Rubber-leguminous shrub systems should be popularized to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Xishuangbanna

by Zhang Nannan, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Rubber-Flemingia macrophylla plantation in Xishuangbanna. Credit: LIU Changan

In recent years, numerous rubber-based agroforestry systems, using a biological approach to enhance ecosystem services, have been developed. Intercropping rubber with Flemingia macrophylla, a leguminous shrub, has been widely established in rubber plantations area of China.

Previous studies showed that greenhouse gas emissions in rubber and rubber-F. macrophylla systems would be affected by their plantation age. However, the effect of different-aged rubber and rubber-F. macrophylla systems on CO2, N2O, and CH4 emissions from soils is unknown.

In a study published in Forest Ecology and Management, researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) investigated the effect of introducing F. macrophylla to different-aged rubber plantations on the emissions of CO2, N2O, and CH4 in Xishuangbanna.

They found that the emissions of CO2, N2O and CH4 decreased as the trees aged in the rubber plantations. The introduction of F. macrophylla to different-aged rubber plantations significantly decreased CO2 and CH4 flux but increased N2O flux.

Furthermore, the CO2 and N2O fluxes were mainly affected by soil temperature at 10 cm depth, and CH4 flux was mainly affected by both soil water content in the 0–10 cm soil layer and soil temperature at 10 cm depth.

Moreover, they found that the rubber-leguminous shrub systems significantly improved soil organic carbon sequestration rate and reduced greenhouse gas emissions, relative to the same-aged rubber plantations.
  

Sloping fields in the rubber–Flemingia macrophylla plantations. Credit: LIU Changan

Decrease of CO2 emissions is crucial for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in rubber plantations worldwide.

"We therefore propose that rubber-leguminous shrub systems should be popularized in the rubber planting area for reducing greenhouse gas emissions," said Prof. Tang Jianwei, principal investigator of the study.


Intercrops enhance soil moisture availability in rubber agroforestry systems
More information: Xin Rao et al. Rubber-leguminous shrub systems stimulate soil N2O but reduce CO2 and CH4 emissions, Forest Ecology and Management (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2020.118665
Journal information: Forest Ecology and Management
Provided by Chinese Academy of Sciences

American Pikas show resiliency in the face of global warming

by Arizona State University

American pika Credit: Andrew Smith, Arizona State University

The American pika is a charismatic, diminutive relative of rabbits that some researchers say is at high risk of extinction due to climate change. Pikas typically live in cool habitats, often in mountains, under rocks and boulders. Because pikas are sensitive to high temperatures, some researchers predict that, as the Earth's temperature rises, pikas will have to move ever higher elevations until they eventually run out of habitat and die out. Some scientists have claimed this cute little herbivore is the proverbial canary in the coal mine for climate change.

A new extensive review by Arizona State University emeritus professor Andrew Smith, published in the October issue of the Journal of Mammalogy, finds that the American pika is far more resilient in the face of warm temperatures than previously believed. While emphasizing that climate change is a serious threat to the survival of many species on Earth, Smith believes that the American pika currently is adapting remarkably well.

Smith has studied the American pika for more than 50 years and presents evidence from a thorough literature review showing that American pika populations are healthy across the full range of the species, which extends from British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, to northern New Mexico in the U.S.

Occupancy in potential pika habitat in the major western North American mountains was found to be uniformly high. Among sites that have been surveyed recently, there was no discernible climate signal that discriminated between the many occupied and relatively few unoccupied sites.

"This is a sign of a robust species," Smith said.

Smith said most of the studies that have raised alarms about the fate of the pika are based on a relatively small number of restricted sites at the margins of the pika's geographic range, primarily in the Great Basin. However, a recent comprehensive study of pikas evaluating 3,250 sites in the Great Basin found pikas living in over 73% of the suitable habitat investigated. Most important, the sites currently occupied by pikas and the sites where they are no longer found were characterized by similar climatic features.

"These results show that pikas are able to tolerate a broader set of habitat conditions than previously understood," Smith adds.

Smith's most interesting finding is that pikas are apparently much more resilient than previously believed, allowing them to survive even at hot, low-elevation sites. Bodie California State Historic Park, the Mono Craters, Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve, Lava Beds National Monument, and the Columbia River Gorge (all hot, low-elevation sites) retain active pika populations, demonstrating the adaptive capacity and resilience of pikas. Pikas cope with warm temperatures by retreating into their cool, underground talus habitat during the hot daylight hours and augment their restricted daytime foraging with nocturnal activity.

