Russian Nuclear icebreaker escorts up 54%
Nuclear-powered icebreakers in 2019 escorted at total of 510 vessels on the Northern Sea Route.

Icebreaker "50 let Pobedy" in Murmansk. Photo: Thomas Nilsen

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By
Atle Staalesen

January 15, 2020

According to Rosatomflot, the company managing Russia’s fleet of nuclear-powered icebreakers, the increase comes as production of LNG in the Yamal Peninsula has hiked.

The 510 vessels that were escorted through the Arctic ice had a total gross tonnage of 30,29 million tons, the company informs. That is an increase of 54 percent compared with 2018 when 331 vessels with a total tonnage of 12,7 million tons were followed through the area.

«It is connected with the full project capacity reached by the LNG production plant in Sabetta,» General Director of Atomflot Mustafa Kashka says.

Meanwhile, it is not known exactly how much goods that was shipped on the route in 2019. Rosatom in mid-November 2019 said that goods volumes had reached 26 millions and that 30 million was expected to be reached by year’s end.

Russia today has a total of four nuclear-powered icebreakers in operation. In addition, the Rosatomflot operates that nuclear-powered container ship «Sevmorput».

A new fleet of icebreaking vessels are in the process of construction. The LK-60 vessel «Arktika», «Sibir» and «Ural» are to be delivered in 2020, 2021 and 2022 respectively. In addition comes another two LK-60 vessels as well as three «Liders».

According to Russia’s new development plan for the Northern Sea Route the first «Lider» to be ready for sailing in 2027.

The enhanced icebreaker capacity is to help Russia reach its target of 80 million tons of goods on the Arctic route in 2024. That number could reach 157 million tons in year 2034, Minister of Natural Resources Dmitry Kobylkin said.

READ MORE

Moscow adopts 15-year grand plan for Northern Sea Route

On Rosatom’s wishing list is a large nuclear-powered oil tanker that can break through thick Arctic ice

Nuclear-powered container ship sailed 3,000 nm to change propellers in lack of floating dock up north

World’s largest nuclear icebreaker starts sea trials

New icebreakers, ports and satellites for Northern Sea Ro

Ecological planning for post-capitalism

The future starts right here

The pandemic has already forced governments to break the old rules, and put people’s needs before pleasing the markets. Now is the time to drop the austerity that left governments powerless to deal with the environment and start coordinated ecological planning. Before the conservatives do.

by Cédric Durand & Razmig Keucheyan 

Cheaper to scrap: industrial activity today is driven by disposability

Bálint Pörneczi · Bloomberg · Getty

Martin Luther King described capitalism as ‘socialism for the rich and rugged free enterprise for the poor’. That is certainly true in normal conditions. Over the last 40 years the French government has created a market for public debt giving private operators control of its credit. It is even more true in a crisis. After the 2008 financial crash, governments around the world implemented economic support measures worth 1.7% of global GDP; by early April this year they had already spent 2.6%. Some countries have gone much further: the US had spent 10% of its GDP, and the UK 8% (Le Monde, 4 April 2020). And this is only the beginning.

Central banks have also mobilised huge amounts. The European Central Bank, unlike its Japanese or British counterparts, still refuses to finance governments directly, but it has agreed to buy €1,120bn of securities on the markets, in both government bonds and those issued by multinationals such as BMW, Shell, Total, LVMH or Telefónica. It is also facilitating bank access to liquidity. The fetish of financial stability means that investment funds, banks and major enterprises, including the worst polluters, are the first beneficiaries of state aid. Socialism for the rich has never been so protective.

Yet because of the gravity of this crisis, and the way it affects the productive economy rather than the financial sector, Martin Luther King’s definition no longer quite fits. The US Treasury is sending cheques for a modest amount directly to Americans, just as central banks use helicopter money to subsidise households and businesses without involving commercial banks or requiring any quid pro quo. As of 22 April, more than half of all employees in France’s private sector were on state-subsidised furlough. The French Economic Observatory (OFCE) estimated the monthly cost of measures allowing employees to go on receiving a proportion of their income at more than €21bn.

Neoliberal dogma (...)

The state steps in to save global economies

May 2020

Is the era of hyperglobalisation at last over?

