Constantine Alexander's blog

EU LIFE and local authorities

New publication out!
	LIFE and local authorities December 2010 - 60 pages Local and regional authorities (LRAs) have an indispensable role to play in implementing EU environmental legislation and making eco-innovations and environmental best practices better known to a wider audience. Europe's LRAs have been key participants in the LIFE programme, leading more than 350 LIFE Environment projects and partnering with NGOs and private sector beneficiaries in hundreds more. The new LIFE Focus publication, 'LIFE and local authorities: Helping regions and municipalities tackle environmental challenges', highlights many of the most successful of these projects, initiatives that have been at the forefront of implementing environmental innovations that provide solutions to some of the greatest demands facing LRAs today. As well as an introduction to the policy challenges facing local and regional authorities and how the LIFE programme can help them, the publication, which has been produced in co-operation with the Council for European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR), features extensive case studies and examples of best practice across a number of sectors: from sustainable transport to waste and water management, the threat of climate change to spatial planning.    Download: LIFE and local authorities   (~ 8 MB)

Monitoring the restoration of coastal and estuarine ecosystems

Restoring ecosystems in estuaries and along coasts is an important part of European environmental policy. A new analysis of degraded ecosystems has indicated that, although some restoration can take less than five years, when there has been a century of degradation, it can take a minimum of 15-25 years.

Estuaries and coastal zones are prone to many changes caused by both human activities and natural processes. For example, dams cause structural changes, urban and industrial waste produces chemical pollution, suspended sediments in the water and excess nutrients. These changes can negatively affect wildlife and their habitats in the area as well as ecosystem services, such as provision of fish, nutrient recycling and recreational value.

One of the primary goals of the Water Framework Directive¹ is to restore degraded habitats. However, without long-term monitoring data using reliable indicators of recovery, it is difficult to assess the recovery of an ecosystem. The study examined available evidence on the recovery of coastal and estuarine ecosystems as part of the EU WISER project². From a review of current studies, it identified 51 long-term cases where actions have been taken to restore ecosystems affected by human pressures and medium or long-term monitoring of recovery has occurred. The case studies were on a range of different wildlife and from different geographical regions.

The time taken to recover varied considerably, ranging from several months for small invertebrates living on the seafloor, to more than 22 years for some seagrass species and macroalgae that inhabit rocky seabeds. Severe impacts, such as oil spills, or longer lasting impacts, such as sewage disposal, require periods of up to 10 to 25 years for complete recovery. However, restoration after disturbance of the seafloor, such as after dredging, usually took around 1.5 to 10 years to recover, providing that the disturbance did not leave any ongoing stressors, such as persistent pollutants. Additionally, some sensitive organisms, such as angiosperms, may take 20 years to recover. The data did not suggest any geographical pattern in recovery rates.

The study classified the 51 cases of recovery into six groups according to the type of stressor and organisms studied: recovery from changes in sediment generally caused by dredging; recovery from changes in habitat, such as marsh restoration; recovery by breaking down organic material, as in oil spills; recovery from persistent pollutants; recovery from excessive removal of wildlife, which relates to commercial fishing; and recovery from excessive extraction of water. The researchers found that the studies tend to focus on the initial reappearance of a particular form of wildlife as an indicator of restoration. However, this does not ensure that full recolonisation of all species in the habitat or a complete restoration of the ecosystem will occur.

Lastly the study looked at the case of long-term recovery of the Nervión River Estuary in northern Spain, which has suffered pollution from industrial development since the mid-nineteenth century. Despite an extensive effort at recovery through closing down industrial plants and installing water treatment processes, recovery is still incomplete as many ecosystems, such as salt-marshes, have been reduced or lost. This confirms that the path to recovery is different to the path of degradation and, despite large restoration efforts, complete recovery cannot be guaranteed. Recovery also depends upon the interactions of species within the ecosystems, such that the system often recovers to a new state, rather than return to its original state.

The researchers suggest that recovery initiatives require long-term goals and criteria by which to measure recovery. Both of these should include the interactive nature of ecosystems, for example, recovery should not be measured simply by the restoration of habitat or one species, but by the achieving a fully functioning ecosystem.

1. See: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/water-framework/index_en.html
2. WISER (Water bodies in Europe: Integrative Systems to assess Ecological status and Recovery) is supported by the European Commission. See: www.wiser.eu

Source: Borja, A., Dauer, D.M., Elliott, M. & Simenstad, C.A. (2010) Medium- and Long-term Recovery of Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystems: Patterns, Rates and Restoration Effectiveness. Estuaries and Coasts. 33:1249-1260.

Contact: aborja@pas.azti.es

Fishy consequences of transplanting trout, salmon, whitefishes

Some fish do not respond well to relocation according to Heredity study

		Dylan J. Fraser, a Concordia University biology professor, led a new study that found relocating fish is not always a good option. In this photo, Professor Fraser holds an Atlantic salmon.

Montreal, January 26, 2011 – Not all trout are created equal. Those swimming up the streams of British Columbia might resemble their cousins from Quebec, yet their genetic makeup is regionally affected and has an impact on how they reproduce, grow and react to environmental stressors.

