Childhood adversity shapes adolescent delinquency, fatherhood

About 61% of Americans have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), experts' formal term for a traumatic childhood event

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: GIRLS WHO EXPERIENCED FOUR OR MORE ACES BY AGE FIVE, DURING THE MOST SENSITIVE PERIOD OF BRAIN DEVELOPMENT, WERE 36% MORE LIKELY TO PARTICIPATE IN DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR view more 

CREDIT: BYU PHOTO

About 61% of Americans have had at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE), experts' formal term for a traumatic childhood event.

ACEs--which may include abuse, neglect and severe household dysfunction--often lead to psychological and social struggles that reach into adulthood, making ACEs a major public health challenge. But the long-term consequences of ACEs are just beginning to be understood in detail. To fill in the picture, two recent BYU studies analyzed how ACEs shape adolescents' delinquent behaviors as well as fathers' parenting approaches.

ACEs linked to girls'--but not boys'--delinquent behavior

Although the role of adversity in adolescent delinquency has long been examined in the field of criminology, only in the past decade have criminologists referred to these events as ACEs and seriously considered how early ACEs predict a person's delinquency, according to BYU sociology professors Hayley Pierce and Melissa S. Jones.

In their study of that relationship, published in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Pierce and Jones showed that ACEs do have a significant effect on teenagers' criminal behavior--at least for girls. Girls who experienced four or more ACEs by age five, during the most sensitive period of brain development, were 36% more likely to participate in delinquent behavior. Boys' delinquent behavior, on the other hand, appeared unrelated to early ACEs, although boys have an overall higher rate of delinquency.

"These results run counter to previous research suggesting that girls are far more likely than boys to internalize trauma through developing an eating disorder or other self-harming behaviors," said Jones. "What we find here is the opposite: girls are externalizing trauma through delinquent acts."

Pierce and Jones drew their data from the longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. The survey examined childhood adversity and adolescent behavior over a 15-year period for approximately 5,000 children, with a high proportion born to poor, single-parent or minority families in the U.S.

"Our analysis points toward the need for gendered strategies in working with children with ACEs because the different ways boys and girls are socialized shape how they process trauma," Jones said.

The study should also promote compassion and understanding for adolescents who act out, the researchers emphasized.

"One of the most important things I teach in my juvenile delinquency class is that delinquency is a symptom of an underlying problem," said Jones. "If an adolescent is getting arrested, there's often something else going on in the child's life, such as problems at home."

"When adolescents engage in delinquency, it's important first to ask, 'Okay, what got you here?' and work from that knowledge," Pierce added.

CAPTION

Fathers who had experienced at least three ACEs were more likely to use harsh disciplinary techniques.

CREDIT

BYU 

ACEs predict less warmth, more harsh discipline in fathers

Even though ACEs may not be linked to teen boys' delinquency, having ACEs earlier in life does apparently impact how men parent.

Most existing research on ACEs and parenting focuses on mothers and looks exclusively at abuse. Curious about ACEs' effects on fathers and the wider range of ACEs that may influence more day-to-day aspects of parenting, BYU sociologist Kevin Shafer and Scott Easton of Boston College decided to examine parenting patterns in men with past ACEs.

In a study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, they found that fathers who had experienced at least three ACEs were more likely to use harsh disciplinary techniques. Compared to the mothers with ACEs from previous studies, these men were also less likely to exhibit positive parenting characteristics, such as giving affection to their kids, providing care for young children and being emotionally supportive. The more ACEs a father had, the greater their effect on his parenting.

ACEs likely influence fathering partly because ACEs are associated with poor mental health, including depression, anxiety or anger management problems. Mental health challenges in turn influence how men parent their children.

"While on the face of it that sounds bad, it's weirdly also a good thing because even though ACEs happened in the past and can't be changed, you can get treatment for mental health issues in the present," said Shafer. "When men get that help, they can blunt the impact of their ACEs on how they parent their kids, and that improves their kids' outcomes. So their own childhood isn't destiny."

The study analyzed data from the 2015-16 U.S. Survey of Contemporary Fatherhood, which queried over 2,000 fathers about their adverse childhood experiences, degree of psychological distress and parenting habits.

The connection between ACEs and negative fathering techniques is especially indicative of the "untreated trauma" suffered by many men, which Shafer believes is "one of the biggest public health issues we have."

"We have a lot of individuals walking around with ACEs going untreated, and our study shows that has a wide-ranging impact on people in their lives," said Shafer. A big part of the solution would be a "comprehensive public mental health strategy" for fathers, which may include better incorporating fathers into the childbirth experience and early pediatric care, as well as regularly screening fathers for mental health, he concluded.

