Rapid evolution may help species adapt to climate change and competition

WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: INVASIVE AND NATURALIZED FRUIT FLY SPECIES ON A PEACH TREE INSIDE THE EXPERIMENT. view more 

CREDIT: WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY

VANCOUVER, Wash. - Loss of biodiversity in the face of climate change is a growing worldwide concern. Another major factor driving the loss of biodiversity is the establishment of invasive species, which often displace native species. A new study shows that species can adapt rapidly to an invader and that this evolutionary change can affect how they deal with a stressful climate.

"Our results demonstrate that interactions with competitors, including invasive species, can shape a species' evolution in response to climatic change," said co-author Seth Rudman, a WSU Vancouver adjunct professor who will join the faculty as an assistant professor of biological sciences in the fall.

Results were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences as "Competitive history shapes rapid evolution in a seasonal climate."

Scientists have increasingly recognized that evolution is not necessarily slow and often occurs quickly enough to be observed in real time. These rapid evolutionary changes can have major consequences for things like species' persistence and responses to climatic change. The investigators chose to examine this topic in fruit flies, which reproduce quickly, allowing change to be observed over several generations in a matter of months. The team focused on two species: one naturalized in North American orchards (Drosophila melanogaster) and one that has recently started to invade North America (Zaprionus indianus).

The experiment first tested whether the naturalized species can evolve rapidly in response to exposure to the invasive species over the summer, then tested how adaptation in the summer affects the naturalized species' ability to deal with and adapt to the colder fall conditions.

"A cool thing about the way we conducted this study is that while most experiments that look at rapid evolution use controlled lab systems, we used an outdoor experimental orchard that mimics the natural habitat of our focal species," said Tess Grainger of the Biodiversity Centre at the University of British Columbia and the lead author on the paper. "This gives our experiment a sense of realism and makes our findings more applicable to understanding natural systems."

Over the course of just a few months, the naturalized species adapted to the presence of the invasive species. This rapid evolution then affected how the flies evolved when the cold weather hit. Flies that had been previously exposed to the invasive species evolved in the fall to be larger, lay fewer eggs and develop faster than flies that had never been exposed.

The study marks the beginning of research that may ultimately hold implications for other threatened species that are more difficult to study. "In the era of global environmental change in which species are increasingly faced with new climates and new competitors, these dynamics are becoming essential to understand and predict," Grainger said.

Rudman summarized the next big question: "As biodiversity changes, as climate changes and invaders become more common, what can rapid evolution do to affect outcomes of those things over the next century or two? It may be that rapid evolution will help biodiversity be maintained in the face of these changes."

In addition to Rudman and Grainger, the paper's co-authors are Jonathan M. Levine, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department, Princeton University (where Grainger was a postdoctoral fellow); and Paul Schmidt, Department of Biology, University of Pennsylvania (where Rudman was a postdoctoral fellow). The research was conducted in an outdoor field site near the University of Pennsylvania.

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Stress was leading reason teachers quit before pandemic, and COVID has made matters worse

RAND CORPORATION

Research News

 

Stress was the most common reason teachers cited for leaving the profession before and during the pandemic, according to a RAND Corporation survey of nearly 1,000 former public-school teachers. Three of four former teachers said work was often or always stressful in the most recent year in which they taught in a public school.

In fact, teachers cited stress nearly twice as often as insufficient pay as a reason for quitting. Most former teachers went on to take jobs with less or equal pay, with 3 in 10 taking jobs with no health insurance or retirement benefits.

COVID-19 appears to have exacerbated teachers' stress. Almost half of public-school teachers who left the profession early and voluntarily since March 2020 listed COVID-19 as the main reason for their departure. COVID-19 has elevated stress by forcing teachers to work more hours and navigate an unfamiliar remote environment, made worse by frequent technical problems.

"Different COVID-19 stressors affected pandemic teachers differently," said Melissa Diliberti, lead author of the report and an assistant policy researcher at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. "Insufficient pay and childcare responsibilities drove out younger teachers under 40, while older teachers were more likely to say health conditions made them leave."

