Ecosystem

New online portal merges vast data on Gulf of Maine ecosystem

A new online portal consolidates decades of rich marine data, much of it available for the first time, enabling resource managers and scientific researchers to combine and analyze information in unprecedented ways, creating new insights into the Gulf of Maine's ecology. Launched today by the Gulf of Maine Area program of the Census of Marine Life, the Dynamic Atlas of the Gulf of Maine, on...

Changing ecosystems throw scientists mega-challenges

Accelerating environmental changes have presented humanity with some significant scientific and engineering challenges, according to the new National Science Foundation (NSF) report, Pathways to the Future: Complex Environmental Systems: Synthesis for Earth, Life and Society in the 21st Century. Among the changes the report cites are rapid shifts in climate and ecosystems, the degradation...

Stanford gut check shows diversity of intestinal ecosystem

The universe of microbes that lives in your stomach may be nearly as unique as your fingerprint, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine who have embarked on the early stages of exploring the intestinal ecosystem. Using molecular techniques that detect all known types of microbes and borrowing statistical techniques from field ecology and population genetics,...

Scripps scientists find potential for catastrophic shifts in Pacific ecosystems

Opening the door to a new way of understanding ocean processes and managing and protecting marine resources, a group of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a groundbreaking analysis of the North Pacific Ocean and how dramatic changes can unfold across its waters. The study, published in the May 19 issue of the journal...

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Many of 2 billion dryland dwellers at risk as land degrades

Growing desertification worldwide threatens to swell by millions the number of poor forced to seek new homes and livelihoods. And a rising number of large, intense dust storms plaguing many areas menace the health of people even continents away, international experts warn in a new report. Thick storms rising out of the Gobi Desert affect much of China, Korea and Japan and even reduce air q...

New Scripps Oceanography project to study sediments and ecosystem restoration in Venice lagoon

Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, in conjunction with Italy's Venice Water Authority, Consorzio Venezia Nuova and Thetis SPA, has launched a multifaceted scientific program aimed at providing fundamental information about the effects of sediment translocation in Venice lagoon, a vital facet of the historic city of Venice, Italy. The new effort,...

Discovering an ecosystem beneath a collapsed Antarctic ice shelf

The chance discovery of a vast ecosystem beneath the collapsed Larsen Ice Shelf will allow scientists to explore the uncharted life below Antarctica's floating ice shelves and further probe the origins of life in extreme environments. Researchers discovered the sunless habitat after a recent underwater video study examining a deep glacial trough in the northwestern Weddell Sea following the sudde...

Did humans cause ecosystem collapse in ancient Australia?

Massive extinctions of animals and the arrival of the first humans in ancient Australia may be linked, according to scientists at the Carnegie Institution, University of Colorado, Australian National University, and Bates College.* The extinctions occurred 45,000 to 55,000 years ago. The researchers traced evidence of diet and the environment contained in ancient eggshells and wombat teeth over t...

Ocean acidification threatens cold-water coral ecosystems

Corals don't only occur in warm, sun-drenched, tropical seas; some species are found at depths of three miles or more in cold, dark waters throughout the world's oceans. Some cold-water coral reefs are home to more than 1,300 species of animals, a diversity rivaling some better known tropical coral reefs. Until now, scientists believed bottom trawling ?a commercial fishing method in which vessels...

Global warming may warrant new approaches to ecosystem restoration

Ecosystems behave in unpredictable ways and, because of this, restoration ecologists are often faced with unforeseen challenges. Researchers, in a recent article published in Restoration Ecology, argue that restoration methods of the past may not always be applicable in the future They see the largest potential challenge ahead is restoring environments undergoing the most rapid rate of change...

Ecosystem services and invasive species

As 3,000 scientists arrive in Memphis, Tennessee for the Ecological Society of America's 91st Annual Meeting, many ecologists working in the state will be presenting the results of their research from the region. Below, a few of the highlights: Past and present declines in Hemlocks and the future of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Monday August 7, 5 ?6:30 PM, Exhibit Hall, Cook C...

Beaver dams create healthy downstream ecosystems

Beavers, long known for their beneficial effects on the environment near their dams, are also critical to maintaining healthy ecosystems downstream. Researchers have found that ponds created by beaver dams raised downstream groundwater levels in the Colorado River valley, keeping soil water levels high and providing moisture to plants in the otherwise dry valley bottom. The results will be publis...

Cougar predation key to ecosystem health

The general disappearance of cougars from a portion of Zion National Park in the past 70 years has allowed deer populations to dramatically increase, leading to severe ecological damage, loss of cottonwood trees, eroding streambanks, and declining biodiversity. This "trophic cascade" of environmental degradation, all linked to the decline of a major predator, has been shown in a new study...

First Biodiversity Census of coral reef ecosystems in the NW Hawaiian Islands

As part of the international Census of Marine Life (CoML), a team of world renown scientists will embark on an expedition to explore coral reef biodiversity in the largest fully protected marine area in the world--the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument. Led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center, with funding fro...

Seagrass ecosystems at a 'global crisis'

An international team of scientists is calling for a targeted global conservation effort to preserve seagrasses and their ecological services for the world’s coastal ecosystems, according to an article published in the December issue of Bioscience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS). The article "A Global Crisis for Seagrass Ecosystems" cites the critical r...

Overfishing large sharks impacts entire marine ecosystem, shrinks shellfish supply

Fewer big sharks in the oceans mean that bay scallops and other shellfish may be harder to find at the market, according to an article in the March 30 issue of the journal Science, tying two unlikely links in the food web to the same fate. A team of Canadian and American ecologists, led by world-renowned fisheries biologist Ransom Myers at Dalhousie University, has found that overfishing...

Antarctic warming to reduce animals at base of ecosystem, shift some penguin populations southward

The warming most global climate models predict will do more harm than simply raise the sea levels that most observers fear. It will make drastic changes in fragile ecosystems throughout the world, especially in the Antarctic. A warming trend during the last few decades in the Antarctic Peninsula has already forced penguin populations to migrate south and perhaps diminished the abundance o...

Study warns deep-sea mining may pose serious threat to fragile marine ecosystems

Undersea habitats supporting rare and potentially valuable organisms are at risk from seafloor mining scheduled to begin within this decade, says a new study led by a University of Toronto Mississauga geologist. Mining of massive sulphide deposits near "black smokers"—undersea hydrothermal vent systems that spew 350-degree Celsius water into the frigid deep-sea environment, and support su...

Parasites' impact goes beyond host to affect ecosystem

The good news, if you’re grazing normally on algae in the rocky intertidal zone of the North Atlantic, is that you may not be infected by a parasite. But the better news is, according to new research from the University of New Hampshire, that you might have more to eat if plenty of your neighbors are infected. The research, published in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sc...

Global survey of lizards reveals greater abundance of animals on islands than on mainland ecosystems

A comprehensive survey of lizards on islands around the world has confirmed what island biologists and seafaring explorers have long observed: Animals on islands are much more abundant than their counterparts on the mainland. Besides confirming that longstanding observation, the study signals an alarm for island populations in a rapidly warming world. It suggests that climate change may ha...