The state steps in to save global economies

STATE CAPITALISM DEFEATS MONOPOLY CAPITALISM IN RESPONSE TO COVID-19 OPENING A ROAD TO SOCIALISM 

Covid-19 has forced governments to prioritise the needs of their citizens. To do that, they’ve had to override the ideas and laws that underpinned the extreme globalisation of the past 30 years. A quick return to business as usual gets less likely by the day; that gives us a unique chance to rewrite the economic rules once and for all.
by Lori M Wallach



Vital goods: globalisation means wealthy countries are not self-sufficient
Chen Jimin · China News Service · Getty

The Covid-19 pandemic could trigger an overdue end to the era of hyperglobalisation, the corporate-rigged economic regime that has caused enormous social and environmental costs worldwide over the last decades.

But change will be fiercely opposed by powerful commercial interests profiting from the status quo and now in ‘crisis capitalism’ mode, trying to secure more of the same. Some current and aspiring political leaders lack the imagination or courage to achieve a visionary makeover, or worse, are actively aligned with the corporate lobby.

There are four major reasons why the Covid-19 crisis could create an unprecedented opportunity for those who have long opposed the current neoliberal corporate-managed trade and investment regime to achieve transformational changes that would otherwise be inconceivable. The time is ripe for the progressive version of ‘the shock doctrine’, the phenomenon described by Naomi Klein of dominant powers exploiting crises to reorganise the world to their liking.
Forced solidarity

First, the pandemic has forced most residents of developed countries to personally experience pain and anxiety from hyperglobalisation. With our societies and economies organised to serve a system designed by and for multinational corporations, the world’s wealthiest countries cannot produce or obtain sufficient supplies of ventilators, masks and other medical supplies essential to keep people from dying.

Thanks to hyperglobalisation, production shutting down in one country has triggered a chain reaction meltdown of medical defences and economies worldwide that dramatically exacerbates the damage wrought by the virus itself.

As the crisis spotlights longstanding, unaddressed menaces inherent to this system that can be ignored in better times, it is not hard to apply this understanding to other potential disasters and recognise the existential vulnerabilities of corporate globalisation.

Many critical goods are now mainly produced in one or two countries, and an outsized share in China. And it’s difficult to quickly increase production elsewhere. Long, thin globalised supply chains mean firms seeking to ramp up production of goods cannot find inputs, parts and components. Many of the more than 100 essential parts needed to make a ventilator are not even produced in the handful of countries where most of these lifesaving machines are made; 90% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used to make almost all medicines are produced in only two countries.

Fealty to the ‘efficiency’ god that rules the globalised regime ensures there is little redundancy. So, the supply chain breaks if one of hundreds of links — companies around the world — are not operating. When workers in one country fall ill, or social distancing is needed to limit contagion, or governments prioritise domestic needs over exports, a worldwide shortage of essential goods can quickly develop.
The Covid-19 crisis may dramatically realign power dynamics in the battle over the rules of the global economy. And it will do so at a moment when people and governments are paying attention to where things are made, how and by whom, as a matter of life and death consequences

That means many people are now personally experiencing the disaster that this system was long known to be by millions of industrial workers and small farmers, and their neighbours in gutted communities throughout the developed world. This new imposed solidarity is key. It has mainly been developed country governments pushing the trade and investment agreements that have formalised hyperglobalisation. And those marginalised by it in developed nations have become ripe for the picking by rightwing political forces.

Only a catastrophe that happens suddenly, in contrast to a slower frog-in-pot climate boil, could awaken many who have previously felt insulated from the damage. Even some who smugly lectured about globalisation’s win-win efficiency gains and pushed ‘free trade’ deals packed with corporate protectionism now admit that things may have gone a bit too far, and perhaps more regional and localised production models may have merit. This shift has been on repeated display in such cheerleaders for globalisation as The Economist and the Financial Times.

No return to ‘business as usual’

Second, the shackles of conventional wisdom have been smashed. The usual government excuses of ‘we cannot do that very sensible thing under WTO/FTA/EPA/ISDS rules’ have halted. In taking whatever Covid-19 response actions are necessary, governments are shredding fundamental principles and legal obligations underpinning hyperglobalisation. It seems improbable there can be a quick return to ‘business as usual’, if only given the new role governments are being forced to play.

Indeed, many governments have been forced to reverse their extreme (and often voluntary) dereliction of duty to shape the economy for the public interest. Today, instead of corporations unilaterally deciding where and when to sell anything they produce, scores of governments around the world are finally doing what their residents would have expected of them all along — prioritising residents’ needs and intervening as needed.

