It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, August 01, 2023
For the first time bioelectronic medicine researchers at the Feinstein Institutes restore feeling and lasting movement in man living with quadriplegia
Using brain implants, artificial intelligence and novel stimulation electrodes, a double neural bypass technology restores a man’s sense of touch and movement after a 2020 diving accident
THE FEINSTEIN INSTITUTES FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH AT NORTHWELL HEALTH
VIDEO: USING BRAIN IMPLANTS, AI, AND NOVEL STIMULATION TECHNOLOGY, RESEARCHERS COMPLETE THE FIRST 'DOUBLE NEURAL BYPASS'view more
CREDIT: THE FEINSTEIN INSTITUTES FOR MEDICAL RESEARCH AT NORTHWELL HEALTH
MANHASSET, NY – In a first-of-its-kind clinical trial, bioelectronic medicine researchers, engineers and surgeons at Northwell Health’sThe Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research have successfully implanted microchips into the brain of a man living with paralysis, and have developed artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to re-link his brain to his body and spinal cord. This double neural bypass forms an electronic bridge that allows information to flow once again between the man’s paralyzed body and brain to restore movement and sensations in his hand with lasting gains in his arm and wrist outside of the laboratory. The research team unveiled the trial participant’s groundbreaking progress four months after a 15-hour open-brain surgery that took place on March 9 at North Shore University Hospital (NSUH).
“This is the first time the brain, body and spinal cord have been linked together electronically in a paralyzed human to restore lasting movement and sensation,” said Chad Bouton, professor in the Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine at the Feinstein Institutes, vice president of advanced engineering at Northwell Health, developer of the technology and principal investigator of the clinical trial. “When the study participant thinks about moving his arm or hand, we ‘supercharge’ his spinal cord and stimulate his brain and muscles to help rebuild connections, provide sensory feedback, and promote recovery. This type of thought-driven therapy is a game-changer. Our goal is to use this technology one day to give people living with paralysis the ability to live fuller, more independent lives.”
Paralyzed from the chest down, Keith Thomas, 45, of Massapequa, NY, is the first human to use the technology. During the height of the pandemic, on July 18, 2020, a diving accident caused Mr. Thomas to suffer injury at the C4 and C5 level of the vertebrae in his spine, leaving him unable to move and feel from the chest down. Alone and isolated in the hospital for more than six months, Mr. Thomas found new hope by participating in Prof. Bouton’s clinical trial and is grateful to be a part of something so historic and much larger than himself.
“There was a time that I didn’t know if I was even going to live, or if I wanted to, frankly. And now, I can feel the touch of someone holding my hand. It’s overwhelming,” said Mr. Thomas. “The only thing I want to do is to help others. That’s always been the thing I’m best at. If this can help someone even more than it’s helped me somewhere down the line, it’s all worth it.”
Over a hundred million people worldwide live with some form of movement impairment or paralysis. This clinical trial aims to restore lasting physical movement – outside of the research lab – and re-establish the sense of touch.
Feinstein Institutes’ researchers and clinicians, including Santosh Chandrasekaran, PhD and Adam Stein, MD, chair of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Northwell Health, spent months mapping Mr. Thomas’ brain using functional MRIs to help pinpoint the areas responsible for both arm movement and for the sensation of touch in his hand. Armed with that information, surgeons performed a grueling 15-hour surgery at NSUH, during parts of which the study participant was awake and giving surgeons real-time feedback. As they probed portions of the surface of his brain, Mr. Thomas would tell them what sensations he was feeling in his hands.
“Because we had Keith’s images, and he was talking to us during parts of his surgery, we knew exactly where to place the brain implants,” said Ashesh Mehta, MD, PhD, professor at the Feinstein Institutes’ Institute of Bioelectronic Medicine, director Northwell’s Laboratory for Human Brain Mapping and the surgeon who performed the brain implant. “We inserted two chips in the area responsible for movement and three more in the part of the brain responsible for touch and feeling in the fingers.”
Back in the lab, through two ports protruding from Mr. Thomas’ head, he connects to a computer that uses AI to read, interpret and translate his thoughts into action, known as thought-driven therapy and the foundation of the double neural bypass approach.
