Helping birds and floating solar energy coexist

Scientists outline key considerations for floatovoltaics and waterbirds

University of California - Davis

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A Great Egret rests atop an floating solar project.

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Credit: Rebecca R. Hernandez, UC Davis

From a small California winery to a large-scale energy project in China, floating photovoltaics — or “floatovoltaics”— are gaining in popularity. Commonly installed over artificial water bodies, from irrigation ponds and reservoirs to wastewater treatment plants, floating solar projects can maximize space for producing clean energy while sparing natural lands.

But where there is water, there are waterbirds. Little is known about the impacts — positive or negative — floating solar projects may have on birds and other wildlife. A paper from the University of California, Davis, published in the journal Nature Water, is among the first to outline key considerations to better align renewable energy and biodiversity goals.

Birds face many threats — from habitat loss and climate change to pollution and avian influenza — and many populations are in decline.

“That’s why it’s so important to understand how waterbirds are going to respond to floating solar and if there is the possibility for conservation concessions at new floating solar facilities,” said corresponding author Elliott Steele, a postdoctoral scholar with the UC Davis Wild Energy Center within the Energy and Efficiency Institute. “We want to advance clean energy while promoting healthy, functional environments. Achieving this balance requires that we rigorously study and understand how wildlife responds to floating solar so we can ensure that negative impacts are avoided and potential ecological benefits are realized.”

Five considerations

Drawing from their scientific field observations of birds interacting with floating PV systems, the authors examined various ways such systems could impact birds, and vice versa. They concluded that future research on FPV-waterbirds interactions should examine:

• How waterbirds interact with each part of the floating PV infrastructure.
• The direct and indirect effects waterbirds and floating solar projects may have on each other. 
• How bird conservation strategies may vary by site, region or season.
• How to best monitor waterbirds at floating solar sites.
• The potential for pollutants to be released or leached from floating solar infrastructure and what can be done to mitigate risks.

“Our team has been documenting such a diversity of bird behavior with floating PV, so we immediately knew this was a very important interaction, especially given the precipitous decline in waterbird numbers globally,” said senior author and UC Davis Professor Rebecca R. Hernandez, director of the UC Davis Wild Energy Center. “Humans are also responding to waterbirds on floating PV, sometimes with deterrence. We leveraged our team’s expertise in ecology and energy system science to identify risks and solution pathways such that waterbirds and floating PV can coexist.”

Critical threshold of development

The Wild Energy Center is conducting research to begin to answer some of those questions. During their field work, the authors have seen black-crowned night herons resting on a floating solar structure before dawn, double-breasted cormorants jockeying for a favorable site, black phoebes nesting under panels, and more.

They note that while many types of wildlife use artificial water bodies, the authors focused on waterbirds because they interact above and below floating solar panels and are easy to observe.

So far, the scientists have observed mostly positive waterbird interactions with floating solar and additional benefits for people. For example, a farm that installs floating solar over an irrigation pond can save water by reducing evaporation, as well as produce clean energy without taking up cropland. Yet more research is required to fully understand the risks and benefits of introducing a large, relatively new technology into an aquatic environment.

“There are some things we wished we’d known before other kinds of renewable energy were developed,” said coauthor Emma Forester, a Ph.D. candidate with the UC Davis Land, Air and Water Resources department and the Wild Energy Center. “While we’re at this critical threshold of renewable energy development, we want to put more thought into the design that can benefit birds and other wildlife as we go forward.”

Additional coauthors include Alexander Cagle and Jocelyn Rodriguez of UC Davis, Tara Conkling and Todd Katzner of U.S. Geological Survey, Sandor Kelly of University of Central Florida, Giles Exley and Alona Armstrong of Lancaster University, and Giulia Pasquale and Miriam Lucia Vincenza Di Blasi of Innovation of Enel Green Power in Italy.

The study was funded by the UC Office of the President’s California Climate Action Seed Grant, Enel Green Power, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Geological Survey.

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Journal

Nature Water

DOI

10.1038/s44221-025-00429-4 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Aligning floating photovoltaic solar energy expansion with waterbird conservation'

Article Publication Date

12-May-2025

Ducks and other waterbirds swim and rest alongside a floating solar energy project.

Credit

Rebecca R. Hernandez, UC Davis




Coauthor Jocelyn Rodriguez of UC Davis conducts field work at a floating photovoltaic project in California's Napa Valley.