Those still in education report the top attractions about their new education jobs are more flexibility in their schedules and a better work climate. Of teachers who left the profession and are currently employed, about 3 in 10 hold a non-education-related job, 3 in 10 have a different type of teaching position, and the rest are in non-teaching education jobs.

There is some good news for school districts: A substantial share of former public-school teachers are willing to come back to the profession under certain conditions.

"Despite the many reasons public school teachers left, about half of those who left primarily because of COVID-19 said they would be willing to come back once most staff are vaccinated or there was regular rapid COVID-19 testing of staff and students," said Heather Schwartz, co-author and director of the Pre-K to 12 educational systems program at RAND.

The survey was conducted in December 2020 using the RAND American Educator Panels, nationally representative samples of educators who provide their feedback on important issues of educational policy and practice.

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The other author of "Stress Topped the Reasons Why Public School Teachers Quit, Even Before COVID-19" is David M. Grant.

RAND Education and Labor, a division of RAND, is dedicated to improving education and expanding economic opportunities for all through research and analysis. Its researchers address key policy issues in U.S. and international education systems and labor markets, from pre-kindergarten to retirement planning.

New study on the forecasting of extreme rainfall events in Mediterranean countries

Researchers at the European Center for Medium-range Weather Forecasts and TU Freiberg develop a framework to better predict extreme rainfall events in Mediterranean countries

UNIVERSITY OF FREIBERG / TU BERGAKADEMIE FREIBERG

Research News

 

IMAGE: (A) OROGRAPHY OF STUDIED AREA, (B) INTENSITY OF EXTREME DAILY PRECIPITATION ACROSS THE DOMAIN. view more 

CREDIT: MASTRANTONAS ET AL, 2020

Extreme rainfall has devastating consequences for societies and economies. Locations around the Mediterranean are frequently affected by such events, leading to landslides and floods. "It is, however, extremely challenging to forecast many days in advance when and where exactly heavy rainfall will occur. Thus, researchers strive to develop new tools to better predict extreme weather phenomena allowing for early warnings and adequate mitigation strategies", explains first author Nikolaos Mastrantonas, who has carried out the study as a PhD student within the EU-funded research project CAFE.

Learning from the past to shine a light on the future

The researchers analysed weather data from 1979 to today, grouping the daily weather into nine patterns of distinct atmospheric characteristics over the Mediterranean. The study shows that there is a strong relation between these nine patterns and the location of the extreme weather event. "We can now use the data to come up with a model that will help to better predict extreme rain in the Mediterranean", says Prof. Jörg Matschullat of TU Bergakademie Freiberg. The geoecologist supervises Nikolaos Mastrantonas' PhD and adds: "When it comes to climate, the Mediterranean Sea is a particularly interesting region as it is surrounded by large continents and mountain ranges. The regional climate of the area is also dependent on large-scale patterns over the Atlantic Ocean, the Balkans and the Black Sea".

Mountains create links across distant locations

According to the study, the nine patterns are associated with unstable low-pressure systems such as cut off lows and troughs, or with stable anticyclonic conditions, such as ridges, extending over hundreds of kilometres. "Such conditions lead to extreme precipitation events at different subregions of the Mediterranean", says Nikolaos Mastrantonas. To name one example: A low-pressure system centred over the Bay of Biscay increases the probability of extreme rainfall over mountainous and coastal regions in Spain, Morocco, Italy, and even in the West Balkans more than sixfold.

The team also found that mountains create a strong link between distant areas. In Central Western Italy, for example, three in every ten extremes happen simultaneously with extremes over Montenegro and Croatia, although almost 500 kilometres lie between these two areas. "This is a result of the Apennines that block a substantial part of the air flow, and frequently force the moisture to precipitate in the western part of Italy, and on the same day over Croatia", the young researcher explains.

