Why women are no further ahead in the workforce than 30 years ago

New report calls for major changes to workplace conditions for pregnant women and working parents

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

A report exploring the working conditions of pregnant employees and parents has been released today, calling for major changes in Australian workplaces to counter the “vast discrimination and disadvantage” experienced by these groups.

It is the first national review of this group of workers in a decade, undertaken by researchers from the University of South Australia.

The key recommendations of the National Review into Pregnant and Parent Workers Work Conditions and Discrimination include:

• Closer consultation between employers and employees to ensure the former understand pregnancy-related needs and communicate role changes for new parents returning to work
• Appropriate space for breastfeeding or expressing milk (locked door, comfortable chair, storage facilities)
• Management and HR should foster an inclusive workplace culture that does not tolerate disrespectful or negative behaviour
• Create greater gender equality through providing partner parental leave and/or flexible work arrangements
• Training and career progression should be available to all, regardless of the work arrangements
• Ergonomic adjustments need to be made in the workplace to minimise risk of harm
• There must be greater mandatory regulation of employers to ensure they are meeting their legal requirements.

The report's lead author is Dr Rachael Potter from the Centre for Workplace Excellence at the University of South Australia (UniSA). It is the outcome of a 2023 study which found that 30 years after it was outlawed in Australia, workplace discrimination is still rife for pregnant women and parents.

Key findings from the 2023 study were:

• More than 60% of new mothers returning to work say their opinions are often ignored, they feel excluded, and are given unmanageable workloads
• 25% of women said their workplace did not provide appropriate breastfeeding facilities 
• Almost one in five women returning from maternity leave were refused requests to work flexible hours or from home
• 30% of pregnant women received no information about their upcoming leave entitlements, which is a legal requirement in workplaces
• 23% of women said they felt they needed to hide their pregnant belly at work.
• While on leave, 22% had their tasks or job altered against their wishes, and 73% would have liked to take more maternity leave to care for their child.
• 38% reported negative or offensive remarks for taking time off work to care for a sick child.
• 13% were treated so badly they had no option but to resign

The report is available for download on this website: 
National Review into Work Conditions & Discrimination among Pregnant & Parent Workers in Australia - Research - University of South Australia (unisa.edu.au)

New book ‘Breed Differences in Dog Behavior: Why tails wag differently’ published by CABI

Animal and veterinary science researchers and students, as well as veterinary practitioners and animal behaviorists, will not want to miss a new book published by CABI which explores the wonders of breed differences in dog behaviour.

CABI

 

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BREED DIFFERENCES IN DOG BEHAVIOR: WHY TAILS WAG DIFFERENTLY, RENEE L HA, TRACY L BRAD, JAMES C HA, CABI PUBLISHING, APRIL 2024.

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CREDIT: CABI

Animal and veterinary science researchers and students, as well as veterinary practitioners and animal behaviorists, will not want to miss a new book published by CABI which explores the wonders of breed differences in dog behaviour.

The book ‘Breed Differences in Dog Behavior: Why Tails Wag Differently’ by Renee L Ha, Tracy L Brad, and James C Ha, is also a useful reference for shelter staff or dog trainers looking for greater understanding of breed differences.

Humans have bred dogs for physical and behavioral characteristics for millennia. These efforts can have unintended side effects, however, which may be either advantageous or cause issues – such as a predisposition to certain medical complaints, or, controversially, behavioural issues.

More pet owners seek to understand their canine family members

The scientific study of domestic dogs is still in its infancy, but public demand for this information is at a record high as more and more pet owners seek to understand their canine family members.

Focusing on the behavioral differences and tendencies that have arisen in different breed lines, this book explores, summarizes, and explains the scientific evidence on what breed can tell us about behaviour – and, crucially, what it cannot.

The book covers a range of aspects

The book covers a range of aspects. They include the impact of inbreeding and how it contributes to problematic behavioural issues such as anxiety and aggression, and how it potentially affects the future health of the breed.

The limits of predicting a dog's behavior based upon breed, individual differences within breeds, and the corresponding limitations of breed-specific legislation is also considered.

‘Breed Differences in Dog Behavior: Why Tails Wag Differently’ further provides guidance for professionals to help their clients better understand behavioural issues, traits, and appropriate expectations around the right breed for their household.

Alex Lainsbury, Commissioning Editor at CABI, said, “Providing a comprehensive and approachable view of the science behind breed-specific behaviors, this book gives dog enthusiasts from all professional and personal backgrounds a better understanding of why dogs do what they do, and how we can improve our relationships with our canine companions.”