Officials as improbable as Sabine Weyand, head of the European Commission’s trade directorate, have admitted as much: ‘We have to recognise that in the heat of a crisis you cannot leave the allocation of scarce resources just to the markets. You have to accept that you have to be able to direct it toward the health sector rather than to allow speculators to buy up what they find on the market’ (1).

Yet Weyand is advocating a return to ‘business as usual’ as soon as possible. EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan’s solution is to double down by launching negotiations to eliminate all restrictions on medical equipment trade ‘to ensure that global supply chains can operate freely’ (speech at meeting of EU trade ministers, 16 April 2020). Hogan and other hyperglobalisation defenders oppose calls to reshore some production of critical goods or build new regional supply chains, mischaracterising such proposals as futile efforts at ‘self-sufficiency’.

Talk about tone deaf. At issue is not a binary choice between hyperglobalisation versus autarchy. The crisis has awakened people to the reality that under the hyperglobalisation regime, their governments do not have the means to protect the public interest. That genie will not be easily shoved back into its bottle.

In addition, the sales pitch about globalised production and just-in-time global supply chains maximising efficiency to the benefit of all has given way to the reality that this system maximises short-term profits to the detriment of reliability, public health, equity and even national security.

In a nod to these realities, a 30 March G20 trade ministers’ statement suggests that policies countries deem necessary to combat the crisis should qualify for WTO exceptions. The array of prospective violations underscores the WTO’s constraints on governments’ ability to serve their residents: medicines and certain medical goods cannot be produced without obtaining permission and paying large patent fees to pharmaceutical firms; food supplies cannot be managed; regulation of many service sectors from health to retail is constrained, and so forth.

Growing demand: making protective masks at LL Bean in Maine, US, April 2020
Adam Glanzman · Bloomberg · Getty

No longer left vs right

Third, at least in the United States, crisis response has scrambled the political lines of the globalisation debate, breaking group-think norms along the way and realigning the politically possible.

Rather than left versus right, the political spectrum on Covid-19 response reveals a cleavage along populist versus corporatist lines. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are progressive populists. They believe in breaking up the regime of corporate-led globalisation and active governance to put people and planet ahead of corporate profits.

Policies they and other progressive Democrats have long demanded are now being echoed by conservative populists. ‘This pandemic also exposed a Grand Canyon size fault in our supply chain. We don’t make critical products in America anymore. It’s a threat to our health, our national security and our economy. Americans have long known about this problem. Washington is just waking up to it, and Wall Street was hoping it wouldn’t get caught.’ But that quote isn’t from Sanders or Warren — it’s from the Republican Missouri senator Josh Hawley (3 April 2020).

Not unrelated is the fourth factor: the epidemic-related acceleration worldwide of governments’ and citizens’ re-evaluating the current global economic construct in the context of China’s role in it, and the perils of relying on China as the world’s factory. A case in point, the Japanese government just announced a new $2bn programme to help its multinationals leave China (2).

Progressives who revile Trump’s anti-Asian jingoism and its use to distract from his failed Covid response are also now personally experiencing the perils of reliance on concentrated production anywhere. And more so in China, whose government is among the least transparent and not subject to any democratic accountability.

Pre-Covid, various countries were exploring how to boost national research and manufacturing capacities to counter the China 2025 agenda, the plan designed to ensure China dominates ‘industries of the future’ such as AI, robotics, green vehicles, advanced aerospace, medical technologies and more.

Rebalancing relations with China
In the United States, polling shows unusual public consensus, in line with policymakers from across the political spectrum, in favour of rebalancing commercial relations with China. Pre-crisis, recognition was growing, even among fervent supporters of the status quo, that while China has brought millions out of poverty, it also is moving further away from the rule-of-law, democratic country sold as the inevitable result of China’s WTO membership.
Rather than left versus right, the political spectrum on Covid-19 response reveals a cleavage along populist versus corporatist lines.

The growing concerns about China’s efforts to actively promote its high-tech authoritarianism, its practice of what one US commentator calls ‘innovation mercantilism’ (3) and its build-up of military might, in part financed by its massive trade surplus, have also fuelled a shift of foreign policy elite and national security officials in numerous nations. And it is impossible to separate China’s role from the hyperglobalised economic structure, of which it conspired with US, European and other multinational corporations to become the epicentre.

All four factors mean that the Covid-19 crisis could dramatically realign power dynamics in the decades-long battle over the rules of the global economy. And it will do so at a moment when people and governments worldwide are paying attention to where things are made, how and by whom, as a matter of life and death consequences.