This doesn't mean that some pika populations have not been pushed to their limit, leading to their disappearance from some habitats. Smith's review points out that most documented cases of local loss of pika populations have occurred on small, isolated habitat patches.

"Due to the relatively poor ability of pikas to disperse between areas, those habitats are not likely to be recolonized, particularly in light of our warming climate," Smith said. "In spite of the general health of pikas across their range, these losses represent a one-way street, leading to a gradual loss of some pika populations. Fortunately for pikas, their preferred talus habitat in the major mountain cordilleras is larger and more contiguous, so the overall risk to this species is low."

Smith's work emphasizes the importance of incorporating all aspects of a species' behavior and ecology when considering its conservation status, and that all available data must be considered before suggesting a species is going extinct. For the American pika, the data conclusively show that rather than facing extinction, American pikas are changing their behaviors in ways that help them better withstand climate change, at least for now.


American pikas tolerate climate change better than expected
More information: Andrew T Smith et al, Conservation status of American pikas (Ochotona princeps), Journal of Mammalogy (2020). DOI: 10.1093/jmammal/gyaa110
Journal information: Journal of Mammalogy
Provided by Arizona State University

Cover crop could solve weed problems for edamame growers

by Lauren Quinn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

For vegetable growers, weeds can mean lost income from reduced yield and foreign plant matter contaminating the harvest. But for many crops, particularly vegetable legumes, weed management options are very limited.

Cover crops such as cereal rye reduce weed competition in grain soybean, but most vegetable legume growers have yet to adopt the practice due to the potential for reduced germination and yield in thick cover crop residue. However, a new study from the University of Illinois and USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) shows early-terminated rye could be a promising part of an integrated weed management program for some vegetable legumes, including edamame.

"In general, the more cover crop biomass you have, the better the weed suppression. We found a sweet spot in an earlier experiment with edamame when we terminated rye at tillering and then planted into the stubble. The rye provided measurable weed suppression without harming the crop," says Marty Williams, USDA-ARS ecologist and affiliate professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at Illinois. "We wanted to follow that up with yield experiments for edamame, and decided to broaden to some mainstream vegetable legumes including snap bean and lima bean."

Williams and his research team looked at weed density and biomass in bare soil and in plots planted with a rye cover crop terminated at tillering, about a month before vegetable crops were planted. For three growing seasons, the researchers either sprayed weeds with one of the few registered herbicides; hand-pulled weeds in addition to spraying; or left weeds alone to grow. Then they gathered information on weed suppression, crop establishment and yield, as well as soil moisture and nitrogen.

In edamame and snap bean, early-terminated rye reduced weed biomass by 53% and 73%, respectively, compared with bare soil. And, consistent with his earlier studies, Williams found no reductions in edamame establishment or yield. Yet, the results for snap bean and lima bean were not as rosy. Both lost yield when planted in rye residue, and weed density and biomass actually increased for lima bean, compared with bare soil.

"We found the early-terminated rye system worked well in edamame. The rye suppressed weed biomass without impacting the crop." Williams says. "For lima bean, the system failed. For snap bean, there is room for improvement."

He suspects the poor performance in lima and snap bean is related to the crops' weak ability to fix nitrogen in soils depleted of the nutrient by the cover crop. In turn, poor crop growth and canopy development favored the weeds.

"We had a problem with crop establishment in lima bean in the rye stubble," Williams says. "And while snap bean established well, crop growth was hampered by the nitrogen-starved environment in rye stubble—one of the key traits providing weed suppression."

Edamame, like soybean, can grow without applied nitrogen because it benefits from symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Williams' group is currently doing follow-up research to exploit biological nitrogen fixation in snap bean, which would have implications beyond weed management.

Although early-terminated rye worked well in edamame, the cover crop didn't eliminate the need for other weed control measures.

"Early-terminated rye alone is not going to solve all weed problems," Williams says. "It reduced the weed load, but did not eliminate it. Early-terminated rye roughly halved the weeds compared to bare soil. The weed load was further reduced by using an herbicide, too. Hand-weeding, while generally used as a last-resort tactic, was used in this system to entirely eliminate interference with the crop and weed seedbank additions. That combination is the most effective approach."


