest recovery following massive die-off events, such as severe wildfires and insect outbreaks, both of which will become more frequent as the climate continues to change, he said.

Warmer, wetter winters bring risks to river insects

Professor Steve Ormerod, School of Biosciences
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Cardiff University

Research by Cardiff University has shown that the warmer, wetter winters in the UK caused by climate change are likely to impact the stability of insect populations in streams.

The research, spanning four decades, has demonstrated that stream insects are affected by warmer, wetter winters caused by fluctuating climate over the Atlantic Ocean. The consequences are felt by insect populations even in the smallest Welsh river sources.

“UK winters are becoming warmer and wetter on average, and we wanted to understand how this might impact our rivers. Streams and rivers are profoundly affected by climate through changes in global air temperatures and precipitation which affect flow patterns and water temperature.

“Over the years, we’ve noticed increasingly that changes in our rivers also track global climatic patterns over the Atlantic and these provide important clues about climate change” said Professor Steve Ormerod, the Water Research Institute at Cardiff University.

The fascinating relationship between mice and a plant that flowers once a century in terms of seed dispersal

Researchers revealed unexpected dispersal behavior of field mice, which influences the forest ecosystem.
Illustration Credit: Reiko Matsushita

Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan have revealed new insights into the interaction between mast seeding plants and the animals that eat their seeds. Hanami Suzuki and Professor Hisashi Kajimura examined the behavior of field mice using seeds from once-in-a-century flowering sasa bamboo plants in central Japan.

The researchers found that the seed use patterns of field mice differed by species (large Japanese field mouse Apodemus speciosus and small Japanese field mouse A. argenteus), the presence or absence of understory vegetation, forest tree species (broadleaf forest or coniferous forest), and season (summer or fall). Their findings underscore the importance of understanding the needs of both plants and animals to ensure the health of local ecosystems. They also overturn a previously held belief about how mice store seeds. 

Dwarf bamboo (Sasa borealis) exhibits masting behavior in wide areas. Masting behavior means a plant collectively flowers and seeds at regular intervals to overwhelm predators and maximize pollination rates. Masting events are rare, however, with intervals up to 120 years. But when they occur, the resulting abundance of seeds in the forest provides easily available food for various animals, especially rodents such as field mice.  

Study links changes in global water cycle to higher temperatures

Over last 2,000 years, rising and falling temperatures have altered the way water moves around the planet
Photo Credit: Giulia Veneziano

It’s a multibillion-dollar question: What will happen to water as temperatures continue to rise? There will be winners and losers with any change that redistributes where, when and how much water is available for humans to drink and use.

To find answers and make informed predictions, scientists look to the past. Reconstructions of past climate change using geologic data have helped to show the far-reaching influence of human activity on temperatures since the industrial age. But assembling hydroclimate records for the same timeframe has proved to be much harder.

A study from the Past Global Changes (PAGES) Iso2k project team, led by Bronwen Konecky at Washington University in St. Louis, takes an important step toward reconstructing a global history of water over the past 2,000 years. Using geologic and biologic evidence preserved in natural archives — including 759 different paleoclimate records from globally distributed corals, trees, ice, cave formations and sediments — the researchers showed that the global water cycle has changed during periods of higher and lower temperatures in the recent past.

Jurassic worlds might be easier to spot than modern Earth

Modeling by Cornell astronomers finds that telescopes could more easily detect an exoplanet with higher levels of atmospheric oxygen than modern Earth, as existed during the dinosaur age.
Illustration Credit: Rebecca Payne/Carl Sagan Institute

Might a tyrannosaur roam on Trappist-1e, a protoceratops on Proxima Centauri b, or a quetzalcoatlus on Kepler 1047c?

Things may not have ended well for dinosaurs on Earth, but Cornell astronomers say the “light fingerprint” of the conditions that enabled them to emerge here – including abundant atmospheric oxygen – provides a crucial missing piece in our search for signs of life on planets orbiting other stars.