Such regional variance makes transplanting fish species – to bolster dwindling populations – tricky business. These are some of the findings of a compelling review published in Heredity, a journal from the Nature Publishing Group, which examined the adaptability of trout, salmon, charr, whitefishes and graylings across North America and Europe.

The investigation, which compared 93 wild and aquaculture fish populations, was led by Concordia University in collaboration with Simon Fraser University, the Université Laval and the University of British Columbia in Canada and Aarhus University in Denmark.

"We can't treat a species as something that is homogeneous throughout its range. Fish of the same kind are distinct, whether they grow in lakes, ponds or streams," says first author Dylan J. Fraser, a Concordia University biology professor.

"A salmon from Quebec isn't the same as a salmon from the Atlantic provinces or an individual of the same species from Europe," he continues. "There's considerable variation within species. That genetic diversity can allow a specific type of fish to thrive in one region – to better adapt to stressors such as climate change or habitat changes – while fish stocks of the same species introduced from another region can dwindle."

		“A charr from Quebec isn’t the same as a charr from the Atlantic provinces or an individual of the same species from Europe,” says Dylan J. Fraser, a Concordia University biology professor.

Economic implications

Since trout, salmon, charr, whitefishes and graylings are important for commercial fishing, recreational fishing and aquaculture industries, Fraser says this review has economic implications for business or conservation programs looking to transplant species into new habitats for a variety of purposes.

"Salmon from Quebec, for instance, should not be reintroduced into British Columbia streams," says Fraser. "For fish to successfully adapt to a new environment, they should be selected by geographic proximity."

Natural selection is what drives local adaptation of fish stocks. "Natural selection may have favored faster growth in certain populations," he says. "If these same populations can also deal with higher temperatures, they may be better suited for new aquaculture initiatives in the face of climate change. This is another benefit of considering local adaptation."

The research team examined other factors that caused fish stocks to thrive or abate: environmental factors, temperature, geology, water chemistry, migration distance, pathogens, parasites, prey and predators.

The result? "Climate change will have a profound effect on species," says Fraser. "And understanding why local populations outperform foreign populations in their home environment may help to predict which populations within species are most likely to persist in the future.'"

This study was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Danish Natural Science Research Council.

The paper, "Extent and scale of local adaptation in salmonid fishes: review and meta-analysis," published in Heredity, was authored by Dylan J. Fraser of Concordia University, Laura Weir of Simon Fraser University, Louis Bernatchez of the Université Laval and Eric Taylor of the University of British Columbia in Canada, and Michael M. Hansen of Aarhus University in Denmark.

Related links:

• Cited study from Heredity
• Concordia Department of Biology
• Dylan Fraser's website

Contact: Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins
s-j.desjardins@concordia.ca
514-848-2424 x5068
Concordia University

The undead may influence biodiversity, greenhouse gas emissions

It's commonly known, at least among microbiologists, that microbes have an additional option to living or dying — dormancy.

Dormant microbes are less like zombies and more like hibernating bears. What isn't known, however, is how large numbers of dormant microorganisms affect the natural environments when they act as microbial seed banks. In the current issue of Nature Reviews: Microbiology, Jay Lennon, Michigan State University assistant professor of microbiology and molecular genetics, examines the cellular mechanisms that allow microbes to hibernate and addresses the implications they can have on larger ecosystems such as soil, oceans, lakes and the human body.

"Only a tiny fraction is metabolically active at any given time," said Lennon, who is affiliated with MSU's Kellogg Biological Station and MSU's AgBioResearch. "How would our environment be altered, in terms of carbon emissions, nutrient cycling and greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide, by dramatic increases or decreases in the dormancy of microbes?"

Dormancy is a reversible state of low metabolic activity that organisms enter when they encounter hard times, such as freezing temperatures or starvation. Unlike plants that follow predictable growth cycles, microbes don't have to follow a linear progression. They could be growing, experience distress and go back to sleep. Once conditions change, they could start growing again without having to go through a full cycle.

"However, it does take a certain level of commitment, a certain energy investment to make it happen," Lennon said. "Just as people don't run out and winterize their homes if it gets cool in August, microbes want to be sure that truly hard times have set in before shifting into a dormant phase."

Consider that 90 percent of soil microorganisms are typically dormant and only half of bacterial species are active. Lennon and his co-author, Stuart Jones at the University of Notre Dame, theorize that dormancy and the presence of such large reservoirs of microbial "seed banks" have important implications for biodiversity and the stability and functioning of ecosystem services.

"The idea of a microbial seed bank is a rather novel concept, but from our research we found that dormancy and seed banks are prevalent in most ecosystems." Lennon said. "What's fascinating is that there's only a small fraction that are active, which means there's a large reservoir that could potentially be activated at any given time."

Dormancy and the seed bank effect make microbes more resilient and could play key roles in microbial biodiversity as species migrate or simply remain mostly dormant over extended periods, he added. Dormancy could also help explain the sudden outbreak of diseases, he said, perhaps sparked by some change in the environment.

