Protecting flood-controlling mangrove forests pays for itself
Mangrove forests offer billions of dollars in flood protection
to vulnerable coastlines. Photo by Needpix/CC
March 10 (UPI) -- The economic costs of protecting mangrove forests along coastlines vulnerable to flooding are more than made up for by the flood protections these ecosystems provide.
In a new study, scientists produced high-resolution models to map the costs of flooding along exposed coastlines and the benefits provided by local mangrove forests. The analysis, detailed this week in the journal Scientific Reports, revealed where and how mangroves provide the most protection.
Authors of the newly published paper also identified the best strategies -- including economic incentives, insurance and climate risk financing -- for funding mangrove conservation and restoration efforts.
"Now that we can value these flood protection benefits, it opens all kinds of new opportunities to fund mangrove conservation and restoration with savings for insurance premiums, storm rebuilding, climate adaptation, and community development," study co-author Michael Beck, research professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz's Institute of Marine Sciences, said in a news release.
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Studies suggest the effects of climate change, including sea level rise and increasing global temperatures, are likely to yield bigger, more intense ocean storms. The latest research showed that without mangroves, flood damages would climb by $65 billion per year, and 15 million more people would be impacted by coastal floods.
In Florida, mangroves were once found along most of state's coastline, but many have been filled in and turned into housing developments. The trend is similar elsewhere, but as more research details the ecological services provided by mangroves, efforts are being made to protect them.
In the Philippines, Vietnam and Guyana, more than 250,000 acres have been restored. Scientists hope these efforts will inspire similar restoration projects in Florida and along other degraded coastlines.
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"Mangroves are resilient and can grow like weeds, even around cities, if we give them half a chance," Beck said.
The new study identified several specific 12-mile stretches of mangrove forest that provide especially lucrative flood protection services. Some stretches near cities save communities as much as $250 million a year.
Authors of the new study hope their findings will motivate insurance companies, the World Bank and conservation groups to develop plans for risk reduction and conservation along the most important stretches of mangrove-lined coasts.
Project promises to turn palm oil plantations back into rainforest in Borneo
An aerial photos shows the first 38 acres of palm oil plantation that will be turned back into rainforest on the island of Borneo. Photo by Robert Risch
March 22 (UPI) -- Across the island of Borneo, conservationists are preparing to rewild palm oil plantations. The project will see agricultural acreage turned back into near-natural rainforest.
The list of species threatened by deforestation as a result of palm oil production in Malaysia and Indonesia includes the orangutan, Sumatran elephant, Bornean pygmy elephant, Sumatran rhino and Sumatran tiger.
Conservationists and ecologists presented the details of the reforestation project this week in Malaysia at the Heart of Borneo conference. The effort is being organized by the Rhino and Forest Fund, or RFF.
RFF is German-based organization that is supported by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and dedicated to protecting the Sabah rhino, as well as "the remaining lowland rainforest in Malaysia and its unique flora and fauna."
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"There is a lack of evidence-based experience in practice," conservationists acknowledged in a news release. "With this pilot scheme, the Rhino and Forest Fund would like to close this knowledge gap."
To begin, project leaders plan to turn 15.5 hectares, or 38 acres, of palm oil plantations back into rainforest.
"The signing of a purchase agreement at the current Heart of Borneo conference in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, marks a breakthrough in the creation of a significant wildlife corridor," said Robert Risch, a RFF board member and scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. "In order to prevent mass extinction of species, isolated forest areas must be reconnected as soon as possible."
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The initial project will provide conservationists a chance to develop best practices as they scale their reforestation efforts.
"The challenge is to investigate the optimal transformation of oil palm plantations and their degraded soils into near-natural rainforests," said Swiss researcher Philippe Saner, an environmental scientist and founding member of the RFF. "Knowledge gained from this enables us to make statements about future optimal surface reconstruction."
Scientists are keen to find out how long it takes for biodiversity to return to palm oil plantations once they have been rewilded.
Scientists call for more sustainable palm oil practices
While some alternative natural oils could satisfy a portion of the demand for palm oil, researchers say scaling up production of many other oils presents additional problems. Photo by sarangib/Pixabay
March 10 (UPI) -- Researchers are currently working to find, develop and scale the production of possible synthetic replacements for palm oil, but the process could take years.
