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...Health Problems Due To Ecosystem's Degradation
The World Health Organization (WHO) in its Health Synthesis Report has declared that 60% of the benefits provided by the global ecosystem is being used unsustainably or degraded, //resulting in negative effects on the health of human beings. The benefits that are thus misused are clean air, fresh water, a relatively stable climate and the wildlife. The speed at which the natural ecosyst...Global Seagrass Decline Affects Shallow-water Ecosystems
Disappearance of seagrass beds around the world has resulted in sharp decline in important habitats, food sources and sediment stabilizers affecting the shallow-water ecosystems // , according to Frederick Short, researcher of natural resources and marine science, University of New Hampshire. The disappearance of underwater meadows has deeply affected even the commercially valuable va...Deep-sea Mining can Damage Marine Ecosystem
Undersea habitats supporting rare and potentially valuable organisms are at risk from seafloor mining scheduled to begin within this decade , according to a new study by a University of Toronto Mississauga geologist. According to Jochen Halfar, assistant professor of earth sciences at the U of T Mississauga, and lead author of the study, mining of massive sulphide deposits near un...Revealing the Secrets of Gut Ecosystem
An astonishing number and variety of microbes, including as many as 400 species of bacteria, help humans digest food, mitigate disease, regulate fat storage, and even promote the formation of blood vessels. For more than 100 years, scientists have known that humans carry a rich ecosystem within their intestines. By applying sophisticated genetic analysis to samples of a years worth b...Elevated Carbondioxide may Have Negative Impact on Ecosystem
Elevated CO2 is considered to be a serious catalyst of global change. Its effects can be felt throughout the ecosystem , including the insect-plant food chain link.Safeguarding highly-usable crops is of great importance to many local and national economies. In research to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists in Chicago (July 7-11, 2007), scie...