"One-third of world's population carries dormant tuberculosis microbes," he said. "Obviously, you can live a long time with the dormant cell in your body, but it's important to understand what can trigger its reanimation or what maintains its dormancy."

As Lennon continues his research, he is particularly interested in identifying the triggers of dormancy and activation cycles as well as how climate change affects these processes.

Lennon's research is funded in part by the National Science Foundation. Michigan State University has been working to advance the common good in uncommon ways for more than 150 years. One of the top research universities in the world, MSU focuses its vast resources on creating solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, while providing life-changing opportunities to a diverse and inclusive academic community through more than 200 programs of study in 17 degree-granting colleges.

Contact: Layne Cameron
layne.cameron@ur.msu.edu
517-353-8819
Michigan State University

Newly discovered group of algae live in both fresh water and ocean

May have worldwide distribution

		A collection of rappemonad cells photographed by a high-powered microscope. Each cell contains at least two chloroplasts (green dots) and a nucleus (blue dots).

A team of biologists has discovered an entirely new group of algae living in a variety of marine and freshwater environments. This group of algae, which the researchers dubbed "rappemonads," have DNA that is distinctly different from that of other known algae. In fact, humans and mushrooms are more closely related to each other than rappemonads are to some other common algae (such as green algae). Based on their DNA analysis, the researchers believe that they have discovered not just a new species or genus, but a potentially large and novel group of microorganisms.

The rappemonads were found in a wide range of habitats, in both fresh and salt water, and at temperatures ranging from 52 degrees to 79 degrees Fahrenheit. According to MBARI Senior Research Technician Sebastian Sudek, co-first author of the paper reporting the discovery of these algae, "Based on the evidence so far, I think it's fair to say that rappemonads are likely to be found throughout many of the world's oceans. We don't know how common they are in fresh water, but our samples were not from unusual sources—they were from small lakes and reservoirs."

Researchers Sebastian Sudek, Heather Wilcox, and Alexandra Worden of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), along with collaborators at Dalhousie University and the Natural History Museum (NHM), London, discovered these microscopic algae by following up on an unexpected DNA sequence listed in a research paper from the late 1990s. They named the newly identified group of algae "rappemonads" after Michael Rappé a professor at the University of Hawaii, who was first author of that paper.

Following up on their initial lead, the research team developed two different DNA "probes" that were designed to detect the unusual DNA sequences reported by Rappé. Using these new probes, the researchers analyzed samples collected by Worden's group from the Northeast Pacific Ocean, the North Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea, and the Florida Straits, as well as samples collected from several freshwater sites by co-author Thomas Richards' group at NHM. To the teams' surprise, they discovered evidence of microscopic organisms containing the unusual DNA sequence at all five locations.

Although the rappemonads were fairly sparse in many of the samples, they appear to become quite abundant under certain conditions. For example, water samples taken from the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda in late winter appeared to have relatively high concentrations of rappemonads.

When asked why these apparently widespread algae had not been detected sooner, Sudek speculates that it may in part be due to their size. "They are too small to be noticed by people who study bigger algae such as diatoms, yet they may be filtered out by researchers who study the really small algae, known as picoplankton."

Sudek says, "The rappemonads are just one of many microbes that we know nothing about—this makes it an exciting field in which to work." Worden, in whose lab the research was conducted, and who first noticed the unique sequence in the 1990 paper then initiated research to "chase down" the story behind that sequence, continues, "Right now we treat all algae as being very similar. It is as if we combined everything from mice up to humans and considered them all to have the same behaviors and influence on ecosystems. Clearly mice and humans have different behaviors and different impacts!"

Even though DNA analysis demonstrated that rappemonads were present in their water samples, the researchers were still unable to visualize the tiny organisms because they didn't know what physical characteristics to look for. However, by attaching fluorescent compounds to the newly developed DNA probes, and then applying these probes to intact algae cells, Eunsoo Kim at Dalhousie was able to make parts of the rappemonads glow with a greenish light. This allowed the researchers to see individual rappemonads under a microscope.

The greenish glow highlighted the rappemonad's "chloroplasts," which contain the unique DNA sequence tagged by the new probes. Chloroplasts are used by plants and algae to harvest energy from sunlight in a process called photosynthesis. Because all of the rappemonads contain chloroplasts, the researchers believe they "make a living" through photosynthesis. However, Worden points out that it still needs to be shown that the chloroplasts are functional.

One of the primary goals of Worden's research is to study marine algae in the context of their environment. Worden feels that such an approach is imperative to understanding how rappemonads and other microorganisms affect large-scale processes in the ocean and in the atmosphere. In coming years her lab will be building upon their recent insights, including the discovery of the rappemonads, to study the roles that different algal groups play in the cycling of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere and the ocean.

Worden says, "There is a tremendous urgency in gaining an understanding of biogeochemical cycles. Marine algae are key players in these cycles, taking up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and releasing oxygen, which we breathe. Until we have a true census of marine algae and understanding of how each group thrives, it will be very difficult to model global biogeochemical cycles. Such modeling is essential for predicting how climate change will impact life on earth."