Credit

Courtesy Emma Forester, UC Davis




An anhinga bird sits on a floating solar energy project in Florida.



Credit

Rebecca R. Hernandez, UC Davis

 

Microbial ‘phosphorus gatekeeping’ found at center of study exploring 700,000 years of iconic coastline

Griffith University

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Carlo Sandblow within Cooloola National Park, Queensland.

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Credit: Credit: Orpheus Butler

A new study has dug deep into the past of the coastal dunes of an iconic Queensland location in a bid to better understand how microscopic processes in the soil support some of the most biodiverse landscapes on Earth.

Published in Nature Geoscience, the team of researchers from Griffith University, University of Sydney and Stockholm University investigated a sequence of coastal dunes of different ages (from 0-700,000 years old) in Cooloola National Park near Rainbow Beach to understand how soil microorganisms coped with severely declining levels of nutrients such as phosphorus in soil as the dunes got older.

Phosphorus is an element that is essential for all living things. It plays a crucial role in various physiological processes, including energy metabolism, cell membrane formation, and photosynthesis.

“We know a lot about the traits plants use to cope with phosphorus deficiency but have little knowledge about how soil microbes cope with it,” said Professor Charles Warren, senior author from the University of Sydney.

“This knowledge gap has constrained our ability to understand how phosphorus-limited ecosystems work.”

Fellow co-lead author Dr Orpheus Butler from Griffith’s Australian Rivers Institute said the team found that microbes – such as fungi and bacteria – had really strong physiological strategies to deal with low phosphorus levels.

These strategies include the swapping out of membrane phospholipids with non-phosphorous lipids, and accumulation of various types of microbial fats.

“Our study highlights that soil microbes use sophisticated strategies to deal with phosphorus scarcity, and that these strategies significantly shape how ecosystems function and evolve over long timescales,” he said.

“Microbes almost act as ‘phosphorus gatekeepers’ in the soil.

"The plants and the microbes are kind of competing for the phosphorus but there is reciprocity involved.

"Microbes do need the plants to grow, because if there are no plants there is no carbon for the microbes to eat. So, it's competition and facilitation at the same time.”

Professor Warren said the results of this study were important because it revealed the general strategies enabling microbes to survive and thrive in extremely phosphorus-poor soils.

“We used a naturally phosphorus-poor native ecosystem to uncover the traits that allow microbes to thrive on P poor soils, but the findings are equally relevant to managed agricultural systems that often P limited,” he said.

“The important next steps are to apply our knowledge of microbes to improving productivity of phosphorus-limited ecosystems.”

Dr Butler said low-fertility soils supported some of the most biodiverse landscapes on Earth, such as tropical rainforests and mediterranean-climate shrublands, so these results offered some important conservation and biodiversity insights into this microscopic process.

“A lot of ecosystems worldwide are what we call phosphorus limited, which means that phosphorus is the nutrient that's constraining the growth of the system more than any other nutrient,” he said.

"This is often the case in old landscapes such as our study site in Cooloola National Park, because soil phosphorus declines over time due to weathering of minerals.

“Australia is a really strong example of that; many Australian soils are really depleted of phosphorus. So, we think of phosphorus as being the master nutrient that controls many things. But in these old ecosystems, a lot of the phosphorus in the soil ends up being soaked up by the microorganisms.

“But by finding ways to use their phosphorus more efficiently, the microbes free up a huge amount of phosphorus for the plants to take up.

“So, these findings have widened our understanding of terrestrial ecosystems by highlighting a strong but overlooked interplay going on beneath the surface between microorganisms and the long-term trajectory of ecosystem development.”

The study ‘Microbial physiology conserves phosphorus across long-term ecosystem development’ has been published in Nature Geoscience.

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Journal

Nature Geoscience

DOI

10.1038/s41561-025-01696-2 

Article Title

Microbial physiology conserves phosphorus across long-term ecosystem development

UK to host key climate gathering

University of Exeter

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The Met Office and the University of Exeter will host scientists, policy makers and business leaders for vital talks assessing growing risks from climate change – and action to address it.

Even as scientific evidence demonstrates increasing threats to lives and livelihoods across the world, the global impetus for action is becoming more fragile.

In the run up to COP30 in Brazil, the Exeter Climate Forum will give a strong voice to the scientists whose work drives our understanding of the changing systems of our planet.    