The bypass starts with Mr. Thomas’ intentions (ie. he thinks about squeezing his hand), which sends electrical signals from his brain implant to a computer. The computer then sends signals to highly flexible, non-invasive electrode patches that are placed over his spine and hand muscles located in his forearm to stimulate and promote function and recovery. Tiny sensors at his fingertips and palm send touch and pressure information back to the sensory area of his brain to restore sensation. This two-arm electronic bridge forms the novel double neural bypass aimed at restoring both movement and the sense of touch. In the lab, Mr. Thomas can now move his arms at will and feel his sister's touch as she holds his hand in support. This is the first time he has felt anything in the three years since his accident.
Remarkably, researchers say Mr. Thomas is already starting to see some natural recovery from his injuries thanks to this new approach, which could reverse some of the damage for good. His arm strength has more than doubled since enrolling in the study and he is beginning to experience new sensations in his forearm and wrist, even when the system is off.
Previous research by Prof. Bouton, and later, by other groups, used a single neural bypass to help people move paralyzed limbs again with their thoughts. In those cases, doctors implanted one or more microchips in the brain that bypassed the spinal cord injury altogether and used stimulators to activate target muscles. However, that approach only worked while participants were hooked up to computers, often only available in laboratories, and did not restore movement and feeling in the actual limb while promoting plasticity for long-lasting natural recovery.
The hope is that the brain, body and spinal cord will relearn how to communicate, and new pathways will be forged at the injury site thanks to the double neural bypass, similar to how a kidney can regenerate to overcome trauma or disease.
“Millions of people live with paralysis and loss of feeling, with limited options available to improve their condition, “ said Kevin J. Tracey, MD, president and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes and Karches Family Distinguished Chair in Medical Research. “Prof. Bouton and his team are committed to advancing new bioelectronic technologies and open new clinical paths to restore movement and sensation.”
To download videos and photos of Mr. Thomas in the lab, in surgery and including sound bites from Prof. Bouton, Dr. Mehta and Mr. Thomas, click here.
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research is the global scientific home of bioelectronic medicine, which combines molecular medicine, neuroscience and biomedical engineering. At the Feinstein Institutes, medical researchers use modern technology to develop new device-based therapies to treat disease and injury.
Built on years of research in molecular mechanisms of disease and the link between the nervous and immune systems, our researchers discover neural targets that can be activated or inhibited with neuromodulation devices, like vagus nerve implants, to control the body’s immune response and inflammation. If inflammation is successfully controlled, diseases – such as arthritis, pulmonary hypertension, Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel diseases, diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases – can be treated more effectively. Beyond inflammation, using novel brain-computer interfaces, our researchers developed techniques to bypass injuries of the nervous system so that people living with paralysis can regain sensation and use their limbs. By producing bioelectronic medicine knowledge, disease and injury could one day be treated with our own nerves without costly and potentially harmful pharmaceuticals.
Keith Thomas, who lives with paralysis, poses with the research team at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research that worked with him for months to restore lasting movement and feeling in his arm and hand. The first-of-its-kind ‘double neural bypass’ system uses brain implants and artificial intelligence to allow signals to and from Thomas’ brain to bypass the site of his injury.
Feinstein Institutes’ bioelectronic medicine researchers hold a 3-D model of the skull and brain of a man with quadriplegia just prior to a historic surgery at Northwell Health’s North Shore University Hospital. Doctors and scientists used the model to help identify where to place five tiny computer chips in the brain to help restore not only lasting movement in the paralyzed man’s arm and hand, but also the sense of touch.
CREDIT
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health
About the Feinstein Institutes
The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Researchis the home of the research institutes of Northwell Health, the largest health care provider and private employer in New York State. Encompassing 50 research labs, 3,000 clinical research studies and 5,000 researchers and staff, the Feinstein Institutes raises the standard of medical innovation through its five institutes of behavioral science, bioelectronic medicine, cancer, health system science, and molecular medicine. We make breakthroughs in genetics, oncology, brain research, mental health, autoimmunity, and are the global scientific leader in bioelectronic medicine – a new field of science that has the potential to revolutionize medicine. For more information about how we produce knowledge to cure disease, visithttp://feinstein.northwell.eduand follow us onLinkedIn.