Modeling by Cornell astronomers finds that telescopes could more easily detect an exoplanet with higher levels of atmospheric oxygen than modern Earth, as existed during the dinosaur age.

Their analysis of the most recent 540 million years of Earth’s evolution, known as the Phanerozoic Eon, finds that telescopes could better detect potential chemical signatures of life in the atmosphere of an Earth-like exoplanet more closely resembling the age the dinosaurs inhabited than the one we know today.

Two key biosignature pairs – oxygen and methane, and ozone and methane – appeared stronger in models of Earth roughly 100 million to 300 million years ago, when oxygen levels were significantly higher. The models simulated the transmission spectra, or light fingerprint, generated by an atmosphere that absorbs some colors of starlight and lets others filter through, information scientists use to determine the atmosphere’s composition.

The Remains of an Ancient Planet Lie Deep Within Earth

Video Credit: California Institute of Technology

In the 1980s, geophysicists made a startling discovery: two continent-sized blobs of unusual material were found deep near the center of the Earth, one beneath the African continent and one beneath the Pacific Ocean. Each blob is twice the size of the Moon and likely composed of different proportions of elements than the mantle surrounding it.

Where did these strange blobs—formally known as large low-velocity provinces (LLVPs)—come from? A new study led by Caltech researchers suggests that they are remnants of an ancient planet that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago in the same giant impact that created our Moon.

The study, published in the journal Nature on November 1, also proposes an answer to another planetary science mystery. Researchers have long hypothesized that the Moon was created in the aftermath of a giant impact between Earth and a smaller planet dubbed Theia, but no trace of Theia has ever been found in the asteroid belt or in meteorites. This new study suggests that most of Theia was absorbed into the young Earth, forming the LLVPs, while residual debris from the impact coalesced into the Moon.

New study: Deep-sea pressure preserves food for microbes in the abyss

A flake of marine snow from the experiment.
Photo Credit: © Peter Stief/SDU

A new study from the Danish Center for Hadal Research reports on a series of experiments with exposing marine snow to increasing pressure - up to 1000 bar, which corresponds to the pressure at the bottom of some of the world's deep-sea trenches, 10 km below the sea surface.

Marine snow is millimeter-sized flakes, created when sticky, dead cells at the sea surface clump together with other dead or dying cells, particles and bacteria and sink to the bottom. The organic material can be dead algae, dead small animals, or their feces. Together, it is called marine snow because the flakes look like snow as they sink through the water column. There can be hundreds of different bacteria in one flake in addition to particles of organic matter.

"Not much is known about how marine snow responds to the increasing pressure when it sinks. But it is known that marine snow is food for an enormous number of microbes and small animals on the seabed. In fact, there are more microbes in the part of the ocean that lies at or below 1000 meters depth than anywhere else on Earth. This habitat is extremely large, and there can be a long distance between the microbes down there, but nevertheless a huge number of Earth's organisms thrive under high pressure, and we don't know how", says biologist Peter Stief, who is the lead author of the study.

Ocean warming is accelerating, and hotspots reveal which areas are absorbing the most heat

The Southern Ocean (Antarctic Ocean) saw the largest increase in heat storage over the past two decades.

A new study reveals increasing warming rates in the world’s oceans in recent decades and the locations with the greatest heat uptake.

Ocean warming has accelerated dramatically since the 1990s, nearly doubling during 2010–2020 relative to 1990–2000, according to new UNSW Sydney-led research.

The study, published this week in Nature Communications, also shows some areas of the ocean are doing more of the work in heat uptake or absorption, which has implications for our understanding of sea-level rise and climate impacts.

Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activity traps heat within the climate system, warming air, the land surface, the oceans, and melting polar ice. Oceans do by far the most work, absorbing more than 90 per cent of the excess human-generated heat accumulated in the Earth’s climate system, moderating atmospheric temperature rises.