Held from June 30 to July 4, the forum’s events include the Exeter Climate Conference, the second Global Tipping Points Conference, meetings of global universities and dedicated events for policymakers and business leaders.

“Exeter is a global hub of climate expertise – with world-leading researchers at both the University of Exeter and the Met Office,” said Professor Lisa Roberts, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Exeter.

“The Exeter Climate Forum is a wonderful opportunity to harness this collective power to share the latest climate science and inspire bold ideas for the solutions needed in the months and years ahead.”

Met Office Chief Executive Professor Penny Endersby CBE, FREng, Hon FInstP, said: “During my six years at the Met Office, the UK has recorded three of its four hottest years on record. I have seen two national temperature records fall, including the first ever temperature to exceed 40°C, in 2022. Globally, four of the five hottest years have also been since 2018. These aren’t coincidences.  

“The UK and the rest of the world are increasingly experiencing events linked to climate change and therefore the case for developing understanding of the events we might face and adapting to them is becoming ever more urgent. We trust the Exeter Climate Forum will play a vital role helping to deliver the necessary change.”

Stuart Brocklehurst, Chair of the Organising Committee and the University’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Business Engagement and Innovation, added: “The urgency of addressing climate change, through both decarbonisation and adaptation, grows ever greater.

“The Exeter Climate Forum will provide a key opportunity to put scientific evidence to the fore, and to support decision makers through deep understanding of the challenges we must together face ahead.”

The forum will be held at the University's Streatham Campus in Exeter.

Tickets for the Exeter Climate Conference are available at Exeter Climate Forum | Prices and Booking. Tickets for the Global Tipping Points Conference are available at Conference 2025 - Global Tipping Points.

 

The kids are hungry: Juvenile European green crabs just as damaging as adults, WSU study finds

Washington State University

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Laura Kraft holds an adult and a juvenile European green crab.

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Credit: Phot courtesy Laura Kraft, Washington State University.

LONG BEACH, Wash. — Scientists at Washington State University have found that juvenile European green crabs can do as much damage as adults to shellfish and native sea plants, calling into question current methods to eradicate the invasive crustaceans.

Green crabs are a massive threat to Washington state’s shellfish industry as well as its native eelgrass, a plant vital to local seawater ecology.

For several years, shellfish growers have been trapping green crabs in huge numbers. Trappers traditionally target adult crabs because they are easier to catch and remove. More than 1.2 million were caught in Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor alone last year. But the new study shows that current removal techniques may not be enough.

WSU Extension scientists found that juvenile crabs can crack into immature shellfish, grown for humans to eat, just as easily as the larger-clawed adults, according to a paper recently published in NOAA Fishery Bulletin.

“We looked at claw size, thinking that bigger crabs would feed on more prey,” said Laura Kraft, a WSU shellfish Extension specialist based in Long Beach, Wash. “But we found that even little crabs fed on almost the same proportion of juvenile Pacific oysters as bigger crabs.”

Kraft and her colleagues compared young crabs to fully mature crabs, with both given different food items such as Manila clams and Pacific oysters. They found that the juveniles were just as capable of feeding on the immature shellfish provided. The finding may require a shift in mindset for the green crab invasion.

“We need to start thinking about long-term pest management,” Kraft said. “I don’t think eradication is possible on the southwest Washington coast. If that’s the case, we need to look at how we use our limited resources to manage the impact of these invasive crabs.”

Kraft and other scientists have launched new studies that could aid that approach.

“We are just starting to get a better picture of the impact these crabs are having along the coast,” she said. “We know that they will impact commercial shellfish in different ways, so how do we best protect that industry?”

Washington state is the top producer of shellfish aquaculture in the country, with production estimated in excess of $200 million annually.

In the paper, the scientists also confirmed that the crabs have the potential to do more damage to native eelgrass than feeding alone. In lab-based experiments, the green crabs arbitrarily clipped the eelgrass, killing the plants for no known reason.

“Eelgrass beds are an important part of the local ecology,” Kraft said. “The crabs are disrupting the whole ecological system because eelgrass is a habitat for lots of native species, especially juvenile salmon and other fish.”

Kraft hopes to work with groups around Willapa Bay and Grays Harbor, which both have huge green crab populations and important shellfish industries, to figure out how to fight adult and juvenile crabs.

“The smaller crabs are eating very high amounts of juvenile Pacific oysters relative to their size,” Kraft said. “We need to find solutions to reduce their impact along the coast as much as possible.”