New information helps to further develop forecasting models

According to the scientists, current weather forecasting models can already provide reliable information about large-scale weather variability up to three weeks in advance, a timeframe known as sub-seasonal scale. "As the next step of this work, we will quantify how reliable the state-of-the-art weather forecasting models are in predicting the identified nine patterns. Our intention is to incorporate such information into new forecasting products informing about extreme weather over the Mediterranean at sub-seasonal scales", Prof Jörg Matschullat clarifies.

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Background: The CAFE research project

CAFE, Climate Advanced Forecasting of sub-seasonal Extremes, (http://www.cafes2se-itn.eu/) is an EU-funded project with ten international partners across Europe and Latin America, including ECMWF and TU Bergakademie Freiberg. The project is funded with more than 3 million Euros within the EU research framework programme "Horizon 2020" and the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie Actions. The ultimate goal of the CAFE project is to improve the sub-seasonal predictability of extreme weather events through the interdisciplinary training of 12 young researchers in aspects such as climate science, complex networks and data analysis.

Original publication: Nikolaos Mastrantonas, Pedro Herrera Lormendez , Linus Magnusson, Florian Pappenberger, Jörg Matschullat: Extreme precipitation events in the Mediterranean: Spatiotemporal characteristics and connection to large?scale atmospheric flow patterns, International Journal of Climatology. https://rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/joc.6985

Salt reduction will prevent nearly 200,000 cases of heart disease and save £1.64bn

England's salt reduction program will have led to nearly 200,000 fewer adults developing heart disease and £1.64 billion of healthcare cost savings by 2050, according to research by Queen Mary University of London

QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

Research News

 

England's salt reduction programme will have led to nearly 200,000 fewer adults developing heart disease and £1.64 billion of healthcare cost savings by 2050, according to research by Queen Mary University of London.

However, the researchers warn that the recent stalling of salt reduction programmes is endangering the potential health gains, as salt intake remains significantly higher than recommended levels.

Excess salt intake is strongly linked with raised blood pressure and increased risks of cardiovascular disease, as well as kidney disease, gastric cancer and osteoporosis. Raised blood pressure is responsible for half of the burden of ischemic heart disease and more than 60 per cent of strokes.

In 2003 to 2010, the Food Standards Agency, in collaboration with the food industry, established salt reduction targets in over 85 food categories, which involved reformulating processed foods, product labelling and public awareness campaigns. Consequently, average population-level salt intake reduced by 15 per cent in the period 2000 to 2011, with the decline attributed to food companies reformulating their products.

The new research, published in the journal Hypertension, used 2000-2018 population survey salt intake data and disease burden data to project the impact of the salt reduction programme, and found that:

• The 2003 to 2018 salt reduction programme in England achieved an overall salt intake reduction of 1 gram/day per adult, from 9.38 grams/day in 2000 to 8.38 grams/day in 2018.
• If 2018 salt intake levels are maintained, by 2050 the programme would have led to 193,870 fewer adults developing premature cardiovascular disease (comprising 83,140 cases of premature ischemic heart disease and 110,730 premature strokes), and £1.64 billion of health care cost savings for the adult population of England.
• If the World Health Organization recommended salt intake of 5 grams/day is achieved by 2030 in England, these benefits could double, preventing a further 213,880 premature cardiovascular disease cases and further health and social care savings to the UK government of £5.33 billion.

Lead researcher Professor Borislava Mihaylova from Queen Mary University of London said: "Our results are striking because of the large health benefits that we see with an effective government policy of reducing salt in everyday food products.

"These gains could be seriously endangered if the policy is weakened. The stalling of salt reduction efforts in the past few years is now eating away at the potential population health gains and is costing our health service dearly.

"Over the last few years, quantities of salt in diets have remained steady at levels much higher than recommended. If we can reduce our salt intake to the recommended 5g per day, we will double health benefits and healthcare savings by the year 2050."

Professor Graham MacGregor, Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Queen Mary University of London and Chairman of Action on Salt said: "This study shows the enormous health benefits and cost effectiveness of the gradual reduction in salt intake in the UK that occurred between 2003-2011. Since then, the food industry has stopped reducing the excessive amounts of salt they add to our food (80 per cent of our intake) due largely to government inaction. It's now time for Downing Street to take decisive measures in forcing the food industry to comply. If not, many more thousands of people will suffer unnecessary strokes and heart attacks."

