Mars' changing habitability recorded by ancient dune fields in Gale crater

IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON

Research News

 

Understanding whether Mars was once able to support life has been a major driving force for Mars research over the past 50 years. To decipher the planet's ancient climate and habitability, researchers look to the rock record - a physical record of ancient surface processes which reflect the environment and the prevailing climate at the time the rocks were deposited.

In a new paper published in JGR: Planets, researchers on the NASA-JPL Mars Science Laboratory mission used the Curiosity rover to add another piece to the puzzle of Mars' ancient past by investigating a unit of rocks within Gale crater.

They found evidence of an ancient dune field preserved as a layer of rocks in Gale crater, which overlies rock layers that were deposited in a large lake. The rock remnants of the dune field are known today as the Stimson formation.

The findings help scientists understand surface and atmospheric processes - such as the direction the wind blew sand to form dunes - and potentially how Mars' climate evolved from an environment that potentially harboured microbial life, to an uninhabitable one.

By looking at the preserved rock layers through images collected by the Curiosity rover, the researchers reconstructed the shape, migration direction and size of the large dunes, also known as draas, that occupied that part of the crater.

The models of ancient dunes, created by Imperial researchers, show that dunes were nestled next to the central peak of Gale crater - known as Mount Sharp - on a wind-eroded surface at a five-degree angle. The research also found that the dunes were compound dunes - large dunes which hosted their own set of smaller dunes which travelled in a different directions to the main dune.

Lead author Dr Steven Banham of Imperial's Department of Earth Science and Engineering said: "As the wind blows, it transports sand grains of a certain size, and organises them into piles of sand we recognise as sand dunes. These landforms are common on Earth in sandy deserts, such as the Sahara, the Namibian dune field, and the Arabian deserts. The strength of the wind and its uniformity of direction control the shape and size of the dune, and evidence of this can be preserved in the rock record.

"If there is an excess of sediment transported into a region, dunes can climb as they migrate and partially bury adjacent dunes. These buried layers contain a feature called 'cross-bedding', which can give an indication of the size of the dunes, and the direction which they were migrating. By investigating these cross beds, we were able to determine these strata were deposited by specific dunes that form when competing winds transport sediment in two different directions.

"It's amazing that from looking at Martian rocks we can determine that two competing winds drove these large dunes across the plains of Gale crater three and a half billion years ago. This is some of the first evidence we have of variable wind directions - be they seasonal or otherwise."

The lower part of Mount Sharp is composed of ancient lakebed sediments. These sediments accumulated on the lakebed when the crater flooded, shortly after its formation 3.8 billion years ago. Curiosity has spent much of the last nine years investigating these rocks for signs of habitability.

Dr Banham added: "More than 3.5 billion years ago this lake dried out, and the lake bottom sediments were exhumed and eroded to form the mountain at the centre of the crater - the present-day Mount Sharp. The flanks of the mountain are where we have found evidence that an ancient dune field formed after the lake, indicating an extremely arid climate."

However, the new findings suggest that the ancient dune field might have been less nurturing of life than previously thought. Dr Banham said: "The vast expanse of the dune field wouldn't have been a particularly hospitable place for microbes to live, and the record left behind would rarely preserve evidence of life, if there was any.

"This desert sand represents a snapshot of time within Gale crater, and we know that the dune field was preceded by lakes - yet we don't know what overlies the desert sandstones further up Mount Sharp. It could be more layers deposited in arid conditions, or it could be deposits associated with more humid climates. We will have to wait and see."

Rovers on Mars are allowing researchers to explore the planet in detail like never before. Dr Banham added: "Although geologists have been reading rocks on Earth for 200 years, it's only in the last decade or so that we've been able to read Martian rocks with the same level of detail as we do on Earth."

The researchers continue to examine rocks found by Curiosity and are now focusing on the wind patterns recorded by dunes further up Mount Sharp. Dr Banham said: "We're interested to see how the dunes reflect the wider climate of Mars, its changing seasons, and longer-term changes in wind direction. Ultimately, this all relates to the major driving question: to discover whether life ever arose on Mars."

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The research was funded by the UK Space Agency and forms part of the preparation for the forthcoming ESA ExoMars mission to explore Mars for signs of ancient life.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

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Researchers design micro-sized capsules for targeted drug delivery -- inspired by Russian pelmeni

SKOLKOVO INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY (SKOLTECH)

Research News

 

An international team led by a Skoltech researcher has developed a method of fabrication for biodegradable polymer microcapsules, made more efficient by turning to an unusual source of inspiration - traditional Russian dumpling, or pelmeni, making. The two papers were published in Materials and Design and ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.

