Constantine Alexander's Journal

Can solar energy help save Greece?

Anthropological analysis in 'Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy' puts perspective on solar sector's potential role in recovery.

What happens to renewable energy programs in a country that gets whacked by a full-scale debt crisis, like the one that struck Greece beginning in 2009 -- do the programs whither and die in the winds of austerity? And how do people view such programs when many of them can't afford to heat their houses?

The answers to these two questions are actually linked, according to an analysis in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, which is produced by AIP Publishing. 

Renewable energy programs, particularly solar, may be more relevant than ever in Greece and could lower domestic energy costs while providing an export commodity that would help to ameliorate the economic crisis -- but only if public concerns are addressed, according to Daniel Knight of the London School of Economics, who did the analysis with Sandra Bell of Durham University in the U.K.

Knight and Bell found that one of the major unmet challenges facing the solar industry in Greece is a public that has become dubious of programs that involve international companies, foreign government and banking forces outside their borders. Addressing those public concerns is crucial to realizing solar's potential, said Knight.

"It is necessary to understand not only the role of government policy but also to think about social relations and historical consciousness among Greeks," Knight said. 

Perspective on the Greek Street: What Policy Makers Need to Understand

When the global recession spilled over up into a full-scale national debt crisis in 2010, Greece was squeezed by oil and gas prices that were reaching record highs while household incomes were falling fast. Parts of the country were returned to pre-modernity almost overnight, Knight said. 

The effects of the crisis as felt were also profound. Today many Greeks can no longer afford to run cars, cook dinner or heat their homes, and last winter people regularly burned old furniture, clothes and plastics to stay warm. The illegal harvesting of firewood is rampant and environmentally-destructive lignite ('dirty coal') is the primary source of energy in Greece, he added.

Applying the methods of anthropology research, Knight lived with locals in central Greece for extended periods over the past two years to understand the influence of communities on renewable energy initiatives in Greece and both he and Bell interviewed homeowners, farmers, local government officials, engineers and renewable energy entrepreneurs, scrubbed archives and tracked media stories. 

Many of the people they spoke with, including some energy providers and wholesalers, acknowledge that Greek solar initiatives in their current form are unsustainable and that policy changes will be needed in the future. But they also found that the government and the European Union (EU) as a whole are very poor at communicating policy to the local level, leaving people to discover energy initiatives by word of mouth.

Historically this has caused solar power to be clouded by suspicion, as many mainstream Greeks have feared that a rapidly privatizing energy sector would come to exploit them. Some people they spoke with said that they already felt compelled to put solar panels on their agricultural land, due to strict EU, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank austerity measures.

These sorts of fears are not helped by overlapping national and EU policies that are changing constantly, Knight said, and a general failure to communicate such changes to people at the local level.

"Resistance to renewable energy programs and policies is often deeply rooted in local history and culture," Knight said, "and this context must be appreciated if solar initiatives are to be successful and sustainable in the long-term."

Citation: Daniel M. Knight and Sandra Bell; Pandora's Box: photovoltaic energy and economic crisis in Greece; Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy (2013); DOI: 10.1063/1.4807477. 

 

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Baleen whales hear through their bones

Using a computer simulation of a fin whale head, scientists discovered the animal's skull amplifies and conducts low frequencies directly to their ear bones.

The fin whale skull used for this study now resides in SDSU's Museum of Biodiversity. Credit: SDSU

Understanding how baleen whales hear has posed a great mystery to marine mammal researchers. New research by San Diego State University biologist Ted W. Cranford and University of California, San Diego engineer Petr Krysl reveals that the skulls of at least some baleen whales, specifically fin whales in their study, have acoustic properties that capture the energy of low frequencies and direct it to their ear bones.

Baleen whales, also known as mysticetes, are the largest animals on earth, and include blue whales, minke whales, right whales, gray whales and fin whales. These whales can emit extremely low frequency vocalizations that travel extraordinary distances underwater. The wavelengths of these calls can be longer than the bodies of the whales themselves. 

All of these whales are considered endangered, with the exception of the gray whale, which recently was removed from the endangered species list, Cranford said.

Over the past few years, government regulators have been attempting to enact laws placing limits on the amount of man-made noise that baleen whales can be exposed to. These man-made noises come primarily from three sources: commercial shipping, energy exploration, and military exercises. 

