Environment – Page 116 – Shamskm: A site to exchange knowledge and solutions

SMART scholar

By Guest PostJuly 28, 2013Education, Environmentaccretion, brandon boyd, christopher sommerfield, coastal marshes, department of defense, doctoral work, dod, dredging operations data, drone, factors, lake pontchartrain, lidar, louisiana state university, map making technology, new orleans, oceanography graduate student, plant growth, rising sea level, sediment flow, sedimentation, shore erosion, smart scholar, sophisticated, university of delaware, vicksburg, way of life, wetland research

Oceanography graduate student lands scholarship supporting wetland research

Growing up along Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans, Brandon Boyd spent a lot of time hunting for waterfowl and fishing for speckled trout in marshes and swamps. There, wetlands are a way of life.

“Ever since I was in high school, I knew I really wanted to do something to help protect wetlands,” said Boyd, a graduate student in oceanography in the School of Marine Science and Policy within the University of Delaware’s College of Earth, Ocean, and Environment. (more…)

Closing ranks on an invader

By Guest PostJuly 27, 2013Environment, Natureash trees, asian ash trees, bwca wilderness, david zumeta, deadly insect, dnr, eab, eab killing wasps, emerald ash borer, entomology class, firewood, grand rapids, insecticides, invader, jennifer kuzma, kathy quick, magic bullet, mda, michigan, public policy problem, shawn bernick, twin cities, university of minnesota

Years ago the city of Grand Rapids, Michigan, changed its policy on dealing with the emerald ash borer (EAB), a pretty but deadly insect that has killed many of the state’s ash trees.

Instead of cutting down all ash trees, they allowed residents to treat high-value trees with insecticides at their own expense, says Kathy Quick, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs who was working in Grand Rapids at the time. (more…)

Pesticide Accumulation in Sierra Nevada Frogs

By Guest PostJuly 27, 2013Environment, Natureagriculture, amphibian ecologist, byproduct, california, central valley, chytrid fungus, dde, environmental problems, fungicides, herbicide, hydrologist, kelly smalling, lake tahoe, lassen, mark sogge, mountain habitats, pacific chorus frog, patrick kleeman, pesticide accumulation, pesticide ddt, pseudacris regilla, pyraclostrobin, sediment samples, sierra nevada, sierra nevada frogs, simazine, tebuconazole, U.S. Geological Survey, usgs, volcanic national park, yosemite national park

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A study on frogs in remote Sierra Nevada mountain habitats including Yosemite National Park and Giant Sequoia National Monument, detected concentrations of pesticides in frog tissue that potentially came from California’s Central Valley sources.

“Our results show that current-use pesticides, particularly fungicides, are accumulating in the bodies of Pacific chorus frogs in the Sierra Nevada,” says Kelly Smalling, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and lead author of the study. “This is the first time we’ve detected many of these compounds, including fungicides, in the Sierra Nevada. The data generated by this study support past research on the potential of pesticides to be transported by wind or rain from the Central Valley to the Sierras.” (more…)

Coastal Antarctic Permafrost Melting Faster Than Expected

By Guest PostJuly 25, 2013Environmentandrew fountain, antarctic peninsula, Arctic, arctic like slump, austin, boston university, brown university, coastal antarctic, coastal arctic, david marchant, dry valleys contain, frozen water, garwood valley, ground ice, ice free islands, institute for geophysics, jaclyn watters, james dickson, james head, joseph levy, layers of sediment, lidar, marianne okal, mass, mcmurdo dry valleys, permafrost melting, phenomenon, present geologic epoch, retrogressive thaw slumps, ross sea, scientific reports, section of antarctica, tibet, university of texas, warming antarctic continent, weather station data

AUSTIN, Texas — For the first time, scientists have documented an acceleration in the melt rate of permafrost, or ground ice, in a section of Antarctica where the ice had been considered stable. The melt rates are comparable with the Arctic, where accelerated melting of permafrost has become a regularly recurring phenomenon, and the change could offer a preview of melting permafrost in other parts of a warming Antarctic continent.