AKA

Micro-sized capsules, which can be tailored to a variety of purposes, have proven very useful in targeted delivery of drugs and other bioactive compounds. To ensure optimal functioning, these have to be designed and manufactured with precision and in particular shapes, as non-spherical capsules turned out to be more efficient and effective than spherical ones.

"Non-spherical capsules could have side directed release as one side could degrade first and let the cargo release, they also could be navigated in flow with magnetic field. But the most important advantage is that biological cells more readily internalize non-spherical objects, however, this phenomenon is not yet understood," Gleb Sukhorukov of Skoltech and Queen Mary University of London, the papers' lead author, explains.

In the two papers, Sukhorukov and his colleagues describe a way to create micrometer-sized pyramid, rectangular and torpedo-shaped capsules by using soft lithography. In this method, a template is coated with a polymer, then cargo (a drug, for instance) is loaded onto the polymer and sealed by a top polymer layer, ending up sandwiched between the two layers. The capsules are then printed onto gelatin and harvested by dissolving it in water.

"The approach is not only inspired by Russian pelmeni making process, but in fact really reproduces on a microstructure level the trick that allows us to wrap various components inside, like proteins (meat in proper pelmeni) or natural healthy components (like berries or mashed potatoes in case of vareniki, a similar product)," Sukhorukov notes.

In the first paper, the team demonstrated two approaches, based on polyelectrolyte multilayer and polylactic acid, that resulted in 7-micrometer-long torpedo-shaped capsules. These had a high loading capacity, retained hydrophilic molecules well and were internalized by cells without causing toxic effects. "The proposed method offers great flexibility for the choice of active substances, regardless of their solubility and molecular weight," the authors write.

In the second paper, the researchers described pyramid and rectangular capsules made of polylactic acid, which are respectively about 1 and 11 micrometers in size. These capsules proved sufficiently stable to encapsulate small water-soluble molecules and to retain them for several days for subsequent intracellular delivery and/or serve as depot for controlled release.

"So far we created the capsules from polylactic acid, and we plan to explore these principles with other polymers which undergo degradation and hence release of cargo under specific conditions such as temperature, enzymes, pH and so on," Sukhorukov says.

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Other organizations involved in this research include National Research Tomsk Polytechnic University; University of Genoa; AGH University of Science and Technology; Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation and Institute of Materials Research and Engineering; THALES Research & Technology; and V.E. Zuev Institute of Atmospheric Optics SB RAS.

Nanofiltration membranes to treat industrial wastewater from heavy metals

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MISIS

Research News

 

NUST MISIS scientists together with Indian colleagues from Jain University and Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara College presented innovative membranes for the complete removal of heavy metals from industrial wastewater. The special nanostructure of zinc-modified aluminum oxide made it possible to remove arsenic and lead from water with an efficiency of 87% and 98%, respectively. The results of the work were published in the Chemosphere journal.

Industrialization is the main cause of water pollution due to the ingress of industrial waste. In particular, heavy metals -- arsenic, lead and cadmium -- can cause metabolic disorders and multiple critical effects to the body, which make them extremely toxic to the environment.

One of the most promising methods of purification and removal of heavy metal ions from water is the "Membrane technology". It acts as an effective barrier ("filter") and is relatively easy to manufacture. At the same time, it has some serious limitations such as high energy consumption, short membrane life, low productivity and selectivity.

The challenge for scientists is to make the membrane technology a more versatile and commercially available method of wastewater purification. An international team of researchers from Russia and India proposed a solution to the problem by synthesizing a new type of membranes -- especially porous nanoparticles of zinc-doped aluminium oxide.

"The nanoparticles that we obtained by solution combustion method have a very large surface area (261.44 m2/g) at a size of 50 nanometers. Cross-sectional images of nanoparticles obtained using scanning electron microscopy showed the finger-like morphology and porous nature of the membranes," said Vignesh Nayak, co-author of the work, a postdoc at NUST MISIS.

According to scientists, the synthesized membranes showed increased hydrophilicity (wettability), surface charge and "super porosity", which made it possible to remove arsenic and lead from an aqueous solution with an efficiency of 87% and 98%, respectively.

