Charles Darwin noted more than 150 years ago that animals on the Galapagos Islands, including finches and marine iguanas, were more docile than mainland creatures. He attributed this tameness to the fact that there are fewer predators on remote islands.
As much as two-thirds of Earth's carbon may be hidden in the inner core, making it the planet's largest carbon reservoir, according to a new model that even its backers acknowledge is "provocative and speculative."
Arizona State University experts in global climate policy, international environmental law and climate science will participate in UNFCCC international climate negotiations.
El Nino is not a contemporary phenomenon; it’s long been the Earth’s dominant source of year-to-year climate fluctuation. But as the climate warms and the feedbacks that drive the cycle change, researchers want to know how El Nino will respond. A team of researchers led by the University of Wisconsin’s Zhengyu Liu published the latest findings in this quest Nov. 27, 2014 in Nature.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Buck Rogers surely couldn’t have seen this one coming, but at NASA’s request, University of Florida researchers have figured out how to turn human waste – yes, that kind -- into rocket fuel.
New research is helping pinpoint the impact of waves on sea ice, which is vulnerable to climate change, particularly in the Arctic where it is rapidly retreating.
Dan Giammar, PhD, is going deep into the earth to find a potential solution to store carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants.
By comparing grasshoppers found at woodland sites once used for agriculture to similar sites never disturbed by farming, UW-Madison Philip Hahn and John Orrock show that despite decades of recovery, the numbers and types of species found in each differ, as do the understory plants and other ecological variables, like soil properties.
A new site displays real-time ocean acidification data for the open ocean and protected bays in Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California.
In the first-ever GPS-based study of leopards in India, led by WCS and partners has delved into the secret lives of these big cats, and recorded their strategies to thrive in human-dominated areas.
Despite the fact that 81% of Canadians accept that temperature on Earth is increasing, Université de Montréal researchers have revealed that Canadians are generally misinformed about the science of climate change and are divided over the construction of new oil pipelines.
In a study published Wednesday, Nov. 19, in Nature, scientists at Boston University, the University of New Hampshire, the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, the University of Wisconsin-Madison and McGill University show that a steep rise in the productivity of crops grown for food accounts for as much as 25 percent of the increase in this carbon dioxide (CO2) seasonality.
Professor Don Levitan, chair of the Department of Biological Science, writes in the latest issue of Marine Ecology Progress Series that bleaching — a process where high water temperatures or UV light stresses the coral to the point where it loses its symbiotic algal partner that provides the coral with color — is also affecting the long-term fertility of the coral.
Dr. Itay Halevy of the Weizmann Institute and Dr. Boswell Wing of McGill University found that deep-sea microbes that “breathe” sulfur prefer that sulfur to be light. In fact, the microbes will “fractionate” heavier sulfur into lighter isotopes. Learning the preferences of these microbes can help reveal the ancient past … and predict the future.
Ten years after Goldman Sachs and the Wildlife Conservation Society announced one of the largest gifts of private lands ever given for conservation, Chile’s Karukinka Natural Park is celebrating a decade of accomplishments, from top-notch conservation science, to wildlife and habitat protection, to public education and engagement.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- Overhunting has been disastrous for elephants, but their forest habitats have also been caught in the crossfire.
Scientists using a microbe that occurs naturally in eastern cottonwood trees have boosted the ability of willow and lawn grass to withstand the withering effects of the nasty industrial pollutant phenanthrene.
University of Wisconsin-Madison computer science researchers have developed a method for using social media posts to estimate air pollution levels with significant accuracy.
Scientists from WCS, NASA, and other organizations have partnered to focus global attention on the contribution of satellites to biodiversity conservation in a recently released study entitled “Ten Ways Remote Sensing Can Contribute to Conservation,” in the latest edition of the scientific journal Conservation Biology.
When it comes to potential for wind energy, the Midwest has it. However, to harness that power communities will have to come to terms with a landscape dotted with wind towers. That’s a reality people are willing to accept, according assistant professor of sociology and rural studies Jeffrey Jacquet. He and graduate student Josh Fergen have done research in South Dakota and Minnesota to gauge attitudes about wind farms and their impact on the community and the environment.
The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries of the Republic of Indonesia and the WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society’s) Wildlife Crimes Unit announced the largest confiscation of illegal manta ray parts as part of a major enforcement action against illegal trade of sharks and rays in Indonesia
The Government of Gabon has announced the decision to create a new marine protected area network of ten marine parks covering more than 18,000 square miles (over 46,000 square kilometres) that will safeguard whales, sea turtles, and other marine species inhabiting the country’s coastal and offshore ecosystems -- a network of marine parks covering about 23% of Gabon's territorial waters and EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone).