In the meantime, a trio of scientists have called for more sustainable palm oil practices, detailing a plea for more eco-friendly palm oil in a paper published this week in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Because none of the current palm oil replacements are economically viable at scale, and because demand for palm oil is unlikely to decline, it makes sense for governments and policy makers to focus on making the palm oil production process more friendly to the environment.
"Palm oil is the most widely used land-grown oil crop, and expansion in the market over the past few decades has led to increases in greenhouse gas emissions and the loss of biodiverse tropical forest areas to farming," study co-author Chris Chuck, professor of chemical engineering at the University of Bath in Britain, said in a news release. "Whilst action is being taken to improve the sustainability of palm oil cultivation it is not happening as effectively or quickly as it needs to."
For the study, scientists analyzed the viability of different replacement possibilities, including existing crop oils, alternative tropical oils and microbial single cell oils.
"Palm oil is challenging to replace as a product because it is very versatile -- it is used in a wide range of cooking, food and other consumer goods products, as well as fuels -- but it's also cheap to produce compared to the alternatives," said lead study author Sophie Parsons, also a mechanical engineer at Bath.
Although some alternative natural oils could satisfy a portion of the demand for palm oil, researchers determined that efforts to scale up production of sunflower and rapeseed, or exotic oils like coconut oil and shea butter, would present their own technical and ecological problems.
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"The only viable large-scale direct replacements are single cell oils from algae or yeast, but these require significant further development before being economically viable," Parsons said. "Governments in producing countries and industry should be working together closely to reduce the impact of the industry while synthetic alternatives are developed for the sake of our climate."
Due to the lack of viable alternatives, authors of the new study recommend governments do more to ensure palm oil farming doesn't extend into ecologically-valuable land. The authors also recommend governments do more to ensure farmers abide by the cultivation practices recommended by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
Currently, only 19 percent of the world's palm oil crops are Certified Sustainable Palm Oil. That number must increase if leaders and policy makers are to minimize the environmental impacts of palm oil.
Baboon moms carry deceased infants for up to 10 days
Scientists documented baboons mothers in the wild in Namibia carry dead infants for up to ten days. Photo by Alecia Carter/UCL
March 11 (UPI) -- Wild baboon mothers carry dead infants for up to ten days, according to a new study. The research promises to illuminate the ways animals deal with death.
Over the course of 13 years, scientists observing wild Namibian chacma baboons documented group responses to 12 infant deaths.
Chacma baboons live in mixed-sex groups ranging in size from 20 to 100 primates. The groups are organized by strong linear male and female hierarchies.
Scientists observed mothers carrying dead infants for as little as an hour and as many as 10 days. Mothers carried their dead infants for an average of three to four days. The research team published their observations Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science.
"There are numerous hypotheses to explain primate responses to dead infants," lead study author Alecia Carter, anthropologist at the University College London, said in a news release. "Perhaps the strongest hypothesis is that carrying after death is an extension of nurturing behavior."
Scientists watched baboon mothers carry deceased infants by a limb and dragged them along the ground, behaviors never seen with live infants.
"We are not suggesting that the mothers are unaware that their infants are dead, but there is such strong selection on mother-infant bond formation that, once formed, the bond is difficult to break," Carter said. "It's less clear why only some mothers carry or protect their dead infant, but I suspect that a range of factors influence this behavior."
According to Carter and her colleagues, the "grief-management hypothesis" best explains the behavior. According to the hypothesis, carrying a dead infant is a way of coping with the emotional impacts of a tragic loss. The "social-bonds hypothesis" suggests baboon mothers hold onto their dead infants due to their intense social bonds with their young offspring.
Scientists suspect a range of factors account for the range of time that mothers carry their dead infants, including the mothers' age, the cause of death and the climate conditions.
"Other primates have been observed carrying their dead infants for much longer periods of time," Carter said. "Chimps and Japanese macaques for example have been observed carrying infants for over a month. However, chacma baboons travel much longer distances on an average day and the desert environment is harsh, making it costly for a mother to carry her infant for long periods."
Researchers also observed the fathers of dead infants protecting the corpse and sometimes grooming the dead infant when the mother wasn't nearby.
"This is quite surprising behavior, because it has rarely been reported by previous studies," said co-author Elise Huchard, a researcher at the University of Montpellier in France. "Male baboons are not usually very paternal, but they regularly protect their infant from threats, especially from infanticidal attacks. That is where a male baboon kills another male's offspring in order to mate with the mother."
Scientists hope their findings can help researchers begin to answer questions about the origins of humans' awareness of death and dying, and perhaps even the evolution of consciousness.