The authors say that the salt reduction programme in England was highly successful until 2011 because of the government pressure on industry to reduce salt content, but that this changed from 2011 to 2017 once it continued under the Department of Health as part of the Public Health Responsibility Deal. Few of the proposed actions were implemented under the Responsibility Deal and the programme failed to achieve the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence's recommended salt intake targets of 6 grams/day per adult by 2015.

The food industry in the UK is still producing high-salt products in spite of strong evidence that it is technologically feasible and commercially viable to produce lower-salt products, and there is ample room for incremental reductions in their salt content, according to the researchers.

To get back on track, they say the programme will benefit from (1) a strict enforcement of salt reduction targets, for example, through legislation or financial penalties for food companies failing to comply; (2) setting more stringent salt targets; and (3) extending salt targets to the out-of-home sector, which remain lenient and lack the proper monitoring mechanisms.

Despite the high-quality data on population-level salt intake and disease burden used, the study has a number of limitations. The sample size for measuring sodium excretion from 24-hour urine collections (the most accurate way to assess salt intake) was small. There is also a lack of salt intake data in children. The long study period may present a further limitation due to the uncertainty in model parameters, assumptions on continuity of the salt reduction programme, and evolution of cardiovascular disease and salt intake trends.

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Notes to the editor

* Research paper: 'Impact of the 2003 to 2018 Population Salt Intake Reduction Program in England - A Modeling Study'. Sergi Alonso, Monique Tan, Changqiong Wang, Seamus Kent, Linda Cobiac, Graham A. MacGregor, Feng J. He, Borislava Mihaylova. Hypertension. DOI: 10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.16649.

Available here after the embargo lifts: https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.120.16649

Study of auto recalls shows carmakers delay announcements until they 'hide in the herd'

INDIANA UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: AUTOMOTIVE RECALLS ARE OCCURRING AT RECORD LEVELS, BUT SEEM TO BE ANNOUNCED AFTER INEXPLICABLE DELAYS. A RESEARCH STUDY OF 48 YEARS OF AUTO RECALLS ANNOUNCED IN THE UNITED STATES FINDS... view more 

CREDIT: INDIANA UNIVERSITY

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Automotive recalls are occurring at record levels, but seem to be announced after inexplicable delays. A research study of 48 years of auto recalls announced in the United States finds carmakers frequently wait to make their announcements until after a competitor issues a recall - even if it is unrelated to similar defects.

This suggests that recall announcements may not be triggered solely by individual firms' product quality defect awareness or concern for the public interest, but may also be influenced by competitor recalls, a phenomenon that no prior research had investigated.

Researchers analyzed 3,117 auto recalls over a 48-year period -- from 1966 to 2013 -- using a model to investigate recall clustering and categorized recalls as leading or following within a cluster. They found that 73 percent of recalls occurred in clusters that lasted 34 days and had 7.6 following recalls on average.

On average, a cluster formed after a 16-day gap in which no recalls were announced. They found 266 such clusters over the period studied.

"The implication is that auto firms are either consciously or unconsciously delaying recall announcements until they are able to hide in the herd," said George Ball, assistant professor of operations and decision technologies and Weimer Faculty Fellow at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. "By doing this, they experience a significantly reduced stock penalty from their recall."

Ball is co-author of the study, "Hiding in the Herd: The Product Recall Clustering Phenomenon," recently published online in Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, along with faculty at the University of Illinois, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Minnesota and Michigan State University.

Researchers found as much as a 67 percent stock market penalty difference between leading recalls, which initiate the cluster, and following recalls, who follow recalls and hide in the herd to experience a lower stock penalty.

This indicates a "meaningful financial incentive for auto firms to cluster following recalls behind a leading recall announcement," researchers said. "This stock market penalty difference dissipates over time within a cluster. Additionally, across clusters, the stock market penalty faced by the leading recall amplifies as the time since the last cluster increases."

