Warming waters and nutrient overload: A dangerous combination threatening our rivers and lakes 

University of Sheffield

Warming waters and nutrient overload: a dangerous combination threatening our rivers and lakes 

·The effect of rising water temperatures on ecosystems is likely to interact with pre-existing pressures, such as excess nutrients from pollution, resulting in a dangerous combination, according to a new study. 

·New international research, conducted by the University of Sheffield, University of Oxford, University of Savoie Mont Blanc and the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, found that food webs are becoming less complex in warmer, nutrient-rich waters

·This simplification means shorter food chains and a degraded functioning ecosystem

·The urgent global need to reduce river pollution levels was recognised internationally when Olympic open water swimming events, due to take place in the Seine river in Paris, had to be postponed due to harmful bacterial levels

Warming water temperatures and increased nutrient levels are putting freshwater ecosystems at serious risk, new research has revealed. 

Scientists previously thought warming temperatures caused by climate change and increased nutrient levels due to pollution might offset each other’s impact on aquatic life. However, a new study has shown warming waters and nutrient overload is a dangerous combination threatening our rivers and lakes. 

The research, conducted by an international team of scientists from the University of Sheffield, University of Oxford and University of Savoie Mont Blanc and the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment, examined hundreds of lakes and streams, analysing the complex relationships between fish species. 

Researchers found that food webs, the intricate networks of who eats who, are becoming less complex in warmer, nutrient-rich waters. This simplification means shorter food chains, and an ecosystem with a degraded functioning. Top predators are particularly vulnerable to these changes, but they are essential to the functioning and the stability of ecosystems.

Less than three per cent of the water on our planet is fresh, yet freshwater habitats are home to almost 10 per cent of all known animals and almost half of all known fish species. Freshwater ecosystems not only help to maintain water quality of the land and sea, but also allow wildlife such as eels and salmon to travel vast distances to complete their life cycles, and act as conveyor belts transporting nutrients that make soil good for growing food. 

The far reaching impact of the need to reduce pollution levels in our rivers was felt globally when the Olympic open water swimming events such as the triathlon, due to take place in the Seine river in Paris, had to be postponed due to harmful bacterial levels. The study highlights that this need is even more urgent with the rising impacts of warming of climate change, but it also suggests that reducing pollution levels is a promising path to mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Alain Danet, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Sheffield and co-first author of the study, said: “The eyes of the world have been on the Seine River this summer due to the Olympic Games. The challenges faced in Paris demonstrate how important it is to reduce the pollution levels in our rivers and lakes not only for our own health but for the health of our ecosystems.

“Our rivers, lakes, wetlands and underground water supplies store and clean the water that's crucial for people and wildlife. From providing drinking water to providing essential resources to terrestrial and marine ecosystems, healthy freshwater systems are essential.

“These vital ecosystems also protect us from flooding, filter pollution and support countless plants and animals.”

Willem Bonnaffé, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Oxford and co-first author of the study, said: “Lake and river creatures are like the kidneys of our planet. They clean water and prevent blooms of poisonous algae and bacteria. Keeping them safe is keeping us safe.  

“Climate change and pollution are not isolated problems for our rivers and lakes, as scientists previously believed. Our study has found they interact in complex ways that threaten the balance of life in our waters. 

“By reducing greenhouse gas emissions and improving water quality, we can help safeguard the health of our rivers and lakes for future generations.”

Camille Leclerc, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment and co-first author of the study, said: “This important research has shown what a dangerous combination warming waters caused by climate change and increased nutrient levels caused by pollution are. 

“More positively this study shows that if we can reduce the pollution in our lakes and rivers, it will better protect them against the effects of climate change and warmer waters.”

To view the full paper published in the journal Ecology Letters, please visit: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ele.14480 

Ends

Contact: For more information please contact: Amy Huxtable, Senior Media Relations Officer, University of Sheffield, 0114 222 9859, a.l.huxtable@sheffield.ac.uk 

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Journal

Ecology Letters

DOI

10.1111/ele.14480 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

The interaction between warming and enrichment accelerates food-web simplification in freshwater systems

 

Nearly 25% of European landscape could be rewilded

Cell Press

 

image: 

This figure depicts how nearly 25% of the European continent is primed for rewilding opportunities, which include passive rewilding (gradients of blue) that allows the natural recolonization of animals, as well as active rewilding (yellow, brown, and red) where animals are manually reintroduced to the area. 

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Credit: Araújo and Alagador, Current Biology.