As health of prairie grasses decline, so does number of grasshoppers
A plains lubber grasshopper, Brachystola magna, is pictured in Konza Prairie, a preserve in northeast Kansas. Photo by Ellen Welti/University of Oklahoma
March 11 (UPI) -- There are 30 percent fewer grasshoppers living in a Kansas grassland preserve than there were 20 years ago, and new research suggests the herbivore's decline is a result of the reduction in nutrients typically found in wild grasses.
Usually, declines in species abundance, whether insects or mammals, are linked with habitat destruction. But the latest research -- published this week in the journal PNAS -- suggests declines in the nutritional qualities of grass, even in preserved habitats, can spur declines in the number of herbivores.
"One surprise was that grasshopper abundances in this large native tallgrass prairie reserve are declining," lead study author Ellen Welti, ecologist at the University of Oklahoma, said in a news release. "This grassland appears to be a stable and prime habitat for grasshoppers and yet even here, we are seeing 2 percent annual declines."
The latest analysis suggests climate change is to blame. Researchers measured declining levels of nitrogen, phosphorus and sodium in the grass growing in Konza Prairie, a large reserve in northeast Kansas. Grass growth rates have increased as CO2 levels rise, but there is less and less nutrients to nourish new grass.
"The greenhouse gas CO2 is heating the Earth and acidifying its oceans, but it is also the main ingredient in the sugars, starches, and cellulose of plants," said Michael Kaspari, professor of ecology at Oklahoma. "When we pump the atmosphere full of CO2, we build more plants. But, with no additional nutrients to fertilize them, the nutritional value of each bite is diluted. Mouthful by mouthful, the prairie provides less and less food to the grasshoppers. Hence, their decline."
Grassland covers more than 30 percent of Earth's land mass, and grasshoppers are one of the most abundance grass-eaters. It's like similar declines are occurring among herbivore populations around the globe.
"The mechanism of grasshopper declines that we propose in this study -- declining plant quality with increasing atmospheric CO2 -- is expected to be global in scope and pose the largest challenge to herbivores," Kaspari said. "It is notable that a large number of previous studies documenting insect declines were on another herbivorous group -- butterflies and moths -- but few of these papers identified a mechanism causing declines."
Scientists spy rare eclipsing binary brown dwarf system
An artist's rendering depicts a rare eclipsing binary brown dwarf system. Photo by NASA/ESA/A. Feild (STScI)
March 11 (UPI) -- Astronomers have spotted a rare eclipsing binary brown dwarf system using the "first light" observations of a new array of telescopes in Chile.
The new SPECULOOS telescopes were built to search for planets surrounding ultra-cool dwarfs and brown dwarfs. Ultra-cool dwarfs are the smallest stars in the universe, and brown dwarfs are bodies that are less massive than a star but more massive than a planet. Brown dwarfs don't have enough mass to sustain the fusion that powers light-producing stars like our sun.
Models suggest ultra-cool dwarfs are likely to host sizable populations of potentially habitable rocky planets. Many of these systems are predicted to be close by, making them a prime target for planet-hunting operations.
One of the first targets for the SPECULOOS mission was the brown dwarf 2M1510, located in the constellation Libra. The object produced an unusual spectral pattern that suggested the object might be two brown dwarfs.
"Among the first test observations we performed, we turned one of our telescopes to a known brown dwarf," Michaël Gillon, principal investigator of the SPECULOOS project and an astronomer at the University of Liège in Belgium, said in a news release. "But suddenly the object appeared to get dimmer for about 90 minutes, which indicated an eclipse just took place."
"We rapidly realized that we were probably looking at two eclipsing brown dwarfs, one passing in front of the other, a configuration which is much rarer than planetary systems," said Artem Burdanov, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT.
Scientists used the powerful spectrometers of the Keck Telescope, in Hawaii, and the Very Large Telescope, in Chile, to measure the velocities of the two orbiting brown dwarfs that form 2M1510.
"From the very first spectrum we obtained, we could tell we had an exciting binary discovery," said Adam Burgasser, professor of Physics at the University of California, San Diego. "It was thrilling to see the absorption lines move back and forth in perfect synchronicity, and this allowed us to measure the mass of the binary."
Only one other eclipsing binary brown dwarf system has been previously identified. The rare discovery, described this week in the journal Nature Astronomy, allowed scientists to directly measure the radii and masses of the two brown dwarfs -- data that will help astronomers build more accurate stellar models.