Early-killed rye shows promise in edamame
More information: Nicholas E. Korres et al, Integrated weed management strategies with cereal rye mulch in processing vegetable legumes, Agronomy Journal (2020). DOI: 10.1002/agj2.20349
Journal information: Agronomy Journal
Provided by University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

How psychological ownership can enhance stewardship for public goods

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BEING 

A CUSTODIAN OR A JANITOR

by Kim Tucker Campo, New York Institute of Technology

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

How can consumers be encouraged to take better care of public goods and resources? That's the question posed in a new research paper co-authored by Colleen P. Kirk, D.P.S., associate professor of marketing at New York Institute of Technology, in the Journal of Marketing.

"Caring for the Commons: Using Psychological Ownership to Enhance Stewardship Behavior for Public Goods" aims to help solve the "tragedy of the commons," the idea that when goods or resources are shared by many owners they are subject to abuse or neglect.

Sadly, the tragedy of the commons can be seen in many public spaces, such as cemeteries, public housing, fishing areas, and beaches, and has contributed to a number of environmental challenges. One commonly cited environmental issue includes ocean pollution. Because ocean waters are shared by many different nations no single authority has the power to pass laws that protect the entire ocean. Instead, nations manage and protect ocean resources along their coastlines, leaving the much larger shared waters vulnerable to contamination.

Citing available studies on the tragedy of the commons, Kirk joins Joann Peck, Ph.D., of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business; Andrea Luangrath, Ph.D., of the University of Iowa; and Suzanne Shu, Ph.D., of Cornell University in hypothesizing that increased feelings of ownership towards a public good can help ensure that individuals do their part.

Putting their theory to the test

The researchers manipulated scenarios in public settings to encourage visitors to view the spaces as their own, rather than as a shared commodity. In each scenario, the investigators found that increasing psychological ownership enhanced stewardship, causing participants to become more likely to take direct action to care for that setting, such as picking up trash, or financial stewardship, such as donating money.

For example, the researchers manipulated psychological ownership of a lake by asking a randomized group of kayak renters to think of and write down a nickname for the lake before renting their boats. Unbeknownst to the kayakers, the researchers had planted anchored floating trash in the lake to test whether naming the lake would create an increased feeling of ownership. Compared to the control group, kayakers who were not asked to name the lake, the "namers" were more likely to do their part in trying to pick up the trash, with 41 percent attempting to remove the planted litter.


In another scenario, study participants were asked to imagine that they were taking a walk in a hypothetical park called Stoneview Park. Researchers showed the control group a park entrance sign that read the generic message, "Welcome to the park." In contrast, the experimental group was shown a sign reading, "Welcome to YOUR park." Each group of "walkers" then completed a survey on how likely they were to remove litter or donate to park maintenance efforts. Once again, when compared to the control group, those exposed to the psychological ownership tactics (YOUR park group) felt a greater need to care for and contribute to maintaining the public space.

A third scenario tested yet another psychological ownership tactic aimed at cultivating stewardship. Cross country skiers and snowshoers at a public park ski rental were asked to plan a route prior to their outing. Following the completion of the park's standard liability waiver, an employee offered them a map, obtained their shoe size, and, in the control group (the "non-planners"), went on to retrieve the ski equipment. However, in the experimental group, before retrieving the skis or snowshoes, the employee asked the renters to plan a route they might take on the map. All renters were then charged for their ski equipment and asked whether they would like to add a dollar to the rental fee to help the park. Donations indicated that individuals who planned their route in advance were more likely to chip in. In addition, a participant survey also revealed that those asked to plan their route were more likely to feel ownership, volunteer, donate in the future, and promote the park to others using social media. The researchers believe that because these skiers played an active role in shaping their experience, they may have felt a greater sense of connection to the park.

Kirk, who has published significant research on psychological ownership and an op-ed in Harvard Business Review, believes the findings can assist marketers in conservation efforts.

"Maintaining the natural environment is a pressing issue facing our planet, and has become more challenging during the pandemic as park services are reduced while the number of people spending time outside has increased," she notes. "Researchers have previously shown that eliciting feelings of ownership in consumers, even in the absence of legal ownership, induces them to value a product more highly. In this research, we document, through a variety of experimental studies in the field and in the laboratory, that individual psychological ownership also motivates caring behaviors for a public good, such as picking up trash from a lake or donating time or money to a park. We encourage marketers and environmentalists alike to reflect on these findings when considering ways to maintain public spaces."


