Date: September 4, 2017
Source: University of Zurich
Summary: Ecosystems with high biodiversity are more productive and stable towards annual fluctuations in environmental conditions than those with a low diversity of species. They also adapt better to climate-driven environmental changes. These are the key findings environmental scientists made in a study of about 450 landscapes harboring 2,200 plants and animal species.
Ecosystems with high biodiversity are more productive and stable towards annual fluctuations in environmental conditions than those with a low diversity of species. They also adapt better to climate-driven environmental changes. These are the key findings environmental scientists at the University of Zurich made in a study of about 450 landscapes harbouring 2,200 plants and animal species.
The dramatic, worldwide loss of biodiversity is one of today's greatest environmental problems. The loss of species diversity affects important ecosystems on which humans depend. Previous research predominantly addressed short-term effects of biodiversity in small experimental plots planted with few randomly selected plant species. These studies have shown that species-poor plant assemblages function less well and produce less biomass than species rich systems.
Extensive Study with About 2,200 Species in 450 Landscapes
Researchers participating in the University Research Priority Programme "Global Change and Biodiversity" of the University of Zurich now demonstrate similar positive effects of biodiversity in real-world ecosystems in which mechanisms different from the ones in artificial experimental plots are at play. Using 450 different 1-km2 landscapes that spanned the entire area of Switzerland, they investigated the role of the diversity of plant, bird and butterfly species for the production of biomass, which was estimated from satellite data.
Biodiversity is Important for the Functioning of Complex, Natural Ecosystems
"Our results show that biodiversity plays an essential role for the functioning of extensive natural landscapes that consist of different ecosystem types such as forests, meadows or urban areas," study leader Pascal Niklaus from Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies says. The analyses showed that landscapes with a greater biodiversity were more productive and that their productivity showed a lower year-to-year variation.
Biodiversity Promoted the Adaptation of Landscapes
The satellite data analysed by the scientists revealed that the annual growing period increased in length throughout the last 16 years, an effect that can be explained by climate warming. The prolongation in growing season was considerably larger in more biodiverse landscapes. These relations were robust and remained important even when a range of other drivers such as temperature, rainfall, solar irradiation, topography, of the specific composition of the landscapes were considered. "This indicates that landscapes with high biodiversity can adapt better and faster to changing environmental conditions," Niklaus concludes.
Story Source:
University of Zurich. "Diverse landscapes are more productive and adapt better to climate change." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 September 2017. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170904165641.htm
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Monday, September 11, 2017
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Algae: The Final Frontier
Date: June 21, 2017
Source: Carnegie Institution for Science
Summary: Algae dominate the oceans that cover nearly three-quarters of our planet, and produce half of the oxygen that we breathe. And yet fewer than 10 percent of the algae have been formally described in the scientific literature, as noted in a new review.
Algae dominate the oceans that cover nearly three-quarters of our planet, and produce half of the oxygen that we breathe. And yet fewer than 10 percent of the algae have been formally described in the scientific literature, as noted in a new review co-authored by Carnegie's Arthur Grossman in Trends in Plant Science.
Algae are everywhere. They are part of crusts on desert surfaces and form massive blooms in lakes and oceans. They range in size from tiny single-celled organisms to giant kelp.
Algae also play crucial roles in human life. People have eaten "seaweed" (large macroalgae) for millennia. But algae can also represent a health hazard when toxic blooms suffocate lakes and coastlines.
Despite the pervasiveness of algae and their importance in our planet's ecology and in human health and nutrition, there is so much that scientists don't know about them. This lack of knowledge is mostly due to limited support and the need to develop methodologies for probing the various algal groups at the molecular level.
The term 'algae' is used informally to embrace a large variety of photosynthetic organisms that belong to a number of different taxa. To effectively reveal the mysteries of each of these organisms would require creating research processes that are effective for each of them (what works with one often doesn't work with another).
However, some of the latest molecular techniques have allowed scientists to elucidate major genetic processes that have shaped algal evolution. And this improved knowledge has implications beyond basic scientific discovery.
For example, in the future, algae may be used to produce biofuels or to synthesize high-value therapeutic compounds or plastics. Furthermore, with an improved understanding of metabolism in the various algal groups, scientists can better develop strategies to exploit algae for the production of materials -- using them as "cellular factories," in a sense.