"Collecting a combination of mass, radius and age is really rare for a star, let alone a brown dwarf," said lead study author Amaury Triaud, an astrophysicist at the University of Birmingham in Britain. "Usually one or more of these measurements is missing. By drawing all these elements together, we were able to verify theoretical models for how brown dwarfs cool, models which are over 30 years old. We found the models match remarkably well with the observations, a testament to human ingenuity."
Coronavirus can live in air for 3 hours, on surfaces for 2-3 days
A worker cleans inside the Myeongdond subway station to protect against the coronavirus in Seoul on March 4. Photo by Thomas Maresca/UPI | License Photo
March 11 (UPI) -- According to new research, the novel coronavirus can remain in the air for up to 3 hours and survive on some surfaces for two to three days.
The research, which was carried out by scientists from the National Institutes of Health, Princeton University and UCLA, suggests it's possible for the virus to spread through the air as well as through the touching of contaminated surfaces
"Our results indicate that aerosol and fomite transmission of HCoV-19 is plausible, as the virus can remain viable in aerosols for multiple hours and on surfaces up to days," researchers wrote in the study's abstract.
The research was published on medRxiv, a site where health and medical science studies can be shared prior to peer review and acceptance into a scientific journal.
For the study, scientists used a nebulizer to spray the coronavirus into the air in a manner similar to a cough. The virus could be detected in the air up to 3 hours later. Researchers also placed samples on a variety of surfaces. They found the virus could survive for up to 4 hours on copper, as many as 24 hours on cardboard, and two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.
Tests showed the genetically related virus responsible for the 2003 SARS outbreak is similarly durable, so the ability of the new coronavirus to survive in the air and on surfaces doesn't explain its ability to spread more rapidly.
"Overall, stability is very similar between HCoV-19 and SARS-CoV-1," researchers wrote.
The study is one of the first to look specifically at how long the new coronavirus can live in the air and on surfaces, but it doesn't prove how exactly COVID-19 is spreading.
"We don't know if you can pick up COVID-19 from contaminated surfaces or inanimate objects at this point. That's the bottom line," Marilyn Roberts, a microbiologist at the University of Washington School of Public Health, told the MIT Technology Review.
The new coronavirus can be killed using a range of disinfectants, including rubbing alcohol and diluted hydrogen peroxide. The Environmental Protection Agency has a complete list of the commercially available cleaning products that can kill the virus.
An earlier survey of the available scientific literature on the complete family of coronaviruses -- SARS coronavirus, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus and endemic human coronaviruses -- showed some of the viruses can can persist on inanimate surfaces such as metal, glass and plastic for up to nine days.
Remote Tierra del Fuego kelp forests surveyed for the first time in 45 years
Kelp, seen in waters near Blanco islet, an island that is part of Tierra del Fuego on the southernmost tip of South America. Photo by Shane Anderson/NOAA/Wikimedia
March 12 (UPI) -- For the first time since 1973, scientists have surveyed the health of remote kelp forests of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of South America. Researchers found the ecosystem largely unchanged from 45 years ago, with similar abundances of kelp, sea urchins and sea stars.
A study published this week in the journal PLOS One shows the ecosystem remains healthy, but researchers warn this may not always be the case. Kelp forests host tremendous marine biodiversity. Just as healthy forests on land are vital to diversity of animals, healthy kelp forests are essential to a wide array of marine species. Kelp forests can even protect shell-forming organisms from dangerous spikes in acidity.
In some parts of the world, rising water temperatures are transforming their makeup. But remote kelp forests are less well understood. To find out how some of the world's most remote kelp forests off the coast of South America are doing, scientists utilized both the observations of scuba divers and a catalogue of Landsat satellite images.
The observations of scuba divers suggest the kelp forests of Tierra del Fuego host similar levels of biodiversity to what they hosted 45 years ago. The analysis of Landsat satellite images showed the area's kelp forest cover has grown and declined in a four-year cycle that reflects changes in sea surface temperature and El Niño-Southern Oscillation rainfall patterns.
When scientists conducted a survey of fish populations among the kelp forests, they found the abundance of different species varied greatly in different locations. Distribution patterns showed the variability was largely dictated by exposure to ocean waves.
While the latest research, published this week in the journal PLOS One, is good news, scientists suggest it's unlikely Tierra del Fuego's kelp forests will be spared from the effects of climate change indefinitely.