Tracking data from Garwood Valley in the McMurdo Dry Valleys region of Antarctica, Joseph Levy, a research associate at The University of Texas at Austin’s Institute for Geophysics, shows that melt rates accelerated consistently from 2001 to 2012, rising to about 10 times the valley’s historical average for the present geologic epoch, as documented in the July 24 edition of Scientific Reports. (more…)

Ship noise impairs feeding and heightens predation risk for crabs

By Guest PostJuly 23, 2013Environment, Natureandy radford, animal behaviour, behavior, bristol, crabs, ecologically critical effects, ecosystems, feeding, marine invertebrates, metabolic rate, play dead behavior, potential predators, predation risk, ship noise, shore crab, steve simpson, university of exeter

A study published in the journal Animal Behaviour found that the noise of passing ships disrupts feeding for the common shore crab.

Perhaps worse, the team from the Universities of Exeter and Bristol also found that when threatened, crabs took longer to retreat to shelter and lost their natural ‘play dead’ behaviour.

In coastal seas around the world noise caused by humans is a dominant feature, with construction and transportation fundamentally modifying ocean soundscapes.

Working with the same common shore crabs that children delight in catching on crablines in UK harbours, the team found ecologically-critical effects of ship noise-playback on behaviour. (more…)

Navigate America’s Major Rivers Without Getting Wet

By Guest PostJuly 23, 2013Environmentdigital hydrographic data, mississippi river, navigate rivers, navigate upstream, streamer, united states, water bodies

Have you ever dropped a stick into a river and wondered where it might go if it floated all the way downstream? Now you can trace its journey using Streamer – a new on-line service from the National Atlas of the United States^®. (more…)

China’s chance to reinvent itself environmentally

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2013Environmentair pollution, cancer, China, chinese cities, environmental problem, environmental protection law, environmental well being, epl, gross domestic product, guizhen he, heart disease, jianguo jack liu, lei zhang, life expectancy, michigan state university, natural system, Netherlands, population, problem, rates of stroke, renmin university, wageningen university, yonglong lu

China’s 34-year-old Environmental Protection Law was created when it made sense for legislators in a developing country to trade environmental well-being for a boost to the gross domestic product.

Today, China wrestles with pollution that is leaving its citizens gasping for clean air, worried about water quality and concerned for the safety of the food grown there. In the current issue of Science, a team of researchers, including a Michigan State University sustainability expert, offers guidelines for revising the EPL to protect both humans and nature. (more…)

Scientists Discover Thriving Colonies of Microbes in Ocean ‘Plastisphere’

By Guest PostJuly 21, 2013Environmentartificial microbial reefs, autotrophs, cholera, colonies of microbes, degrading hydrocarbons, ecological habitat, environmental condition, erik zettler, flecks of plastic, gastrointestinal maladies, genus vibrio, heterotrophs, human made flotilla, linda amaral zettler, marine microbe, mbl, north atlantic ocean, ocean ecosystem, ocean plastisphere, plastic debris, plastic surfaces, scanning electron microscopy, sea, sea education association, suctorian ciliate, symbionts, symbiotic bacteria, synergistic relationships, tracy mincer, whoi, woods hole

Scientists have discovered a diverse multitude of microbes colonizing and thriving on flecks of plastic that have polluted the oceans—a vast new human-made flotilla of microbial communities that they have dubbed the “plastisphere.”

In a study recently published online in Environmental Science & Technology, the scientists say the plastisphere represents a novel ecological habitat in the ocean and raises a host of questions: How will it change environmental conditions for marine microbes, favoring some that compete with others? How will it change the overall ocean ecosystem and affect larger organisms? How will it change where microbes, including pathogens, will be transported in the ocean? (more…)

Category Archives: Environment