According to Cranford, baleen whales might be particularly susceptible to negative effects from these sounds. Many of them produce vocalizations in the same frequency range as man-made noises, and too much man-made noise could limit the distance over which the whales are able to communicate about things like food and mates. Because low frequency sounds travel so far in the ocean, groups of whales that appear to be extremely far apart might indeed be within "hollerin' distance," as Cranford puts it.

However, little information was available about how baleen whales actually hear for government regulators to base new legislation on. Most of what scientists know about how whales hear comes from inferring their frequency range from their own vocalizations, as well as anatomic studies of the ears and some sound playback experiments with whales in controlled environments. Cranford and Krysl wanted to take a different approach: build a highly complex three-dimensional computer model of a baleen whale head--including the skin, skull, eyes, ears, tongue, brain, muscles, and jaws--and then simulate how sound would travel through it.

In 2003, they got their opportunity when a young fin whale beached on Sunset Beach in Orange County, California. Despite intensive efforts to save the whale, it died. Cranford and Krysl were able to obtain the animal's head for their research, placing it in an X-ray CT scanner originally designed for rocket motors.

Once they had their scan, the researchers employed a technique known as finite element modeling that breaks up data representing the skull and other parts of the head into millions of tiny elements and tracks their relationships with one another. 

It's a bit like dividing the whale's head into a series of LEGO bricks, Cranford explained, where the properties of the bone, muscle, and other materials determine how strong the connections are between the bricks. By simulating a sound wave passing through their computerized skull, they could see how each miniscule component of bone vibrates in response.

"At that point, computationally, it's just a simple physics problem," Cranford explained. "But it's one that needs lots and lots of computational power. It can swamp most computers."

There are two ways sound can reach a whale's tympanoperiotic complex (TPC), an "interlocking bony puzzle" of ear bones that is rigidly attached to the skull. One way is for the sound's pressure waves to travel through the whale's soft tissue to their TPC, but this becomes ineffective once sound waves are longer than the whale's body, Cranford said. 

The second way is for sounds to vibrate along the skull, a process known as bone conduction. Unlike pressure waves passing through soft tissue, longer waves lengths are amplified as they vibrate the skull.

A look at the left lateral view of the skull bones in a fin whale (Balaenoptera physalus). Credit: Ted W. Cranford and Petr Krysl

When Cranford and Krysl modeled various wavelengths traveling through their computerized skull, they found that bone conduction was approximately four times more sensitive to low frequency sounds than the pressure mechanism. Importantly, their model predicts that for the lowest frequencies used by fin whales, 10 Hz - 130 Hz, bone conduction is up to 10 times more sensitive.

"Bone conduction is likely the predominant mechanism for hearing in fin whales and other baleen whales," Cranford said. "This is, in my opinion, a grand discovery."

Krysl added that we humans experience a version of this phenomenon, too. 

"We have that experience when we submerge entirely in a pool," he said. "Our ears are useless, but we still hear something because our head shakes under the pushing and pulling of the sound waves carried by the water."

The researchers published their results today in the journal PLOS ONE. The fin whale skull used for their experiment now resides in SDSU's Museum of Biodiversity.

It's possible these new findings will help legislators decide on limits to oceanic man-made noise, but Cranford stressed that what's most important about their project is that they managed to solve a long-standing mystery about a highly inaccessible animal.

"What our contribution does is give us a window into how the world's largest animals hear, by an odd mechanism no less," he said. "This research has driven home one beautiful principle: Anatomic structure is no accident. It is functional, and often beautifully designed in unanticipated ways."

Cranford and Krysl have studied many species of toothed whales and beaked whales over the past 13 years, as well as dolphins and fish. Their next step is to try to replicate the study for other species of baleen whales. The researchers will be reaching out to museums that house whale skulls. 

"There is a blueprint for multiple species and it is useful to compare across species to gain insight," Krysl explained.

Citation: Ted W. Cranford and Petr Krysl; Fin Whale Sound Reception Mechanisms: Skull Vibration Enables Low-Frequency Hearing. PLOS ONE, 2015; 10 (1): e0116222 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0116222. 

Contact: Natalia Elko
San Diego State University

Tracking fish easier, quicker, safer with new injectable device

Beeping tag gathers data to help make dams more fish-friendly.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s new injectable acoustic fish-tracking tag is so small it can be inserted into a fish with a syringe. The new tag is three times lighter than earlier versions, making it safer for fish and able to more accurately record fish passage through dams. Courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Fish no longer need to go under the knife to help researchers understand exactly how they swim through hydroelectric dams, thanks to a new injectable tracking device described in the journal Scientific Reports. 