Contact: Kim Fulton-Bennett
kfb@mbari.org
831-775-1835
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute

News in Brief (January 26, 2010)

Fishermen work to implement new catch-share system

For years, West Coast groundfish numbers have dwindled, taking the living of many commercial fishermen along with them. There have been lawsuits both from conservationists wanting to protect struggling species and from people in the industry trying to stay above water. So, this season there will be a big change in regulations for groundfish trawling boats in an attempt to help both the fish and fishermen recover. A new “catch share” program will give each boat a percentage of an overall annual catch limit. Boats can buy, sell or trade parts of their quotas like stock market shares. …

Plans for marine protection highlight science gap

Researchers are scrambling to understand how best to deploy conservation zones. Facing a host of threats including fishery devastation and the destruction of coral reefs, conservationists have increasingly pinned their hopes on marine protected areas (MPAs). More than 5,000 of these sanctuaries, where fishing is controlled to limit its effect on biodiversity, have been set up, mainly in coastal zones. They range in size from less than 10,000 square metres to the vast Phoenix Islands area, part of the Republic of Kiribati in the Pacific Ocean, which tops 400,000 square kilometres. …

Marine expert warns against overfishing

One of the world's foremost marine scientists pleaded with a University of Georgia audience to help save the world's oceans in a talk Tuesday in the UGA Chapel. "Give up sushi for a while, maybe forever," said Sylvia Earle, a former chief scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration who now holds the title of Explorer-in-Residence with the National Geographic Society. …

Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall attacks government's sustainable fish target

Fish Fight campaigners says central UK government's sustainable fish target of 60% target is 'wholly unacceptable'. …

Argentina: Seafood Exports Rise in Value But Decline in Volume

Argentina exported 430,894 tonnes of seafood for USD 1,205.3 million in 2010, according to statistics from the National Food Health and Quality Service (Senasa). …

Supermarkets accused of 'misleading' fish labelling

Some of Britain's major food retailers are guilty of misleading customers by printing unfounded sustainability claims on certain fish products, an environmental law group alleged today. ClientEarth made the charges in a report published just a week after the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) was accused of "duping" consumers by awarding its eco-label to fisheries with falling fish stocks. …

Scandinavian sea may get too warm for cod

Climate change could make a sea in southern Scandinavia too warm for Atlantic cod and rising water temperatures may be stunting the growth of young fish, a study showed on Monday. …

Fish threatened by global warming to be moved north

Fish from the Lake District will be moved to cooler waters in Scotland under radical plans – which will be unveiled this week – aimed at coping with climate change. …

Absence of sea life

A Canadian sailing in a solo around-the-world race says he is disturbed by the horrendous conditions he has encountered in the southern oceans, including the near absence of large sea life. …

EU signals mackerel ban for Iceland ahead of more talks

The European Union has signalled an intention to block landings of mackerel from Icelandic boats amid the ongoing quota dispute. The wrangle over increased quotas has caused anger and concern within the Scottish industry for several months. Talks had failed to resolve the issue, after Iceland unilaterally increased its quotas following a surge of mackerel in its territory. It is hoped any block could yet be averted through more talks. …

Fight against illegal fishing brings concrete results

European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, Maria Damanaki, attended the 6th International Forum on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing in London this week. It marked the first birthday of the European Union’s (EU) regulation to fight IUU fishing. …

Coral marches to the poles

Corals around Japan are fleeing northwards, according to a new study. One type has been spotted 'sprinting' at 14 kilometres a year, thanks to a lift from ocean currents. That means ocean ecosystems could shift rapidly in the face of climate-change impacts such as warming seas, the authors say. …

New scheme launched for 'bleached and dying' coral life

Conservationists led by scientists from the Zoological Society of London have launched a new drive to save some of the world's most endangered corals. The new EDGE Coral Reefs programme lists the most endangered corals and has enlisted scientists around the world to educate local communities on their importance. The most dire predictions suggest that tropical coral reefs will be all but extinct within the next half a century, with rising sea temperatures posing the greatest threat. …

 

Deep sea trenches 'could be carbon sinks'

 

Sir David Attenborough backs new corals website

A new website set up by Scottish scientists to raise awareness of cold-water corals is to premiere a short film by Sir David Attenborough. The naturalist has given his support to the website created by scientists at Heriot-Watt University. They want to publicise the importance of the corals' conservation in Scotland and around the world. …

Monk seal and hump-backed dolphin are threatened by fishing activities off coast of Mauritania

Catalan researchers have studied the marine trophic network in Mauritania, on the north west coast of Africa, which is an extremely heavily exploited fishing area, as well as being home to two of the world’s most threatened species of marine mammal – the monk seal and the Atlantic hump-backed dolphin. The results of the study show that industrial and traditional fishing activities along the coast are putting these mammals and local marine ecosystems at great danger. …

Brazilian Offshore Subsea Lab

The Brazilian government and Navy are considering an ambitious plan for launching an offshore subsea lab to be located at the limit of the country´s territorial waters and beyond the farthest pre-salt play. …