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Case study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
UK scientists pledge to address future of semiconductors
Semiconductors have become vital to world manufacturing and are used in all mobiles and computers
IMAGE: SEMICONDUCTORS ARE USED IN ALL MOBILES AND COMPUTERS, ALONGSIDE HEALTHCARE, TRANSPORT AND CLEAN ENERGYview more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON
The future of semiconductors – which are used to power billions of electrical items worldwide – will be driven by UK scientists who have allied with big tech businesses to train a new generation of skilled workers.
Experts from the University of Southampton have joined the launch of the new Semiconductor Education Alliance which intends to address global shortages of electronic device designers and upskill the existing workforce.
Semiconductors have become vital to world manufacturing businesses and are used in all mobiles and computers, alongside healthcare, transport and for clean energy technology.
The new Alliance will see Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science partner with leading firms including Arm, Cadence, Synopsys, ST, Arduino, Taiwan’s TSRI, the All India Council for Technical Education, alongside the universities of Cambridge and Cornell.
Professor Geoff Merrett, from the University of Southampton, said: “We have collaborated with individual partners over many years, but uniting as a global Alliance gives a shared focus in addressing the design skill challenge.
“Southampton will lead on developing two important global communities of practise among the academic community. The first to improve delivery of skills in electronic design and the second in using state-of-art design to improve academia’s ability to improve research outcomes.”
The University of Southampton helped pioneer the creation of electronics more than 60 years ago – and was among the first developers of the semiconductor technology.
Professor Mark Spearing, Vice-President Research and Enterprise at the University of Southampton, said: “The Alliance’s goals of creating global communities of practice, promoting the sharing of knowledge and developing the skills we need to build a better, more sustainable, and inclusive world are goals we share in common, and we look forward to addressing these shared challenges.”
Developing skills and talent is one of the three key initiatives identified by the UK government’s new semiconductor strategy – alongside new research and better infrastructure – which it said the industry has recognised as barriers to progress.
The new Alliance intends to address these challenges by bringing together industry and academic experts, including Southampton, to upskill the industry by improving STEM education, apprenticeships, and industry-led learning.
Gary Campbell, Executive Vice President of Central Engineering at Arm, said: "The Semiconductor Education Alliance is bringing together key stakeholders across industry, academia and government to address the growing challenges of both finding talent and upskilling the existing workforce.
“With one of the oldest dedicated departments in Electronics, and more than 60 years as a nationally recognised centre in semiconductors, the University of Southampton is a partner that brings significant academic strength to the alliance.”
Read about Southampton’s School of Electronics and Computer Science and its pioneering work in semiconductor development at www.arm.ecs.soton.ac.uk.
Lakes worldwide are grappling with the effects of eutrophication, such as algal blooms, primarily due to excessive nitrogen and phosphorus. The detrimental environmental effects of anthropogenic activities and climate change further aggravate the situation, thereby necessitating improved and effective measures. Inter-basin water diversion has emerged as a prominent solution, with projects like the South-North Water Diversion Project and the Niulan River–Dianchi Water Diversion Project in China. These projects aim to enhance the lake water quality by augmenting available water resources and accelerating water circulation. However, traditional water diversion measures have struggled with the conundrum of enhancing water quality while minimizing the volume of diverted water.
In a newstudy published in the journal Environmental Science and Ecotechnology, researchers from Peking University developed an innovative strategy, called Dynamic Water Diversion Optimization (DWDO), to underscores the pressing need to address the persistent challenge of improving water quality in eutrophic lakes. This innovative strategy, which couples deep reinforcement learning with a complex water quality model, was tested in Lake Dianchi, China's largest eutrophic freshwater lake. The DWDO model significantly reduced total nitrogen and total phosphorus concentrations by 7% and 6%, respectively, while annual water diversion saw a staggering drop of 75%.
Highlights
Dynamic water diversion optimization (DWDO) is proposed.
DWDO couples deep reinforcement learning and a complex water quality model.