Europe's abandoned farmlands could find new life through rewilding, a movement to restore ravaged landscapes to their wilderness before human intervention. A quarter of the European continent, 117 million hectares, is primed with rewilding opportunities, researchers report August 15 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. They provide a roadmap for countries to meet the 2030 European Biodiversity Strategy's goals to protect 30% of land, with 10% of those areas strictly under conservation.

The team found that 70% of the rewilding opportunities in Europe lie in colder climates. Northern Europe—particularly Scandinavia, Scotland, and the Baltic states—and several highland regions in the Iberian Peninsula show the greatest potential.

"There are many areas in Europe that have a low enough human footprint, as well as the presence of key animal species, to potentially be rewilded," says first author and biogeographer Miguel B. Araújo (@Araujo_lab) of the National Museum of Natural Sciences, CSIC, Spain, and the University of Évora, Portugal. "We also highlight the need for different strategies depending on the conditions of each region."

The researchers established criteria to determine areas with rewilding potentials: extensive tracts of land, covering more than 10,000 hectares, with little human disturbance that feature vital species. Based on the size of the land and the types of animals that inhabit the area, they further identified two strategies for rewilding—passive and active.

Passive rewilding relies on natural recolonization, where animals gradually move back into abandoned areas on their own. The approach works best in regions with a healthy population of key herbivores, such as deer, ibex, moose, and rabbits, as well as carnivores, such as wolves, bears, and lynxes. Regions without key herbivore or carnivore species would require active rewilding by reintroducing the missing species to kickstart the ecosystem's recovery. Both strategies aim to create a self-sustaining, biodiverse landscape.

"I often refer to herbivores as the ecosystem engineers as they graze and shape the vegetation, while predators would be the architects creating 'fear landscapes' that herbivores avoid," says Araújo. "The interaction between herbivores and carnivores creates mosaic patterns in the landscapes, essential for biodiversity."

Some countries, including the United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Scandinavian nations, are positioned to reach their conservation goals if they adopt the study's suggested rewilding zones and strategies. However, given that Europe is densely populated with humans, other countries wouldn't meet their conservation aims if they relied solely on the study's recommendations, highlighting the need for alternative conservation approaches. These countries include Ireland, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark.

"Conservation strategies involving ecological restoration of densely populated areas could help some countries reach conservation goals," says Araújo. "Countries could reclaim land to turn it into conservation areas or establish networks of small, protected habitats. Traditional multi-use landscapes, like the oak parklands in the Iberian Peninsula and various extensive agricultural and forestry systems across Europe, could also help if managed sustainably."

As governments and organizations continue to invest in land conservation, the researchers hope their findings and framework will help these efforts to acquire or manage areas with the greatest potential for successful rewilding. However, despite the prospects, the researchers caution that time is of the essence.

"We're racing against time," says Araújo. "The areas that look most promising for rewilding today may not be the same in 50 years due to the impacts of climate change."

###

This work was supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme.

Current Biology, Araújo and Alagador: “Expanding European protected areas through rewilding.” https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00948-5 

Current Biology (@CurrentBiology), published by Cell Press, is a bimonthly journal that features papers across all areas of biology. Current Biology strives to foster communication across fields of biology, both by publishing important findings of general interest and through highly accessible front matter for non-specialists. Visit http://www.cell.com/current-biology. To receive Cell Press media alerts, contact press@cell.com.

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Journal

Current Biology

DOI

10.1016/j.cub.2024.07.045 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Expanding European protected areas through rewilding

Article Publication Date

15-Aug-2024

 

Arts and crafts improves your mental health as much as having a job, scientists find

Scientists find that taking part in creative activities boosts people’s sense that life is worthwhile, their happiness, and their satisfaction with life

Frontiers

Could arts and crafts help protect the public’s mental health? A new study in Frontiers in Public Health provides evidence that indulging our creative side could provide everyone with a significant wellbeing boost. Because arts and crafts are relatively affordable and accessible, promoting the public’s access to artistic activities could provide a major boost to public mental health.

“Crafting and other artistic activities showed a meaningful effect in predicting people’s sense that their life is worthwhile,” explained Dr Helen Keyes of Anglia Ruskin University, lead author. “Indeed, the impact of crafting was bigger than the impact of being in employment. Not only does crafting give us a sense of achievement, it is also a meaningful route to self-expression. This is not always the case with employment.”