Teens describe their gender and sexuality in diverse ways, but some are being left behind

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SANTA CRUZ

Research News

 

A growing number of young people are identifying as part of the LGBTQ+ community, and many are challenging binaries in gender and sexual identity to reflect a broader spectrum of experience beyond man or woman and gay or straight. But not everyone is participating equally in these diverse forms of expression, according to new research from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Psychology Professor Phillip Hammack's latest paper, published in the Journal of Adolescent Research, is shedding light on the social factors that can either hinder or support expression of diversity in sexual and gender identity among teens and young adults. In particular, regional differences and pressures to conform to masculinity may have a dampening effect on expression.

Hammack's research focused on teens between the ages of 14 and 18, who are among the younger members of Generation Z. Researchers wanted an in-depth understanding of these young people's experiences, so they performed detailed research at a small number of field sites in the San Francisco Bay Area and California's Central Valley.

These sites were selected to represent higher and lower levels of resources, rights, and visibility for sexual and gender diversity. Within these communities, researchers surveyed 314 LGBTQ+ teens and conducted extensive interviews with 28 LGBTQ+ youth informants and 24 adult LGBTQ+ leaders.

Almost a quarter of all LGBTQ+ youth surveyed expressed some form of nonbinary gender, and use of they/them pronouns was common. But there was a difference of more than 11 percentage points in the proportion of youth expressing nonbinary gender identity in the Bay Area compared to the Central Valley. Some study participants told researchers that, while they felt diverse sexuality is becoming more broadly normalized, gender diversity is still less accepted.

Researchers found that there was also less open discussion of sexual diversity in Central Valley communities compared to the Bay Area, but in this case, there was no corresponding difference in diversity of sexuality labeling. Study participants often mentioned finding information through the internet and social media, rather than their geographic communities.

"Being online is kind of like the great equalizer for LGBTQ youth, and I think that benefits them all tremendously," Hammack said.

Researchers also noticed that teens who were assigned female at birth seemed more comfortable with diverse forms of gender expression. Among teens in the study group who identified with a nonbinary gender label, 78.7 percent were assigned female at birth. There were also notably more transgender boys in the study than transgender girls.

During interviews, study participants consistently shared stories of how those who were assigned male at birth faced strong pressures to conform to standards of masculinity. Accounts of violence against transgender women of color were common in interviews, along with other fears that it might not be safe for those assigned male at birth to express nonconforming gender or sexual identities.

Hammack said he believes harmful "regulation of masculinity" may stem from feelings of insecurity among boys as gender hierarchies are being challenged. The paper's documentation of these trends contributes to the future of LGBTQ+ research and support.

Ultimately, perceptions of gender and sexuality labels can affect which types of resources are most accessible for teens. For example, Hammack said that cisgender gay males in the research areas were noticeably missing from LGBTQ+ support groups, which may indicate that these spaces are being perceived as "feminine."

Similarly, the study found that some identity labels are racialized in ways that may make boys of color less likely to identify with them. But targeted recruitment efforts could help LGBTQ+ support groups for teens to better reflect the true diversity of the community.

Hammack hopes his research might offer a window into that diversity to create greater acceptance and recognition across all labels.

"I've actually been trying to shift my speech away from saying LGBTQ+, with that uncomfortable plus sign, because there are so many identities that are not captured within that label," Hammack said. "I've been thinking about these issues instead as phenomena of sexual and gender diversity, and I'd like to see more researchers and educators recognizing those nuances within the community."

When parole, probation officers choose empathy, returns to jail decline

More caring court-appointed supervision officers could lead to fewer repeat offenders, study suggests

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - BERKELEY

Research News

 

Heavy caseloads, job stress and biases can strain relations between parole and probation officers and their clients, upping offenders' likelihood of landing back behind bars.

On a more hopeful note, a new University of California, Berkeley, study suggests that nonjudgmental empathy training helps court-appointed supervision officers feel more emotionally connected to their clients and, arguably, better able to deter them from criminal backsliding.

The findings, published March 29 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show, on average, a 13% decrease in recidivism among the clients of parole and probation officers who participated in the UC Berkeley empathy training experiment.

"If an officer received this empathic training, real-world behavioral outcomes changed for the people they supervised, who, in turn, were less likely to go back to jail," said study lead and senior author Jason Okonofua, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.

The results are particularly salient in the face of nationwide efforts to reduce prison and jail populations amid a deadly pandemic and other adversities. The U.S. criminal justice system has among the highest rates of recidivism, with approximately two-thirds of incarcerated people rearrested within three years of their release and one-half sent back behind bars.

"The combination of COVID-19 and ongoing criminal justice reforms are diverting more people away from incarceration and toward probation or parole, which is why we need to develop scalable ways to keep pace with this change," said Okonofua, who has led similar interventions for school teachers to check their biases before disciplining students.