WSU pest biologist and European green crab research technician Alexis Anaya holds a green crab during the tank experiments that showed juveniles and adults both damage the ecosystem of the southwest Washington coast.


On the left are immature juvenile oysters, called spat, on a larger piece of shell. On the right, circled in red, are spots where juvenile green crabs ate the spat.

Credit
Photo courtesy Laura Kraft, Washington State University.

DOI

10.7755/FB.123.3.2 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Effect of increasing size on the ability of green crab (Carcinus maenas) to manipulate and eat commercially and ecologically important species in the Pacific Northwest

Article Publication Date

7-May-2025

New discovery explains why men are more affected from severe COVID-19

Umea University

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Johan Normark & Constantin Urban, Department of Clinical Microbiology, Umeå University

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Credit: Mattias Pettersson

Researchers at Umeå University, Sweden, have found another piece of the puzzle that explains why there are differences in immune responses in women and men when they get sick with COVID-19. This discovery has implications for treatment strategies for severe COVID-19.

“Although the total number of cases of diagnosed COVID-19 is similar for men and women, men are three times more likely to need intensive care. Our study contributes to understanding how this sex-related difference in severe COVID-19 arises”, says Johan Normark, infectious disease physician and senior lecturer at the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University and one of the researchers behind the studies.

COVID-19 is a respiratory infection caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The disease was first detected during the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The rapid, global spread led to the COVID-19 pandemic.

At least a third of those infected do not experience any symptoms. Of those who do, 80 percent experience mild symptoms and 20 percent experience severe symptoms that may require hospitalization and oxygen support. A small proportion of these becomes critically ill and requires intensive care.

Severe COVID-19 infections are characterized by an exaggerated and hyperinflammatory reaction of the immune system, especially in the lungs. The severe response can lead to tissue damage and, in the worst case, death. Part of the immune response to COVID-19 is the recruitment and activation of special white blood cells, called neutrophils. Their recruitment and activation occur primarily through the secretion of immune system signaling molecules, called cytokines.

The underlying mechanisms of why men are at risk of becoming more seriously ill with COVID-19 are not fully known.

To explore this, a translational project led by Professor Constantin Urban was started, where several research groups from Umeå University collaborated with partners at the university hospitals in Umeå and Örebro. Translational research aims to take what is learned in basic research and apply it to the development of solutions to medical problems.

In the study, blood samples from over 200 Swedish patients with COVID-19 were analyzed. Using the samples, doctoral student Remigius Gröning mapped a comprehensive cytokine profile and doctoral student Emelie Backman quantified molecules that indicate neutrophil activation.

The results showed that in the samples from patients with severe COVID-19 and needing medical care, there were higher values ​​of cytokines that recruit and activate neutrophils. In addition, there were higher values ​​of neutrophil activation markers.

“We saw that the increase in the inflammatory cytokine IL-18 was sex-dependent and that the activation of neutrophils was sex-dependent. This was our most interesting finding! On average, both the amount of this cytokine and neutrophil activation markers were higher in blood plasma from men with severe COVID-19 compared to blood plasma from women of the same category”, says Constantin Urban. Excessive recruitment and activation of neutrophils can have fatal consequences and can lead to serious and life-threatening disease.

According to the researchers, the result is important because other studies are underway that aim to treat symptoms of severe COVID-19 by suppressing neutrophil activation and thus reducing tissue damage in the patients' lungs.

“In order to further develop this treatment strategy, it is therefore tremendously important to precisely map the difference that occurs in neutrophil responses in men and women with severe COVID-19”, says Constantin Urban.

The study also highlights the complexity of the interactions that characterize the immune system's response to viral infections and how these interactions can affect the severity of the disease. Neutrophils have previously been studied most in bacterial infections, but this study shows that they also play an important role in more severe viral infections.

In future studies, the research team intends to further delineate the molecular mechanisms behind the discovered sex-related differences in the COVID-19 response and to verify the results of the current study with larger patient groups.

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Journal

European Journal of Immunology

DOI

10.1002/eji.202451546 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Human tissue samples

Article Title

Elevated Plasma Levels of NET Components in Men with Severe COVID-19 Correlates to Increased Amounts of IL-18.

Article Publication Date

9-May-2025

 

Building carbons like playing with “LEGO”?