The authors also found that firms with the highest quality reputation, in particular Toyota, triggered the most recall followers.

"Even though Toyota announces some of the fewest recalls, when they do announce a recall, 31 percent of their recalls trigger a cluster and leads to many other following recalls," Ball said. "This number is between 5 and 9 percent for all other firms. This means that firms are likely to hide in the herd when the leading recall is announced by a firm with a stellar quality reputation such as Toyota.

"A key recommendation of the study is for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) to require auto firms to report the specific defect awareness date for each recall, and to make this defect awareness date a searchable and publicly available data field in the auto recall dataset NHTSA provides online," Ball added. "This defect awareness date is required and made available by other federal regulators that oversee recalls in the U.S., such as the Food and Drug Administration. Making this defect awareness date a transparent, searchable and publicly available data field may discourage firms from hiding in the herd and prompt them to make more timely and transparent recall decisions."

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Co-authors of the study were Ujjal Mukherjee, assistant professor of business administration at the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois who was the lead author; Kaitlin Wowak, assistant professor of IT, analytics, and operations at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame; Karthik Natarajan, assistant professor of supply chain and operations at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota; and Jason Miller, associate professor of supply chain management at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University.

Music is a must for young drivers, according to Ben-Gurion U. researchers

AMERICAN ASSOCIATES, BEN-GURION UNIVERSITY OF THE NEGEV

Research News

 

BEER-SHEVA, Israel...February 22, 2021 - A new study by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers resulted in a nearly unanimous response: driving is "absolutely impossible" without music.

"To young drivers 18-29, music in the car isn't just entertainment, it's part of their autosphere whether they're alone or not," says Prof. Warren Brodsky, director of the BGU Music Science Lab in the Department of the Arts. "They are so used to constant stimulation and absorbing great amounts of information throughout the day, that they don't question how the type of tunes they play might affect concentration, induce aggressive behavior, or cause them to miscalculate risky situations."

"As the fastest growing research university in Israel, BGU provides studies that give us great insight into the causes and effects of human behavior," says Doug Seserman, chief executive officer, American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "Music is an essential, universal language which we can all appreciate. Undoubtedly, though, the concerns that stem from the results of this study are worth considering."

According to the study published in APA's journal Psychomusicology: Music, Mind and Brain, 140 young adults responded to a 67-item questionnaire exploring how drivers engage with music while driving. Ironically, most of the respondents (80%) claimed it was not only "difficult," but sometimes "near impossible" to concentrate on traffic and road conditions without music playing. And once they arrive, most of the respondents will stay in their car at their destination until the song ends.

Almost all drivers (97%), report listening to many short songs on long trips, and 65% played "fast-paced" music while driving to work. More than two-thirds (76%) play more "liberating" dance songs when on vacation or a holiday outing, 90% play "upbeat" dance music on the way to a party.

"These young drivers believe that more stimulus actually helps their driving abilities," Brodsky says. "This could become more of an issue in the future, when it becomes critical to disengage from music and assume control in an autonomous vehicle."

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About American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (AABGU) plays a vital role in sustaining David Ben-Gurion's vision: creating a world-class institution of education and research in the Israeli desert, nurturing the Negev community and sharing the University's expertise locally and around the globe. Activities include showcasing BGU's academic excellence and cutting-edge research through educational programs, events and informative communications. AABGU's main purpose is to support Ben-Gurion's vision and the university that bears his name by creating a community of Americans committed to improving the world tomorrow from the heart of the Israeli desert today. For more information visit http://www.aabgu.org.

   

 

 

 The Doors - An American Prayer (Full Album) - YouTube

 There is no one-size-fits-all road to sustainability on "Patchwork Earth"

Science and policy need to incorporate diversity and complexity of the world when thinking about a sustainable future

MCGILL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: FOUR DIFFERENT WAYS THAT LOCAL CHANGES COMBINE TO RESULT IN GLOBAL OUTCOMES: AGGREGATION, COMPENSATION, LEARNING, AND CONTAGION view more 

CREDIT: MCGILL UNIVERSITY

In a world as diverse as our own, the journey towards a sustainable future will look different depending on where in the world we live, according to a recent paper published in One Earth and led by McGill University, with researchers from the Stockholm Resilience Centre.