The second important advantage of the membranes obtained is antifouling properties. It means that the material is resistant to fouling by aquatic microorganisms, which disable devices that have been in aquatic environments for a long time.

The antifouling study conducted by developers at various pressures with a feed solution containing bovine serum albumin showed 98.4% recovery and reusability of membranes for up to three continuous cycles.

In the future, the membranes obtained can be used for effective treatment of industrial effluents, as well as in large city water treatment plants. The team is currently completing laboratory tests of the samples obtained.

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Landscape induced back-building thunderstorm lines along the mei-yu front

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Research News

 

IMAGE: FIG. 1 THE CONCEPTUAL MODEL OF (A) STAGE I AND (B) STAGE II CONVECTIVE LINE FORMATION DURING 28 JUNE 2013. view more 

CREDIT: ZHEMIN TAN

Thunderstorm development is not always dependent on atmospheric physics alone. Often, the surrounding landscape can influence convection, especially in regions with dramatic elevation changes. The Yangtze river basin in China's Jiangxi Province, which is surrounded by the Nanling Mountains, often experiences mesoscale convective systems (MCS) or squall line thunderstorms during the summer. These MCSs develop along the persistent mei-yu front, and often exhibit quickly developing parallel back-building, or training thunderstorms, resulting in torrential flooding. A research team led by Dr. Zhemin Tan, Professor at the School of Atmospheric Sciences of Nanjing University, analyzed the influences of the regional landscape that lead to consistent MCS back-building in the Yangtze river basin.

"Parallel back-building convective lines are often observed along the mei-yu front in China, and they can quickly develop into a stronger convective group of echoes, resulting in locally heavy rainfall within the mei-yu front rainband." said Dr. Tan

. "Mesoscale convective systems evolving along the mei-yu front induced cold outflow centered over the eastern side of the basin, which pushed the leading edge of the mei-yu front toward the mountains on the southeast side of the basin."

To better understand what initiates back-building convective lines, Dr. Tan and a group of researchers from the Key Laboratory of Mesoscale Severe Weather of Nanjing University, performed a high-resolution model simulation of a typical MCS event during 27-28 June 2013. Simulation results show that new convection along the convective lines is forced by intermittent interaction between the cold MCS outflow and the warm southerly airflow ahead of the mei-yu front. This process is enhanced by nearby terrain, especially the Nanling Mountains.

"The mountains along the way played a crucial role in supporting the rapid development of the convective lines to include torrential flood." said Dr. Tan. He, along with the study's coauthors, submitted their findings in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. The journal published the noteworthy research as a cover article.

This mei-yu front MCS evolved from the western side of the basin. As it moved east, cold outflow centered over the eastern part of the basin. Strong southwest airflow ahead of the front passed the Nanling Mountains, merging with the cold outflow within the basin, sparking the erratic first stage of parallel convective line formation (Fig. 1a). Then, low mountains along the airmass boundary enhanced uneven storm development within the MCS.

"Knowledge of the effects of the mountains on the convective line formation can help to understand and predict the heavy precipitation events over the basin region during the mei-yu season in China," believes Dr. Tan.

In this case, the MCS quickly grew upscale from the first stage convective lines, resulting in apparent precipitation cooling. This process enhanced the cold outflow, shifting it southward (Fig 1b). Stronger cold outflow then pushed the warm airflow farther south, impacting the mountains on the southeast side of the basin. Mountain valleys, or terrain gaps in the southeastern basin are then roughly parallel to the outflow and play a controlling role in a second stage formation of parallel convective lines.

CAPTION

Torrential floodwaters rushing down from the mountains surrounding a river basin in the Jiangxi Province of China.

Ancient Indigenous forest gardens promote a healthy ecosystem: SFU study

The researchers say this study marks the first time forest gardens have been studied in North America

SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: AN AERIAL VIEW OF A FOREST GARDEN. view more 

CREDIT: SFU

A new study by Simon Fraser University historical ecologists finds that Indigenous-managed forests--cared for as "forest gardens"--contain more biologically and functionally diverse species than surrounding conifer-dominated forests and create important habitat for animals and pollinators. The findings are published today in Ecology and Society.

According to researchers, ancient forests were once tended by Ts'msyen and Coast Salish peoples living along the north and south Pacific coast. These forest gardens continue to grow at remote archaeological villages on Canada's northwest coast and are composed of native fruit and nut trees and shrubs such as crabapple, hazelnut, cranberry, wild plum, and wild cherries. Important medicinal plants and root foods like wild ginger and wild rice root grow in the understory layers.