DWDO improves water quality and reduces diversion costs simultaneously.
DWDO is efficient and robust under various model parameter uncertainty.
DWDO integrates deep reinforcement learning into a comprehensive water quality model. This ground-breaking method identifies the impacts of various factors, such as meteorological indicators and the water quality of both the source and the lake, on optimal water diversion. It demonstrates the adaptability of water diversion in response to a single input variable's specific value and multiple factors influencing real-time adjustment of water diversion. DWDO's efficacy lies in its robustness under different uncertainties and shorter theoretical training time compared to traditional simulation-optimization algorithms. This robustness allows it to support effective decision-making in water quality management, thereby expanding its potential for broader application. The researchers were also able to extract key insights from DWDO through interpretable machine learning. They uncovered the significant drivers behind the optimal diversion decisions and their contributions to water quality improvement. DWDO was also rigorously tested under diverse sets of hyperparameters, confirming its robustness and flexibility.
Overall, the DWDO strategy provides a promising tool for eutrophication control. By ensuring a dynamic balance between water quality improvement and operational costs, DWDO could become an essential part of future water quality management and restoration strategies. This innovative approach marks a significant advance in tackling the global challenge of improving water quality in eutrophic lakes. As we continue to face the twin threats of increasing anthropogenic activities and climate change, the demand for such adaptive and robust solutions will only intensify.
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References
Funding information
National Social Science Foundation of China (21AZD060)
National Natural Science Foundation of China (51721006)
High-Performance Computing Platform of Peking University
Environmental Science and Ecotechnology (ISSN 2666-4984) is an international, peer-reviewed, and open-access journal published by Elsevier. The journal publishes significant views and research across the full spectrum of ecology and environmental sciences, such as climate change, sustainability, biodiversity conservation, environment & health, green catalysis/processing for pollution control, and AI-driven environmental engineering. The latest impact factor of ESE is 12.6, according to the Journal Citation ReportTM 2022.
The Amazon River is the largest river in the world. It discharges about one fifth of global freshwater runoff, resulting in a freshwater plume rich in nutrients and trace elements entering the Atlantic Ocean. Until now, it was assumed that the suspended solids partially dissolve in the water plume of the estuary and thus represent an important source of trace metals, but latest results refute this theory. Isotopes of the elements neodymium (Nd) and hafnium (Hf) were examined. These can serve as tracers or origin, i.e. their analysis can be used to determine where water masses come from. Each river has its own isotopic signature that represents the source rock in the hinterland.
"A previous study had found an increase in the dissolved concentration and variability of neodymium isotopes in the Amazon estuary and concluded that these are dissolved from particles carried by the river on its way to the open ocean," says the study's first author Antao Xu. He is a PhD student in the Chemical Paleoceanography group headed by Professor Dr Martin Frank at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, who was co-chief scientist of the METEOR expedition M147 (official GEOTRACES process study GApr11) in the Amazon estuary (chief scientist was Prof. Dr Andrea Koschinsky, Constructor University Bremen). "We have now disproved this conclusion," says Martin Frank. "We can show that the changes in isotope composition are a result of the admixture of freshwater from the nearby Pará River."
The input of the neighboring Pará River south of the Amazon mouth shows significantly elevated dissolved neodymium and hafnium concentrations. At the same time, it has a low pH value. This led to another important finding. Co-author Ed Hathorne says: "We looked at the relationship between neodymium concentration and pH in rivers around the world." It turned out that neodymium concentration can be directly inferred from pH. This allowed a revised estimate of the global dissolved riverine neodymium flux, which is at least three times higher than previously thought, according to co-author Georgi Laukert of Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, USA.
The study is part of the international long-term project GEOTRACES, which aims to map the global distribution of trace metals dissolved in seawater and their isotopes in order to gain a better understanding of their sources, sinks and distribution pathways. As paleo-oceanographer, Martin Frank and his working group are actually interested in trace metals in their function as indicators of past climate history and ocean processes. "The isotopic composition serves us as a proxy for the ocean circulation of the past," says Frank. "However, we still need a better understanding of the controlling processes in today's ocean to be able to apply these proxies more reliably." This is in line with the transdisciplinary approach of integrating research at GEOMAR, for which "metals in the ocean" is a thematic focus. Frank: "In order to be able to develop reliable models for the entire ocean-atmosphere-climate system, we need to better understand the global ocean circulation and the distribution of trace metals coupled to it, for which we need to know the inputs of trace elements from land."