If the lessons of this crisis are harnessed for positive change, the result would look like stronger and more resilient local, national and regional economies, designed to operate with numerous, diverse players, generating needed goods and services that are affordable and broadly accessible; creating decent jobs; supporting smaller-scale farming; and preserving the environment. It is no coincidence that these changes are also necessary to counter the climate crisis.

Past approaches provide models for how to harvest the benefits of international trade without concentrating production in a few venues where wages and environmental standards are lowest.

Special rules for essential goods

Consider that until the mid-1990s establishment of the WTO and numerous ‘free trade’ agreements, trade rules treated food differently from other goods. Why? Everyone needs food to survive. Thus, governments required ample policy space to determine how to ensure reliable and affordable supplies, including through supply management, subsidies, government stockpiling and more. Certainly that logic remains for food, and should also be applied to other critical sectors, such as medicine and medical supplies, where a lack of domestic or regional manufacturing and related supply chains creates extreme vulnerability.

To distribute production of essential goods, the 1970s Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA) provides an interesting model. The MFA allocated textile and apparel market share worldwide as a way to distribute production to countries with smaller industrial capacity or higher wages. When the WTO terminated the MFA, corporate-managed trade logic concentrated production in China and a few other Asian nations, while capacity in Africa, the Americas and Caribbean, Europe and smaller Asian nations was decimated.

To promote more resilient, sustainable trade and investment patterns, existing corporate-friendly limits on government policy space must go, while some additional ground rules are needed. The 1940s International Trade Organisation, with its floor of labour and competition standards and its rules against currency misalignment, shows how to elevate human needs without imposing detailed one-size-fits-all dictates on signatory nations. (Notably the medical goods sector is highly concentrated after a few global giants bought up and often shut down the production capacity of erstwhile competitors.)

Many a book and paper has been written about better international commercial policy. The common theme is that countries require policy space to restore democratic control of economies to serve human needs, which includes rebuilding more geographically diversified production capacity for essential goods.

The toolbox of national industrial policy, which seems to have a bad name everywhere but China, is also well known. It includes tax policies that reward domestic productive capacity and green industries, not outsourcing and Big Oil; financial regulations that reward investment in productive capacity and penalise speculation; robust competition policies; domestic and regional content rules in targeted sectors and related procurement policies that create demand and promote the development of local supply chains; intellectual property rules that prioritise broad, affordable access to medicines and technologies while also rewarding innovation; and investment in research, worker training and apprenticeships in the way Germany does well, but minus the export mania.

It will be contests of power and politics, not a lack of policy options, that determine what happens next. Unless progressives in numerous countries organise to demand an end to business as usual, we could see a mildly adjusted version of the status quo. Or we could find ourselves subject to a rightwing nationalist alternative.

Like those on the left, the likes of former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon can critique the extreme failings of hyperglobalisation. But the alternatives offered by those who love authoritarianism certainly will not be the democratic accountability that is a core antidote to hyperglobalisation.


Lori M Wallach
Lori Wallach is the director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch, Washington DC.
Original text in English

A replaceable, more efficient filter for N95 masks

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

 

IMAGE: A REPLACEABLE NANOPOROUS MEMBRANE, ILLUSTRATED ABOVE, ATTACHED TO AN N95 MASK FILTERS OUT PARTICLES THE SIZE OF SARS-COV-2 (PURPLE CIRCLES), ALLOWING ONLY CLEAN AIR (BLUE CIRCLES) THROUGH. view more 

CREDIT: ACS NANO 2020, DOI: 10.1021/ACSNANO.0C03976

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, there's been a worldwide shortage of face masks -- particularly, the N95 ones worn by health care workers. Although these coverings provide the highest level of protection currently available, they have limitations. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have developed a membrane that can be attached to a regular N95 mask and replaced when needed. The filter has a smaller pore size than normal N95 masks, potentially blocking more virus particles.

N95 masks filter about 85% of particles smaller than 300 nm. SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19) is in the size range of 65-125 nm, so some virus particles could slip through these coverings. Also, because of shortages, many health care workers have had to wear the same N95 mask repeatedly, even though they are intended for a single use. To help overcome these problems, Muhammad Mustafa Hussain and colleagues wanted to develop a membrane that more efficiently filters particles the size of SARS-CoV-2 and could be replaced on an N95 mask after every use.