Orcas find shark diet a real grind

Killer whales are notoriously picky eaters. Now one type of killer whale, or orca, has been found to dine on an unusual dish: shark. But these 'offshore' killer whales of the northeastern Pacific pay a high price for their tough-skinned preference — their teeth become worn right down to the gums. …

France warned by EU court over rare hamsters

A top EU legal adviser has warned the French government that it must do more to protect endangered hamsters living near Strasbourg in eastern France. France could be fined if the European Court of Justice rules that it has failed to heed a final warning from the European Commission in 2008. Numbers of Great Hamsters of Alsace are dwindling. The Commission says only 298 burrows were found in 2010, down from 1,167 in 2001. Farms and roads threaten their habitat. …

Providing home where buffalo roam stirs battles

For the first time in more than a century, wild buffalo from the nation's last purebred herd will be permitted to roam free in Montana outside the bounds of Yellowstone National Park. …

EU plans legal action against wolf hunt

The European Union is planning to take legal action against Sweden's wolf hunt, which Brussels says violates EU environmental legislation. Sweden allowed a restricted wolf hunt last year for the first time in 45 years with the aim of keeping the wolf population below 210 animals. The quota for this year's hunt, which started on Saturday and will end 15 February, is 20 wolves. …

Salisbury Plain great bustard project EU funding boost

A project to reintroduce the great bustard to the UK has been given a £1.8m boost from the European Union. The world's heaviest flying bird was hunted to extinction in the UK in 1832. It was reintroduced to Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire in 2004. A population of around 18 has been established from chicks brought from Russia. The cash will cover 75% of the scheme's costs, including monitoring the birds with GPS satellite transmitters. The Great Bustard Consortium was founded in 2004 to reintroduce the birds. It is made up of the Great Bustard Group, the University of Bath, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Natural England. The group is embarking on a five-year project, funded by an EU Life+ grant. …

Where eagles die

Misjudgements made two years ago during a rat-eradication programme on Alaska's aptly named Rat Island, which led to the death of more than 420 birds — including 46 bald eagles — have now been detailed. A report by the Ornithological Council — an association of ornithology organizations in the Americas — documents flaws in the eradication programme carried out by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and two conservation groups on the remote Aleutian island, which lies within the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The key finding is that Island Conservation, the group based in Santa Cruz, California, that led the operation, applied poison in excess of that recommended by an advisory panel and probably above the legal limit approved by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). …

Plastic adorns the nests of birds fit for a fight

It might not seem de rigueur but for a black kite furnishing one's nest with white plastic is a major statement. Spanish scientists have documented how this bird of prey will decorate its nest with large amounts of rubbish. It is a symbol of success, apparently - the biggest collections of plastic are displayed by the black kites with the most chicks and the best territory. …

Conservation biology: The end of the wild

Climate change means that national parks of the future won't look like the parks of the past. So what should they look like? …

For Many Species, No Escape as Temperature Rises

Simon Joakim Kiiru remembers a time not long ago when familiar birdsongs filled the air here and life was correlated with bird sightings. His lush, well-tended homestead is in the highlands next to the Aberdare National Park, one of the premier birding destinations in the world. …

Melting sea ice forces polar bear to swim for nine days

In a remarkable feat of endurance, a polar bear has been tracked swimming for nine days continuously in a desperate bid to reach new ice floes, covering 426 miles in the process. …

Van Jones: The economic injustice of plastic

Anthony "Van" Jones is founder of the Ella Baker Center for human rights, based in Oakland, California, and of Green for All, an NGO dedicated to "building an inclusive green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty." His work points to the connection between green energy and job creation. He's the author of The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems . In 2009, US President Obama appointed Jones his Special Advisor on Green Jobs; Jones resigned the position later that year. Jones is a senior fellow at the Center For American Progress and a senior policy advisor at Green For All. He holds a joint appointment at Princeton as a distinguished visiting fellow in both the Center for African American Studies and in the Program in Science, Technology and Environmental Policy at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

 

EPA sued over pesticides, endangered species

Environmental conservation groups sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday to force it to tighten regulation of pesticide use, arguing that the agency was not consulting wildlife officials. …

Environmental Lawyers Praise Slain Ariz. Judge

In 2009, a federal judge ruled that a vague potential threat of violence against ranchers was not sufficient cause to withhold GPS data about the killing and capture of wolves in Arizona. …

Hundreds of South Dakota dead birds poisoned by USDA

The deaths of 200 starlings in Yankton, South Dakota this week is no mystery -- they died as the result of poison set out by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an official said on Thursday. …

Aflockalypse Now: Mass animal die-offs and the ongoing extinction crisis

On New Year's Eve, 5,000 red-winged blackbirds dropped out of the sky in Beebe, Arkansas. Necropsies revealed no evidence of poisoning but did indicate the birds had suffered massive internal trauma. Days later, fisherman observed schools of fish floating belly up on Chesapeake Bay. In England, tens of thousands of dead crabs washed up on local beaches, and reports come in almost daily of penguins, turtles, and even dolphins dying unexpectedly in the wild. Are these events signs of the "aflockalypse", as the media have dubbed the recent die-offs? The answer is yes. And no. …

Conspiracies Don’t Kill Birds. People, However, Do.