A stitch in time

The scientists were inspired by the urgent need to improve public mental health in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. Any measures that could improve levels of wellbeing, and lower levels of loneliness, in the general population would have significant benefits. Some studies have already shown that specific craft activities can be therapeutic for people with mental health conditions. If taking part in arts and crafts in general has a positive impact on wellbeing for people without a diagnosed illness, promoting the accessibility of arts and crafts could contribute significantly to public mental health.

The scientists analyzed a sample of 7,182 participants from the annual Taking Part survey conducted by the UK’s Department for Culture, Media, and Sport, which evaluates public engagement with cultural, digital and sporting activities. This broad sample allowed the scientists to investigate the impact of creative arts generally rather than specific crafts, and helped them evaluate how effective arts-based interventions might be beyond a controlled clinical setting.

The scientists controlled for sociodemographic variables that we already know affect the experience of wellbeing: gender, age group, health, employment status, and level of deprivation. For instance, poorer health, unemployment, and higher levels of deprivation have all been linked to lower wellbeing.

Painting a picture

All participants were asked to rate their sensations of happiness, anxiety, and life satisfaction, and to give their impression of whether life is worthwhile. They were also asked how often they felt lonely. When asked about their engagement with crafts, 37.4% of respondents confirmed that they had taken part in at least one craft activity over the last twelve months.

The people who took part in arts and crafts reported higher levels of happiness and life satisfaction, as well as a stronger sense that life is worthwhile. The boost to respondents’ sense that life is worthwhile was as significant as being in employment. However, engagement with arts and crafts didn’t predict levels of loneliness. This could be because some crafts can be solitary: further research will be needed to investigate the social aspects of arts and crafts.

“Engaging in these activities is linked with a greater sense that life is worthwhile, increased life satisfaction and happiness,” said Keyes. “The wellbeing effects were present even after we accounted for things like employment status and level of deprivation. It seems that crafting can contribute positively to your wellbeing above and beyond these other aspects of your life.”

Although these effects are small, their magnitude is similar to that of sociodemographic variables, which are much harder to change. Leveraging the positive effects of artistic activities therefore offers a significant opportunity to improve the public’s wellbeing.

“Governments and national health services might consider funding and promoting crafting, or even socially prescribing these activities for at-risk populations, as part of a promotion and prevention approach to wellbeing and mental health,” said Keyes.

“There is certainly something immensely satisfying about seeing the results of your work appear before your eyes,” added Keyes, who enjoys DIY — especially painting and decorating. “It feels great to focus on one task and engage your mind creatively.”

However, the scientists cautioned that this is a correlational study. More research will be required to confirm causation.

“We can’t know for certain whether crafting is directly causing this increase in wellbeing,” explained Keyes. “The next step would be to carry out an experimental study where we measure people’s wellbeing before and after significant periods of crafting.”

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Journal

Frontiers in Public Health

DOI

10.3389/fpubh.2024.1417997 

Article Title

Creating arts and crafting positively predicts subjective wellbeing

Article Publication Date

16-Aug-2024

 

It’s a rave – underground acoustics amplify soil health

Ecologists monitor diversity of organisms via soundwaves

Flinders University

 

image: 

Acoustic monitoring was carried out on soil in remnant vegetation as well as degraded plots and land that was revegetated 15 years ago. 

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Credit: Flinders University

Barely audible to human ears, healthy soils produce a cacophony of sounds in many forms – a bit like an  underground rave concert of bubble pops and clicks.

Special recordings made by Flinders University ecologists in Australia show this chaotic mixture of soundscapes can be a measure of the diversity of tiny living animals in the soil, which create sounds as they move and interact with their environment.

With 75% of the world’s soils degraded, the future of the teeming community of living species that live underground face a dire future without restoration, says microbial ecologist Dr Jake Robinson, from the Frontiers of Restoration Ecology Lab in the College of Science and Engineering at Flinders University.

This new field of research aims to investigate the vast, teeming hidden ecosystems where almost 60% of the Earth’s species live, he says.

“Restoring and monitoring soil biodiversity has never been more important.

“Although still in its early stages, ‘eco-acoustics’ is emerging as a promising tool to detect and monitor soil biodiversity and has now been used in Australian bushland and other ecosystems in the UK.

“The acoustic complexity and diversity are significantly higher in revegetated and remnant plots than in cleared plots, both in-situ and in sound attenuation chambers.

“The acoustic complexity and diversity are also significantly associated with soil invertebrate abundance and richness.”

The latest study, including Flinders University expert Associate Professor Martin Breed and Professor Xin Sun from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, compared results from acoustic monitoring of remnant vegetation to degraded plots and land that was revegetated 15 years ago. 