About GEOTRACES:
GEOTRACES is a global programme which aims to improve the understanding of biogeochemical cycles of trace elements and their isotopes in the marine environment. Much of what is known about ocean conditions in the past and, therefore, about the ocean’s role in climate variability, is derived from trace element and isotope patterns recorded in marine archives (sediments, corals, etc.). Improved knowledge of the processes governing the distribution these tracers in the modern ocean can improve our understanding of past ocean conditions recorded by marine archives, based on which predictions of future changes can be made more reliably.
Overlooked riverine contributions of dissolved neodymium and hafnium to the Amazon estuary and oceans
School meals would be even healthier if compliant with US nutrition standards, study finds
Aligning student meals to the 2020-2025 Dietary Guidelines for Americans would further support children’s well-being and cut healthcare costs into adulthood, say Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy researchers
IMAGE: FULLY SYNCHRONIZING SCHOOL MEALS WITH THE DIETARY GUIDELINES FOR AMERICANS, 2020-2025 COULD POSITIVELY IMPACT HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CHILDREN INTO THEIR ADULTHOOD, WITH THE ADDED BENEFIT OF SAVING BILLIONS IN LIFETIME MEDICAL COSTSview more
CREDIT: ALONSO NICHOLS/TUFTS UNIVERSITY
Today’s school meals are much healthier than they were for the parents of American kids, but still 1 in 4 school meals are of poor nutritional quality. The latest Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), in place for 2020-25, call for meals with less sugar and salt and with more whole grains.
Fully synchronizing school meals with these new standards could positively impact hundreds of thousands of children into their adulthood, with the added benefit of saving billions in lifetime medical costs, investigators from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University report July 31 in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. By modeling the national implementation of updated school lunch guidelines, the research team found even incomplete compliance by schools would lead to overall reductions in short- and long-term health issues for participating K-12 students.
“On average, school meals are healthier than the food American children consume from any other source including at home, but we’re at a critical time to further strengthen their nutrition,” says senior author Dariush Mozaffarian, a cardiologist and Jean Mayer Professor of Nutrition at the Friedman School. “Our findings suggest a real positive impact on long-term health and healthcare costs with even modest updates to the current school meal nutrition standards.”
The researchers utilized a simulation model to derive a data-driven estimate of three changes to the school meal program, including limiting percent of energy from added sugar to lower than 10% of total energy per meal, requiring all grain foods to be whole grain, and lowering sodium content to the Chronic Disease Risk Reduction amount for sodium intake in the 2020-2025 DGA. A portion (35%) of these dietary changes were estimated to continue into adulthood. If all schools fully complied with the new standards, these were estimated to prevent more than 10,600 deaths per year due to fewer diet-related diseases, saving over $19 billion annually in healthcare-related costs during later adulthood. The worst-case estimate, in which schools remained with their current food offerings, saved a little over half as many lives and healthcare dollars.
School meals aligning to new dietary guidelines for added sugars, sodium, and whole grains would have modest, but important, short-term health benefits for children. For example, these changes were estimated to reduce elementary and middle school students’ body mass index (BMI) by 0.14 and systolic blood pressure by 0.13 mm Hg. Benefits were about half as large for high school students because fewer older students eat school-provided meals.
“Using a comparative risk assessment model, our estimations are based on the best available, nationally representative data on children and adults and the best available evidence on how dietary changes in childhood relate to BMI and blood pressure, how dietary changes persist into adulthood, and how diet influences disease in adulthood,” says first author Lu Wang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Friedman School. “Our new results indicate that even small changes to strengthen school nutrition policies can help students live longer, healthier lives.”