At the beginning of this month when about 5,000 red-winged blackbirds fell from the sky in one night in Arkansas, biologists were called on to put a damper on public speculation about pesticides and secret military tests by reminding everyone how many birds there are and how many die. They often do so as a result of human activity, but in far more mundane and dispiriting ways than conspiracy buffs might imagine. …

Reversing the Assault on Our Seas

The following is a longer version of an op-ed published in The Miami Herald on July 29, 2010, by two of Conservation International's Ocean Health Council Co-Chairs, Dr. Gregory Stone and William Wrigley, Jr., with support by Dr. Sylvia Earle:

"The American migration to the beach is one of the great traditions of summer, as millions of us seek respite from the heat, recreation for our families, fresh seafood for our tables, and rejuvenation for the spirit. The ocean’s gifts are so plentiful, that it can be easy to assume they will always be there.
 
"But this summer, the ocean is visibly buckling under the strain of irresponsible use. We may not know the full impacts of the disastrous BP oil spill for many years, but it is already clear to the Americans who live there how much we depend on the ocean’s wellbeing for our own. That awareness may be one of the only good things to come out of this catastrophe, and should mark a tipping point for our country’s management of the seas.
 
"This is not just a problem in the Gulf or for the United States.  The world’s oceans are under continuous assault from less dramatic but equally devastating, long-term threats that include the depletion of fish and other ocean wildlife, habitat destruction, toxic pollution, and rising temperatures.  These threats may be less visible than oil slicks blanketing a beach, but collectively, are even more harmful.
 
"In the midst of all this challenge, the creation of a new National Policy for the Stewardship of the Ocean, Coasts, and Great Lakes (National Policy) by President Obama represents the first step in a long, overdue overhaul of the nation’s ocean management.  U.S. ocean governance has developed slowly over time, with more than 140 different laws, and 20 different agencies involved.  That, we believe, has led to disjointed oversight and short-term, reactive thinking. The United States now has the opportunity to design its use and stewardship of our oceans with a coordinated, cooperative vision. 
 
"It is, effectively a new administrative framework to encourage the management of large areas of America’s coasts that consider the multitude of different ways that we use them - from tourism and leisure to industry and fishing - and these strategies will put science at the core of planning and decision making. This makes absolute sense. Why? Imagine if our cities and towns were built with no regard for the competing needs of our residents. Schools might be next to freeways, parks might be forgotten in the rush to build, and traffic would be impossible. In the same way that we need city planners to look at the big picture, and design the cooperative use and development of land – we need holistic, long-term marine planning to provide the vision and occasionally, the brakes, for all of the activities we pursue in our oceans.
 
"At Conservation International, we have been successfully piloting similar science-based ocean planning strategies through our global Seascapes program in places like the Eastern Tropical Pacific, which operates in cooperation with more than fifty partners that include fishers, conservationists, businesses and all the nations of the region to design sustainable guidelines for the shared use of oceans. We recognize that fishers need to fish. Developers need to build. Governments may decide to drill. What we cannot do is allow all of this competing activity to advance blindly and at breakneck speed, with no regard for their interactions and potential consequences for the natural ocean ecosystems upon which we all depend. 
 
"It is estimated that humans have explored less than 5% of our oceans, yet we know that its ecosystems provide humanity with critical life-supporting benefits. Approximately one out of every two Americans lives in a coastal area; more than one billion people worldwide depend on fish as their main source of animal protein; and four out of every five of our breaths rely on the oxygen a healthy ocean produces. We are working with partners to develop tools that will assess and track the ocean’s global health.
 
"Among the key elements of the new direction provided by the White House: science-based planning and decision-making, encouraging that we manage human activities in concert rather than conflict, as well as protect the very ecosystems that we depend upon, are needed internationally as well.  This is particularly so for developing nations as their economies hopefully expand to alleviate the poverty that is all too prevalent.
 
"It is critically important that the United States now look beyond its own shorelines, and engage more cooperatively with other nations in the shared use of the high seas.  One way for the U.S. to bring the President’s new ocean policy into the international arena is a simple step – accede to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.  This international agreement has governed access to and stewardship of the world’s great common waters since 1994. It has the ratified support of 160 countries, including every major ocean-going nation, but the U.S. has failed to join the international community in formally acceding to it. That puts us in company with countries like Afghanistan, Iran, and Libya and a small number of other non-parties.  Ratification was approved by the Senate Foreign Relations committee overwhelmingly in 2007, by a 17 to 4 margin. The U.S. Navy testified in support, and ratification is supported by the many others in the military and marine business establishment.  Yet the full Senate has neglected to even take it up for debate. 
 
"If the United States is truly serious about becoming responsible stewards of the seas for the long-term benefit of people, it is time for this nation of laws to ratify the Law of the Sea and follow policy with meaningful, tangible action that builds upon the architecture put into place with the President’s executive order.  Our oceans, and indeed our own well being, depend on it."
 