Many studies have shown that algae can also adapt to changing environmental conditions. But what are the limits of this ability? And how will the effect of climate change on the world's oceans impact algae and the oxygen that we derive from them?
"In the process of reviewing the state of algal research, we feel that we are on the cusp of a revolution in understanding this group of organisms, their importance in shaping ecosystems worldwide, and the ways in which they can be used to enrich humankind," said Grossman.
Story Source: Carnegie Institution for Science. "Algae: The final frontier." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 June 2017. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170621165931.htm
Source: Carnegie Institution for Science
Summary: Algae dominate the oceans that cover nearly three-quarters of our planet, and produce half of the oxygen that we breathe. And yet fewer than 10 percent of the algae have been formally described in the scientific literature, as noted in a new review.
Algae dominate the oceans that cover nearly three-quarters of our planet, and produce half of the oxygen that we breathe. And yet fewer than 10 percent of the algae have been formally described in the scientific literature, as noted in a new review co-authored by Carnegie's Arthur Grossman in Trends in Plant Science.
Algae are everywhere. They are part of crusts on desert surfaces and form massive blooms in lakes and oceans. They range in size from tiny single-celled organisms to giant kelp.
Algae also play crucial roles in human life. People have eaten "seaweed" (large macroalgae) for millennia. But algae can also represent a health hazard when toxic blooms suffocate lakes and coastlines.
Despite the pervasiveness of algae and their importance in our planet's ecology and in human health and nutrition, there is so much that scientists don't know about them. This lack of knowledge is mostly due to limited support and the need to develop methodologies for probing the various algal groups at the molecular level.
The term 'algae' is used informally to embrace a large variety of photosynthetic organisms that belong to a number of different taxa. To effectively reveal the mysteries of each of these organisms would require creating research processes that are effective for each of them (what works with one often doesn't work with another).
However, some of the latest molecular techniques have allowed scientists to elucidate major genetic processes that have shaped algal evolution. And this improved knowledge has implications beyond basic scientific discovery.
For example, in the future, algae may be used to produce biofuels or to synthesize high-value therapeutic compounds or plastics. Furthermore, with an improved understanding of metabolism in the various algal groups, scientists can better develop strategies to exploit algae for the production of materials -- using them as "cellular factories," in a sense.
Many studies have shown that algae can also adapt to changing environmental conditions. But what are the limits of this ability? And how will the effect of climate change on the world's oceans impact algae and the oxygen that we derive from them?
"In the process of reviewing the state of algal research, we feel that we are on the cusp of a revolution in understanding this group of organisms, their importance in shaping ecosystems worldwide, and the ways in which they can be used to enrich humankind," said Grossman.
Story Source: Carnegie Institution for Science. "Algae: The final frontier." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 June 2017. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170621165931.htm
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Wax Worm Caterpillar Will Eat Plastic Shopping Bags: New Solution to Plastic Waste?
Date: April 24, 2017
Source: Cell Press
Summary: Generally speaking, plastic is incredibly resistant to breaking down. That's certainly true of the trillion polyethylene plastic bags that people use each and every year. But researchers may be on track to find a solution to plastic waste. The key is a caterpillar commonly known as a wax worm.
This image shows a wax worm chewing a hole through plastic. Polyethylene debris can be seen attached to the caterpillar.
Credit: Federica Bertocchini, Paolo Bombelli, and Chris Howe
Generally speaking, plastic is incredibly resistant to breaking down. That's certainly true of the trillion polyethylene plastic bags that people use each and every year. But researchers reporting in Current Biology on April 24 may be on track to find a solution to plastic waste. The key is a caterpillar commonly known as a wax worm.
"We have found that the larva of a common insect, Galleria mellonella, is able to biodegrade one of the toughest, most resilient, and most used plastics: polyethylene," says Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain. A previous study (doi: 10.1021/es504038a) has shown that Plodia interpunctella wax worms, the larvae of dian mealmoths, can also digest plastic.
Bertocchini and her colleagues made the discovery quite by accident, after noticing that plastic bags containing wax worms quickly became riddled with holes. Further study showed that the worms can do damage to a plastic bag in less than an hour.
After 12 hours, all that munching of plastic leads to an obvious reduction in plastic mass. The researchers showed that the wax worms were not only ingesting the plastic, they were also chemically transforming the polyethylene into ethylene glycol. This is suspected to be the case in Plodia interpunctella as well.