"There are many regional pathways to a more sustainable future, but our lack of understanding about how these complex and sometimes contradictory pathways interact (and in particular when they synergize or compete with one another) limits our ability to choose the 'best' ones," says Elena Bennett, a professor in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University and the lead author on the paper."For this reason, we suggest that the global community needs to envision a diversity of desirable futures, nurture small seeds of sustainability, and work together to navigate the emerging pathways to sustainability."

Four different ways that local changes combine to result in global outcomes: aggregation, compensation, learning, and contagion

The researchers call for new approaches to exploring and creating a sustainable future that more fully account for regional complexity; provide space for local and regional actors to imagine how they might act to help create better futures; and that foster action towards those futures. More specifically, the paper argues that:

• Different regions of the world, with different contexts and values, will follow different pathways towards greater sustainability.

• This variety will produce tensions and opportunities as the outcomes of regional pathways interact.

• Navigating these changes requires understanding of how regional pathways interact with global processes to produce better outcomes for people and nature

A patchwork of approaches to imagining a sustainable future for "Patchwork Earth"

To increase capacity to navigate towards a more sustainable future on a so-called "patchwork earth", the authors propose that science and policy should do a better job of:

1. Envisioning diverse desirable futures. They call for a greater plurality in our understanding of what might constitute a desirable future for different people in different places, and a better understanding of the potential conflicts, opportunities, trade-offs and synergies between pursuing different visions in different places.
2. Nurturing seeds of sustainability. They point to the need to nurture the growth of seeds of desirable futures and deconstruct the institutions and organizations that impede their growth.
3. Navigating emerging pathways. They also argue that in order to avoid having local actions derailed by other local or global initiatives, scientists, policymakers and practitioners need to work together in ongoing processes of adaptive action, learning, and reflection to identify and engage with unexpected surprises, conflicts and trade-offs as they emerge.

But while these different local and regional pathways might on their own achieve the globally-agreed-upon Sustainable Development Goals or other important local objectives, how they are influenced by each other and by global processes is difficult to predict.

Scenario planning that engages with multi-scale complexity

For example, a focus on global policies and a desire to use well-established global models means that current planning methods ignore national and local dissimilarities, questions, and challenges.

The authors point to methods that engage with multi-scale complexity, such as those pioneered by the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes project. Here, participants develop radical positive visions of the future based on existing real-world 'seeds' of a better future - innovations such as tribal parks, urban rewilding, and community land ownership that aim to address social-ecological challenges but are not yet mainstream.

"Incorporating more of the diversity and complexity of the world in our thinking about the future, and better understanding the opportunities and tensions that may arise can help increase our collective capacity to transform towards a more sustainable and just world for all," adds co-author Garry Peterson, who is part of Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) Scenarios and models task force and hopes such insights can be used to develop pluralistic and diverse nature-centered scenarios for IPBES.

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To read: "Patchwork Earth: navigating pathways to just, thriving, and sustainable futures" in One Earth by Elena Bennett et al https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.01.004

About McGill University Founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1821, McGill University is Canada's top ranked medical doctoral university. McGill is consistently ranked as one of the top universities, both nationally and internationally. It is a world-renowned institution of higher learning with research activities spanning two campuses, 11 faculties, 13 professional schools, 300 programs of study and over 40,000 students, including more than 10,200 graduate students. McGill attracts students from over 150 countries around the world, its 12,800 international students making up 31% of the student body. Over half of McGill students claim a first language other than English, including approximately 19% of our students who say French is their mother tongue.

Global survey finds nature sanitizes millions of tons of human waste a year


Untreated waste water is pictured flowing by settlements 

on the outskirts of Hyderabad, India. 