By Dr. Gregory Stone, Chief Ocean Scientist and Co-Chair, Ocean Health Council, Conservation International, with Dr. Sylvia Earle, Founder, Mission Blue and Trustee Emeritus, Conservation International and  William Wrigley Jr., Co-Chair, Ocean Health Council and Trustee, Conservation International.

Jody Williams: A realistic vision for world peace

Jody Williams won a Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts to eradicate landmines. Now she’s teaming up with five other female peace laureates to empower women to fight violence, injustice and inequality.

In more than 100 years of Nobel Peace Prizes, only a dozen women have ever won. Civil-rights and peace activist Jody Williams, received the award in 1997 as the chief strategist of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, which established the first global treaty banning antipersonnel mines.

Williams believes that peace is defined by human (not national) security and that it must be achieved through sustainable development, environmental justice, and meeting people’s basic needs. To this end, she co-founded the Nobel Women’s Initiative, endorsed by six of seven living female Peace laureates. She chairs the effort to support activists, researchers, and others working toward peace, justice, and equality for women and thus humanity. Williams also continues to fight for the total global eradication of landmines.

 

Oxygen-free early oceans likely delayed rise of life on planet

New findings from UC Riverside-led team alter traditional ideas about ancient ocean chemistry

		This photo shows Clint Scott (left) and Timothy Lyons.

Geologists at the University of California, Riverside have found chemical evidence in 2.6-billion-year-old rocks that indicates that Earth's ancient oceans were oxygen-free and, surprisingly, contained abundant hydrogen sulfide in some areas.

"We are the first to show that ample hydrogen sulfide in the ocean was possible this early in Earth's history," said Timothy Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry and the senior investigator in the study, which appears in the February issue of Geology. "This surprising finding adds to growing evidence showing that ancient ocean chemistry was far more complex than previously imagined and likely influenced life's evolution on Earth in unexpected ways – such as, by delaying the appearance and proliferation of some key groups of organisms."

Ordinarily, hydrogen sulfide in the ocean is tied to the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere. Even small amounts of oxygen favor continental weathering of rocks, resulting in sulfate, which in turn gets transported to the ocean by rivers. Bacteria then convert this sulfate into hydrogen sulfide.

How then did the ancient oceans contain hydrogen sulfide in the near absence of oxygen, as the 2.6-million-year-old rocks indicate? The UC Riverside-led team explains that sulfate delivery in an oxygen-free environment can also occur in sufficient amounts via volcanic sources, with bacteria processing the sulfate into hydrogen sulfide.

Specifically, Lyons and colleagues examined rocks rich in pyrite – an iron sulfide mineral commonly known as fool's gold – that date back to the Archean eon of geologic history (3.9 to 2.5 billion years ago) and typify very low-oxygen environments. Found in Western Australia, these rocks have preserved chemical signatures that constitute some of the best records of the very early evolutionary history of life on the planet.

The rocks formed 200 million years before oxygen amounts spiked during the so-called "Great Oxidation Event" – an event 2.4 billion years ago that helped set the stage for life's proliferation on Earth.

"Our previous work showed evidence for hydrogen sulfide in the ocean more than 100 million years before the first appreciable accumulation of oxygen in the atmosphere at the Great Oxidation Event," Lyons said. "The data pointing to this 2.5 billion-year-old hydrogen sulfide are fingerprints of incipient atmospheric oxygenation. Now, in contrast, our evidence for abundant 2.6 billion-year-old hydrogen sulfide in the ocean – that is, another 100 million years earlier – shows that oxygen wasn't a prerequisite. The important implication is that hydrogen sulfide was potentially common for a billion or more years before the Great Oxidation Event, and that kind of ocean chemistry has key implications for the evolution of early life."

Clint Scott, the first author of the research paper and a former graduate student in Lyons's lab, said the team was also surprised to find that the Archean rocks recorded no enrichments of the trace element molybdenum, a key micronutrient for life that serves as a proxy for oceanic and atmospheric oxygen amounts.

The absence of molybdenum, Scott explained, indicates the absence of oxidative weathering of the continental rocks at this time (continents are the primary source of molybdenum in the oceans). Moreover, the development of early life, such as cyanobacteria, is determined by the amount of molybdenum in the ocean; without this life-affirming micronutrient, cyanobacteria could not become abundant enough to produce large quantities of oxygen.

"Molybdenum is enriched in our previously studied 2.5 billion-year-old Archean rocks, which ties to the earliest hints of atmospheric oxygenation as a harbinger of the Great Oxidation Event," Scott said. "The scarcity of molybdenum in rocks deposited 100 million years earlier, however, reflects its scarcity also in the overlying water column. Such metal deficiencies suggest that cyanobacteria were probably struggling to produce oxygen when these rocks formed.

"Our research has important implications for the evolutionary history of life on Earth," Scott added, "because biological evolution both initiated and responded to changes in ocean chemistry. We are trying to piece together the cause-and-effect relationships that resulted, billions of years later, in the evolution of animals and, ultimately, humans. This is really the story of how we got here."

