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Some Tough Corals Withstand Climate Change

In a future shaped by climate change, only the strong – or heat-resistant – will survive. A study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences opens a window into a genetic process that allows some corals to withstand unusually high temperatures and may hold a key to species survival for organisms around the world.

10 Jan 2013

Berkeley Lab Researchers Find New Way to Explore Permafrost Soils

What does pulling a radar-equipped sled across the Arctic tundra have to do with improving our understanding of climate change? It’s part of a new way to explore the little-known world of permafrost soils, which store almost as much carbon as the rest of the world’s soils and about twice as much as is in the atmosphere.

4 Jan 2013

Global Jellyfish Populations Undergo Concurrent Fluctuations

Scientists have cast doubt on the widely held perception that there has been a global increase in jellyfish.

3 Jan 2013

Birds Moving to High Latitude, High Elevation Regions Due to Climate Change

A recent study used bird watching records to build up the first bird watching database in China, which found a batch of new records of national level and a trend of of species moving to higher latitude and higher elevation regions.

2 Jan 2013

Climate Warming Causes Tree-Killing Bark Beetles to Attack High-Elevation Pine Forests

Trees and the insects that eat them wage constant war. Insects burrow and munch; trees deploy lethal and disruptive defenses in the form of chemicals.

2 Jan 2013

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Awards WHOI $5.2M for Marine Microbiology Research

There are more microbes in a bucket of seawater than there are people on Earth. Despite their abundance, humans are only just beginning to fathom the complex role marine microbes play in the ocean ecosystem.

28 Dec 2012

Microbial Communities Critical for the Ecosystem Suffer due to Amazon Deforestation

Research from an international team of microbiologists, including the University of Oregon's Brendan Bohannan, has revealed a new concern about deforestation in the Amazon rainforest — a troubling net loss in the diversity among the microbial organisms responsible for a functioning ecosystem.

26 Dec 2012

Plant, Animal Species Shift Geographic Ranges Due to Climate Change

Plant and animal species are shifting their geographic ranges and the timing of their life events – such as flowering, laying eggs or migrating – at faster rates than researchers documented just a few years ago, according to a technical report on biodiversity and ecosystems used as scientific input for the 2013 Third National Climate Assessment.

19 Dec 2012

Researchers Develop Comprehensive Map of Great Lakes’ Environmental Stressors

A comprehensive map three years in the making is telling the story of humans’ impact on the Great Lakes, identifying how “environmental stressors” stretching from Minnesota to Ontario are shaping the future of an ecosystem that contains 20 percent of the world’s fresh water.

18 Dec 2012

Five-Tiered Testing System to Ensure Products are Free of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals

A group of scientists from North America and Europe, including Carnegie Mellon University's Terry Collins, has developed a five-tiered testing system that manufacturers can use to ensure that the chemicals and consumer products they produce are free of harmful endocrine disrupting chemicals like BPA or DDT.

11 Dec 2012