Plant diseases attack trees and crops and can hurt lumber and food production, but University of Utah biologists found that pathogens that kill tree seedlings actually can make forests more diverse.
Researchers are now trying to identify upstream factors that could explain the increase
A University of Iowa researcher and his colleagues have found that North Atlantic tropical cyclones in fact have a significant effect on the Midwest. Their research appears in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
A new special issue of the journal Harmful Algae that compiles five years of research studies about red tide in the Gulf of Mexico recommends state and federal funding support to maintain and expand the ability to predict and track the movements of these harmful algal blooms.
WCS scientists in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have discovered a new species of plant living in a remote rift valley escarpment that’s supposed to be inside of a protected area. But an administrative mapping error puts the reserve’s borders some 50 kilometers west of the actual location.
Instead of carbon dioxide, or CO2, creating a blanket that slowly warms the planet, long-term warming happens because a darker surface and more moist air can absorb more of the incoming rays.
Drought and overpopulation helped destroy Assyrian Empire, study says. Researchers see parallels with modern Syria and Iraq, and caution other regions also facing weather stresses.
A new climate change modeling tool developed by scientists at Indiana University, Princeton University and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration finds that carbon dioxide removal from the atmosphere owing to greater plant growth from rising CO2 levels will be partially offset by changes in the activity of soil microbes that derive their energy from plant root growth.
Stopping Wildlife Crime? There’s an APP for that. According to a new article from the Wildlife Conservation Society that appears in Biological Conservation, innovative mobile and web-based applications can provide authorities with speedy access to information on hundreds of protected species, convenient outreach to experts, and other resources used to identify and prosecute wildlife crime.
Scientists find that on the front range of the Colorado Rockies the highest fire risk factors are from privately owned lands and threaten other privately held land and property.
Energy use in buildings accounts for nearly two-thirds of the greenhouse gas emissions generated in Detroit, while exhaust from cars, trucks and buses is responsible for about 30 percent of the total, according to a new citywide inventory compiled by University of Michigan student researchers.
The Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), at their 11th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) in Quito, Ecuador, agreed today to adopt a Central Asia Migratory Mammal Initiative to protect wildlife in the region from increasing development threats, WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) reports.
WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) announced that the Nam Nern Night Safari, an ecotour based in Laos’ Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area in Houaphan Province, won the prestigious World Responsible Tourism People's Choice Award at the World Travel Mart in London, England.
Along with the pressures of habitat loss, poaching and depletion of prey species, a new threat to tiger populations in the wild has surfaced in the form of disease, specifically, canine distemper virus (CDV). According to a new study from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its partners, CDV has the potential to be a significant driver in pushing the animals toward extinction.
A fundamental step-change involving an increase in funding and political commitment is urgently needed to ensure that protected areas deliver their full conservation, social and economic potential, according to an article published today in Nature by experts from Wildlife Conservation Society, the University of Queensland, and the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA).
The article, “Pleading Patterns and the Role of Litigation as a Driver of Federal Climate Change Legislation,” by Juscelino F. Colares, with a statistical assist from Kosta Ristovski, is based on an analysis of 178 federal and state lawsuits and the pleading patterns that emerge from those cases. Their findings suggest that greenhouse gas (GHG) emitters, if not motivated by fear of litigation, are unlikely to shift from blocking to supporting emissions-restricting legislation.
Global Temperature Report: October 2014
A University of Tennessee, Knoxville, study finds that nonprofit organizations aiming to protect biodiversity show little evidence of responding to economic signals, which could limit the effectiveness of future conservation efforts.
Even during summer dry spells, some patches of soil in forested watersheds remain waterlogged. Researchers have discovered that these patches act as hot spots of microbial activity that remove nitrogen from groundwater and return it to the atmosphere, as reported in a Nov. 3 article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The Government of Bangladesh has created the country’s first marine protected area that will now safeguard whales, dolphins, sea turtles, sharks, and other oceanic species, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.
Patches of soaked soil act as hot spots for microbes removing nitrogen from groundwater and returning it to the atmosphere.The discovery provides insight into forest health and water quality, say researchers from Virginia Tech and Cornell.
Green spaces in cities are great, but they don't ensure biodiversity, according to University of Iowa biologists. The team found insect abundance was lacking in two common urban trees, suggesting insect movement may be limited by barriers, such as roads and buildings. Results appear in the journal PLOS ONE.
Overwhelmed by speculators trying to cash-in on a prized medicinal fungus known as Himalayan Viagra, two isolated Tibetan communities have managed to do at the local level what world leaders often fail to do on a global scale — implement a successful system for the sustainable harvest of a precious natural resource, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
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