To make the membrane, the researchers first developed a silicon-based, porous template using lithography and chemical etching. They placed the template over a polyimide film and used a process called reactive ion etching to make pores in the membrane, with sizes ranging from 5-55 nm. Then, they peeled off the membrane, which could be attached to an N95 mask. To ensure that the nanoporous membrane was breathable, the researchers measured the airflow rate through the pores. They found that for pores tinier than 60 nm (in other words, smaller than SARS-CoV-2), the pores needed to be placed a maximum of 330 nm from each other to achieve good breathability. The hydrophobic membrane also cleans itself because droplets slide off it, preventing the pores from getting clogged with viruses and other particles.

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The authors acknowledge funding from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology Office of Sponsored Research.

The abstract that accompanies this article can be viewed here.

The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS' mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and its people. The Society is a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a specialist in scientific information solutions (including SciFinder® and STN®), its CAS division powers global research, discovery and innovation. ACS' main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

To automatically receive news releases from the American Chemical Society, contact newsroom@acs.org.

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New to science newts from Vietnam with an important message for Biodiversity Day 2020

PENSOFT PUBLISHERS

IMAGE: ONE OF THE NEWLY DISCOVERED CROCODILE NEWT SPECIES, TYLOTOTRITON PASMANSI. view more 

CREDIT: CUONG THE PHAM

In time for the International Day for Biological Diversity 2020, the date (22 May) set by the United Nations to recognise biodiversity as "the pillars upon which we build civilizations", a new study, published in the peer-reviewed open-access journal ZooKeys, describes two new to science species and one subspecies of crocodile newts from northern Vietnam. However, this manifestation of the incredible diversity of life hosted on our planet comes as an essential reminder of how fragile Earth's biodiversity really is.

Until recently, the Black knobby newt (Tylototriton asperrimus) was known to be a common species inhabiting a large area stretching all the way from central and southern China to Vietnam. Much like most of the other members of the genus Tylototriton, colloquially referred to as crocodile newts or knobby newts, it has been increasingly popular amongst exotic pet owners and traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. Meanwhile, authorities would not show much concern about the long-term survival of the Black knobby newt, exactly because it was found at so many diverse localities. In fact, it is still regarded as Near Threatened, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.

However, over the past decade, the increasing amount of research conducted in the region revealed that there are, in fact, many previously unknown to science species, most of which would have been assumed to be yet another population of Black knobby newts. As a result, today, the crocodile newts represent the most species-rich genus within the whole family of salamanders and newts (Salamandridae).

Even though this might sound like great news for Earth's biodiversity, unfortunately, it also means that each of those newly discovered species has a much narrower distributional range, making them particularly vulnerable to habitat loss and overcollection. In fact, the actual Black knobby newt turns out to only exist within a small area in China. Coupled with the high demand of crocodile newts for the traditional Chinese medicine markets and the exotic pet trade, this knowledge spells a worrying threat of extinction for the charming 12 to 15-centimetre amphibians.

In order to help with the answer of the question of exactly how many Vietnamese species are still being mistakenly called Black knobby newt, the German-Vietnamese research team of the Cologne Zoo (Germany), the universities of Hanoi (Vietnam), Cologne and Bonn (Germany), and the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology analysed a combination of molecular and detailed morphological characters from specimens collected from northern Vietnam. Then, they compared them with the Black knobby newt specimen from China used to originally describe the species back in 1930.

Thus, the scientists identified two species (Tylototriton pasmansi and Tylototriton sparreboomi) and one subspecies (Tylototriton pasmansi obsti) previously unknown to science, bringing the total of crocodile newt taxa known from Vietnam to seven. According to the team, their discovery also confirms northern Vietnam to be one of the regions with the highest diversity of crocodile newts.

"The taxonomic separation of a single widespread species into multiple small-ranged taxa (...) has important implications for the conservation status of the original species," comment the researchers.

The newly discovered crocodile newts were named in honour of the specialist on salamander chytrid fungi and co-discoverer Prof. Dr. Frank Pasmans and, sadly, the recently deceased salamander enthusiasts and experts Prof. Fritz-Jurgen Obst and Prof. Dr. Max Sparreboom.

In light of their findings, the authors conclude that the current and "outdated" Near Threatened status of the Black knobby newt needs to be reassessed to reflect the continuous emergence of new species in recent years, as well as the "severe threats from international trade and habitat loss, which have taken place over the last decade."