Chinese team reviews the recent progress of 3D carbon crystals

Science China Press

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Several theoretically predicted 3D sp3 carbon structures.

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Credit: ©Science China Press

1. The Infinite Possibilities of Carbon

While graphite in pencil and diamonds in the Earth share the same element - carbon, they exhibit vastly different properties due to the different hybridization and arrangement of atoms. Scientists are no longer satisfied with these two classical structures and are trying to construct novel three-dimensional (3D) carbon crystals with superhard, conducting, porous and other properties through “Lego” -style assembly of carbon units. Connecting carbon atoms with different hybridizations leads to an essentially countless number of carbon allotropes: some are harder than diamond yet light as a foam, some have honeycomb channels for efficient hydrogen storage, and some conduct electricity like metals.

2. Theoretical Predictions: Building Crystal Genome Library of Carbons

With the development of computational materials science, over 1,600 3D carbon structures have been predicted using tools like particle swarm optimization and genetic algorithms. For instance, T-carbon is a lightweight superhard material with less than half the density of diamond constructed by replacing each carbon atom in diamond with a carbon tetrahedron (Phys Rev Lett 2011, 106, 155703). The “carbon schwarzite” is a honeycomb structure with negative curvature constructed according to the triply periodic minimal surface proposed by mathematician Hermann Schwarz, exhibiting Dirac cone band structure and exceptional adsorption capacity (Phys Rev B 2014, 90, 125434).

The article points out that although countless 3D structures can be constructed theoretically, experimental synthesis remains limited. This situation mainly stems from the fact that carbon tends to form graphite or diamond in thermodynamics, while other structures are mostly metastable and require much finer control conditions.

3. Experimental Breakthroughs: Multiple Synthesis Techniques

1）Template-Assisted Carbonization: Using zeolites with regular channels as templates, microporous 3D carbon networks can be prepared by chemical vapor deposition. For example, lanthanide-catalyzed-synthesized zeolite-templated carbon (ZTC) exhibits a periodic 3D graphene-like structure with a specific surface area of 4100 m2/g (Nature 2016, 535, 131–135), deemed as the experimental preparation of carbon schwarzites.

2）Organic Synthesis: Bottom-up preparation of macroscopic 3D carbons through the assembly of curved molecular carbons (e.g., [8]circulene and [7]circulene derivatives), which can be seen as building blocks of negatively curved 3D carbon crystals.

3）High-Pressure Processing: At tens of thousands of atmospheres of pressure, fullerene C60 molecules can connect with each other to form 3D polymers. Compressing the C70-carbon nanotube “pea-pod” structure at a pressure of more than 60 GPa can obtain V-carbon with a hardness of 89 GPa (Phys Rev Lett 2017, 118, 245701), which opens up a new path for the preparation of superhard materials.

4）Charge Injection: Several syntheses rely on the charge-injection-induced connection of carbon nanostructures, as highlighted by Zhu’s team. By heating the mixture of C60 molecules and lithium nitride, covalent bonds formed between C60 cages, thus achieving the gram-scale preparation of 3D long-range ordered porous carbon (LOPC) for the first time (Nature 2023, 614, 95–101). This method can be used to precisely control the structure at atmospheric pressure, for the preparation of more 3D carbon crystals.

4. Dawn of Future Materials

3D carbon crystals promise revolutionary applications: periodic porous structures for hydrogen storage, superhard crystals for cutting tools, and carbon-based semiconductors for next-gen electronics. Prof. Zhu remarks, “We’re unlocking the species library of carbon, like building future materials with different functions using atomic Lego blocks.” With the advancement of computational simulation and experimental techniques, 3D carbon crystals are moving from theory to reality, which not only expands the boundaries of carbon materials, but also indicates that the design of carbon materials would enter a new era of “atomic-level customization”.

Yanbo Zhang, a PhD candidate at University of Science and Technology of China, is the first author of the paper, and Prof. Yanwu Zhu is the corresponding author. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

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Construction of novel three-dimensional carbon crystals via structural transition of fullerene C60 induced by charge injection: (a) Structure and exfoliation of Mg-doped C60 polymer. (b) Gram-scale preparation of long-range ordered porous carbon crystals. (c) Theoretical simulation of structural evolution starting from C60 molecular crystal.

Credit

©Science China Press

Journal

National Science Review

DOI

10.1093/nsr/nwaf125 

Method of Research

Literature review