The study’s findings, which cannot prove the outcomes they describe but are derived from a mathematical model based on the best available demographic and health data, are timely given the United States Department of Agriculture’s recent commitment to updating the school meal nutrition standards to align with the 2020-2025 dietary guidelines. The price to fully implement new school meal standards is yet to be determined, but previous alignments suggest it would add at least another $1 billion nationally to the cost of these programs, or only about 5 percent of the total predicted annual long-term healthcare savings this change would yield.
Research reported in this article was supported by an award from the National Institutes of Health's National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (R01HL115189) and the Center for Science in the Public Interest. Complete information on authors, funders, methodology, and conflicts of interest is available in the published paper. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the funders.
IMAGE: CONCRETE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT BUILDING MATERIAL ON EARTH, BUT ITS PRODUCTION CAUSES A MASSIVE AMOUNT OF GLOBAL CARBON EMISSIONS. JOIN GEORGE AS HE DISCOVERS HOW A SURPRISING DISCOVERY IN 1973 COULD DRAMATICALLY CHANGE HOW WE MAKE CONCRETE FOREVER. HTTPS://YOUTU.BE/FET92F1C730view more
CREDIT: THE AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
WASHINGTON, July 31, 2023 — Concrete is the most important building material on Earth, but its production causes a MASSIVE amount of global carbon emissions. Join George as he discovers how a surprising discovery in 1973 could dramatically change how we make concrete forever. https://youtu.be/fEt92F1c730
Reactions is a video series produced by the American Chemical Society and PBS Digital Studios. Subscribe to Reactions at http://bit.ly/ACSReactions and follow us on Twitter @ACSReactions.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS’ mission is to advance the broader chemistry enterprise and its practitioners for the benefit of Earth and all its people. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, eBooks and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
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IMAGE: THIS MAP OF RED OAK SEED SOURCES PROVIDES AN EXAMPLE OF A MAJOR THREAT TO AN IMPORTANT EFFORT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE: MAJOR GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE FUNDING IS BEING INVESTED IN PLANTING TREES AS A POWERFUL TOOL TO FIGHT LOCAL AND GLOBAL WARMING. BUT NEW RESEARCH IN THE JOURNAL BIOSCIENCE, FROM WHICH THIS MAP IS ADAPTED, SHOWS A TROUBLING BOTTLENECK THAT COULD THREATEN THESE EFFORTS: U.S. TREE NURSERIES DON’T GROW CLOSE TO ENOUGH TREES—NOR HAVE THE SPECIES DIVERSITY NEEDED—TO MEET AMBITIOUS PLANTING GOALS.view more
CREDIT: ADAPTED FROM PETER CLARK/BIOSCIENCE
The REPLANT Act provides money for the US Forest Service to plant more than a billion trees in the next nine years. The World Economic Forum aims to help plant a trillion trees around the world by 2030. Many US cities have plans to shade their streets with millions of trees. Major government and private funding is being invested in planting trees as a powerful tool to fight climate change, protect water, clean air, and cool cities. In short, trees are hot.
But new research shows a troubling bottleneck that could threaten these efforts: U.S. tree nurseries don’t grow close to enough trees—nor have the species diversity needed—to meet ambitious plans.
The study was published in the journal Bioscience on July 31, 2023.
Seedling Scarcity
“Trees are this amazing natural solution to a lot of our challenges, including climate change. We urgently need to plant many millions of them,” says University of Vermont scientist Tony D’Amato who co-led the new research. “But what this paper points out is that we are woefully underserved by any kind of regional or national scale inventory of seedlings to get the job done.”
A team of 13 scientists, led by D’Amato and UVM post-doctoral scientist Peter Clark, studied 605 plant nurseries across twenty northern states. Only 56 of these grow and sell seedlings in the volumes needed for conservation and reforestation and only 14 of them were government-operated, they report. The team was more dismayed to discover an “overwhelming scarcity of seedlings,” they write, from different species and “seed collection zones”—trees adapted to local conditions and climate. In essence, forest nurseries tended to maintain a limited inventory of a select few species, electing to prioritize those valued for commercial timber production over species required for conservation, ecological restoration, or climate adaptation. Moreover, many areas had no locally adapted tree stock available. (See map for example.) And within the seedlings available, there were not enough types of trees and “future-climate-suitable” genetics to meet goals for conservation and forest restoration in a hot future.