"These plants never grow together in the wild," says Chelsey Geralda Armstrong, an SFU Indigenous Studies assistant professor and the study lead researcher. "It seemed obvious that people put them there to grow all in one spot - like a garden. Elders and knowledge holders talk about perennial management all the time."

"It's no surprise these forest gardens continue to grow at archaeological village sites that haven't yet been too severely disrupted by settler-colonial land-use."

Ts'msyen and Coast Salish peoples' management practices challenge the assumption that humans tend to overturn or exhaust the ecosystems they inhabit. This research highlights how Indigenous peoples not only improved the inhabited landscape, but were also keystone builders, facilitating the creation of habitat in some cases. The findings provide strong evidence that Indigenous management practices are tied to ecosystem health and resilience.

"Human activities are often considered detrimental to biodiversity, and indeed, industrial land management has had devastating consequences for biodiversity," says Jesse Miller, study co-author, ecologist and lecturer at Stanford University. "Our research, however, shows that human activities can also have substantial benefits for biodiversity and ecosystem function. Our findings highlight that there continues to be an important role for human activities in restoring and managing ecosystems in the present and future."

Forest gardens are a common management regime identified in Indigenous communities around the world, especially in tropical regions. Armstrong says the study is the first time forest gardens have been studied in North America -- showing how important Indigenous peoples are in the maintenance and defence of some of the most functionally diverse ecosystems on the Northwest Coast.

"The forest gardens of Kitselas Canyon are a testament to the long-standing practice of Kitselas people shaping the landscape through stewardship and management," says Chris Apps, director, Kitselas Lands & Resources Department. "Studies such as this reconnect the community with historic resources and support integration of traditional approaches with contemporary land-use management while promoting exciting initiatives for food sovereignty and cultural reflection."

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ZIT MEDICINE

Common antibiotic effective in healing coral disease lesions

FAU Harbor branch study shows 95 percent success rate with amoxicillin

FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY

Research News

VIDEO: FAU SCIENTIFIC DIVERS ERIN SHILLING AND RYAN ECKERT ARE SHOWN APPLYING THE ANTIBIOTIC TREATMENT (THE WHITE PASTE) INTO TRENCHES CREATED AROUND DISEASE LESIONS PRESENT AT THE EDGES OF THE CORAL... view more 

CREDIT: JOSHUA VOSS, PH.D., FAU HARBOR BRANCH, CORAL REEF AND HEALTH ECOLOGY LAB

Diseases continue to be a major threat to coral reef health. For example, a relatively recent outbreak termed stony coral tissue loss disease is an apparently infectious waterborne disease known to affect at least 20 stony coral species. First discovered in 2014 in Miami-Dade County, the disease has since spread throughout the majority of the Florida's Coral Reef and into multiple countries and territories in the Caribbean. Some reefs of the northern section of Florida's Coral Reef are experiencing as much as a 60 percent loss of living coral tissue area.

A new study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University's Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute reveals how a common antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections in humans is showing promise in treating disease-affected Montastraea cavernosa coral colonies in situ. M. cavernosa, also known as the Great Star Coral, is a hard or stony coral found widely throughout the tropical western Atlantic, including several regions currently affected by stony coral tissue loss disease. Preserving M. cavernosa colonies is of particular importance due to its high abundance and role as a dominant reef builder in the northern section of Florida's Coral Reef.

The objective of the study, published in Scientific Reports, was to experimentally assess the effectiveness of two intervention treatments: chlorinated epoxy and amoxicillin combined with Core Rx/Ocean Alchemists Base 2B as compared to untreated controls. Results showed that the Base 2B plus amoxicillin treatment had a 95 percent success rate at healing individual disease lesions. However, it did not necessarily prevent treated colonies from developing new lesions over time. Chlorinated epoxy treatments were not significantly different from untreated control colonies, suggesting that chlorinated epoxy treatments are an ineffective intervention technique for stony coral tissue loss disease.

"There are three possible scenarios that may explain the appearance of new lesions in the amoxicillin treated lesions of the corals that had healed in our study," said Erin N. Shilling, M.S., first author and a recent graduate of the Marine Science and Oceanography masters degree program at FAU Harbor Branch. "It's possible that the causative agent of stony coral tissue loss disease is still present in the environment and is re-infecting quiesced colonies. It also could be that the duration and dose of this antibiotic intervention was sufficient to arrest stony coral tissue loss disease at treated lesions, but insufficient at eliminating its pathogens from other areas of the coral colony."