Book reference

Breed Differences in Dog Behavior: Why Tails Wag Differently, Renee L Ha, Tracy L Brad, James C Ha, CABI Publishing, April 2024. For more information see the publication on the CABI Digital Library here.

 

Frequency of heat days systematically underestimated in many studies

Error in established calculation method discovered

UNIVERSITY OF VIENNA

 

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THE STUDY SHOWS THAT HEAT DAYS ARE UNDERESTIMATED BY UP TO 30 PER CENT ON AVERAGE OVER 30 YEARS IF THE ERROR IS NOT CORRECTED - IN OTHER WORDS, ONLY 70 PER CENT OF THE ACTUAL TEMPERATURE EXTREMES ARE DETECTED IN SOME REGIONS. 

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CREDIT: LUKAS BRUNNER

Many studies on the climate crisis focus on researching temperature extremes on a global scale. Scientists at the University of Vienna have now uncovered an error in an established calculation method, leading to a systematic underestimation in the frequency of heat days. The error is based in the previously unnoticed impact of the seasonal cycle on the extreme threshold due to the incorrect application of so called "moving time windows". The study has recently been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Increasingly frequent temperature extremes are one of the most dangerous consequences of human-induced climate change and, as such, the subject of numerous scientific analyses. A commonly used method to define extremes such as heat days takes the adaptation to local conditions into account and calculates them relative to the local temperature distribution. However, researchers from the Department of Meteorology and Geophysics at the University of Vienna have now identified a significant error in the calculation of such relative extremes.

Temperature extremes are often defined relative to local conditions to encompass unusually hot periods worldwide. This approach uses different threshold values, for example, for Europe and Antarctica, allowing for a comparison in the occurrence of heat days between these climatically diverse regions. In the calculation of the local temperature threshold, so-called moving time windows are often employed. These windows aim to increase the number of days considered for threshold calculation, intending to enhance the meaningfulness of the threshold. Many previous studies have, therefore, increased the length of this time window from the originally recommended 5 days to up to 31 days. The newly published study now demonstrates that such long time windows lead to a mixing of the seasonal cycle into the threshold, inadvertently reducing the probability of extremes.

Frequency of heat days underestimated

The calculation error can, depending on the region, lead to an underestimation of the expected heat day frequency, as explained by the lead author of the study, Lukas Brunner, Senior Scientist at the Department of Meteorology and Geophysics at the University of Vienna: "Heat days are often defined as the 10 percent warmest days at each location. However, we were able to show that an error in the calculation can lead to a considerable underestimation in the number of extreme days. This has been overlooked in many studies so far." Regions particularly affected include the western United States and the Arabian Peninsula, where only 7 percent heat days are detected by the algorithm instead of the correct 10 percent, leading to a relative error of -30 percent. In contrast, the probability of heat days in Europe is quite accurately estimated at the correct 10 percent. "These regional differences in the manifestation of the error we have identified can distort the interpretation of results and lead to issues when comparing different regions of the world," explains Brunner.

Global warming reduces the error

The study also examines the impact of climate change, revealing that with unabated emissions, certain regions will experience almost continuous temperature extremes in the future. The discovered underestimation of extremes decreases with extreme climate warming. However, this leads to an overestimation of the change signal, as climate scientist Brunner explains: "By the end of the century, in hotspot regions like the Arabian Peninsula, almost every day will be considered a heat day by today's standards. But due to the error the historical period has only 7 percent heat days instead of the correct 10 percent, leading to an overestimation in the increase."

In their study, the authors also propose a correction that almost entirely eliminates the error. "We hope that our study leads to future work avoiding the error, allowing for a better characterization of changes in temperature extremes within the framework of climate change," says Aiko Voigt, co-author of the study and Professor at the Department of Meteorology and Geophysics at the University of Vienna.

  

The impact of the error varies greatly from region to region - the effects are particularly clear in the North Atlantic: In June, for example, the frequency of hot days was underestimated by more than 75 per cent, resulting in only a quarter of the actual extremes being detected. Averaged over the year, the temperature extremes were also significantly below the expected frequency. 

CREDIT

Lukas Brunner

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-024-46349-x 

ARTICLE TITLE

Pitfalls in diagnosing temperature extremes.