Photo by Dishaad Bundhoo

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- The majority of human waste is processed by wastewater treatment infrastructure, but according to a new global survey, the sanitization services of natural ecosystems still play a significant role in protecting water supplies.

When researchers in India and Britain analyzed sanitation services in 48 cities around the world, they found nature was responsible for cleaning 41.7 million tons of human waste annually -- approximately 18 percent of the cities' sanitization services.

Researchers published the results of their survey, the first to take a global perspective on natural sanitation, in the journal One Earth on Friday.

"Nature can, and does, take the role of sanitation infrastructure," study co-author Alison Parker, senior lecturer in international water and sanitation at Cranfield University in Britain, said in a news release.

RELATED Study: About half of global wastewater is treated

"While we are not marginalizing the vital role of engineered infrastructure, we believe a better understanding of how engineered and natural infrastructure interact may allow adaptive design and management, reducing costs, and improving effectiveness and sustainability, and safeguard the continued existence of these areas of land."

More than a quarter of the world's population doesn't have access to simple sanitation facilities, and another 14 percent of the global population uses toilets in which waste is disposed on-site.

According to the latest survey, the wastewater treatment services provided by wetlands and mangroves regularly fill in when human-built sanitizing facilities are lacking.

RELATED Fast-growing India, Brazil key to curbing climate change post-COVID-19

In Uganda, for example, the Navikubo wetland processes the waste of more than 100,000 households, preventing the contamination of Murchison Bay and Lake Victoria, important sources of freshwater.

In the United States, coastal wetlands along the Gulf Coast help capture excess nitrogen carried downstream by the Mississippi River.

"We realized that nature must be providing sanitation services, because so many people in the world do not have access to engineered infrastructure like sewers," said co-author Simon Willcock, senior lecturer in environmental geography at Bangor University in Wales.

RELATED Water recycling can reduce pressure of urban usage on fresh water resources

"But the role for nature was largely unrecognized," Willcock said.

To complete the survey, scientists analyzed so-called Excreta Flow Diagrams, an international effort combing in-person interviews with field observations and direct measurements to map the ways human waste moves and flows through 48 cities and towns around the world.

More specifically, the authors of the latest study focused on diagrams identifying the use of pit latrines and below-ground septic tanks -- diagrams coded "fecal sludge contained not emptied."

Based on their analysis of the diagrams, researchers conservatively estimated natural ecosystems in the 48 cities clean 2.2 million cubic meters of human waste per year.

Because more than 892 million people around the world use pit latrines and below-ground septic tanks, researchers estimated nature cleans 41.7 million tons of human waste every year -- sanitation services worth at least $4.4 billion annually.

Researchers hope their work will help policy makers more accurately quantify the vital ecological services provided by wetlands and mangroves. Previously surveys have revealed the vital role similar ecosystems play in containing agricultural runoff and curbing the damaging effects of flooding and coastal storms.

"We would like to promote a better collaboration between ecologists, sanitation practitioners and city planners to help nature and infrastructure work better in harmony, and to protect nature where it is providing sanitation services," Parker

Urban pollinators get almost all their food from backyard gardens


Residential gardens produce most of the nectar that feeds urban pollinators. Photo by Nicholas Tew

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Which came first, the backyard garden or the backyard pollinator?

Strictly speaking, pollinators have been around a lot longer, but a new study suggests a lot fewer urban pollinators would be around without residential gardens.

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers in Britain determined just three home gardens can yield a teaspoon of nectar each day -- enough food to nourish thousands of bees.

For the study, scientists used a fine glass tube to extract and measure the amount of nectar produced by flowers in the residential gardens of four major cities: Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds and Reading.

RELATED Spots of shade may help butterflies cope with climate change

Using a refractometer, scientists measured the nectar concentration in the nectar extracted from more than 3,000 individual flowers.

"Although the quantity and diversity of nectar has been measured in the countryside, this wasn't the case in urban areas, so we decided to investigate," lead study author Nicholas Tew, an ecologist and doctoral student at the University of Bristol, said in a news release.