The new injectable acoustic fish tag allows researchers to safely and quickly insert the small device into young fish with a syringe similar to those used to treat humans. Injecting the tag, instead of surgically inserting it as earlier versions required, is less invasive and enables fish to heal faster, which can also provide more reliable information about fish behavior.

"Our new tag essentially allows fish to undergo a quick outpatient procedure," said Zhiqun "Daniel" Deng, a scientist at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. "Tags have been used to track and evaluate fish movement for decades, but this is the first acoustic transmitter that can be inserted with a simple needle injection."

Salmon sound system

PNNL began developing its Juvenile Salmon Acoustic Telemetry System, also known as JSATS, in 2001 at the request of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates dams in the Pacific Northwest. That system - which includes tags, sound receivers and software - was initially designed to provide a more accurate picture of how young salmon migrate from their birthplace in Columbia River Basin waters to the open Pacific Ocean. The system's use has since expanded to other fish species, for a variety of waterpower structures, and beyond the Northwest, including in California, Australia and Brazil.

Tags release quiet beeps that are picked up by receivers placed in rivers, lakes and other water bodies as tagged fish swim by. Receiver data helps researchers map out the precise 3-D location of each fish and determine if fish are injured during their travels. That information can help make dams more fish-friendly by revising their operations or altering their physical structure. Hundreds of thousands of young fish have been studied with JSATS tags over the years.

Though the earlier JSATS tag provided a very detailed picture of fish migration, researchers worried that the mere presence of their tag - which was about three times heavier in 2007 than today's injectable tag - could alter fish behavior and make tag-gathered data less reliable for small fish. The earlier tags were also large enough to require surgery, with technicians creating a small incision into each anesthetized fish, manually inserting tags and hand-stitching incisions closed. Studies showed surgically tagged fish might not behave the same as untagged fish if the ratio of the tag weight to fish weight is too big. As a result, PNNL staff worked to make a progressively smaller and lighter tag, with the eventual goal of being able to inject their tag with a syringe.

"Minimizing the impact dams have on fish requires us to study and understand how changes at dams affect their behavior and survival. A critical assumption of any research is that the animals being studied represent their entire population," said M. Brad Eppard, a fisheries biologist with the Portland District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and a co-author on the paper. "The new injectable tag helps us ensure the individual fish we study represent the fish in the Federal Columbia River Power System by allowing smaller-sized fish to be tagged."

Tricked-out tags

PNNL's new injectable tag is about as big as two grains of rice placed next to each other lengthwise. It weighs just 217 milligrams when dry, is 15 millimeters long and 3.38 millimeters in diameter. Half of the cylindrical tag contains a tiny 3-volt battery. The other half consists of a miniature circuit board and a transducer, which makes the tag's beeping noise. New features include the addition of a temperature sensor and the ability to adjust sound levels, release two unique tracking codes alternatively, and program the tag to be silent for a pre-determined amount of time.

The injectable tag can intermittently beep as often as every 0.4 seconds, or less frequently, depending on a study's particular needs. Thanks to the new tag's powerful battery, lab tests showed the tag can release sound for an average of 120 days when beeps are sent every three seconds. In comparison, PNNL's previous tag only lasted 23 days under the same conditions.

Inserting the new tag into fish also takes substantially less time than the previous version. Injecting the tag with a syringe takes just 20 seconds, while the old tag's surgery required at least two minutes. The shorter period reduces the cost of fish-tagging studies, as the manual labor of handling fish and inserting tags is the most expensive part of these studies.

Fishing for the right size

During the summer of 2013, about 700 juvenile salmon implanted with the injectable tag were released in the Snake River in Washington state. Initial results indicated survival was higher in fish carrying the injectable tag than those with the older tag. Research is ongoing to fully evaluate how the tags affect fish and to determine the smallest fish that is suitable for safe injectable tagging. 

PNNL intends to transfer the new injectable tag to a commercial vendor that will independently manufacture and sell it. Discussions are ongoing with several companies that have expressed interest in licensing the technology.

Deng and his team are continually working to improve their fish tag. An even smaller tag is being developed for juvenile eels and lamprey, and a longer-lasting tag was made for sturgeon last year.

Citation: Z.D. Deng, T.J. Carlson, H. Li, J. Xiao, M.J. Myjak, J.Lu, J.J. Martinez, C.M. Woodley, M.A. Weiland, M.B. Eppard, "An injectable acoustic transmitter for juvenile salmon," Scientific Reports, Jan. 29, 2015, DOI: 10.1038/srep08111.