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

18-Mar-2024

AMS Science Preview: “Outdoor days,” lightning, air pollution

Early online research from journals of the American Meteorological Society

AMERICAN METEOROLOGICAL SOCIETY

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Many of these articles are available for early online access–they are peer-reviewed, but not yet in their final published form.

Below is a selection of articles published early online recently. To view full article text, members of the media can contact kpflaumer@ametsoc.org for press login credentials.

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Observed Changes in Extreme Precipitation Associated with United States Tropical Cyclones
Journal of Climate

Rainfall from tropical cyclones is increasing across the continental U.S. Rainfall extremes are increasing worldwide, and tropical cyclones may play a major part. A new study finds that the area of the United States exposed to extreme tropical cyclone rainfall (in which a tropical cyclone will bring five-year record rainfall) is increasing. Overall, tropical cyclones show increasing rainfall, and major hurricanes show large increases in the most extreme rainfall values. Average and maximum rainfall associated with tropical cyclones is increasing over most of the eastern U.S., especially from northern Alabama to the southern Appalachians.

How Much Lightning Actually Strikes the United States?
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

Mapping U.S. lightning hotspots. This study maps lightning across the contiguous United States (CONUS), and suggests that the Gulf Coast region from Florida to Texas has the highest concentration of lighting. Parts of Tornado Alley are also at high risk. The authors calculated that the CONUS receives an annual average of 23.4 million “cloud-to-ground flashes” of lightning, with 36.8 million "ground strike points" (many lightning flashes strike more than one point on the ground).

North-South Disparity in Impact of Climate Change on “Outdoor Days”
Journal of Climate

Climate warming to restrict “outdoor days” in the Global South. Studies of climate risk tend to focus on extremes, but changes in the availability of mild weather are equally important. Based on high-emissions scenarios using two different climate models, days in which temperatures are comfortable for outdoor activities (“outdoor days,” defined as 10°C to 25°C) are set to grow fewer in the future for people living in developing countries–especially near the equator. Meanwhile, developed countries in the middle and high latitudes could see more “outdoor days” due to a reduction in cold weather in fall, winter, and spring.

The Impacts of Heat and Air Pollution on Mortality in the United States
Weather, Climate, and Society

Air pollution increases mortality risks from heat. Using 2001–2011 data from across the United States, the authors find that extreme heat and PM2.5 air pollution jointly increase mortality; estimates of heat-related mortality that do not take air pollution into account may overestimate the effects of heat alone. Government programs that reduce air pollution or urban heat, even by a small amount, could lead to significant reductions in heat and pollution related mortality. Results also show that wind-driven pollution from nearby areas and wildfires increases mortality, especially during periods of extreme heat.

Substantial Warming of the Atlantic Ocean in CMIP6 Models
Journal of Climate

Why is the Atlantic Ocean heating up faster than the Pacific? Observations of Atlantic Ocean warming since 1960 show that the average warming rate near the surface is almost three times as strong as it is in the Pacific. Climate models suggest that, in addition to a slowdown in deep ocean circulation patterns, this heating may be due to atmospheric circulation patterns shifting poleward, plus a recent reduction in anthropogenic aerosols and clouds over the Northern Hemisphere—resulting in reduced surface wind speed and less cloudiness over the mid-latitude oceans. Because the Atlantic is wider in the mid-latitudes and narrower in the tropics, more of it is exposed to these heating patterns.

The Rise of Data-Driven Weather Forecasting: A First Statistical Assessment of Machine Learning-Based Weather Forecasts in an Operational-Like Context
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

AI weather forecasts are looking promising. Machine learning models are emerging as a promising tool to create weather forecasts faster and with less computational cost. This study is the first to compare forecasts generated by a new machine learning model against standard forecasts using numerical weather prediction. For forecasts three days out, the machine-learning PanguWeather (PGW) model performed better than or equal to existing high-quality forecast models, although it still showed some limitations.

Assessing Regional-scale Heterogeneity in Blue-Green Water Availability under 1.5°C Global Warming Scenario
Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology

Even 1.5°C warming may greatly impact water for regions like rice-growing central India. Examining the effects of a 1.5°C global average warming on regional water and temperature in India’s rice-growing Mahanadi Basin found that availability of both blue water (stored in lakes, aquifers, reservoirs, etc.) and green water (in soil and plants) would likely decline. Depending on the climate model and future adaptation strategies, green water could decline by up to 12%, and blue water by up to 40%—potentially catastrophic for an agriculturally important region.