The study was conducted approximately 2 kilometers offshore from Lauderdale-by-the-Sea in Broward County, Florida, at sites with a maximum depth of 10 meters. Both colony disease status and treated lesion status were analyzed independently so that the treatment's effectiveness at halting individual lesions could be assessed while also determining if a treatment had any impact on the colony as a whole. Colonies were monitored periodically over 11 months to assess treatment effectiveness by tracking lesion development and overall disease status.

"Success in treating stony coral tissue loss disease with antibiotics may benefit from using approaches typically successful against bacterial infections in humans, for example using a strong initial dose of antibiotics followed by a regimen of smaller supplementary doses over time," said Joshua Voss, Ph.D., senior author, an associate research professor at FAU Harbor Branch and executive director of the NOAA Cooperative Institute for Ocean Exploration, Research, and Technology. "Future research efforts should focus on assessing the potential unintended consequences of antibiotic treatments on corals, their microbial communities, and neighboring organisms. In addition, further efforts are needed to optimize dosing and delivery methods for antibiotic treatments on stony coral tissue loss disease-affected corals and scale up intervention treatments effectively."

Voss notes that many coral diseases are still poorly characterized, which has led to calls for increased research and intervention efforts to support adaptive management strategies particularly given the considerable impacts of diseases on coral reefs over the past five decades.

"Results of our experiment expand management options during coral disease outbreaks and contribute to overall knowledge regarding coral health and disease," said Voss.

This research is part of a highly coordinated collaboration through the Disease Advisory Committee (DAC) organized by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (floridadep.gov/rcp/coral/content/stony-coral-tissue-loss-disease-response) and NOAA. Voss and Shilling are members of the DAC and part of the reconnaissance and intervention team that has collaboratively developed treatment methods, research objectives, and responses to this disease outbreak. Researchers from Nova Southeastern University, Smithsonian Marine Station and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also are major partners on this team.

Ian Combs, M.S., another recent FAU graduate from Voss's lab and a co-author, helped to develop some of the coral fate-tracking techniques used in the study.

"We recommend that coral reef managers and intervention specialists, particularly those focusing on stony coral tissue loss disease, adopt 3D photogrammetric methods to ensure that data are more accurate than 2D and in-water estimates," said Combs.

CAPTION

A stony coral treated with the Base 2B plus amoxicillin treatment.

CREDIT

Joshua Voss, Ph.D., FAU Harbor Branch, Coral Reef and Health Ecology Lab

###This research was funded by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (Awards B430E1 and B55008 awarded to Voss), and the Environmental Protection Agency (South Florida Geographic Initiative award X7 00D667-17). Additional funding was awarded to Shilling by the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute Foundation through the Indian River Lagoon Graduate Research Fellowship.

All work was carried out under permission of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (permits SAL-18-2022-SRP and ASL-19-1702-SRP).

About Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute:

Founded in 1971, Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute at Florida Atlantic University is a research community of marine scientists, engineers, educators and other professionals focused on Ocean Science for a Better World. The institute drives innovation in ocean engineering, at-sea operations, drug discovery and biotechnology from the oceans, coastal ecology and conservation, marine mammal research and conservation, aquaculture, ocean observing systems and marine education. For more information, visit http://www.fau.edu/hboi.

About Florida Atlantic University:

Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the southeast Florida coast. In recent years, the University has doubled its research expenditures and outpaced its peers in student achievement rates. Through the coexistence of access and excellence, FAU embodies an innovative model where traditional achievement gaps vanish. FAU is designated a Hispanic-serving institution, ranked as a top public university by U.S. News & World Report and a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For more information, visit http://www.fau.edu.

CAPTION

First author and scientific diver Erin Shilling treats a diseased stony coral affected by stony coral tissue loss disease.

CREDIT

Joshua Voss, Ph.D., FAU Harbor Branch, Coral Reef and Health Ecology Lab

Naturally GM: Crops steal genes from other species to accelerate evolution

UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD

Research News

 

Grass crops are able to bend the rules of evolution by borrowing genes from their neighbours, giving them a competitive advantage, a new study has revealed.

Research, led by the University of Sheffield, is the first to show that grasses can incorporate DNA from other species into their genomes through a process known as lateral gene transfer.