Contact: Franny White
DOE/Pacific Northwest Laboratory

Interdisciplinary teams at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory address many of America's most pressing issues in energy, the environment and national security through advances in basic and applied science. Founded in 1965, PNNL employs 4,300 staff and has an annual budget of more than $1 billion. It is managed by Battelle for the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Science. As the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States, the Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time.

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New research shows our seas are in trouble

New research by the University of Sheffield has warned of the increasing risk of extinction to our marine life.

Overfishing, pollution, climate change and destruction of habitats like coral reefs are all putting our seas in trouble but academics fear the risk is not being taken as seriously as concerns for the loss of animals and plants which live on land.

Using the most comprehensive conservation data available for both marine and non-marine organisms, research led by Dr Thomas Webb, from the University's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, has shown that 20 to 25 per cent of the well-known species living in our seas are now threatened with extinction - the same figure as land living plants and animals.

Dr Webb said: "Until now, there has been a general assumption that, despite pressures on marine environments like pollution and overfishing, marine species are unlikely to be threatened with extinction.

"We have shown that, on the face of it, there are indeed far fewer marine species of conservation concern; but much of this can be explained by the fact the conservation status of fewer marine species has been formally assessed."

This assessment means that species have been checked against a list of criteria published by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a time-consuming process that has been completed for only three per cent of marine species, with no assessments at all in three quarters of the major groups of marine animals and plants.

Dr Webb added: "When we concentrate on those groups of animals and plants which are best known, and where estimates of extinction risk are likely to be most reliable, the difference between marine and non-marine species disappears. Instead, in these groups around one in every four or five species is estimated to be at a heightened risk of extinction, whether they live on land or in the sea.

"We ought to be more concerned about marine species."

The research, which was funded by the Royal Society, forms part of a broader programme of study challenging the traditional division between marine ecology and 'mainstream' ecology, the notion that marine systems are somehow fundamentally different from terrestrial systems, and that this demands separate research approaches and indeed research institutes - to study them.

Dr Webb added: "This is not to say that there are no important differences, but rather that assumptions need to be tested in order to make sensible decisions about managing the marine environment."

The study is also part of efforts to better use the wealth of existing data on marine ecosystems to track past changes and to predict how they are likely to respond to future pressures.

The paper Global Patterns of Extinction Risk in Marine and Non-Marine Systems, is being published by Current Biology on Thursday, 29 January 2015.

Citation: Thomas J. Webb and Beth L. Mindel; Global Patterns of Extinction Risk in Marine and Non-Marine Systems; Current Biology (2015); DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.12.023. 

Contact: Clare Parkin
University of Sheffield

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Where did the missing oil go? New FSU study says some is sitting on the Gulf floor

Deepwater Horizon. Credit: US Coast Guard

After 200 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, the government and BP cleanup crews mysteriously had trouble locating all of it.

Now, a new study led by Florida State University Professor of Oceanography Jeff Chanton finds that some 6 million to 10 million gallons are buried in the sediment on the Gulf floor, about 62 miles southeast of the Mississippi Delta. 

"This is going to affect the Gulf for years to come," Chanton said. "Fish will likely ingest contaminants because worms ingest the sediment, and fish eat the worms. It's a conduit for contamination into the food web."

The article, published in the latest edition of the journal Environmental Science & Technology, details how oil caused particles in the Gulf to clump together and sink to the ocean floor. 

The researchers used carbon 14, a radioactive isotope as an inverse tracer to determine where oil might have settled on the floor. Oil does not have carbon 14, so sediment that contained oil would immediately stand out. 

Chanton then collaborated with Tingting Zhao, associate professor of geography at Florida State, to use geographic information system mapping to create a map of the oiled sediment distribution on the sea floor. 

Chanton said in the short term, the oil sinking to the sea floor might have seemed like a good thing because the water was clarified, and the oil was removed from the water. But, in the long term, it's a problem, he said.

Less oxygen exists on the sea floor relative to the water column, so the oiled particles are more likely to become hypoxic, meaning they experience less oxygen. Once that happens, it becomes much more difficult for bacteria to attack the oil and cause it to decompose, Chanton said. 

Chanton's research is supported by the Florida State University-headquartered Deep-C Consortium as well as the Ecogig consortium, centered at the University of Mississippi. The work was funded by the Gulf of Mexico Research Institute created to allocate the money made available to support scientific research by BP.