The Relative Importance of Antarctic Sea-Ice Loss Within the Response to Greenhouse Warming
Journal of Climate

Loss of Antarctic ice might play a larger role in changing climate patterns. A study modeling global climate responses to the loss of sea ice at both poles found that the loss of Antarctic sea ice appeared to have more control over the global response to greenhouse warming than Arctic sea-ice loss. Effects of Antarctic ice loss in the model include shifting ocean salinity, precipitation and temperature changes that extend all the way up to the tropics and even the far Northern Hemisphere.

Exploring the Factors Controlling the Annual Range of Amazon Precipitation
Journal of Climate

Sea-surface temperature is dominant factor in increasing seasonal rain extremes in the Amazon. Wet seasons in the Amazon rainforest are getting wetter, and dry seasons drier. This study used a climate model to investigate whether global warming, ocean temperature variability, or the impact of deforestation is the more likely culprit. It found that North Atlantic sea surface warming—due to both natural variability and global warming—is the key factor in the increased range in Amazon precipitation from 1979 to 2014.

How Much Does Land-Atmosphere Coupling Influence Summertime Temperature Variability in the Western United States?
Journal of Climate

Lack of winter rain contributes to summer heat in U.S. West. According to a new modeling study, deficits in soil moisture—driven by a downward trend in winter precipitation in the Southwest since 1981—are responsible for 40% of the observed trend of warmer weather in the western U.S. Lack of precipitation in preceding seasons leads to less soil moisture, which affects humidity and temperature during the summer.

The Southern African Heat Low: Structure, Seasonal and Diurnal Variability, and Climatological Trends
Journal of Climate

Low-pressure system associated with dry weather is increasingly affecting southern Africa. A heat-driven area of low pressure that forms in the lower atmosphere during summers in southern Africa, is associated with below-average rainfall continent-wide. This paper better documents the heat low, and finds that the frequency of strong heat lows has rapidly increased, with more strong heat lows in 2014–2019 than in the entire 30-year period from 1960 to 1989. This heat low will likely continue to play an important role in precipitation changes in southern Africa due to climate change.

Impact of ENSO and Trends on the Distribution of North American Wintertime Daily Temperature
Journal of Climate

Global warming and ENSO exert major control over North American winter temperature patterns. Climate change trends and the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO, the Pacific Ocean cycle that brings El Niño and La Niña) are responsible for much of the year-to-year changes in where higher and lower daily winter temperatures happen across North America, according to a new statistical analysis. Warm ENSO conditions (El Niño) result in higher median temperatures and a smaller temperature range in central-northern North America. In the southern U.S., cool ENSO conditions (La Niña) actually shift winter daily temperatures warmer.

A Stochastic Statistical Model for U.S. Outbreak-level Tornado Occurrence based on the Large-scale Environment
Monthly Weather Review

A new index tracks upward trends in tornado outbreak risk. The authors created a model and “tornado outbreak index” to predict the risk of tornado outbreaks (when multiple tornadoes occur within a short period of time) based on climate variables. “Storm relative helicity” (indicating the potential for rotation within a storm updraft) was an especially important variable for predicting outbreaks. In agreement between the models and observed data, the number of winter-spring tornado outbreaks has increased since 1979, and El Niño-La Niña cycles are linked to winter-spring tornado outbreak activity over the Ohio River Valley and Tennessee River Valley.

Nonequilibrium Fluctuations of Global Warming
Journal of Climate

Global warming may follow “small system” rules. The authors note similarities between the complicated way the Earth system responds to global warming and the behavior of microscopic systems described by statistical mechanics. Using similar rules to model global warming responses helps explain, for example, the increased variability in global temperature extremes, which you’d also expect to see in microscopic systems that are out of equilibrium. Using this lens could provide a new way to analyze climate data and assess predictions from climate models.

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You can view all research published in AMS Journals at journals.ametsoc.org.

About the American Meteorological Society

The American Meteorological Society advances the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of around 12,000 professionals, students, and weather enthusiasts. AMS publishes 12 atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic science journals; hosts more than 12 conferences annually; and offers numerous programs and services. Visit us at www.ametsoc.org/.

About AMS Journals

The American Meteorological Society continuously publishes research on climate, weather, and water in its 12 journals. Some AMS journals are open access. Media login credentials are available for subscription journals. Journals include the Bulletin of the American Meteorolocial Society, Weather, Climate, and Society, the Journal of Climate, and Monthly Weather Review.