Why people go into debt: The money isn't really theirs
More information: Joann Peck et al, Caring for the Commons: Using Psychological Ownership to Enhance Stewardship Behavior for Public Goods, Journal of Marketing (2020). DOI: 10.1177/0022242920952084
Journal information: Journal of Marketing
Provided by New York Institute of Technology

The Pentecostal movement seeks a healthier form of community
IMPERIALISM THE HIGHEST FORM OF PROTESTANTISM
by University of Helsinki

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Pentecostalism is the largest and fastest growing branch of Christianity in the world after the Catholic Church. Thanks to its focus on missionary work, Pentecostalism wields significant power particularly in areas where western secular culture has not gained dominant status, sch as in many parts of Africa.

"It's also a major political and social movement. Pentecostal demonology views demons as active agents with the power to influence people and various aspects of their daily lives. Other Christian denominations see this as problematic, as it tends to generate unhealthy phenomena and can result in practices and interpretations that are ethically problematic," explains Sanna Urvas, a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Theology in University of Helsinki, Finland.

"In many African countries and places such as Papua New Guinea, witchcraft is a part of the traditional culture, but the Christian interpretation sees it as the work of evil spirits. Accusations of witchcraft are typically leveled at women, young people or the poor."

Evil comes from people, not demons

Theologians Amos Yong from the USA and Opoku Onyinah from Ghana are trying to reform Pentecostal thinking and its understanding of sin and evil.

"Yong's approach is exceptional in the Pentecostal context, as he accuses people and communities of evil, instead of demons. This means that evil could be banished by renouncing corruption and unhealthy power structures while protecting the weak, for example."

Onyinah emphasizes the significance of people's personal choices and the responsibilities of the communities instead of blaming misfortune on witchcraft perpetrated by a neighbor," Sanna Urvas describes.

"Both Yong and Onyinah are producing theology that aims at improving the lives of these communities. Both of them protect the underdog by highlighting unfair practices and undoing interpretations that enable abuses of power. Both unequivocally condemn teachings that claim a Christian might be possessed by a demon.

Demonology infringes on human rights

According to Sanna Urvas, belief in demonic possession enables psychological and spiritual violence while polarizing communities.

"Based on studies conducted in Africa, interpreting developmental disabilities as demonic has significantly eroded the human rights of disabled people and reduced their agency. Various illnesses, such as depression, may also be seen as the fault of spirits. This causes significant psychological stress for the disabled or sick person as well as their family."

Claiming that anything out of the ordinary, such as dissident thought, is demonic in nature may also lead to human rights violations.

According to Urvas, various activities across the denominational lines have brought demonological interpretations to nearly all denominations.

"The issue of demonic possession is controversial in the churches and fellowships outside the mainline denominations. Classical Pentecostalism teaches that the sick can be healed through prayer. A constructive interpretation of this would be that the sick person receives support and believes that God can heal them miraculously. Refusal of medical interventions and resorting to exorcisms are more disturbing phenomena. The goal of my research is, among other things, to emphasize an understanding of the underlying causes of illness that combines a medical standpoint with the belief in a healing God. This way, the sick person will receive the best help modern medicine can provide while still benefitting from the psychological and spiritual support of others praying for them. Such an integrated understanding should be embraced throughout the Pentecostal Church and potentially even more broadly."

Women as equal theological authorities

Pentecostalism is a very patriarchal movement, both in Finland and elsewhere. At The Church of Pentecost in Ghana, which is the second case study in Sanna Urvas's research, women are not allowed to study theology or serve as pastors.

"Also in Finland, the Pentecostal Church has very few female theological authorities. It seems I'm the first Pentecostal woman to receive a doctorate in systematic theology at a research university while specializing in Pentecostal theology. Meeting the women in the Ghanaian church was a revelation for them: a woman can also be a doctrinal authority."

Urvas wants to empower all women in the Pentecostal church in Finland and elsewhere:

"We as women have equal rights and opportunities to build healthier beliefs and practices and therefore communities everywhere in the world."