The stolen genetic secrets give them an evolutionary advantage by allowing them to grow faster, bigger or stronger and adapt to new environments quicker. These findings could inform future work to create crops that are more resistant to the effects of climate change and help to tackle food security problems.

The Sheffield team studied grasses, which include some of the most economically and ecologically important plants, such as the most globally cultivated crops wheat, maize, rice and barley.

Dr Luke Dunning, senior author of the research from the Department of Animal and Plant Sciences at the University of Sheffield, said: "Grasses are taking an evolutionary shortcut by borrowing genes from their neighbours. By using genetic detective work to trace the origin of each gene, we found over 100 examples where the gene had a significantly different history to the species it was found in.

"The findings may make us as a society reconsider how we view GM technology, as grasses have naturally exploited a very similar process. If we can determine how this process is happening it may allow us to naturally modify crops and make them more resistant to climate change.

"What we are seeing is not hybridisation, but the consequences are similar. Lateral gene transfer can move genetic information across wider evolutionary distances, which means it can potentially have even bigger impacts.

"Whilst only a relatively small proportion of genes are transferred between species, this process potentially allows grasses to cherry pick information from other species. This likely gives them huge advantages and may allow them to adapt to their surrounding environment quicker.

Samuel Hibdige, first author of the research and PhD Researcher from the University of Sheffield, said: "We still don't know how this is happening or what the full implications are. But, we know it is widespread in grasses, a family of plants that provide a majority of the food we eat.

"We detected foreign DNA in a wide range of grasses with all kinds of life history strategies indicating it is not restricted to those with a specific trait. However, we did detect a statistical increase in species which possess certain kinds of modified stems called rhizomes."

Since Darwin, much of our understanding of evolution has been based on the assumption that common descent is the rule for plant and animal evolution, with genetic information passed from parents to offspring.

The team's next steps will be to determine the biological mechanism behind this phenomenon and to investigate whether this is an ongoing process in crops that contributes to the differences we observe between crop varieties.

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For further information please contact: Emma Griffiths, Media and PR Assistant, University of Sheffield, 0114 222 1034, e.l.griffiths@sheffield.ac.uk

Notes to editors

The research received funding from the European Research Council (ERC), the Royal Society and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The University of Sheffield

With almost 29,000 of the brightest students from over 140 countries, learning alongside over 1,200 of the best academics from across the globe, the University of Sheffield is one of the world's leading universities.

A member of the UK's prestigious Russell Group of leading research-led institutions, Sheffield offers world-class teaching and research excellence across a wide range of disciplines.

Unified by the power of discovery and understanding, staff and students at the university are committed to finding new ways to transform the world we live in.

Sheffield is the only university to feature in The Sunday Times 100 Best Not-For-Profit Organisations to Work For 2018 and for the last eight years has been ranked in the top five UK universities for Student Satisfaction by Times Higher Education.

Sheffield has six Nobel Prize winners among former staff and students and its alumni go on to hold positions of great responsibility and influence all over the world, making significant contributions in their chosen fields.

Global research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Unilever, AstraZeneca, Glaxo SmithKline, Siemens and Airbus, as well as many UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations

Plant provenance influences pollinators

Researchers study the importance of interactions between plants and insects in the restoration of ecosystems

UNIVERSITY OF MÜNSTER

Research News

 

IMAGE: EARTH BUMBLEBEE COVERED WITH POLLEN FROM FIELD SCABIOUS. view more 

CREDIT: WWU - PETER LESSMANN

Insect decline is one of the greatest challenges facing our society. As a result of the destruction of many natural habitats, bees, bumblebees, butterflies, beetles and the like find less and less food. As a consequence, they are barely able to fulfil their role as pollinators of wild and cultivated plants. This trend is increasingly noticeable in agricultural regions in particular.

Researchers at the University of Münster have now taken a more detailed look at how the choice of seeds in restoration measures - i.e. the restoration of natural habitats at degraded land - affects how insects benefit from these measures. Here, not only the plant species plays an important role, but so does the geographical provenance of the seeds used - because the provenance influences not only insect diversity but also how often the pollinators visit flowers. The results of the study have been published in the "Journal of Applied Ecology".