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JOURNAL

Journal of Climate

 

A new way to quantify climate change impacts: “Outdoor days”

This measure, developed by MIT researchers, reflects direct effects on people’s quality of life — and reveals significant global disparities

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

 

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THESE TWO MAPS SHOW THE PROJECTED CHANGE IN ANNUAL OUTDOOR DAYS IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2071-2100 WITH RESPECT TO 1976-2005. THE TWO MAPS ARE BASED ON TWO VERSIONS OF THE COUPLED MODEL INTERCOMPARISON PROJECTS (CMIP). THE HATCH-MARKED AREAS INDICATED THAT MORE THAN 80% OF MODELS AGREE ON THE SIGN OF THE CHANGE. 

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CREDIT: COURTESY OF ELFATIH ELTAHIR, YEON-WOO CHOI AND MUHAMMAD KHALIFA

For most people, reading about the difference between a global average temperature rise of 1.5 C versus 2 C doesn’t conjure up a clear image of how their daily lives will actually be affected. So, researchers at MIT have come up with a different way of measuring and describing what global climate change patterns, in specific regions around the world, will mean for people’s daily activities and their quality of life.

The new measure, called “outdoor days,” describes the number of days per year that outdoor temperatures are neither too hot nor too cold for people to go about normal outdoor activities, whether work or leisure, in reasonable comfort. Describing the impact of rising temperatures in those terms reveals some significant global disparities, the researchers say.

The findings are described in a research paper written by MIT professor of civil and environmental engineering Elfatih Eltahir and postdocs Yeon-Woo Choi and Muhammad Khalifa, and published in the Journal of Climate.

Eltahir says he got the idea for this new system during his hourlong daily walks in the Boston area. “That’s how I interface with the temperature every day,” he says. He found that there have been more winter days recently when he could walk comfortably than in past years. Originally from Sudan, he says that when he returned there for visits, the opposite was the case: In winter, the weather tends to be relatively comfortable, but the number of these clement winter days has been declining. “There are fewer days that are really suitable for outdoor activity,” Eltahir says.

Rather than predefine what constitutes an acceptable outdoor day, Eltahir and his co-authors created a website where users can set their own definition of the highest and lowest temperatures they consider comfortable for their outside activities, then click on a country within a world map, or a state within the U.S., and get a forecast of how the number of days meeting those criteria will change between now and the end of this century. The website is freely available for anyone to use.

“This is actually a new feature that’s quite innovative,” he says. “We don’t tell people what an outdoor day should be; we let the user define an outdoor day. Hence, we invite them to participate in defining how future climate change will impact their quality of life, and hopefully, this will facilitate deeper understanding of how climate change will impact individuals directly.”

After deciding that this was a way of looking at the issue of climate change that might be useful, Eltahir says, “we started looking at the data on this, and we made several discoveries that I think are pretty significant.”

First of all, there will be winners and losers, and the losers tend to be concentrated in the global south. “In the North, in a place like Russia or Canada, you gain a significant number of outdoor days. And when you go south to places like Bangladesh or Sudan, it’s bad news. You get significantly fewer outdoor days. It is very striking.”

To derive the data, the software developed by the team uses all of the available climate models, about 50 of them, and provides output showing all of those projections on a single graph to make clear the range of possibilities, as well as the average forecast.

When we think of climate change, Eltahir says, we tend to look at maps that show that virtually everywhere, temperatures will rise. “But if you think in terms of outdoor days, you see that the world is not flat. The North is gaining; the South is losing.”

While North-South disparity in exposure and vulnerability has been broadly recognized in the past, he says, this way of quantifying the effects on the hazard (change in weather patterns) helps to bring home how strong the uneven risks from climate change on quality of life will be. “When you look at places like Bangladesh, Colombia, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Indonesia — they are all losing outdoor days.”

The same kind of disparity shows up in Europe, he says. The effects are already being felt, and are showing up in travel patterns: “There is a shift to people spending time in northern European states. They go to Sweden and places like that instead of the Mediterranean, which is showing a significant drop,” he says.

Placing this kind of detailed and localized information at people’s fingertips, he says, “I think brings the issue of communication of climate change to a different level.” With this tool, instead of looking at global averages, “we are saying according to your own definition of what a pleasant day is, [this is] how climate change is going to impact you, your activities.”

And, he adds, “hopefully that will help society make decisions about what to do with this global challenge.”

