Bugs from the deep: hyporheic stoneflies contribute much to their Ozark streams
Buried beneath the streambed is another environment home to a population of bugs more important to their local streams than ever before thought!
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Remote Environments
Unleashing Pollutants: Environmental Fate of Antarctica In a Warmer World
Antarctica has been a depository for pollutants for decades. The brutal cold has kept them dormant and unable to inflict harmful effects on nature. As temperatures rise and ice melts, what is the fate of these pollutants in this unique landscape?
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Fire Refugia are Critical for Conserving Biodiversity
“Fire refugia are landscape elements that remain unburned or minimally affected by fire, thereby supporting postfire ecosystem function, biodiversity, and resilience to disturbances.” (Meddens et al. 2018)
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The Sound of Silence: Consequences of Man-made Noise on Humpback Whale Songs
Male humpback whales sing loudly and for long durations during breeding season. A hundred years ago their voices did not have to compete with much man-made noise. These days they contend with underwater drilling, sonar, and the noise of thousands of cargo and passenger ships. This affects how and when they sing. The consequences of these changes are still largely unknown.
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Voyage to Iceberg Alley
A couple of days ago, right around sunrise, we sailed out of the Straits of Magellan and into the southern Atlantic Ocean, bound for the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic waters known as Iceberg Alley. Giant petrels soared against a clear blue sky, and gentle waves rocked the ship—although we didn’t expect that to last! I am aboard the JOIDES Resolution, a research vessel and drilling ship, and we are intentionally sailing into some of the planet’s wildest seas and the area of greatest iceberg concentration in the Antarctic.
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Animal Depopulation Due to Armed Conflict Can Drastically Alter Ecosystems For Decades
Armed conflict is one of the least-studied human activities that drastically affect the environment. A recent paper looks into the major changes in animal population patterns in Mozambique following decades of devastating war.
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What gives glacier algae their wild colors?
When a British expedition reported seeing pink mountain snow in 1818, the London Times said: “Our credulity is put to an extreme test upon this occasion, but we cannot learn that there is any reason to doubt the fact as stated.” Two hundred years later, we now can confirm that pink snow (“watermelon snow”) is real and it is caused by certain types of algae. But why is it that snow algae take on such distinctive red and purple colors? And how does this connect to melting glaciers or global sea level rise?
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The Five Deeps Expedition: The first attempt to dive to the deepest point in five oceans
The Five Deeps Expedition is led by Victor Vescovo, an American attempting to visit the five deepest areas of the ocean in a manned submersible. In December of 2018, he became the first human to reach the bottom of the Puerto Rico Trench in the Atlantic Ocean. Read on to learn more about this expedition, and keep an eye out for the results of the remaining four dives in 2019!
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Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Satellites have changed our ability to see the globe. We can now use satellite data is to monitor change in the amount of land covered by forests, and determine the reasons for that change. In this article, we discuss recent findings global forest monitoring and the impact of supply chain decisions by corporate actors.
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Diving deep: benefits of deep sea coral refuges in the Atlantic
Take a dive into the fascinating world of deep sea coral reefs off the South Atlantic Coast and their role in supporting diverse reef fish communities. The paper examines the differences between shallow and deep reefs and explores why they may require distinctions when setting management goals.
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