Background and methodology

Insects are indispensable for the functioning of ecosystems - and for human survival. They are necessary, for example, for the pollination of many cultivated plants which are, in turn, an essential source of nutrition for humans. In regions characterized by agriculture or in built-up areas with settlements and cities, there are reduced resources available to pollinators. In order to support them in their pollination, flower-rich habitats are created in the landscape, often in the form of wildflower stripes.

When flower stripes or other habitats are created, however, it should be taken into account that plant species are not homogeneous entities, as their populations genetically differ. This differentiation often occurs as a result of population adaptation to their local environment. A brown knapweed, for example, which grows near the sea - where frost is rare - will be less frost-resistant than a brown knapweed which grows in the mountains, where frost is common. The differences can be seen in many plant traits, and some of these differences can influence pollinators, for example the number of flowers or the time when they flower. "Depending on the provenance, some populations flower earlier than others," as Dr. Anna Lampei Bucharová from Münster University's Institute of Landscape Ecology explains, who also lead the study. "When setting up habitats for pollinators, these within-species differences have so far often been neglected," she adds, "and the plants are mostly selected regardless of their provenance. This is why we tested to see whether the provenance of the plants influences pollinators."

The geographical provenance of the seeds plays a key role in this context. In a field experiment, the researchers formed small experimental plant communities which had exactly the same species composition but different provenances. The populations came from the Münster region, from the area around Munich and from greater Frankfurt an der Oder. They then recorded flowering data, observed the pollinators visiting these communities, and compared the frequency and diversity of the pollinators in communities with different provenances.

The researchers discovered that a plant's provenance influences pollinators - both how often the pollinators visit flowers and also the diversity of the insect species. "The effect can be considerable," says Dr. David Ott, co-author of the study. "We observed twice as many visits by pollinators at flowers of one provenance than at flowers of another provenance. The most important parameter driving this is the phenology of the plant's flower - in other words, the temporal sequence of flowering," he adds. The researchers conclude that plants from some provenances started to flower earlier and more intensively than others, and so they presented more flowers and, as a result, interacted more frequently with pollinators.

The results are important both for scientists and for ecological restoration. The researchers are confident that Germany provides good conditions for implementing provenance-based restoration strategies, because regional ecotypes of many species are readily available in the so-called "Regiosaatgut" ("regional seeds") system. This system provides regional seeds for many species for up to 22 regions in Germany. Thus, by selecting the appropriate plant origins, resources for pollinators could be sustainably improved.

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Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.

What does 1.5 °C warming limit mean for China?

CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES HEADQUARTERS

Research News

 

As part of the Paris Agreement, nearly all countries agreed to take steps to limit the average increase in global surface temperature to less than 2 °C, or preferably 1.5 °C, compared with preindustrial levels. Since the Agreement was adopted, however, concerns about global warming suggest that countries should aim for the "preferable" warming limit of 1.5 °C.

What are the implications for China of trying to achieve this lower limit?

Prof. DUAN Hongbo from the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. WANG Shouyang from the Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with their collaborators, have attempted to answer this question.

Their results were published in an article entitled "Assessing China's efforts to pursue the 1.5°C warming limit," which was published in Science on April 22.

The authors used nine different integrated assessment models (IAMs) to make their evaluation of China's effort to achieve the warming limit of 1.5 °C.

The various models show different emission trajectories for carbon and noncarbon emissions. The majority of the IAMs will achieve near-zero or negative carbon emissions by around 2050, with a range from -0.13 billion tonnes of CO2 (GtCO2) to 2.34 GtCO2 across models. However, one highly consistent finding among all models is that the 1.5°C warming limit requires carbon emissions decrease sharply after 2020.

The researchers discovered that a steep and early drop in carbon emissions reduces dependency on negative emission technologies (NETs), i.e., technologies that capture and sequester carbon. One implication of this finding is that there is a trade-off between substantial early mitigation of carbon emissions and reliance on NETs, which may have uncertain performance. At the same time, the model showing the lowest carbon emissions by 2050 shows the greatest reliance on carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology--suggesting that NETs have an important role in reducing carbon emissions.

Although carbon emissions were an important focus of the study, the researchers also noted that reducing noncarbon emissions is necessary to stay under the warming limit. Specifically, carbon emissions must be reduced by 90%, CH4 emissions by about 71% and N2O emissions by about 52% to achieve the 1.5 °C goal.

