496 Articles with the topic: Ecology
The Extent of Arctic Sea Ice Has Declined
sea-maid submitted, created time 2 days 21 hours (www.sciencenews.org)
This summer, the area covered by Arctic sea ice dropped to its second-lowest since satellite measurements began in 1979. It has recovered slightly from 2007 with regard to ice coverage, but since this is new, first-year ice, it is very thin. Overall ice volume may in fact be lower.
First-year ice is more likely to break up and melt than multi-year ice. This exacerbates the global worming process. Sea water is dark in color and it absorbs (and converts to heat) 90% of the sunlight that hits it. White ice, however, can reflect between 70% and 90% 
Wind Turbines Don't Make Birds Fly the Coop
sea-maid submitted, created time 2 days 21 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
A study finds that, despite concerns, offshore wind farms are largely not harmful to seashore or migrating birds. The presence of wind farms affected only one in twenty-three species. Although researchers warn not to extrapolate these results to inland birds, there seems to be little fear. The article mentions, in passing, that the wind farms are, however, dangerous to bats.
Red Fish, Blue Fish, One Fish Becomes Two Fish
sea-maid submitted, created time 4 days 21 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
Changes in vision lead to new species in cichlids in a form of sexual selection not usually seen (or at least not usually recognized).
Are vertical farms the next necessary step in agriculture?
Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 days 21 hours (www.sciam.com)
Scientific American here highlights urban farming. The idea is that we spend all this time, water and energy not only growing and fertilizing plants the old-fashioned way but then transporting the food products all the way from the farms to the cities, where most of the people live and where--by 2050, a whole lot more people are going to live.
The article describes growing fruits and vegetables inside tall glass buildings like some kind of modern-day hanging gardens (I wonder if they give +2 happy faces like in Civilization). We've got construction and glassmaking technology
In acidic oceans, sound carries further
Darkfrog submitted, created time 5 days 22 hours (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
It seems that as the oceans grow more acidic with all this atmospheric CO2, sounds begin to travel longer distances before they dissipate. Despite what one might think, this is not good news for whales and dolphins, which use sound to communicate and travel. Military sonar can already disrupt cetacean behavior as much as five hundred kilometers away. If things continue at the current rate, then by 2050, these sounds will travel 70% further in some parts of the Atlantic.
Researchers discover that growing up too fast may mean dying young in honey bees
sea-maid submitted, created time 6 days 21 hours (www.biologynews.net)
Reactive oxygen species (ROS) occur as a by-product of aerobic metabolism and impair cellular function by damaging proteins, nucleotides and lipids. Organisms possess a variety of anti-oxidant mechanisms to mitigate the effects of ROS, and the oxidative stress model of aging and senescence suggests that physiological performance declines with age due to lifetime accrual of ROS-induced damage and progressively limited anti-oxidant capacity
Mutualism alters fish behavior
Darkfrog submitted, created time 6 days 22 hours (www.nature.com)
A type of fish called the cleaner wrasse seems to haev a calming effect on local predators. The wrasse eat parasites off the scales of larger fish and even provide what Nature writers have called "a calming massage" with their fins. In return, the client fish keep returning to the wrasses' territory to provide them with more food.
However, what researchers have recently noticed is that client fish stop hunting each other while in wrasse territory--even while they are waiting to be served.
Sunspots may be affecting hurricane intensity, study says
Darkfrog submitted, created time 1 week 21 hours (www.nature.com)
While recent data have suggested that the Earth's warming climate has altered the intensity balance of storms to favor more intense and dangerous hurricanes, there may be an additional factor at work: The solar cycle.
A team at Florida State University has examined storm data going back a century. There appears to be a twelve-year storm cycle that corresponds with the rise and fall of magnetic activity on the sun.
This suggestion--which attributes some of our changing climate to non-manmade activities--has not gone unchallenged
Hurricane Ike Victims Return; Turned Away
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 week 2 days (www.time.com)
Residents of Galveston, Texas launched an ill-advised attempt to return to their crippled hometown Wednesday, but instead fumed in hours of gridlocked traffic only to be turned away at the bridge leading to their island. The confusion results in part form the fact that city governors had announced a "look and leave" plan permitting residents to return. However, this plan was rescinded only hours later--when many Galvestonians were already on the road.
Saving the Wildlife of Madagascar
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 week 2 days (www.time.com)
When you're on the lookout for lemurs — the unusually cute and endangered group of primates found only on the African island of Madagascar — it helps to have good eyes (lemurs are small), sharp ears (they rustle the trees) and a keen nose (they have an unmistakable smell).
It is hard to say how long the lemurs will be around. Madagascar is what conservationists call a biodiversity hotspot. All hotspots worldwide take up about 2% of Earth's landmass, but they are home to half its species
Trade Center Dig Exposes Ice Age Landscape
sea-maid submitted, created time 1 week 5 days (www.time.com)
Crews excavating the World Trade Center site this summer for the foundations of a new skyscraper have uncovered features carved into the bedrock by glaciers about 20,000 years ago, including a forty-foot-deep pothole
Fight Global Warming with a White Roof
sea-maid submitted, created time 2 weeks 1 hour (sciencenow.sciencemag.org)
A can of white paint should be part of the planet's arsenal against global warming, say California researchers, who have calculated that installing white roofs in the world's cities could offset 1.5 years of man-made carbon emissions.
Turning Bacteria into Plastic Factories
jerry submitted, created time 2 weeks 1 day (www.sciam.com)
Plastics are one of the most versatile and useful things that can be made from expensive fossil fuels. ...except as of now, it's "that can be made from expensive fossil fuels and genetically engineered E. coli." A new company has found a way to produce polymers from genetically engineered microbes that feed on sugars, replacing fossil-fuel based processes.
The plastic in question is called butanediol, and the process has been in the works for some time. The trick was getting the bacteria to tolderate high levels of butanediol in the water. It's usually toxic.
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Explorers find hundreds of undescribed corals, other species on familiar Australian reefs
sea-maid submitted, created time 2 weeks 2 days (esciencenews.com)
Hundreds of new kinds of animal species surprised international researchers systematically exploring waters off two islands on the Great Barrier Reef and a reef off northwestern Australia -- waters long familiar to divers. The expeditions, affiliated with the global Census of Marine Life, help mark the International Year of the Reef and included the first systematic scientific inventory of spectacular soft corals, named octocorals for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp
More habitat for threatened frog proposed
sea-maid submitted, created time 2 weeks 4 days (www.msnbc.msn.com)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Federal wildlife officials on Tuesday proposed more protection for the threatened California red-legged frog, providing up to four times as much habitat than was set aside two years ago.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends designating up to 1.8 million acres in twenty-eight California counties as habitat critical to the frog's survival. The proposal must undergo sixty days of public comment and another review before it becomes final.
The designation would require any development project on the land to get prior approval from federal wildlife officials
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