Although wax worms wouldn't normally eat plastic, the researchers suspect that their ability is a byproduct of their natural habits. Wax moths lay their eggs inside beehives. The worms hatch and grow on beeswax, which is composed of a highly diverse mixture of lipid compounds. The researchers say the molecular details of wax biodegradation require further investigation, but it's likely that digesting beeswax and polyethylene involves breaking down similar types of chemical bonds.
"Wax is a polymer, a sort of 'natural plastic,' and has a chemical structure not dissimilar to polyethylene," Bertocchini says.
As the molecular details of the process become known, the researchers say it could be used to devise a biotechnological solution to managing polyethylene waste. They'll continue to explore the process in search of such a strategy.
"We are planning to implement this finding into a viable way to get rid of plastic waste, working towards a solution to save our oceans, rivers, and all the environment from the unavoidable consequences of plastic accumulation," Bertocchini says. "However," she adds, "we should not feel justified to dump polyethylene deliberately in our environment just because we now know how to bio-degrade it."
Journal Reference:
Bombelli et al. Polyethylene bio-degradation by caterpillars of the wax moth Galleria mellonella. Current Biology, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.060
Story Source:
Cell Press. "Wax worm caterpillar will eat plastic shopping bags: New solution to plastic waste?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 April 2017. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424141338.htm.
Source: Cell Press
Summary: Generally speaking, plastic is incredibly resistant to breaking down. That's certainly true of the trillion polyethylene plastic bags that people use each and every year. But researchers may be on track to find a solution to plastic waste. The key is a caterpillar commonly known as a wax worm.
This image shows a wax worm chewing a hole through plastic. Polyethylene debris can be seen attached to the caterpillar.
Credit: Federica Bertocchini, Paolo Bombelli, and Chris Howe
Generally speaking, plastic is incredibly resistant to breaking down. That's certainly true of the trillion polyethylene plastic bags that people use each and every year. But researchers reporting in Current Biology on April 24 may be on track to find a solution to plastic waste. The key is a caterpillar commonly known as a wax worm.
"We have found that the larva of a common insect, Galleria mellonella, is able to biodegrade one of the toughest, most resilient, and most used plastics: polyethylene," says Federica Bertocchini of the Institute of Biomedicine and Biotechnology of Cantabria in Spain. A previous study (doi: 10.1021/es504038a) has shown that Plodia interpunctella wax worms, the larvae of dian mealmoths, can also digest plastic.
Bertocchini and her colleagues made the discovery quite by accident, after noticing that plastic bags containing wax worms quickly became riddled with holes. Further study showed that the worms can do damage to a plastic bag in less than an hour.
After 12 hours, all that munching of plastic leads to an obvious reduction in plastic mass. The researchers showed that the wax worms were not only ingesting the plastic, they were also chemically transforming the polyethylene into ethylene glycol. This is suspected to be the case in Plodia interpunctella as well.
Although wax worms wouldn't normally eat plastic, the researchers suspect that their ability is a byproduct of their natural habits. Wax moths lay their eggs inside beehives. The worms hatch and grow on beeswax, which is composed of a highly diverse mixture of lipid compounds. The researchers say the molecular details of wax biodegradation require further investigation, but it's likely that digesting beeswax and polyethylene involves breaking down similar types of chemical bonds.
"Wax is a polymer, a sort of 'natural plastic,' and has a chemical structure not dissimilar to polyethylene," Bertocchini says.
As the molecular details of the process become known, the researchers say it could be used to devise a biotechnological solution to managing polyethylene waste. They'll continue to explore the process in search of such a strategy.
"We are planning to implement this finding into a viable way to get rid of plastic waste, working towards a solution to save our oceans, rivers, and all the environment from the unavoidable consequences of plastic accumulation," Bertocchini says. "However," she adds, "we should not feel justified to dump polyethylene deliberately in our environment just because we now know how to bio-degrade it."
Journal Reference:
Bombelli et al. Polyethylene bio-degradation by caterpillars of the wax moth Galleria mellonella. Current Biology, 2017 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.02.060
Story Source:
Cell Press. "Wax worm caterpillar will eat plastic shopping bags: New solution to plastic waste?." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 April 2017. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/04/170424141338.htm.
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