Category: Ecosystems
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Fairy Circle Mystery Finally Explained?
Fairy circles, mysterious barren patches once known only in Namibia, have been discovered in Australia. And the discovery might help resolve the controversy over why fairy circles exist. (Click on title for full story.)
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Why Are Tropical Forests So Diverse? Look To The Soil Fungi
The types of beneficial fungi that associate with tree roots can alter the fate of a patch of tropical forest, boosting plant diversity or, conversely, giving one tree species a distinct advantage over many others, researchers report. (Click on title or image for full story.)
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Documenting The Disappearance Of Unique Plant Communities
They learned that between the second and third surveys, the disappearance of species tripled while the appearance of new species not indigenous to prairies had doubled when compared to the years between the first and second survey. Some sites, the research team found, had fewer than 18 percent of the species documented in the 1950s survey, and some were now made up of more than 60 percent non-native species. (Click on title or image for full story.)
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Seagrass, Vital To Slow Climate Change, Destroyed By Human Development
In Australia more than 80 per cent of the population lives along the coast and that’s placed enormous stress on our coastal marine ecosystems, particularly from extensive land clearing, agriculture and coastal development. (Click on title or image for full story.)
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How Invasive Plant Threw An Ecosystem Off Balance
Unfortunately goldenrod produces nectar later in the season than native plants, which apparently forces the ants to travel further and use more energy to search for food. Why does that matter? For one thing, ants play a pretty important role in the ecosystem. (Click on title or image for full story)
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Extinction Of Large Fruit Eating Animals Worsens Climate Change
Removing large animals from the ecosystem upsets the natural balance and leads to a loss of heavy-wooded large trees, which means that less CO2 can be locked away. (Click on image or title for full story.)
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The Worst Contemporary Ecological Disaster Is All About Profit
We are witnessing the worst manmade environmental disaster since the BP gulf oil spill. Huge, out-of-control fires rage through the forests of Indonesia – and the source of many is the practice of deliberately burning the land to clear it for palm oil and paper products. (Click image or title for full story)
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Is Your Pesto Endangering Rare Wildlife?
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a majority of pine nuts imported into the United States come from the Korean pine tree, a keystone species found primarily in the southern parts of the Russian far east. The temperate rain forest of this wild corner of Russia represents a mere 1 percent of the country’s territory yet contains about a quarter of its endangered vertebrate species.
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Bark Beetles, Forest Fires And Political Shenanigans
We’ve all seen the sensational headlines: according to the U.S. Forest Service, bark beetles, spurred on by the drought, have killed 25 million trees in California’s forests this year, greatly increasing the spread and intensity of recent fires. What we haven’t seen is a critical assessment of these claims. Are bark beetles really increasing fire intensity? Are they really threatening the ecological health of our forests?
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How Recreational Fishing Is Killing Cape Cod Salt Marshes
Recreational fishing is a major contributor to the rapid decline of important salt marshes along Cape Cod because it strips top predators such as striped bass, blue crabs, and smooth dogfish out of the ecosystem, according to new research by Brown University ecologists.