Amazon deforestation linked to long distance climate warming

Amazon Forest seen from the Amazon Tall Tower Observatory, a scientific research facility in the Amazon rainforest of Brazil. 
Photo Credit Dr Jess Baker, University of Leeds.

Deforestation in the Amazon causes land surfaces up to 100 kilometers away to get warmer, according to a new study.

The research, by a team of British and Brazilian scientists, led by Dr Edward Butt at the University of Leeds, suggests that tropical forests play a critical role in cooling the land surface - and that effect can play out over considerable distances. 

It is known that when tropical forests are cleared, the climate in the immediate vicinity gets warmer.  

In this latest study, the researchers wanted to know if deforestation in the Amazon was resulting in climate warming further afield, and the study examined the impact of forest loss on sites up to 100 kilometers away. 

The importance of the Earth's atmosphere in creating the large storms that affect satellite communications

Illustration Credit: ERG Science Team

A study from an international team led by researchers from Nagoya University in Japan and the University of New Hampshire in the United States has revealed the importance of the Earth’s upper atmosphere in determining how large geomagnetic storms develop. Their findings reveal the previously underestimated importance of the Earth’s atmosphere. Understanding the factors that cause geomagnetic storms is important because they can have a direct impact on the Earth’s magnetic field such as causing unwanted currents in the power grid and disrupting radio signals and GPS. This research may help predict the storms that will have the greatest consequences. 

Scientists have long known that geomagnetic storms are associated with the activities of the Sun. Hot charged particles make up the Sun's outer layer, the one visible to us. These particles flow out of the Sun creating the ‘solar wind’, and interact with objects in space, such as the Earth. When the particles reach the magnetic field surrounding our planet, known as the magnetosphere, they interact with it. The interactions between the charged particles and magnetic fields lead to space weather, the conditions in space that can affect the Earth and technological systems such as satellites.  

Window to avoid 1.5°C of warming rapidly closing

Photo Credit: Patrick Hendry / altered by Scientific Frontline

Humanity is rapidly reaching the limit for how much additional carbon can be emitted into the atmosphere to keep global warming within 1.5 °C, according to new research.

If emissions stay at current day levels, what is known as the "remaining carbon budget" will be exhausted before the end of the decade. 

Dr Chris Smith, climate modeler and a research fellow in the School of Earth and Environment at Leeds, co-authored the study.  He said: “This study gives the most updated measure of how much more carbon dioxide humanity can continue to put into the atmosphere to give us a fifty per cent chance of staying within the 1.5 °C threshold agreed at international climate talks.  

"If we continue to emit carbon dioxide at current levels, we will exhaust that remaining 1.5°C carbon budget in just six years.   

“This is not to say that we only have ‘six years to save the planet’, because 1.5°C is not a hard boundary of when climate change will suddenly become much worse. However, damages, risks and the likelihood of exceeding physical and ecological tipping points increase sharply with continued warming.  

Meltwater Flowing Beneath Antarctic Glaciers May Be Accelerating Their Retreat

An aerial view of the Denman Glacier ice tongue in East Antarctica.
Photo Credit: Jamin S. Greenbaum

A new Antarctic ice sheet modeling study from scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggests that meltwater flowing out to sea from beneath Antarctic glaciers is making them lose ice faster. 

The model’s simulations suggest this effect is large enough to make a meaningful contribution to global sea-level rise under high greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. 

The extra ice loss caused by this meltwater flowing out to sea from beneath Antarctic glaciers is not currently accounted for in the models generating major sea-level rise projections, such as those of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). If this process turns out to be an important driver of ice loss across the entire Antarctic ice sheet, it could mean current projections underestimate the pace of global sea-level rise in decades to come.

“Knowing when and how much global sea-level will rise is critical to the welfare of coastal communities,” said Tyler Pelle, the study’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps. “Millions of people live in low-lying coastal zones and we can’t adequately prepare our communities without accurate sea-level rise projections.”