Sanna Urvas, MTh and MA (Dance), will defend her doctoral thesis entitled Theology of sin and evil in Classical Pentecostalism—Two case studies at the University of Helsinki's Faculty of Theology on 16 October 2020 at 2pm. Docent Jaakko Rusama from the University of Helsinki will serve as the opponent and Professor Risto Saarinen as the custos.


Nearly half of Finnish pastors have a positive attitude towards euthanasia
Provided by University of Helsinki

Sea star's ability to clone itself may empower this mystery globetrotter

by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Mystery solved: the mystery larvae collected in the Caribbean grow up to become this sea star, Valvaster striatus, which is only known from the Indo Pacific region. Credit: Gustav Paulay

For decades, biologists have captured tiny sea star larvae in their nets that did not match the adults of any known species. A Smithsonian team recently discovered what these larvae grow up to be and how a special superpower may help them move around the world. Their results are published online in the Biological Bulletin.


"Thirty years ago, people noticed that these asteroid starfish larvae could clone themselves, and they wondered what the adult form was," said staff scientist Rachel Collin at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI). "They assumed that because the larvae were in the Caribbean the adults must also be from the Caribbean."

Scientists monitor larvae because the larvae can be more sensitive to physical conditions than the adults and larval dispersal has a large influence on the distribution of adult fishes and invertebrates. Collin's team uses a technique called DNA barcoding to identify plankton. They determine the DNA sequence of an organism, then look for matches with a sequence from a known animal in a database.

"This mystery species was one of the most common in our samples from the Caribbean coast of Panama," Collin said. "We knew from people's studies that the DNA matched sequences from similar larvae across the Caribbean and it matched unidentified juvenile starfish caught in the Gulf of Mexico—but no one had found a match to any known adult organism in the Caribbean. So we decided to see if the DNA matched anything in the global 'Barcode of Life' data base."

For thirty years, scientists have been capturing these larvae in their plankton nets, but only now have they discovered what they are. The larvae have the ability to make copies of themselves--clones. Credit: Michael Boyle

"That's when we got a match with Valvaster striatus, a starfish that was thought to be found only in the Indo West Pacific," Collin said. "The is the first-ever report of this species in the Atlantic Ocean. We could not have identifed it if Gustav Paulay from the University of Florida didn't have DNA sequences from invertebrates on the other side of the world."

But why are the larvae common in the Caribbean if adult Valvaster starfish have never been found here? Are the adult starfish hidden inside Caribbean reefs, or are the larvae arriving from the other side of the world?

V. striatus is widespread but rare in the western Pacific. The few reports from collectors and the confirmed photos on iNaturalist range from the Indian Ocean to Guam and Hawaii. These starfish live deep in the reef matrix, only coming out at night. So, it is possible that there are adults in the Caribbean that have never been seen. But the other possibility, that the ability to clone themselves may allow them to spread around the world, is also intriguing.

"It's possible that the ability of the larvae to clone themselves is not just a clever way to stay forever young," Collin said. "There's a natural barrier that keeps organisms from the western Pacific and the Indian ocean from crossing the Atlantic to the Caribbean. After they make it around the tip of Africa, they are met by a cold current that presumably kills tropical species."

"Just how cloning could help them get through the barrier is still not known, but it's intriguing that another sea star species from the Indo West Pacific that was collected for the first time in the Caribbean in the 1980s also has cloning larvae," Collin said.


Parents unknown—Mysterious larvae found in Panama's two oceans
More information: Rachel Collin et al, World Travelers: DNA Barcoding Unmasks the Origin of Cloning Asteroid Larvae from the Caribbean, The Biological Bulletin (2020). DOI: 10.1086/710796
Provided by Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Mathematician refines model of predator-prey relations in the wild

by RUDN University
The traditional mathematical model of predator-prey relations in the wild does not take into account indirect nonlocal interactions. However, according to a mathematician from RUDN University, they affect the dynamics of predators and prey in a system, and the nature of this effect is sensitive to the initial conditions. Credit: RUDN University

The traditional mathematical model of predator-prey relations in the wild does not take into account indirect nonlocal interactions. However, according to a mathematician from RUDN University, they affect the dynamics of predators and prey in a system, and the nature of this effect is sensitive to the initial conditions. An article about his work was published in the Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation journal.


