Do Mangoes Like It Hot? Climate Change And Your Favorite Fruit
Can your favorite fruits and vegetables survive the effects of climate change? Scientists are finding creative solutions to this problem.
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Climate
“Remembering” Past Climates May Help Trees Survive in a Changing World
Tree growth rate can depend on both past and present environmental conditions. With increasingly frequent and intense droughts, the importance of this environmental “memory” for growth may be changing in two-needle piñon trees.
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SCUBA Diving and Climate Change: How Dive Computers Can Be Used To Better Understand Changing Ocean Temperatures
Dive computers are devices used to measure the elapsed time and depth during underwater diving in order to prevent accidents from rising through the water too quickly. Modern-day dive computers record water temperatures and GPS coordinates, and some even send out text messages—this is why citizen scientists with dive computers are being contacted to contribute to the larger pool of climate information. These devices could be used to more accurately study changes in ocean temperature. In the end, divers are the ones in the water day in and day out, so why not use their experience as a resource of information to fight climate change?
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Vultures fight climate change, one carcass at a time
Vultures have a face only a mother could love, but their unsavory eating habits obscure a surprising benefit: lowering carbon emissions.
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Contagion: Staying Safe While Species Share Spaces
As climate change pushes species around the world together, cross-species viral infections become a growing concern.
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Leaf Senescence: More Than a Color Show
Leaves change colors during the fall as part of a process called leaf senescence. Why is this process important, and what causes it?
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Resetting the Internal Clock: Adaptable Butterflies’ Response to Climate Warming
As the climate warms, habitats near the poles are becoming increasingly hospitable for many plants, animals, and insects. But it remains uncertain whether species’ range expansions might eventually be hindered by differences in daylength at higher latitudes. Wall brown butterflies are making the journey northwards from Europe in response to climate warming. How do differences in daylength at higher latitudes affect them, and what can they do to survive in these new conditions?
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Managing soil carbon for short and long-term benefits: Have we cracked the code?
Increasing carbon in soils has potential to help fight climate change and support crop growth, but researchers are still figuring out if and how we can do both at the same time. Read on to find out if they’ve discovered a solution!
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The Great Oxidation Event: How our atmosphere went from deadly gas to fresh air
In the beginning, Earth’s atmosphere had no oxygen. Then photosynthesis made life as we know it possible, produced much of our mineable iron, and caused an ice age.
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Is the Bark Stronger Than the Bite? The Use of Models to Predict Bark Beetle-Induced Tree Mortality
Bark beetles can cause widespread tree mortality by disrupting the flow of water and nutrients. These trees are critical in sequestering carbon from greenhouse gas emissions. By accounting for beetle phenology as well as tree physiology, modeling can help predict bark-beetle induced tree mortality that can result from climate change.
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