EAST LANSING, Mich. — Besides helping each other plant and harvest, rural Chinese neighbors also influence each other’s environmental behavior – farmers are more likely to reenroll their land in a conservation program if they talk to their neighbors about it.
Scientists from Michigan State University’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability used a simulation model to study the amount of land farmers in the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China re-enrolled in the Grain-to-Green Program, which aims to reduce soil erosion by converting sloping cropland to forest or grassland. Farmers receive an annual payment of either 5,000 pounds of grain or $498 for each 2.5 acres enrolled in the program. In 2005, this was about 8 percent of the farmers’ income. (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Pretreating non-edible biomass – corn leaves, stalks or switch grass – holds the keys for unlocking its energy potential and making it economically viable, according to a team of researchers led by Michigan State University.
Shishir Chundawat, a postdoctoral researcher, and Bruce Dale, professor of chemical engineering and materials science, of MSU led a team of researchers in identifying a potential pretreatment method that can make plant cellulose five times more digestible by enzymes that convert it into ethanol, a useful biofuel. The research was supported by the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center, a partnership between the University of Wisconsin and MSU and published in the current issue of Journal of the American Chemical Society. (more…)
A Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientist, analyzing ancient plankton DNA signatures in sediments of the Black Sea, has found for the first time that the same genetic populations of a virus and its algal host can persist and coexist for centuries. The findings have implications for the ecological significance of viruses in shaping algae ecosystems in the ocean, and perhaps fresh water as well.(more…)
Taking another major step in sleuthing the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill, a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has determined what chemicals were contained in a deep, hydrocarbon-containing plume at least 22 miles long that WHOI scientists mapped and sampled last summer in the Gulf of Mexico, a residue of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Moreover, they have taken a big step in explaining why some chemicals, but not others, made their way into the plume.
The findings, published this week in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “help explain and shed light on the plume formation and verify much of what we thought about the plume’s composition,” said WHOI chemist Christopher Reddy, lead author of the study. The data “provide compelling evidence” that the oil component of the plume sampled in June 2010 essentially comprised benzene, toluene, ethybenzene, and total xylenes—together, called BTEX—at concentrations of about 70 micrograms per liter, the researchers reported. (more…)
*Growth of cropland, loss of natural habitat to blame*
The continued growth of cropland and loss of natural habitat have increasingly simplified agricultural landscapes in the Midwest.
In a study supported in part by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Kellogg Biological Station Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site in Michigan–one of 26 such NSF LTER sites around the world–scientists concluded that this simplification is associated with increased crop pest abundance and insecticide use. (more…)
Symbiogenics — a New Strategy for Reducing Climate Impacts on Plants
Seattle – Rice – which provides nearly half the daily calories for the world’s population – could become adapted to climate change and some catastrophic events by colonizing its seeds or plants with the spores of tiny naturally occurring fungi, just-published U.S. Geological Survey-led research shows.(more…)
*Melting ice sheets contributed much more to rising sea levels than thermal expansion of warming ocean waters during the Last Interglacial Period, a UA-led team of researchers has found. The results further suggest that ocean levels continue to rise long after warming of the atmosphere levels off.*
Thermal expansion of seawater contributed only slightly to rising sea levels compared to melting ice sheets during the Last Interglacial Period, a University of Arizona-led team of researchers has found.
The study combined paleoclimate records with computer simulations of atmosphere-ocean interactions and the team’s co-authored paper is accepted for publication in Geophysical Research Letters. (more…)
Max Webster, an undergraduate who founded and directs Climate Voices, a Yale-based NGO working to publicize the human rights impacts of climate change, recently attended the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany. He shared his experiences, frustrations and insights about the meeting and his own mission with the Yale Daily Bulletin.(more…)