His previous research examined how methane-derived carbon from the oil spill entered the food web.

Citation: Jeffrey Chanton, Tingting Zhao, Brad E. Rosenheim, Samantha Joye, Samantha Bosman, Charlotte Brunner, Kevin M. Yeager, Arne R. Diercks, David Hollander; Using Natural Abundance Radiocarbon To Trace the Flux of Petrocarbon to the Seafloor Following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill; Environmental Science & Technology, 2015; 49 (2): 847 DOI: 10.1021/es5046524. 

Contact: Kathleen Haughney
Florida State University

 

Scientists investigate link between skyrocketing sea slug populations and warming seas

A bloom of vibrant pink nudibranchs along California's coast may signal a serious shift in ocean climate.

The warm ocean temperatures that brought an endangered green sea turtle to San Francisco in early fall have triggered a population explosion of bright pink, inch-long sea slugs in tide pools along California's central and northern coastline. Credit: © Gary McDonald.

The warm ocean temperatures that brought an endangered green sea turtle to San Francisco in September have triggered a population explosion of bright pink, inch-long sea slugs in tide pools along California's central and northern coastline. The Hopkins' Rose nudibranch, while no strange sight in Southern California, is rarely spotted farther north. A team of scientists, including experts from the California Academy of Sciences, believes this far-flung Okenia rosacea bloom--along with a slew of other marine species spotted north of their typical ranges--may signal a much larger shift in ocean climate and a strong forthcoming El Niño.

Researchers from the California Academy of Sciences, UCSB, UCSC, and Bodega Marine Laboratory are carefully tracking the atypical sea slug distribution, reporting densities in the dozens per square meter in tide pools from San Luis Obispo to Humboldt Counties. The pink nudibranchs have not appeared so far north or in such high numbers since the strong El Niño events--periods of warmer-than-usual ocean water and heavy rains--of 1998 and 1983.

Without an official El Niño on record for 2015, scientists note that the recent sea slug bloom may mirror a much larger climate shift that occurred in the eastern Pacific Ocean nearly four decades ago. In 1977, rose-like Okenia rosacea appeared in record numbers along the California coast under weak El Niño conditions, coinciding with a major, decades-long period of elavated ocean temperatures. Warmer coastal waters altered the ranges of many ocean-dwellers, including several species of gastropods, fishes, and dolphins.

"While we are thrilled to see this beautiful bloom of normally-rare nudibranchs, we are concerned about the long term consequences of our changing coastal environment," says Dr. Terry Gosliner, Academy Curator of Invertebrate Zoology and Geology. "Our current climate conditions are great for some of my favorite slugs, but we can't ignore that warming seas mean less food for sea birds, and adverse impacts for all marine ecosystems. California's unique marine life can't always adapt to so much instability." Gosliner adds that frequent habitat disruptions could point to mass extinctions in coming decades.

In a 2011 report in Limnology and Oceanography, Gosliner and a team of marine experts linked widespread nudibranch blooms with periods of warming ocean temperatures. The report predicts a range-shift in sea slug populations when warm temperatures, northward ocean currents, and weak upwelling (a phenomenon that pushes cold, nutrient-rich water to the ocean's surface) overlap. "We're seeing this exact cocktail of climate conditions in California right now," says Gosliner. "We are tracking the trends to find out exactly what the shift means and how it might impact marine life."

Hopkin's Rose nudibranchs are ideal for tracking relatively rapid changes in ocean conditions. The showstopping slugs are fast-growing, live for about one year, and tend to spend their adult lives in a small patch of the ocean floor. Like previous population explosions of Okenia rosacea, the current nudibranch bloom includes species typically found farther south, including the bright purple and orange Spanish Shawl, Flabellina iodinea, and the California Sea Hare, Aplysia californica.

Though researchers believe the recent nudibranch population explosion might signal another major climate shift from cold to warm, it is simply too early to call. If a major ocean climate shift is in fact underway, Academy Research Associate Dr. Jeff Goddard believes there is a good chance the next El Niño will pack a punch on par with the 1983 and 1998 California events. As with any strong El Niño event, Californians should expect to see many species from Southern California appear farther north.