Meanwhile, thanks to the commitment to biodiversity conservation of Marta Bernardes, lead author of the study and a PhD Candidate at the University of Cologne under the supervision of senior author Prof Dr Thomas Ziegler, all crocodile newts were included in the list of internationally protected species by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year.

Today, some of the threatened crocodile newt species from Vietnam are already kept at the Cologne Zoo as part of conservation breeding projects. Such is the case for the Ziegler's crocodile newt (Tylototriton ziegleri), currently listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and the Vietnamese crocodile newt (Tylototriton vietnamensis), currently considered as Endangered. Fortunately, the latter has been successfully bred at Cologne Zoo and an offspring from Cologne was recently repatriated.

The newly discovered crocodile newt subspecies, Tylototriton pasmansi obsti

Anh Van Pham

One of the newly discovered crocodile newt species, Tylototriton sparreboomi

Anh Van Pha

###

Original source:

Bernardes M, Le MD, Nguyen TQ, Pham CT, Pham AV, Nguyen TT, Rödder D, Bonkowski M, Ziegler T (2020) Integrative taxonomy reveals three new taxa within the Tylototriton asperrimus complex (Caudata, Salamandridae) from Vietnam. ZooKeys 935: 121-164. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.935.37138

Fire aerosols decrease global terrestrial ecosystem productivity through changing climate

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

IMAGE: GREAT XING'AN LARCH FOREST OF NORTHEAST CHINA IN 2011 AFTER THE 2010 HIGH-SEVERITY FIRE view more 

CREDIT: ZHIHUA LIU

Fire is the primary form of terrestrial ecosystem disturbance on a global scale, and a major source of aerosols from the terrestrial biosphere to the atmosphere.

Most previous studies have quantified the effect of fire aerosols on climate and atmospheric circulation, or on the regional and site-scale terrestrial ecosystem productivity. So far, only one work has quantified the global impacts of fire aerosols on terrestrial ecosystem productivity. It was based on offline simulations driven by prescribed atmospheric forcing, so did not consider the fire aerosols' impacts through changing climate (e.g., cloud-aerosol interactions or climate feedbacks).

In a paper recently published in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters, Dr. Fang Li from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, provided the first quantitative assessment of fire aerosols on global ecosystem productivity that takes into account the influence of aerosols' climatic effects. The study was based on fully coupled (atmosphere-land-ocean-sea-ice) simulations of the global Earth system model CESM1.2.

According to this study, fire aerosols generally decreased terrestrial gross primary productivity (GPP, carbon input of terrestrial ecosystem, the carbon uptake through photosynthesis) in vegetated areas, with a global total of ?1.6 Pg C per year, mainly because fire aerosols cooled and dried the land surface and weakened the direct photosynthetically active radiation (PAR). Exceptions to this were the Amazon and some regions in North America, which was mainly due to a fire-aerosol-induced wetter land surface and increased diffuse PAR.

"Cooling, drying, and light attenuation are major impacts of fire aerosols on the global terrestrial ecosystem productivity," concludes Dr. Li.

ANOTHER CANADIAN SEX STUDY

Fruit fly study unlocks insights into human mating rituals  

by University of Western Ontario

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A new study from Western identifies a specific gene in fruit flies that drives female mate acceptance and rejection—a vital discovery for understanding how all species, including humans, survive and thrive on Earth.

Identifying fruitless as a gene affecting female receptivity to potential mates also further explains the reproductive barriers between species, as mate rejection is also critical for preventing cross-species mating, a process called 'reproductive isolation."

The study, The fruitless gene affects female receptivity and species isolation, was published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

"What we have found is that the fruitless gene not only controls how a female selects or rejects a mate from her own species, but how she declines reproductive advances from other species, too," explained Biology professor Amanda Moehring, Canada Research Chair in Functional Genomics.

Behaviour, in humans and other species like fruit flies, is regulated—and measured—by factors like consciousness, social norms, and other environmental influences.

This study, however, further illustrates that all actions are initiated in biological genes as they determine the neural connections in the brain. These behaviours include communication, response to stress, and mate selection or rejection—the foundational aspects of what a species is and how it functions.

As part of the study, Moehring and her research team—Tabashir Chowdhury, Ryan Calhoun and Katrina Bruch—also showed that behaviours of mate selection can be modified at the genetic level to produce entirely unexpected results.