Ecologists use mathematical models of ecosystems to understand their structure and predict their development. Predator-prey is one of the basic models of this kind. With its help scientists can for instance calculate changes in the numbers of carnivores and herbivores depending on numerous conditions: the breeding of the latter, starvation of the former, amounts of prey eaten by predators, migrations, and so on. However, this model only takes into account local interactions, i.e. direct interactions between predators and prey in each given spatial location, while actual ecosystems also include nonlocal ones. A mathematician from RUDN University working together with his colleagues from the UK and India enhanced the standard predator-prey model taking these less obvious factors into account. Using his work, ecologists will be able to better understand developments in natural systems.

One example of natural nonlocal interactions is arid regions. To grow there, plants need to have a vast root system to collect moisture from large territories, not just from the vicinity of their location. Mathematically, this nonlocality is expressed as an integral that sums up the effect of the whole system at each given point. The competition for food among herbivores is also nonlocal, so a model has to take into account the integral amount of food in a system, not at each particular place.

"Nonlocal properties of movement are of interest for researchers; however, the nonlocal origin of this dynamics is often discarded. Still, there are a lot of natural systems with nonlocal interactions. One of the best examples may be the vegetation-water system, especially in semi-arid regions. There, nonlocality is a direct result of extensive root networks. We have confirmed that the nonlocality of intraspecific interactions can be the cause of different system dynamics in the predator-prey model," said Prof. Sergey Petrovskii from RUDN University.

The team tested their concept using computer modeling and found out that even if a system initially has equal numbers of carnivores and herbivores, after some time their quantities start to grow differently at different points due to nonlocal interactions. As a result, the total quantity of the system becomes dominated either by predators or prey, and different spatial patterns are formed. Another feature of a nonlocal system is bistability, i.e. possible coexistence of two patterns. This is an important attribute of nonlocality. It is the initial conditions that determine which pattern eventually succeeds.


Predator and prey in cyber stasis
More information: Swadesh Pal et al, Spatiotemporal pattern formation in 2D prey-predator system with nonlocal intraspecific competition, Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cnsns.2020.105478
Provided by RUDN University

Beak bone reveals pterosaur like no other

by University of Portsmouth

An artist's impression of Leptostomia begaaensis

 Credit: Megan Jacobs, University of Portsmouth

A new species of small pterosaur—similar in size to a turkey—has been discovered, which is unlike any other pterosaur seen before due to its long slender toothless beak.

The fossilised piece of beak was a surprising find and was initially assumed to be part of the fin spine of a fish, but a team of palaeontologists from the universities of Portsmouth and Bath spotted the unusual texture of the bone—seen only in pterosaurs—and realised it was a piece of beak.

Professor David Martill of the University of Portsmouth, who co-authored the study, said: "We've never seen anything like this little pterosaur before. The bizarre shape of the beak was so unique, at first the fossils weren't recognised as a pterosaur."

Careful searching of the late Cretaceous Kem Kem strata of Morocco, where this particular bone was found, revealed additional fossils of the animal, which led to the team concluding it was a new species with a long, skinny beak, like that of a Kiwi.

Lead author of the project, University of Portsmouth Ph.D. student Roy Smith, said: "Just imagine how delighted I was, while on field work in Morocco, to discover the lower jaw to match the upper jaw found by Dr. Longrich of this utterly unique fossil animal."

The new species, Leptostomia begaaensis, used its beak to probe dirt and mud for hidden prey, hunting like present-day sandpipers or kiwis to find worms, crustaceans, and perhaps even small hard-shelled clams.

Pterosaurs are the less well-known cousins of dinosaurs. Over 100 species of these winged-reptiles are known, some as large as a fighter jet and others as small as a sparrow.

Professor Martill said: "The diets and hunting strategies of pterosaurs were diverse—they likely ate meat, fish and insects. The giant 500-pound pterosaurs probably ate whatever they wanted.

"Some species hunted food on the wing, others stalked their prey on the ground. Now, the fragments of this remarkable little pterosaur show a lifestyle previously unknown for pterosaurs."

The scientists used a computerised tomography (CT) scan to reveal an incredible network of internal canals for nerves that helped detect the prey underground.


Dr. Nick Longrich, from the Milner Centre for Evolution at the University of Bath, said: "Leptostomia may actually have been a fairly common pterosaur, but it's so strange—people have probably been finding bits of this beast for years, but we didn't know what they were until now."