It doesn't take a scientist to spot a bright pink Hopkins' Rose nudibranch. Californians can snag a prime view of the current sea slug bloom in rocky shore tide pools along the Central Coast at Montaña de Oro and Asilomar State Parks, Scott Creek Beach, Pigeon and Pillar Points, and Fitzgerald Marine Reserve just north of Half Moon Bay. North Coast slug-finders can visit Duxbury Reef at Bolinas in Marin County. Check your local tide predictions, and aim for a "minus tide" when both the swell and wind are low. Tread lightly when exploring tide pools, and be sure to wear shoes you won't mind getting wet.

Contact: Haley Bowling
California Academy of Sciences

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More needs to be done to halt global biodiversity loss and meet Aichi targets

By Science for Environment Policy

The Aichi biodiversity targets, set by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, are unlikely to be achieved by 2020, a new study suggests — despite some progress towards halting the global loss of biodiversity. The authors of the study call for policy responses to be strengthened if the ongoing loss of nature is to be stopped.

The loss of biodiversity affects the healthy functioning of ecosystems and the benefits they provide to people. The ongoing loss of the world's natural diversity, which underpins all life, prompted Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002 to pledge reductions in the global decline in biodiversity by 2010.

The 2010 targets set by the CBD were missed. Consequently, a new set of goals to curb the loss of species and ecosystem services, supported by the 20 Aichi targets, were adopted by 193 nations in 2010. The Aichi targets, to be achieved by 2020, are part of the global Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020.

A global panel of 51 experts, drawn from a wide range of institutions, has recently assessed mid-term progress towards meeting these targets. They based their assessment on an analysis of 55 indicators (for example, extent of wetlands) selected from 163 potential indicators, which are key measures of the world's biodiversity. They built statistical models for each indicator, based on their status in 2010 and data trends and then projected changes to the indicators by 2020. The value for each indicator in 2010 was then compared with the projected value in 2020 to assess progression towards the 2020 Aichi targets.

Although there have been improvements in responses to the biodiversity crisis, the analysis revealed no significant improvement in reducing the pressures on biodiversity. This suggests that, overall, the 20 Aichi targets are unlikely to be achieved by 2020 unless efforts to tackle these problems are strengthened and very broad actions are taken across many targets.

Among the positive responses were strong trends for the increasing coverage of freshwater, marine and land protected areas which contribute towards Aichi target 11 (related to protected areas). Positive trends were also seen in sustainable management practices, including a projected increase in the area of certified and responsibly managed forests, and areas under organic and conservation farming — these contribute towards target 7 (sustainable management of agriculture, aquaculture and forests). Efforts to raise public awareness of biodiversity (target 1) were also increasing.

Nevertheless, indicator trends in many areas also revealed increasing pressures on global biodiversity. These included rising trends in production and consumption, evident from the ecological and water footprint indicators (affecting target 4 — sustainable production and consumption) and increased bottom trawling (affecting target 6 — covering sustainable management and harvest of fish stocks).

Nitrogen surplus pollution is also increasing, affecting target 8 (reducing pollution). Increases in introductions of invasive species have also been seen, affecting target 9 (controlling or eradicating invasive species).

Although the researchers say that the Aichi 2020 targets are unlikely to be reached if current damaging trends continue, they also suggest that where there are positive trends, the beneficial effects on biodiversity might only become evident after 2020. These benefits would be the result of the time lag between implementing policy responses and the resulting changes in the state of the world's biodiversity.

The results of the fourth Global Biodiversity Outlook, to which this study contributes, suggest that the pressures on biodiversity must be addressed if the CBD's objectives are to be met. This would require changes in society, such as more efficient use of land, water, energy and materials, plus a major rethink of consumption habits and food production systems.

Citation: Tittensor, D.P., Walpole, M., Hill, S.L.L. et al. (2014); A mid-term analysis of progress toward international biodiversity targets. Science 346 (6206): 241- 244; DOI:10.1126/science.1257484.

Contact: Derek Tittensor

 

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Almost half of EU freshwaters suffer from chemical pollution

The Odet River in Quimper, Finistere, Bretagne, France. Credit: Wikimedia.

By Science for Environment Policy

The health of almost half of all European freshwaters is at risk from organic chemical pollution, finds new research. The study, a continental-scale risk assessment of the potential effects of toxic organic chemicals on freshwater ecosystems, based its conclusions on data for over 200 pollutants measured at 4000 monitoring sites across Europe.

Freshwater ecosystems provide a number of important ecosystem services to humans, such as clean drinking water, irrigation, food and recreation. They are also important habitats for wildlife which help to create and maintain these ecosystem services. These important environments can be damaged by organic chemical pollutants from human activities, such as pesticide use or fossil fuel use, which risks the loss of the ecosystem services and biodiversity.

