Tag: "forest" at biology news

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases

...s dirty when soot from tailpipes, smoke stacks and forest fires enters the atmosphere and falls to the groun... year, with higher temperatures in years with many forest fires. Greenhouse gases, which trap outgoing energy, are primarily responsible for the remaining tem...

The kapok connection -- Study explains rainforest similarities

...han a 16-story building, its head poking above the forest canopy. Its flowers produce more than 50 gallons of nectar per tree in a season, attracting bats that travel as far as 12 miles between trees and transfer pollen in the process. When the seed pods ripen, they break open to reveal fluffy fibers tha...

Researchers demonstrate way to control tree height

...made to work,” said Steven Strauss, a professor of forest science at OSU. “But further development may be...into gene transfer methods for most ornamental and forest trees. However, usable methods are already available for sweet gum, elm, black locust and pines. The...

Ants show us how to make super-highways

...oles’ as it passes over leaves and branches on the forest floor. The study, by Dr Scott Powell and Professor Nigel Franks at the University of Bristol, and reported in the June issue of Animal Behaviour, shows that these living ‘plugs’ improve the quality of the surface. This increases the overall speed ...

Lessons from the orangutans: Upright walking may have begun in the trees

...ennium Man ( Orrorin ) appear to have lived in the forest canopy and moved on two legs. "Our findings blu...orest grew increasingly patchy. Apes living in the forest canopy would have begun to encounter gaps between trees that they could not cross at the canopy leve...

Madagascan tropical forests return thanks to better management and well-defined ownership

...large areas of forests regenerating. The return of forest cover was found to be substantial in the study are...he area with highest population density had stable forest cover," says Thomas Elmqvist, Professor at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Sweden. The results, ...

Scientists: As rainfall changes, tropical plants may acclimate

...ilometers," Schuur said. "I can visit all of these forest sites in a single day." The scientists analyzed nitrogen isotopes in the soil and leaf samples of four plant species at each site. They learned that drier soils contained more nitrogen in the form of nitrate, while wetter soils contained more nitr...

Tundra disappearing at rapid rate

...imate change. The boundary, or treeline, between forest and tundra ecosystems is a prominent landscape feature in both Arctic and mountain environments. As global temperatures continue to increase, the treeline is expected to advance but the new research shows that this shift will not always occur gradual...

Paper challenges 1491 Amazonian population theories

...rge numbers across Amazonia and created the modern forest setting that many conservationists take to be ‘nat...eo-ecologist who travels to extremely remote rain forest locations to collect core samples from ancient lakes. He then analyzes those samples for pollen and ...

Human's ecological footprint in 2015 and Amazonia revealed

...prints," say the scientists. Amazonia revealed: forest degradation and the loss of ecosystem goods and se...ears, ecological science has shown how large scale forest clearings cause declines in biodiversity and the availability of forest products. Yet some important...

How trees manage water in arid environments

...surface exchanges of water and carbon dioxide in a forest in the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson, Ariz....e does precipitation exceed evaporation enough for forest vegetation to survive. Understanding surface-atmosphere interactions is important to understandin...

New sucker-footed bat discovered in Madagascar

... Only about eight percent of Madagascar's original forest cover remains, as the forests continue to be cleared by associated subsistence agricultural activities and to provide wood energy for urban zones. The island, which is found off the eastern coast of Africa, remains one of the most critically threaten...

New biofuels process promises to meet all US transportation needs

...mass - potentially available from agricultural and forest waste, providing all of the fuel needed for "the entire U.S. transportation sector." The new approach modifies conventional methods for producing liquid fuels from biomass by adding hydrogen from a "carbon-free" energy source, such as solar or nucle...

World's largest flower evolved from family of much tinier blooms

...afflesia was first discovered in the Sumatran rain forest some 180 years ago by Sir Stamford Raffles, governor of the East India Company's establishments in Sumatra, and Joseph Arnold, a naturalist and physician. Shortly before Arnold died of malaria on that same expedition, he described rafflesia as "the g...

Large size crucial for Amazon forest reserves

...search team has discovered that the size of Amazon forest reserves is yet more important than previously tho... largest and longest running experimental study of forest fragmentation ?the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project, sponsored by the Smithsonian Tro...

Canada's new government invests $200M in the fight against the mountain pine beetle

...nd environmental well-being of our communities and forest resources. We are taking action on this important ...d by the beetles; and protecting communities and forest resources in areas affected by the infestation. Project activities will include measures to c...

New species declared: Clouded leopard on Borneo and Sumatra

...ction is the cat’s main threat. The last great forest home of the Bornean Clouded Leopard is the Heart of Borneo, a wild, mountainous region of rainforest the size of Kansas. WWF recently released a report showing that scientists had identified at least 52 new species of animals and plants over the pas...

Mystery of fossilized trees is solved

...ch team has found evidence of the Earth's earliest forest trees, dating back 385 million years. Upright stu...find, which has allowed us to recreate these early forest ecosystems. Branches from the trees would have fallen to the floor and decayed, providing a new food...

Recently discovered species gain protection

... robin-sized bird restricted to a few tiny remnant forest patches in the Antioquia Department of Colombia, i...om timber extraction clearing the last subtropical forest fragments surrounding it. Now, support from the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) and partners has a...

Lizards 'shout' against a noisy background

...h to say "eat me" to a passing predator. But their forest home can be a visually noisy environment, with branches and leaves waving in the breeze and casting patterns of light and shade. "They have to have a strategy to get their message across," Ord said. Ord videotaped two species of anole lizards, ...

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