“The world is thinking about a warming climate—can we plant towards that warming climate? We know we’re losing ecologically important species across North America and around the world. So, the goal is: can we restore these trees or replace them with similar species? It’s a powerful idea,” says UVM’s Peter Clark, the lead author on the new study. “But—despite the excitement and novelty of that idea in many policy and philanthropy circles—when push comes to shove, it's very challenging on the ground to actually find either the species or the seed sources needed.”
“The number of seedlings is a challenge,” Clark says, “but finding the diversity we need to restore ecologically complex forests—not just a few industrial workhorse species commonly used for commercial timber operations, like white pine—is an even bigger bottleneck.”
One extreme example is red spruce. This ecologically important species along hundreds of miles of eastern North America has been under stress for decades from climate change, pests, and land clearing. Yet, in their 20-state survey, the team only found two tree nurseries that had inventory of red spruce, a species from which many millions of seedlings are needed to meet restoration goals. “Remarkably, only 800 red spruce seedlings were commercially available for purchase in 2022,” the team reports in their new Bioscience study, “—enough to reforest less than one hectare.”
“It really points to just how bare the cupboard is when it comes to the diversity of options,” says Tony D’Amato, director of the Forestry Program in UVM’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, “but also the quantity that's needed to make any meaningful impact.”
Increased Investment
The team argues that dramatic increases in both seedling production and diversity at many regional nurseries will be central to any successful campaign to address climate change with tree planting. However, the novelty and risk involved, “likely generates uncertainty among forest nurseries, hampering investment,” they write. This appears to be especially true in regions, like the Northeast, where nurseries have declined over recent decades, the study reports, and where speculative investment—in growing new, future-climate-adapted, non-timber species and seedlots—may carry high financial risk.
Additionally, seedlings brought in from outside a region may be less likely to succeed. The new study reports that the vast majority (80%) of seedlings in the northern states, where the study was conducted, are produced in the North Central states—and very few in the Northeastern states. “Such concentration of production will hinder tree planting efforts,” they write, “because species and seed sources likely originate from similar geographic or bioclimatic zones.” On top of this challenge, seedlings are sensitive to stress. A misalignment between when seedlings are available—say in a southern nursery months before northern soils are frost free—and when they are needed, may doom their chances.
The team of researchers—including scientists from UVM; the USDA’s Northern Forest Research Stations in Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire; Minnesota Department of Natural Resources; Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources; Michigan Department of Natural Resources; University of Minnesota; the USDA’s Northern Institute of Applied Climate Science; and The Nature Conservancy (Albany, NY)—recommend a series of improvements from improved policy and financing to better training and expanded research.
For example, today government agencies, such as the US Forest Service and many US state governments, lack clear policies about the movement of tree species and tree genetics. They often rely on seed zones established in the 1970s based on historical climate conditions, not future ones—even though up-to-date guidelines for moving species under a warming climate are becoming available. Additionally, much forest policy and research has been framed around species important for timber production—rather than efforts to diversify species and climate-adapted seed-sourcing.
The team of scientists suggest that expanded federal and state investment will be needed to boost both public tree nurseries and seed collection efforts. “This strategy may stimulate production from private nurseries once a stable demand is apparent,” they write. In 2023, the federal government made an investment of $35 million in expanding federal nursery capacity. “However, given the existing (and growing) reforestation backlog, declines in nursery infrastructure, and complex needs for diverse seeds and seedlings, it is likely that substantially more public investment in the form of grants, loans, and cost-share programs will be needed to reinvigorate, diversify, and expand forest nurseries,” they write.
“People want trillions of trees,” says the University of Vermont’s Peter Clark, “but often, on the ground, it’s one old farmer walking around to collect acorns. There’s a massive disconnect.”
University of Vermont forest scientists Peter Clark and Tony D'Amato at an experimental forest in Vemont. They led new research showing a troubling bottleneck that could threaten efforts to fight climate change with tree planting: U.S. tree nurseries don’t grow close to enough trees—nor have the species diversity needed—to meet ambitious planting goals.