This new study examined the risk posed by these chemicals to freshwater ecosystems at a continental scale. The researchers used monitoring data (collected in the European Environment Agency's Waterbase database) from 4 000 sites spanning 91 river basins throughout Europe. These data contained information on the average and maximum annual concentrations of 223 organic chemical pollutants.

They set two 'risk thresholds' for three different groups of indicator species (fish, invertebrates and algae). The first was a high concentration 'acute risk threshold' (ART), likely to cause death, and the second was a lower concentration 'chronic risk threshold' (CRT), likely to cause long-term impacts, for example, decreased breeding rate or increased vulnerability to diseases.

Of the 4 000 sites, 14% were at or above the 'acute risk' threshold, while a further 42% were at or above the 'chronic risk' threshold for at least one species group. Pesticides were responsible for over 80% of total ART exceedances for both fish and invertebrates, and 96% of ART exceedances for algae.

Other chemicals that caused ARTs to be exceeded were polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (released by burning of petroleum products or organic material), brominated diphenyl ethers (used as flame retardants in consumer products) and tributyltin (a biocide used as an anti-fouling agent on ship hulls, now banned in the EU).

The chemical risk to freshwater ecosystems was strongly influenced by human land use, with areas of natural vegetation at significantly lower risk of exceeding either ARTs or CRTs than areas of human land use, such as agricultural land or urban areas.

Chemical impacts appeared less severe in Southern Europe. However, the study's authors note that monitoring data were limited for many southern areas.

The authors suggest that their results, which indicate significant pollution on a continental scale, may still underestimate the level of damage to Europe's freshwater ecosystems, not least because there is a need to consider the overall 'toxic pressure' on those ecosystems — from mixtures of chemicals in particular. They recommend large-scale integrated solutions, building on existing chemicals and water legislation in Europe, such as REACH and the Water Framework Directive, to take a more holistic approach to preventing chemical pollution.

Among other pollution-prevention recommendations, they propose designing chemicals using 'green chemistry' principles, the use of non-chemical substitutes, upstream treatment of unavoidable effluents, closed cycles of chemicals, and new approaches in communication and education.

Citation: Malaj, E., von der Ohe, P. C., Grote, M., et al. (2014). Organic chemicals jeopardize the health of freshwater ecosystems on the continental scale. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 111(26): 9549–54. DOI:10.1073/pnas.1321082111.

Contact: Egina Malaj

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Cock House Sparrow. Photo by Ian Kirk (CC 2.0)

By Science for Environment Policy

The number of birds in Europe has fallen by more than 420 million between 1980 and 2009, new research has found. The study, which examined 144 bird species across 25 countries, found that 90% of the lost numbers were accounted for by common species, such as house sparrows (Passer domesticus). The decline was steepest in the first half of the study (1980–1994), followed by a period of greater stability in the second (1995-2009). More needs to be done to conserve common, as well as rare species, the researchers say.

Biodiversity is declining across the globe. Conservation efforts have mainly focused on the rarest species, which face the greatest threat of extinction. Far less attention has been given to declines in more common species. However, given the high number of individuals, common species can have a large effect on the structure and characteristics of ecosystems.

Birds, which play a vital role in the functioning of many ecosystems, have been the subject of intensive monitoring programmes in Europe for decades. As such, they are excellent subjects to study how populations of rare and common species have changed over time and across a wide geographic area.

In this study researchers used data from the Pan-European Common Bird Monitoring Scheme and BirdLife International to examine how the abundance and biomass of 144 bird species changed between 1980 and 2009 across 25 European countries.

Three different factors likely to affect population sizes were also examined: habitat type used by the species, body size and 'feeding guild' — the feeding preferences of a species, such as 'aerial insectivore', which describes birds that eat only flying insects.

In 1980, there were around 2.06 billion birds in total. By 2009 this number had dropped by more than 20% to 1.64 billion birds, a difference of more than 420 million. Almost 90% of the losses were from the 36 most common species. The faster decline of common species is perhaps expected, considering most efforts in conservation are directly aimed at rare species.

Total bird biomass did not drop as much as declines in abundance would suggest. In fact biomass fell by just 7.6%, from 93 081 tonnes in 1980 to 86 037 tonnes in 2009. This can be explained by the faster declines of smaller birds, compared with larger species.