Long, slender beaks evolved in many modern birds. Those most similar to Leptostomia are probing birds—like sandpipers, kiwis, curlews, ibises and hoopoes. Some of these birds forage in earth for earthworms while others forage along beaches and tidal flats, feeding on bristle worms, fiddler crabs, and small clams.

Leptostomia could probably have done either, but its presence in the Cretaceous age Kem Kem strata of Africa—representing a rich ecosystem of rivers and estuaries—suggests it was drawn there to feed on aquatic prey.

"You might think of the pterosaur as imitating the strategy used successfully by modern birds, but it was the pterosaur that got there first," said Dr. Longrich. "Birds just reinvented what pterosaurs had already done tens of millions of years earlier."

Dr. Longrich suggests the new species shows how, more than a century after pterosaurs were first discovered, there's still so much to learn about them. He said: "We're underestimating pterosaur diversity because the fossil record gives us a biased picture.

"Pterosaur fossils typically preserve in watery settings—seas, lakes, and lagoons—because water carries sediments to bury bones. Pterosaurs flying over water to hunt for fish tend to fall in and die, so they're common as fossils. Pterosaurs hunting along the margins of the water will preserve more rarely, and many from inland habitats may never preserve as fossils at all.

"There's a similar pattern in birds. If all we had of birds was their fossils, we'd probably think that birds were mostly aquatic things like penguins, puffins, ducks and albatrosses. Even though they're a minority of the species, their fossil record is a lot better than for land birds like hummingbirds, hawks, and ostriches."

Over time, more and more species of pterosaurs with diverse lifestyles have been discovered. That trend, the new pterosaur suggests, is likely to continue.


Naked prehistoric monsters: Evidence that prehistoric flying reptiles probably had feathers refuted
More information: Roy E. Smith et al, A long-billed, possible probe-feeding pterosaur (Pterodactyloidea: ?Azhdarchoidea) from the mid-Cretaceous of Morocco, North Africa, Cretaceous Research (2020). 

DOI: 10.1016/j.cretres.2020.104643
Journal information: Cretaceous Research
Provided by University of Portsmouth

Research finds biodegradable alternatives are no better for the environment

by Anglia Ruskin University

Close up of cellulose glitter used in the experiment Credit: Dr Dannielle Green, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU)

New research indicates that glitter could be causing ecological damage to our rivers and lakes.

The study, led by Dr. Dannielle Green of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials, is the first to examine the impact of glitter on freshwater habitats.

The research found that after 36 days, the presence of glitter halved the root length of common duckweed (Lemna minor), while levels of chlorophyll in the water were three times lower than in control conditions, indicating reduced levels of phytoplankton, or microalgae.

Glitter is used in a variety of decorative ways, including on clothing, in arts and crafts, and in cosmetics and body paint. Traditional glitter is a form of microplastic consisting of a plastic core made of polyester PET film, which is coated with aluminium and then covered with another thin plastic layer.

Along with other forms of single use microplastics, such as microbeads, there have been efforts to phase out PET glitter with the introduction of more biodegradable alternatives.

One version has a core of modified regenerated cellulose (MRC), sourced mainly from eucalyptus trees, but this is still coated with aluminium for reflectivity and then topped with a thin plastic layer. Another form is mica glitter, which is increasingly used in cosmetics.

Close up of PET glitter used in the experiment Credit: Dr Dannielle Green, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU)

However, this new study found that the effects of MRC and mica glitters on root length and chlorophyll levels were almost identical to those of traditional glitter.

The only significant difference was a two-fold increase in the abundance of New Zealand mud snails (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) in water containing the biodegradable MRC glitter. These snails, commonly found in polluted waters, are an invasive species in the UK and an increase in numbers has the potential to disrupt ecosystems, as they can outcompete native species.

Dr. Dannielle Green, Senior Lecturer in Biology at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), said: "Many of the microplastics found in our rivers and oceans have taken years to form, as larger pieces of plastic are broken down over time, However, glitter is a ready-made microplastic that is commonly found in our homes and, particularly through cosmetics, is washed off in our sinks and into the water system.

"Our study is the first to look at the effects of glitter in a freshwater environment and we found that both conventional and alternative glitters can have a serious ecological impact on aquatic ecosystems within a short period of time.