The first animals do not appear in the fossil record until around 600 million years ago – almost two billion years after the rocks studied by Scott and his team formed. The steady build-up of oxygen, which began towards the end of the Archean, played a key role in the evolution of new life forms.

"Future research needs to focus on whether sulfidic and oxygen-free conditions were prevalent throughout the Archean, as our model predicts," Scott said.

Lyons and Scott were accompanied on this project by Christopher Reinhard from UCR; Andrey Bekker from the University of Manitoba, Canada; Bernhard Schnetger from Oldenburg University, Germany; Bryan Krapež from the Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia; and Douglas Rumble III from the Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC. Currently, Scott is a postdoctoral researcher at McGill University, Canada.

Funding for this work came from the National Science Foundation, the NASA Exobiology Program, the NASA Astrobiology Institute, and through a Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council Discovery Grant.

The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world. Reflecting California's diverse culture, UCR's enrollment has exceeded 20,500 students. The campus will open a medical school in 2012 and has reached the heart of the Coachella Valley by way of the UCR Palm Desert Graduate Center. The campus has an annual statewide economic impact of more than $1 billion.

Contact: Iqbal Pittalwala
iqbal@ucr.edu
951-827-6050
University of California - Riverside

Dramatic ocean circulation changes revealed

		These are shells of a type of foraminifers used in this study.

The unusually cold weather this winter has been caused by a change in the winds. Instead of the typical westerly winds warmed by Atlantic surface ocean currents, cold northerly Arctic winds are influencing much of Europe.

However, scientists have long suspected that far more severe and longer-lasting cold intervals have been caused by changes to the circulation of the warm Atlantic ocean currents themselves.

Now new research led by Cardiff University, with scientists in the UK and US, reveals that these ocean circulation changes may have been more dramatic than previously thought.

The findings, published today (14 January 2011) in the journal Science, show that as the last Ice Age came to an end (10,000 - 20,000 years ago) the formation of deep water in the North-East Atlantic repeatedly switched on and off. This caused the climate to warm and cool for centuries at a time.

The circulation of the world's ocean helps to regulate the global climate. One way it does this is through the transport of heat carried by vast ocean currents, which together form the 'Great ocean conveyor'. Key to this conveyor is the sinking of water in the North-East Atlantic, a process that causes warm tropical waters to flow northwards in order to replace the sinking water. Europe is kept warmer by this circulation, so that a strong reduction in the rate at which deep water forms can cause widespread cooling of up to 10 degrees Celsius.

Lead author Dr David Thornalley, Cardiff School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, explains how the scientists studied changes in ocean circulation: "We retrieved ocean sediment cores from the seafloor of the Northeast Atlantic which contained the shells of small organisms. We used these shells to examine the past distribution of radiocarbon in the ocean. Radiocarbon is a radioactive form of carbon that acts like a natural stopwatch, timing how long it has been since water was last at the sea surface. This allows us to determine how quickly deep water was forming in the Northeast Atlantic at different times in the past."

		This is a picture from the research ship.

The team of scientists found that each time deep water formation switched off, the Northeast Atlantic did not fill with water that sank locally. Instead it became inundated with water that had originally formed near Antarctica and then spread rapidly northwards. The new results suggest that the Atlantic ocean is capable of radical changes in how it circulates on timescales as short as a few decades.

Dr Thornalley said: "These insights highlight just how dynamic and sensitive ocean circulation can be. Whilst the circulation of the modern ocean is probably much more stable than it was at the end of the last Ice Age, and therefore much less likely to undergo such dramatic changes, it is important that we keep developing our understanding of the climate system and how it responds when given a push."

The research is funded through the Natural Environment Research Council's Rapid Climate Change programme and the National Science Foundation (USA). The Science paper The Deglacial Evolution of North Atlantic Deep Convection and the paper can be read online.

Cardiff University is recognised in independent government assessments as one of Britain's leading teaching and research universities and is a member of the Russell Group of the UK's most research intensive universities. Among its academic staff are two Nobel Laureates, including the winner of the 2007 Nobel Prize for Medicine, University President Professor Sir Martin Evans.

Founded by Royal Charter in 1883, today the University combines impressive modern facilities and a dynamic approach to teaching and research. The University's breadth of expertise in research and research-led teaching encompasses: the humanities; the natural, physical, health, life and social sciences; engineering and technology; preparation for a wide range of professions; and a longstanding commitment to lifelong learning. Three major new Research Institutes, offering radical new approaches to neurosciences and mental health, cancer stem cells and sustainable places were announced by the University in 2010.

The Natural Environment Research Council is the UK's main body for funding and managing world-class research, training and knowledge exchange in the environmental sciences. It coordinates some of the world's most exciting research projects, tackling major issues such as climate change, environmental influences on human health, the genetic make-up of life on earth, and much more. NERC receives around £400m a year from the government's science budget, which it uses to fund independent research and training in universities and its own research centres.

Contact: Emma Darling
DarlingEL@cardiff.ac.uk
029-208-74499
Cardiff University