The project received support from the MIT Climate Grand Challenges project and the Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab.

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Written by David Chandler, MIT News

Paper: “North-South disparity in impact of climate change on “outdoor days””

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/aop/JCLI-D-23-0346.1/JCLI-D-23-0346.1.xml

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JOURNAL

Journal of Climate

DOI

10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0346.1 

ARTICLE TITLE

“North-South disparity in impact of climate change on “outdoor days””

Climate change disrupts vital ecosystems in the Alps

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER

 

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SNOW SAMPLING IN THE ALPS. CREDIT: HELEN SNELL 

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CREDIT: HELEN SNELL

Reduced snow cover and shifting vegetation patterns in the Alps, both driven by climate change, are having major combined impacts on biodiversity and functioning of ecosystems in the high mountains, according to new research published today.

Mountain ranges covering vast areas of the world are warming much faster than surrounding lowland areas, triggering huge reductions in snow cover and rapid upward movement of dwarf-shrubs, such as heather.

Scientists at The University of Manchester have found that these changes are disrupting the timing of crucial alpine ecosystem functions performed by plants and soil microorganisms.

The research, published today in the journal Global Change Biology and funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council, shows that high mountain ecosystems may be less capable of retaining the important nutrients needed to sustain plant growth and maintain biodiversity in these harsh environments.

Dr Arthur Broadbent, lead author of the study, said: “Our paper reveals how important the timing of many plant and soil processes are in seasonal ecosystems. People may be familiar with mismatches between plant flowering and the emergence of pollinators caused by climate change. In our study, we have demonstrated that plant and soil processes show fascinating seasonal dynamics, and that the timing of these processes can also be disrupted by climate change. The high mountains are like a canary in the coalmine because they are warming much faster than the global average. That makes our findings particularly alarming.”

Every year, seasonal changes in mountain ecosystems prompt large transfers of nutrients between plants and microbial communities in alpine soils. Following snowmelt in spring, plants start to grow and compete with soil microbes for nutrients, thereby triggering a shift in the storage of nutrients from soil to plants. This transfer is reversed in autumn, as plants die back, and nutrients are returned to the soil within dead leaves and roots.

During alpine winters, snow acts like an insulting blanket that allows soil microbes to continue functioning and store nutrients in their biomass and enables plants to survive cold alpine winters. Climate change is predicted to cause an 80-90% loss of snow cover by the end of the century in parts of the European Alps and advance the timing of snowmelt by five to 10 weeks.

Prof Michael Bahn, a collaborator on the project from the University of Innsbruck, said: "Declining winter snow cover is one of the most obvious and pronounced impacts of climate change in the Alps. Its effects on the functioning and biodiversity of alpine ecosystems are a major concern for people living in Alpine regions and beyond.”

The scientists from The University of Manchester, in collaboration with the University of Innsbruck, Helmholtz Zentrum München, and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, carried out the work on a long-term field experiment in the European Alps. The findings highlight the detrimental effect of climate change on seasonal transfers and retention of nutrients between plants and soil microbes.

Richard Bardgett, Principal Investigator and Professor of Ecology at The University of Manchester’s Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, said “Our work demonstrates how the combination of different facets of climate change can severely disrupt below-ground ecological processes that underpin plant growth in alpine ecosystems, with potential long-term consequences for their biodiversity and functioning.”

For scientists, understanding how ecosystems respond to multiple simultaneous climate change impacts remains a major challenge. Interactions between direct and indirect climate change factors, such as snow cover change or less obvious ones such as dwarf-shrub expansion, can lead to sudden and unexpected changes in ecosystem functioning. These effects are impossible to predict by studying climate change factors in isolation.

-ends-

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JOURNAL

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.17245 

ARTICLE TITLE

Climate change disrupts the seasonal coupling of plant and soil microbial nutrient cycling in an alpine ecosystem

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

21-Mar-2024

 

Say hello to biodegradable microplastics

Research shows plant-based polymers can disappear within seven months

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN DIEGO

 

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PARTICLE COUNTS OF PETROLEUM-BASED (EVA) AND PLANT-BASED (TPU-FC1) MICROPLASTICS SHOW THAT, OVER TIME, EVAS EXHIBIT VIRTUALLY NO BIODEGRADATION, WHILE THE TPUS HAVE MOSTLY DISAPPEARED BY DAY 200. 