Close up of mica glitter used in the experiment Credit: Dr Dannielle Green, Anglia Ruskin University (ARU)

"All types, including so-called biodegradable glitter, have a negative effect on important primary producers which are the base of the food web, while glitter with a biodegradable cellulose core has an additional impact of encouraging the growth of an invasive species.

"We believe these effects could be caused by leachate from the glitters, possibly from their plastic coating or other materials involved in their production, and our future research will investigate this in greater detail."

Sustainable shopping—take the 'litter' out of glitter
More information: Dannielle Senga Green et al, All that glitters is litter? Ecological impacts of conventional versus biodegradable glitter in a freshwater habitat, Journal of Hazardous Materials (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.124070
Journal information: Journal of Hazardous Materials

Provided by Anglia Ruskin University

Magnitude comparison distinguishes small earthquakes from explosions in US West

by Seismological Society of America

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain

By comparing two magnitude measurements for seismic events recorded locally, researchers can tell whether the event was a small earthquake or a single-fire buried chemical explosion.

The findings, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, give seismologists one more tool to monitor nuclear explosions, particularly low-yield explosions that are detected using seismic stations that are 150 kilometers (about 93 miles) or less from the explosion site.

Seismologists use a variety of methods to distinguish earthquakes from explosions, such as analyzing the ratio of P waves (which compress rock in the same direction as a wave's movement) to S waves (which move rock perpendicular to the wave direction). However, methods like the P/S-wave ratio do not work as well for events of magnitude 3 or smaller, making it essential to develop other discrimination techniques, said University of Utah seismologist Keith Koper. Scientists have debated, for instance, whether a small seismic event that took place on 12 May 2010 in North Korea was a natural earthquake or an earthquake induced by a low-yield nuclear explosion.

The new study looks at the difference between local magnitude (ML) and coda duration magnitude (MC) measurements. Local magnitude, sometimes referred to as Richter magnitude, estimates magnitude based on the maximum amplitude of seismic waves detected. Coda duration magnitude is based on the duration of a seismic wave train and the resulting length of the seismogram it produces.

Koper and his students stumbled across the potential usefulness of this comparison in one of his graduate seminars about four years ago, as the students practiced programming and comparing different types of magnitudes. "It turned out that when you looked at these magnitude differences, there was a pattern," he said. "All these earthquakes in Utah that are associated with coal mining have a bigger coda magnitude, with seismograms longer than normal."

Compared to naturally occurring earthquakes, seismic events caused by human activity tend to have a larger MC than ML, the researchers concluded in a 2016 paper. Very shallow seismic events have a larger MC than deeper buried events, they found, while noting that most human activities that would induce earthquakes take place at shallow depths in the crust, compared to the deeper origins of natural earthquakes.

The findings suggested that ML-MC difference could be useful in detecting nuclear explosions at a local level, but the multiple detonations in a coal mining operation, scattered in space and time, produce a different seismic signature than the compact single shot of a nuclear explosion.

To further test the discrimination method, the researchers searched for "explosions that were better proxies, compact, and not your typical industrial explosions," Koper said.

In the BSSA study, Koper and colleagues applied the ML-MC difference to three experiments in the U.S. West that recorded data on local networks from buried single-fire explosions as well as natural earthquakes: the 2010 Bighorn Arch Seismic Experiment (BASE) in northern Wyoming, the imaging Magma Under St. Helens (iMUSH) experiment in Washington State from 2014 to 2016, and the Phase I explosions of the Source Physics Experiment (SPE) in Nevada from 2011 to 2016.

The method was able to successfully separate explosions from natural earthquakes in the data from all three sites, the researchers found, confirming that it would be potentially useful for identifying small underground nuclear explosions in places that are only covered by a local seismic network.

Beyond explosion seismology, the method might also help identify and analyze other earthquakes that have shallow sources, including some earthquakes induced by human activities such as oil and gas recovery, Koper said.


North American seismic networks can contribute to nuclear security
More information: Keith D. Koper et al. Discrimination of Small Earthquakes and Buried Single‐Fired Chemical Explosions at Local Distances (⁠<150  km⁠) in the Western United States from Comparison of Local Magnitude (⁠ML⁠) and Coda Duration Magnitude (⁠MC⁠). Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America (2020) DOI: 10.1785/0120200188
Journal information: Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
Provided by Seismological Society of America