The passive acoustic monitoring used various tools and indices to measure soil biodiversity over five days in the Mount Bold region in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. A below-ground sampling device and sound attenuation chamber were used to record soil invertebrate communities, which were also manually counted.   

“It’s clear acoustic complexity and diversity of our samples are associated with soil invertebrate abundance – from earthworms, beetles to ants and spiders – and it seems to be a clear reflection of soil health,” says Dr Robinson.

“All living organisms produce sounds, and our preliminary results suggest different soil organisms make different sound profiles depending on their activity, shape, appendages and size.

“This technology holds promise in addressing the global need for more effective soil biodiversity monitoring methods to protect our planet’s most diverse ecosystems.”

The latest article – Sounds of the underground reflect soil biodiversity dynamics across a grassy woodland restoration chronosequence (2024) – by Jake M Robinson, Alex Taylor, Nicole Fickling, Xin Sun (Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Science) and Martin F Breed has been published in the Journal of Applied Ecology (John Wiley & Sons on behalf of the British Ecological Society) DOI: 10.1111/1365-2664.14738.

https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2664.14738 weblink to go live 05:01am UK time 16 August 2024

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1znirkrKkPEcunX2pMaFiVIp5vyG9xvny?usp=sharing

Visual material available at the link (includes photos, audio clips and colour animation)     

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Soil acoustic research 

Flinders University researchers test soil acoustics (left to right) Dr Jake Robinson, Associate Professor Martin Breed, Nicole Fickling, Amy Annells and Alex Taylor.

Microbial ecologist Dr Jake Robinson, from Flinders University, Australia.

Journal

Journal of Applied Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2664.14738 

Method of Research

Observational study

Subject of Research

Animals

Article Title

Sounds of the underground reflect soil biodiversity dynamics across a grassy woodland restoration chronosequence

Article Publication Date

16-Aug-2024

 

Hailstone library to improve extreme weather forecasting

A global library - full of hailstones instead of books - is helping researchers to better understand and predict damaging storms.

University of Queensland

 

image: 

A hailstone, flecked with black paint to assist in 3D scanning, is weighed as part of processing for the library. 

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Credit: The University of Queensland

A University of Queensland library – full of hailstones instead of books – is helping researchers to better understand and predict damaging storms. 

Dr Joshua Soderholm, an Honorary Senior Research Fellow from UQ’s School of the Environment, and lead researcher PhD candidate Yuzhu Lin from Penn State in the US, have found storm modelling outcomes change significantly when using real hailstones.

Key points:

• Researchers are measuring and scanning samples for a global ‘hailstone library’
• Storm simulations using 3-D modelling of real hailstones show it behaves differently than spherical hail shapes
• Data from the hail library could lead to more accurate storm forecasts

“People tend to think of a hailstone as a perfect sphere, like a golf ball or cricket ball,” Dr Soderholm said.

“But hail can be all sorts of weird shapes, from oblong to a flat disc or have spikes coming out – no two pieces of hail are the same. 

“Conventional scientific modelling of hail assumes spherical hailstones, and we wanted to know if that changed when non-spherical, natural hail shapes are used.”

Ms Lin said they found the differences were dramatic.

“Modelling of the more naturally shaped hail showed it took different pathways through the storm, experienced different growth and landed in different places,” Ms Lin said.

“It also affected the speed and impact the hail had on the ground.

“This way of modelling had never been done before, so it’s exciting science.”

Dr Soderholm said building a ‘hailstone library’ was critical to further fine-tuning hailstorm simulations.

“This is effectively a dataset to represent the many and varied shapes of hailstones, to make weather modelling more accurate,” he said.

"Our study used data from 217 hail samples, which were 3-D scanned and the sliced in half, to tell us more about how the hailstone formed.

“This data is now part of a global library, as we try and get a really clear picture of hailstone shape and structure.” 

Dr Soderholm said the research has significant potential. 

“At the moment, the modelling is specifically for scientists studying storms, but the end game is to be able to predict in real-time how big hail will be, and where it will fall,” he said.

“More accurate forecasts would of course warn the public so they can stay safe during hailstorms and mitigate damage.

“But it could also significantly benefit industries such as insurance, agriculture and solar farming which are all sensitive to hail.”

The research paper was published in the Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences.

Dr Soderholm is also a Research Scientist at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology.

Some hail samples for the UQ data set were provided by Higgins Storm Chasing.