To mitigate the impacts of rising water temperatures on kelp forest ecosystems, scientists recommend policy makers spearhead more aggressive conservation efforts. For example, the expansion of the newly designated Yaganes Marine National Park to include coastal waters along the southern tip of South America could help protect the kelp forests of Tierra del Fuego.
"The kelp forest of the extreme tip of South America are some of the most pristine on earth and have not changed substantially since the early 1970s, when they were first surveyed," Alan Friedlander, researcher with National Geographic Society's Pristine Seas project, said in a news release. "Re-examination of this remote region is incredibly valuable in this age of climate change and gives us a better understanding of how these ecosystems function in the absence of direct human impacts."
Scotland's Isle of Sky hosted rich dinosaur diversity during middle Jurassic
Scientists found several three-toed footprints in the ancient Scottish mudflats, most likely made by early carnivorous theropod dinosaurs. Photo by Paige E. dePolo, et. al/PLOS One
March 12 (UPI) -- Paleontologists have discovered a pair of fossil sites featuring dozens of dinosaur footprints preserved in what were once coastal mudflats. The fossils suggest Scotland's Isle of Skye was home to a rich diversity of dinosaurs during the Middle Jurassic Period, between 174.1 and 163.5 million years ago.
Dinosaur remains from the Middle Jurassic Period are rare, but the new Scottish fossils sites -- described this week in the journal PLOS One -- suggests many dinosaur groups were rapidly diversifying during this period.
The 50 dinosaur tracks found at the two sites included footprints made by Deltapodus, the first to be found on the Isle of Skye. Researchers also found tracks they estimate were made by a stegosaurian, a plate-backed dinosaur.
Several three-toed footprints suggest early carnivorous theropods walked across the ancient mudflats. Some of the prints appear to have been made by large-bodied herbivorous ornithopod dinosaurs -- the oldest of their kind.
"These new tracksites help us get a better sense of the variety of dinosaurs that lived near the coast of Skye during the Middle Jurassic than what we can glean from the island's body fossil record," lead study author Paige dePolo, scientist at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, said in a news release. "In particular, Deltapodus tracks give good evidence that stegosaurs lived on Skye at this time."
Analysis of ancient dinosaur footprints can help paleontologists provide context for body fossils. Scientists hope their discoveries will inspire other paleontologist to revisit known fossil sites, as the latest footprint collections were found near popular fossil-hunting destinations.
"These new tracksites give us a much clearer picture of the dinosaurs that lived in Scotland 170 million years ago," said study co-author Stephen Brusatte, researcher at Edinburgh. "We knew there were giant long-necked sauropods and jeep-sized carnivores, but we can now add plate-backed stegosaurs to that roster, and maybe even primitive cousins of the duck-billed dinosaurs too. These discoveries are making Skye one of the best places in the world for understanding dinosaur evolution in the Middle Jurassic."
Study of shear zones yields data on earthquakes deep below surface
Scientists of Britain's University of Plymouth and Norway's University of Oslo published results of their study, in Norway's Lofoten Islands, of earthquakes deep in the earth this week. Photo by Heidi Monstang/University of Plymouth
March 13 (UPI) -- A new study led by Britain's University of Plymouth offers insight on the mechanisms behind earthquakes 25 or more miles below the surface.
Little is known about deep earthquakes, largely because their effects are generally hidden underground, but the study suggests that ruptures may be encouraged by the interaction of different shear zones moving slowly and aseismically, indicating movement without accompanying seismic shock. The interaction loads the adjacent blocks of stiff rocks in the deep crust until they can no longer sustain the rising stress, and a rupture prompts an earthquake. The study suggests that slow but repeating cycles of deformation on the shear zones bring accumulated stress, punctuated by episodic earthquakes.
The study, underwritten by Britain's Natural Environment Research Council, was led by scientists from the University of Plymouth and Norway's University of Oslo in Norway's Lofoten Islands, and published this week in the scholarly journal Nature Communications. They spent several months in the region, analyzing exposed rock pristine pseudotachylytes -- solidified melt produced during seismic slips and regarded as "fossil earthquakes" -- which decorate fault sets linking shear zones.
"The Lofoten Islands provide an almost unique location in which to examine the impact of earthquakes in the lower crust," said Dr. Lucy Campbell of the University of Plymouth. "By looking at sections of exposed rock less than 15 meters [49.2 feet] wide, we were able to see examples of slow-forming rock deformation working to trigger earthquakes generated up to 30 kilometers [18.6 miles] beneath the surface."
