Category: Ecosystems
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Reforestation Success? The right tree in the right spot
While scale is important for landscape restoration, we need to reconsider quality and not just quantity. When does the presence of a tree really make a difference, and when is it neither an environmental or economical solution to a host of complex issues? What are the implications for food security, biodiversity and landscape protection?
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Deer Proven Good For Forest Biodiversity (Yet Again)
A decades-long study of national parks in Ireland has found that grazing deer in oak woodlands is actually good for diversity and helps prevent some plants from taking over the valuable ecosystem.
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A Century Needed To Recreate Biodiversity On Old Farm Sites
Old chalk grasslands that have been disturbed by farming can take more than a hundred years to recover their full diversity of plants, new research shows.
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Who Built The Mysterious Mima mounds? Could it be… PLANTS???
The plants don’t directly form the mounds, but they affect waterborne and windborne soil deposition and erosion, which can lead to mound formation
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Fish Are Made Of Forests, And Forests Are Disappearing
We found fish that had almost 70% of their biomass made from carbon that came from trees and leaves instead of aquatic food chain sources
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Forest Fire, 66-million years ago, yields new information
Scientists have recently discovered evidence of a 66-million-year-old wildfire in Saskatchewan, Canada, at a time when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth. For the first time, the research group discovered fossilized plant life that points to a prehistoric forest fire, providing scientists with clues about Earth’s ancient climate.
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Forests may play bigger role in rainfall than estimated
A recent study showed that winds travelling through forests typically produce more than twice as much rain as those that blow over open land, leading to predictions from scientists that by 2050, the tropics could see a 12 percent and 21 percent decline in wet and dry season precipitation, respectively.
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Not All Deforestation The Same When It Comes To Climate Change
A new study finds that tree removal has far greater consequences for climate change in some soils than in others, a finding that could provide key insights into which ecosystems should be managed with extra care.
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Has The Reintroduction Of Wolves Really Saved Yellowstone?
We now know that elk are tougher, and Yellowstone more complex, than we gave them credit for. By retelling the same old story about Yellowstone wolves, we distract attention from bigger problems, mislead ourselves about the true challenges of managing ecosystems, and add to the mythology surrounding wolves at the expense of scientific understanding.
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Giving up unhealthy sugar? Then feed it to your plants
if you want to brighten up some dull grassland by sowing wildflowers, adding sugar gives them a fighting chance; without it, they will probably fail.