The study showed that mitigation challenges differ across sectors, e.g., industry, residential and commercial, transportation, electricity and "other." Among these sectors, industry plays a big role in end-use energy consumption. Therefore, substantial changes in industrial energy use must occur to reach deep decarbonization of the entire economy and realization of the given climate goals. Indeed, a highly consistent finding across all models is that the largest proportion of emission reduction will come from a substantial decline in energy consumption.

The study also highlights the importance of replacing fossil fuels with renewables, a strategy that plays the next most important role in emission reduction behind reducing energy consumption. The study suggests that China needs to decrease its fossil energy consumption (as measured by standard coal equivalent, or Gtce) by about 74% in 2050 in comparison with the no policy scenario.

The researchers estimate that achieving the 1.5 °C goal will involve a loss of GDP in 2050 in the range of 2.3% to 10.9%, due to decreased energy consumption and other factors.

The study also noted that China's recently announced plan to become carbon neutral by 2060 largely accords with the 1.5 °C warming limit; however, achieving the latter goal is more challenging.

China requires switch to zero-carbon energy to achieve more ambitious Paris Agreement goal, models S

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE

Research News

 

A new multi-model analysis suggests that China will need to reduce its carbon emissions by over 90% and its energy consumption by almost 40%, in order to meet the more ambitious target set by the 2016 Paris Agreement. The Agreement called for no more than a 1.5°Celsius (C) global temperature rise by 2050. These results provide a clear directive for China to deploy multiple strategies at once for long-term emission mitigation, the authors say. The findings also highlight the need for more research on the economic consequences of working toward a 1.5°C warming limit, arguing that current studies are far from adequate to inform the sixth assessment report (AR 6) on climate change planned for release by the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2022. Most research to inform climate policy has centered on the goal of 2.0°C, and to date, "there is clearly no consensus on the attractiveness of a 1.5°C target, particularly given the uncertainty in associated mitigation costs," say Hongbo Duan and colleagues. To help fill in this gap, Duan et al. used multiple climate models to assess how China might attain this goal by mid-century. All models consistently showed that of all sectors, industry is the main emission contributor, and the power sector would need to achieve full decarbonization to meet the 1.5°C goal by 2050. Negative emission technologies would play an important role in the achievement of near-zero emissions, with captured carbon accounting on average for 20% of total reductions by 2050. Furthermore, the researchers found that the cost of policies to attain this goal may amount to 2.8% to 5.7% of China's gross domestic product by 2050. For future work, the authors note the need for improving representation of technology and climate-associated economic damage in future climate models.

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Political polarization: Often not as bad as we think

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Research News

 

As politics grows increasingly polarized, a new global study finds people often exaggerate political differences and negative feelings of those on the opposite side of the political divide, and this misperception can be reduced by informing them of the other side's true feelings. The study replicates earlier research in the United States, finding the phenomenon to be generalizable across 25 countries.

The new study was led by Kai Ruggeri, PhD, assistant professor of health policy and management at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and replicates a 2020 study by Jeffrey Lees and Mina Cikara at Harvard University, who were also co-authors of the new study. The new findings appear in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

The Lee and Cikara study presented five political scenarios (e.g. banning anonymous political donations or changing the name given to the state highway) whereby one group proposes a change in law or policy which could disadvantage the other political party (Democrat or Republican). The new study replicated experiments from the original paper, testing the findings in 10,207 participants, following the original methodology as closely as possible and adapting group divisions and scenarios to the local political context for each of the other countries. For example, in Canada, they asked participants to respond to proposed changes to the way voting districts are defined; in Sudan, participants considered changes to the way water tariffs are calculated.

Says Ruggeri: "Our study provides evidence that people around the world overestimate the negative feelings of their political opponents, when in fact the other side is often much less negative than the perceptions we harbor about the other group. These misperceptions have real-world consequences, from polarization, intergroup conflict, and increasingly aggressive narratives in traditional and social media.

"While differences between the beliefs and actions of opposing political parties undoubtedly exist--particularly on widely covered issues like gun ownership or access to reproductive healthcare--their opinions on less reported issues are often more similar than we think. The findings from our study suggest that focusing on issues without making them partisan matters, while also presenting accurate representations of group beliefs, can directly mitigate the exaggeration of polarization," he adds.

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The study is a collaboration between 82 authors from 42 institutions; as well as 16 interns and 43 alumni from the Junior Researcher Programme, a global initiative for early career researchers in the behavioral sciences partnering with Columbia Global Programs; 14 students from the Global Scholars Programme in Europe: Global Behavioral Science (GLOBES); and other volunteers.