A reduction in the number of smaller birds is likely to lead to a disproportionate loss of ecosystem services such as pest control or scavenging, the authors say. This could be because the consumption rate of birds is closely linked to their metabolism and smaller birds have higher metabolic rates.

Many of the common species undergoing steep declines were farmland birds. This loss is likely to be driven by agricultural intensification, the authors suggest.

The type of habitat or feeding guild did not affect the speed of population declines. The researchers suggested that declining numbers of common birds may be linked to the deteriorating quality of the environment at the wider landscape scale, rather than specific smaller habitats which tend to enjoy targeted conservation efforts to increase the abundance of rare species, yet offer little protection for more widespread species.

According to the authors, if ecosystems are to be preserved as a whole, conservation efforts aimed at rare species must be better integrated with efforts to increase overall bird numbers.

Citation: Inger, R., Gregory, R., Duffy, J. P., et al. (2014). Common European birds are declining rapidly while less abundant species' numbers are rising. Ecology Letters, DOI:10.1111/ele.12387. 

Contact: Rich Inger

 
Europe Lost 421 Million Birds In Three Decades by GeoBeats

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Smothered oceans

Extreme oxygen loss in oceans accompanied past global climate change.

Global Oxygen Minimum Zones, including (a) Upper depth (in meters) of intermediate water hypoxia ([O2]<1.4 ml L-1) and (b) thickness (in meters) of intermediate water hypoxia ([O2]<1.4 ml L-1). The geospatial distributions of severely hypoxic [O2] minimums (of [O2] = 0.5 ml L-1 and [O2] = 0.2 ml L-1) are depicted on both panels as white lines. For the upper panel, regional blocks are defined by black lines to highlight where paleoxygenation reconstructions were completed. Data from World Ocean Atlas [192]. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0115246.g002

Seafloor sediment cores reveal abrupt, extensive loss of oxygen in the ocean when ice sheets melted roughly 10,000-17,000 years ago, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. The findings provide insight into similar changes observed in the ocean today.

In the study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, researchers analyzed marine sediment cores from different world regions to document the extent to which low oxygen zones in the ocean have expanded in the past, due to climate change.

From the subarctic Pacific to the Chilean margins, they found evidence of extreme oxygen loss stretching from the upper ocean to about 3,000 meters deep. In some oceanic regions, such loss took place over a time period of 100 years or less.

"This is a global story that knits these regions together and shows that when you warm the planet rapidly, whole ocean basins can lose oxygen very abruptly and very extensively," said lead author Sarah Moffitt, a postdoctoral scholar with the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory and formerly a Ph.D. student with the Graduate Group in Ecology.

Marine organisms, from salmon and sardines to crab and oysters, depend on oxygen to exist. Adapting to an ocean environment with rapidly dropping oxygen levels would require a major reorganization of living things and their habitats, much as today polar species on land are retreating to higher, cooler latitudes.

The researchers chose the deglaciation period because it was a time of rising global temperatures, atmospheric carbon dioxide and sea levels -- many of the global climate change signs the Earth is experiencing now.

"Our modern ocean is moving into a state that has no precedent in human history," Moffitt said. "The potential for our oceans to look very, very different in 100-150 years is real. How do you use the best available science to care for these critical resources in the future? Resource managers and conservationists can use science like this to guide a thoughtful, precautionary approach to environmental management."

Citation: Sarah E. Moffitt, Russell A. Moffitt, Wilson Sauthoff, Catherine V. Davis, Kathryn Hewett, Tessa M. Hill; Paleoceanographic Insights on Recent Oxygen Minimum Zone Expansion: Lessons for Modern Oceanography; PLOS ONE, 2015; 10 (1): e0115246 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0115246.

The study's co-authors include: Russell Moffitt with the Marine Conservation Institute; Tessa Hill, professor in the UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and at the Bodega Marine Laboratory; Wilson Sauthoff and Catherine Davis of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences; and Kathryn Hewett, UC Davis Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. The study arose from a graduate level course that was taught at UC Davis in winter 2013 by Hill. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

Contact: Sarah Moffitt
University of California Davis

University of California (UC) Davis is a global community of individuals united to better humanity and our natural world while seeking solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Located near the California state capital, UC Davis has more than 34,000 students, and the full-time equivalent of 4,100 faculty and other academics and 17,400 staff. The campus has an annual research budget of over $750 million, a comprehensive health system and about two dozen specialized research centers. The university offers interdisciplinary graduate study and 99 undergraduate majors in four colleges and six professional schools.

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