"We expected private gardens in towns and cities to be a plentiful source of nectar, but didn't anticipate the scale of production would be to such an overwhelming extent," Tew said.

RELATED Bumblebees nibble the leaves of flowers to trick them into flowering early

"Our findings highlight the pivotal role they play in supporting pollinators and promoting biodiversity in urban areas across the country."

Compared the nectar generated in the countryside, where just a few species produce most of the sugar liquid consumed by pollinators, the bounty of nectar found in the city and suburbs is produced by a wide variety of plant species.

"Gardens are so important because they produce the most nectar per unit area of land and they cover the largest area of land in the cities we studied," Tew said.

RELATED Flowers get better pollination services in the city

Almost of a third of the land in the four surveyed cities is residential green space, six times the amount provided by city parks.

"The research illustrates the huge role gardeners play in pollinator conservation, as without gardens there would be far less food for pollinators, which include bees, wasps, butterflies, moths, flies and beetles in towns and cities," Tew said.

"It is vital that new housing developments include gardens and also important for gardeners to try to make sure their gardens are as good as possible for pollinators."

To further boost pollinator abundance and diversity, researchers suggest home gardeners plant a diversity of nectar-rich flowers -- species and varieties that bloom at different times during the growing season.

Coral reef predators get 70% of their energy from the open ocean

Many reef fish rely on coral for shelter but get their nutrients from plankton. 

Photo by Christina Skinner

Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Food webs anchored by coral reefs extend much farther into open waters than scientists previously thought.

According to a new study, published Friday in the journal Science Advances, more than 70% of the caloric energy consumed by reef predators is sourced from the open ocean.

Open surface waters in the tropics are low in nutrients and typically thought to be relatively unproductive, but the latest research these environments are more ecologically valuable than scientists previously estimated.

For the study, scientists used isotopic analysis to examine the diets of four grouper species captured near coral reefs in the Maldives, an island chain a few hundred miles southwest of India.

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The analysis showed all four predatory fish rely on open ocean resources. Scientists found evidence of offshore resource consumption among groupers captured both outside of an atoll, a ring-shaped reef, as well as grouper found in the lagoon within.

Scientists suspect grouper are feeding on plankton-eating fish that rely on coral reef for shelter instead of food.

Researchers estimate upwelling from the deep ocean is responsible for the delivering of nutrient-dense water to the surface, fueling the plankton that feed many reef fish -- fish that often end up in the stomachs of grouper."The study provides key insights into the nutrition of coral reef ecosystems, especially their dependence on offshore production," ecologist and study lead author Christina Skinner said in a news release.

"Detailed knowledge of food web dynamics is crucial to understand the impacts of anthropogenic and climate-induced change in marine ecosystems."

Skinner led the research while working at Newcastle University, but now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

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"The results force us to reconsider how we view coral reefs, and they highlight the extent of the connectivity with the surrounding ocean," she said.

"If these groupers are mostly reliant on offshore energy to support their feeding, then maybe they won't be so impacted by the loss of live coral, as many fishery studies have predicted; they may be more resilient."

But coral reefs aren't the only ecosystems affected by climate change. Studies suggest global warming is already altering the makeup of plankton communities and other groups of microorganisms in the open ocean, and some models predict open ocean productivity will decline as the planet heats up.

"If that is the case, and these groupers are reliant on that open ocean energy, they will be impacted by those changes," Skinner said.

Researchers suggest their study's biggest takeaway is that open water and coral reef ecosystems are inextricably linked.

The effects of warming trends and coastal pollution on coral reef health has been well documented, and the latest findings suggests are a reminder that what's bad for reefs may also be bad for neighboring ecosystems.

"Coral reefs are really suffering across the tropics from climate-related disturbances, particularly oceanic warming," said co-author Nick Polunin, professor of environmental sciences at Newcastle.

"In spite of its tiny area, this ecosystem is a massive contributor to marine biodiversity and this study highlights how little we know about the food web sources sustaining that exceptional wealth of species it sustains."