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Journal

Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences

DOI

10.1175/JAS-D-23-0231.1 

Method of Research

Computational simulation/modeling

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Modeling non-spherical hailstones

 

The banana apocalypse is near, but UMass Amherst biologists might have found a key to their survival

Discovery of molecular mechanisms used by the banana-destroying microbe brings hope to the breakfast table

University of Massachusetts Amherst

 

image: 

Fusarium wilt of banana is currently decimating the Cavendish banana—the world’s most popular commercially available banana. Once present in a banana field, the fungus cannot be eradicated, making future production of Cavendish bananas almost impossible.

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Credit: A. Viljoen

August 16, 2024

 

The Banana Apocalypse is Near, but UMass Amherst Biologists Might Have Found a Key to Their Survival

Discovery of molecular mechanisms used by the banana-destroying microbe brings hope to the breakfast table

 

AMHERST, Mass. – The bananas in your supermarket and that you eat for breakfast are facing functional extinction due to the disease Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB) caused by a fungal pathogen called Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4). However,  thanks to recent research from an international team of scientists led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, we now know that Foc TR4 did not evolve from the strain that wiped out commercial banana crops in the 1950s and that the virulence of this new strain seems to be caused by some accessory genes that are associated the production of nitric oxide. The research, published in Nature Microbiology, opens the door to treatments and strategies that can slow, if not control, the as-of-yet unchecked spread of Foc TR4.

“The kind of banana we eat today is not the same as the one your grandparents ate. Those old ones, the Gros Michel bananas, are functionally extinct, victims of the first Fusarium outbreak in the 1950s.” says Li-Jun Ma, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at UMass Amherst and the paper’s senior author.

Today, the most popular type of commercially available banana is the Cavendish variety, which was bread as a disease-resistant response to the Gros Michel extinction. For about 40 years, the Cavendish banana thrived across the globe in the vast monocultured plantations that supply the majority of the world’s commercial banana crop.

But by the 1990s, the good times for the Cavendish banana had begun to come to a close. “There was another outbreak of banana wilt,” says lead author Yong Zhang, who completed his doctorate in UMass Amherst’s Organismic and Evolutionary Biology program under Ma’s direction. “It spread like wildfire from South-East Asia to Africa and Central America.”

“We have spent the last 10 years studying this new outbreak of banana wilt,” says Ma, who is an expert in Fusarium oxysporum, which is not a single species but a “species complex” with hundreds of different varieties that specialize in affecting different plant hosts. These varieties are determined by the acquisition of strain-specific accessory genes in addition to a shared core genome. “We now know that the Cavendish banana-destroying pathogen TR4 did not evolve from the race that decimated the Gros Michel bananas. TR4’s genome contains some accessory genes that are linked to the production of nitric oxide, which seems to be the key factor in TR4’s virulence.”

To arrive at this conclusion, Yong, Ma and their co-authors from China and South Africa as well as universities in the U.S., sequenced and compared 36 different Foc strains collected from all over the world, including those strains that attack Gros Michel bananas. Then, with the help of UMass Amherst’s Institute for Applied Life Sciences, the team discovered that Foc TR4, responsible for the current outbreak of banana wilt, uses some accessory genes for both production and detoxification of fungal nitric oxide to invade the host.

While the team doesn’t yet know exactly how these activities contribute to disease infestation in Cavendish banana, they were able to determine that the virulence of Foc TR4 was greatly reduced when two genes that control nitric oxide production were eliminated.

“Identifying these accessory genetic sequences opens up many strategic avenues to mitigate, or even control, the spread of Foc TR4,” says Yong.

Even so, Ma is quick to point out that the ultimate problem facing one of our favorite breakfast foods is the practice of monocropping. “When there’s no diversity in a huge commercial crop, it becomes an easy target for pathogens,” she says. “Next time you’re shopping for bananas, try some different varieties that might be available in your local specialty foods store.”

Funding for this study was provided by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, the U.S. Department of Energy the National Institutes of Health, the Guangdong Science and Technology Project, CARS and the Laboratory of Lingnan Modern Agriculture Project.

Contacts: Li-Jun Ma, lijun@umass.edu

                 Daegan Miller, drmiller@umass.edu

  

Fusarium wilt of banana (FWB) caused by Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. Cubense (Foc) tropical race 4 (TR4) with external symptoms of FWB in Cavendish banana.

Credit

Zhang et al.

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Journal

Nature Microbiology

DOI

10.1038/s41564-024-01779-7 

Article Title

Virulence of the banana wilt-causing fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum tropical race 4 is mediated by nitric oxide biosynthesis and accessory genes

Article Publication Date

16-Aug-2024