"The fruit fly model that we have created is an important first step in understanding the role genes play in sexual behaviour and development," said Chowdhury, a postdoctoral scholar and first author of the study. "Moving forward, we hope to clarify the roles these genes play and figure out how similar genes could be involved in the infinitely more complex human behavioural system.

Same gene, different mating techniques in flies

More information: Tabashir Chowdhury et al. The fruitless gene affects female receptivity and species isolation, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2020). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2019.2765

Journal information: Proceedings of the Royal Society B 

Provided by University of Western Ontario

Low-severity fires enhance long-term carbon retention of peatlands

by Duke University

A proscribed burn at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Credit: Curt Richardson, Duke University

High-intensity fires can destroy peat bogs and cause them to emit huge amounts of their stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases, but a new Duke University study finds low-severity fires spark the opposite outcome.

The smaller fires help protect the stored carbon and enhance the peatlands' long-term storage of it.

The flash heating of moist peat during less severe surface fires chemically alters the exterior of clumped soil particles and "essentially creates a crust that makes it difficult for microbes to reach the organic matter inside," said Neal Flanagan, visiting assistant professor at the Duke Wetland Center and Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

This reaction—which Flanagan calls "the crème brulee effect"—shields the fire-affected peat from decay. Over time, this protective barrier helps slow the rate at which a peatland's stored carbon is released back into the environment as climate-warming carbon dioxide and methane, even during periods of extreme drought.

By documenting this effect on peatland soils from Minnesota to Peru, "this study demonstrates the vital and nuanced, but still largely overlooked, role fire plays in preserving peat across a wide latitudinal gradient, from the hemi-boreal zone to the tropics," said Curtis J. Richardson, director of the Duke Wetland Center.

"This is the first time any study has been able to show that," Richardson said, "and it has important implications for the beneficial use of low-severity fire in managing peatlands, especially at a time of increasing wildfires and droughts."

The researchers published their peer-reviewed findings May 10 in the journal Global Change Biology.

Peatlands are wetlands that cover only 3% of Earth's land but store one-third of the planet's total soil carbon. Left undisturbed, they can lock away carbon in their organic soil for millennia due to natural antimicrobial compounds called phenolics and aromatics that earlier studies by the Duke team have shown can prevent even drier peat from decaying. If a smoldering, high-intensity fire or other major disturbance destroys this natural protection, however, they can quickly turn from carbon sinks to carbon sources.

To conduct the new study, Flanagan and his colleagues at the Duke Wetland Center monitored a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proscribed burn of a peatland pocosin, or shrub-covered wetland bog, at Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in eastern North Carolina in 2015. Using field sensors, they measured the changing intensity of the fire over its duration and the effects it had on soil moisture, surface temperatures and plant cover. They also did chemical analyses of soil organic matter samples collected before and after the fire.

They then replicated the intensity and duration of the N.C. fire, which briefly reached temperatures of 850oF, in controlled laboratory tests on soil from peatlands in Minnesota, Florida and the Amazon basin of Peru, and analyzed the burn samples using using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy.

The analysis showed that the low-severity fires increased the degree of carbon condensation and aromatization in the soil samples, particularly those collected from the peatlands' surface. In other words, the researchers saw the "crème brulee effect" in samples from each of the latitudes.

Long-term laboratory incubations of the burnt samples showed lower cumulative CO2 emissions coming from the peat for more than 1-3 years after the tests.

"Initially, there was some loss of carbon, but long-term you easily offset that because there's also reduced respiration by the microbes that promote decay, so the peat is decomposing at a much slower rate," Flanagan said.

Globally, peatlands contain approximately 560 gigatons of stored carbon. That's the same amount that is stored in all forests and nearly as much as the 597 gigatons found in the atmosphere.

"Improving the way we manage and preserve peatlands is critical given their importance in Earth's carbon budget and the way climate change is altering natural fire regimes worldwide," Richardson said, "This study reminds us that fire is not just a destructive anomaly in peatlands, it can also be a beneficial part of their ecology that has a positive influence on their carbon accretion."

Flanagan and Richardson conducted the study with fellow Duke Wetland Center researchers Hongjun Wang and Scott Winton. Winton also holds appointments at ETH Zurich's Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics and the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology.Natural mechanism could lower emissions from tropical peatlands

More information: Neal E. Flanagan et al, Low‐severity fire as a mechanism of organic matter protection in global peatlands: Thermal alteration slows decomposition, Global Change Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1111/gcb.15102

Journal information: Global Change Biology 

Provided by Duke University