Category: Ecosystems
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Artificial Light Is Changing Ecosystems In Ways We Are Only Beginning To Study
Ecologists face challenges such as measuring light accurately and assessing how multiple species behave in response. But early results suggest that light at night is exerting pervasive, long-term stress on ecosystems, from coasts to farmland to urban waterways, many of which are already suffering from other, more well-known forms of pollution. (Click on title for full story.)
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Invasive Knotweed Actually Displaces Forests While Poison Ivy Preserves Them
“What we see in the data is that poison-ivy often trades understory dominance with knotweed. That is, when knotweed isn’t the big boss, poison-ivy usually is. The difference is that whereas knotweed knocks everyone else out of the system, poison-ivy is more of a team player. Many other native plants can co-occur with it and it even seems to create microhabitats that help tree seedlings get established.” (Clcikon title for full story.)
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What Makes Tropical Area A Rain Forest Instead Of A Savanna? Soil Depth Plays A Role.
If trees have access to a larger volume of soil, this promotes more wooded vegetation whereas shallower rooting, lower precipitation and fire promote less wooded, grass dominated vegetation zones. It’s all about water availability: Access to deeper soil layers typically increases the total amount of soil water available to plants which in turn favors tropical rainforest with its evergreen trees. It doesn’t stop there though, these interactions also alter plant communities composition and diversity. (Click on title for full story.)
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Case Study: How Removal Of One Invasive Shrub Species Resulted In A Riparian Rebirth
Our results indicate that management activities that result in removal of L. maackii, even within small reserves in otherwise heavily invaded forests, can have strong influences on the aquatic biota within headwater streams. (Click on title for full story.)
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Removing Invasive Plant Species Alone May Not Restore Native Plant Communities
Native plants need a helping hand if they are to recover from invasive rhododendron, Scottish ecologists have discovered. A new study in the Journal of Applied Ecology reveals that – even at sites cleared of rhododendron 30 years ago – much native flora has still not returned. As a result, rhododendron eradication programmes may need to be supplemented by reseeding for the original plant community to re-establish. (Click on title for full story.)
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How 1,000 Truckloads Of Orange Peels Turned Barren Land Into A Rich Carbon-Sequestering Forest
This story, which involves a contentious lawsuit, showcases the unique power of agricultural waste to not only regenerate a forest but also to sequester a significant amount of carbon at no cost. (Click on title for full story.)
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In The Amazon Rain Forest The Trees Help Make The Rain
The Amazon rainforest is home to strange weather. One peculiarity is that rains begin 2 to 3 months before seasonal winds start to bring in moist air from the ocean. Now, researchers say they have finally figured out where this early moisture comes from: the trees themselves. (Click on title for full story.)
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Algae That Survive In Deserts Hold Valuable Secrets
In the future, microalgae could be used to make an oil that represents an alternative to palm oil; this would reduce the demand for palm tree plantations, which pose a major threat to the natural environment. Moreover, understanding how microalgae can colonize a desert region will help us to understand the effects of climate change in the region. (Click on title for full story.)
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That Pristine Jungle? Humans Have Been Altering It For 45,000 Years
The first review of the global impact of humans on tropical forests in the ancient past shows that humans have been altering these environments for at least 45,000 years. This counters the view that tropical forests were pristine natural environments prior to modern agriculture and industrialization. The study found that humans have in fact been having a dramatic impact on such forest ecologies for tens of thousands of years, through techniques ranging from controlled burning of sections of forest to plant and animal management to clear-cutting. (Click on title for full story.)
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North America’s Song Birds At Greatest Risk From Central America’s Deforestation
The resulting analysis found that 21 species of eastern-flyway forest birds well known to U.S. birders—including Least Flycatchers, Tennessee Warblers, and Indigo Buntings—spend up to 200 days per year, on average, at their wintering grounds in Central America. And they really crammed into those southern forests: The migrants occurred in densities three times higher than at their summertime nesting areas. The researchers then modeled how changes in land-use (like converting forest to farmland or homes) and climate (like changes in temperature and rainfall) might affect both breeding and wintering areas by 2050. The computer models showed that, within 40 years, deforestation on wintering grounds will pose the greatest threat to these migratory species—even more so than habitat loss where they breed. (Click on title for full story.)