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CREDIT: ALGENESIS CORPORATION

Microplastics are tiny, nearly indestructible fragments shed from everyday plastic products. As we learn more about microplastics, the news keeps getting worse. Already well-documented in our oceans and soil, we’re now discovering them in the unlikeliest of places: our arteries, lungs and even placentas. Microplastics can take anywhere from 100 to 1,000 years to break down and, in the meantime, our planet and bodies are becoming more polluted with these materials every day.

Finding viable alternatives to traditional petroleum-based plastics and microplastics has never been more important. New research from scientists at the University of California San Diego and materials-science company Algenesis shows that their plant-based polymers biodegrade — even at the microplastic level — in under seven months. The paper, whose authors are all UC San Diego professors, alumni or former research scientists, appears in Nature Scientific Reports.

“We're just starting to understand the implications of microplastics. We've only scratched the surface of knowing the environmental and health impacts,” stated Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry Michael Burkart, one of the paper’s authors and an Algenesis co-founder. “We're trying to find replacements for materials that already exist, and make sure these replacements will biodegrade at the end of their useful life instead of collecting in the environment. That's not easy.”

“When we first created these algae-based polymers about six years ago, our intention was always that it be completely biodegradable,” said another of the paper’s authors, Robert Pomeroy, who is also a professor of chemistry and biochemistry and an Algenesis co-founder. “We had plenty of data to suggest that our material was disappearing in the compost, but this is the first time we’ve measured it at the microparticle level.”

Putting it to the test

To test its biodegradability, the team ground their product into fine microparticles, and used three different measurement tools to confirm that, when placed in a compost, the material was being digested by microbes. 

The first tool was a respirometer. When the microbes break down compost material, they release carbon dioxide (CO2), which the respirometer measures. These results were compared to the breakdown of cellulose, which is considered the industry standard of 100% biodegradability. The plant-based polymer matched the cellulose at almost one hundred percent.

Next the team used water flotation. Since plastics are not water soluble and they float, they can easily be scooped off the surface of water. At intervals of 90 and 200 days, almost 100% of the petroleum-based microplastics were recovered, meaning none of it had biodegraded. On the other hand, after 90 days, only 32% of the algae-based microplastics were recovered, showing that more than two thirds of it had biodegraded. After 200 days, only 3% was recovered indicating that 97% of it had disappeared.

The last measurement involved chemical analysis via gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GCMS), which detected the presence of the monomers used to make the plastic, indicating that the polymer was being broken to its starting plant materials. Scanning-electron microscopy further showed how microorganisms colonize the biodegradable microplastics during composting.  

“This material is the first plastic demonstrated to not create microplastics as we use it,” said Stephen Mayfield, a paper coauthor, School of Biological Sciences professor and co-founder of Algenesis. “This is more than just a sustainable solution for the end-of-product life cycle and our crowded landfills. This is actually plastic that is not going to make us sick.”

Creating an eco-friendly alternative to petroleum-based plastics is only one part of the long road to viability. The ongoing challenge is to be able to use the new material on pre-existing manufacturing equipment that was originally built for traditional plastic, and here Algenesis is making progress. They have partnered with several companies to make products that use the plant-based polymers developed at UC San Diego, including Trelleborg for use in coated fabrics and RhinoShield for use in the production of cell phone cases. 

“When we started this work, we were told it was impossible,” stated Burkart. “Now we see a different reality. There's a lot of work to be done, but we want to give people hope. It is possible.” 

Full list of authors: Robert S. Pomeroy, Michael D. Burkart, Steven P. Mayfield (all UC San Diego), Marco N. Allemann, Marissa Tessman, Jaysen Reindel, Gordon B. Scofield, Payton Evans, Ryan Simkovsky (all Algenesis).

This research was supported by funding from the Department of Energy (DE-SC0019986 and DE-EE0009295).

Disclosure: Burkart, Mayfield and Pomeroy are co-founders of and hold equity positions in Algenesis Corporation.

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JOURNAL

Nature

DOI

10.1038/s41598-024-56492-6 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

ARTICLE TITLE

Rapid biodegradation of microplastics generated from bio-based thermoplastic polyurethane

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

12-Mar-2024

COI STATEMENT

The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: M.D.B., R.S.P., and S.P.M. are founders of, and hold an equity position in, Algenesis Corporation. M.N.A, M.T., J.R., G.B.S., and R.S., are employees and shareholders in Algenesis Corporation, a company that could benefit from this research.