At the invitation of a correctional department in a large East Coast city, Okonofua and graduate students in his lab at UC Berkeley sought to find out if a more caring approach on the part of court-appointed supervision officers would reverse trends in recidivism.

Among other duties, parole and probation officers keep track of their clients' whereabouts, make sure they don't miss a drug test or court hearing, or otherwise violate the terms of their release, and provide resources to help them stay out of trouble and out of jail.

For the study, the researchers surveyed more than 200 parole and probation officers who oversee more than 20,000 people convicted of crimes ranging from violent crimes to petty theft. Research protocols bar identifying the agency and its location.

Using their own and other scholars' methodologies, the researchers designed and administered a 30-minute online empathy survey that focused on the officers' job motivation, biases and views on relationships and responsibilities.

To trigger their sense of purpose and values, and tap into their empathy, the UC Berkeley survey asked what parts of the work they found fulfilling. One respondent talked about how, "When I run across those guys, and they're doing well, I'm like, 'Awesome!'" Others reported that being an advocate for people in need was most important to them.

As for addressing biases -- including assumptions that certain people are predisposed to a life of crime -- the survey cited egregious cases in which probation and parole officers abused their power over those under their supervision.

Survey takers were also asked to rate how much responsibility they bear, as individuals and members of a profession, for their peers' transgressions. Most answered that they bore no responsibility.

Ten months after administering the training, researchers found a 13% decrease in recidivism among the offenders whose parole and probation officers had completed the empathy survey.

While the study yielded no specifics on what prevented the parolees and people on probation for reoffending in the period following the officers' empathy training, the results suggest that a change in relationship dynamics played a key role.

"The officer is in a position of power to influence if it's going to be an empathic or punitive relationship in ways that the person on parole or probation is not," Okonofua said.

"As our study shows," he added, "the relationship between probation and parole officers and the people they supervise plays a pivotal role and can lead to positive outcomes, if efforts to be more understanding are taken into consideration."

###

Co-authors of the study are Kimia Saadatian, Joseph Ocampo, Michael Ruiz and Perfecta Delgado Oxholm, all at UC Berkeley

OLD FASHIONED NAZI SYNFUEL
Porsche takes its synthetic E-Fuel gas racing to test performance and efficiency

Sean Szymkowski 

Porsche thinks its synthetic gasoline, which it calls E-Fuel, could be as clean as an electric vehicle. First, it needs to prove that theory, and that starts this year. In fact, it starts today. The German company on Tuesday said drivers and their vehicles participating in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup race series will be topped off with the renewable E-Fuel. The series kicks off today in Zandvoort, Netherlands, and the fuel will power the race cars through the whole season to test its performance and efficiency.

© Provided by Roadshow These aren't special prototype cars to run the E-Fuel -- just a race-ready 911 GT3. Porsche

Porsche expects this first iteration of the E-Fuel to burn with 85% fewer emissions than regular ol' gasoline, and on top of that, the synthetic gas filling up race cars today is blended to current market standards for passenger vehicles. To be clear, the fuel isn't E-Fuel in its final form, which promises greener days for the internal combustion engine. Sourced from Porsche and partner ExxonMobil's plant in Chile, the companies plan to produce over 34,000 gallons of the fuel through 2022 to continue testing. The plant splits water into hydrogen and oxygen, and CO2 is filtered out of the air and processed with the hydrogen to create synthetic methanol. From there, a secretive ExxonMobil methanol-to-gasoline operation takes place to create renewable gasoline.

While the cars burn through the fuel on track, Porsche engineers and bright minds will continue investigating its potential. The potential is huge, mind you, because this gasoline works in anything from a new 911 you can go home with today, to a classic 911 built decades ago when E-Fuel wasn't even a twinkle in someone's eye. The company maintains this investment and operation will be a compliment to its electrification efforts, but if E-Fuel becomes the next big thing, everyone wins as the world works to take carbon emissions out of the equation.

STAY THE COURSE GIVE PROVINCES MORE $$$$
Liberals should drive daycare improvements, not redo system, report says

OTTAWA — A new report is urging the Trudeau Liberals to embrace "aggressive incrementalism" on their promised path toward a national child-care system, arguing the government should quickly build on what's already there rather than push wholesale change.

RIGHT WING THUNK TANK
The paper from the C.D. Howe Institute suggests that trying to revamp how child care is delivered in Canada by moving responsibility to Ottawa from the provinces appears unlikely to succeed.

Provinces aren't likely to agree to national standards, the authors write, pointing to recent federal efforts on child care.

The think-tank's report says the federal government should bundle funding for child care into an annual transfer payment similar to one it already provides to help provinces cover the cost of health care.

The report's authors say the money should focus first on expanding the supply of licensed child-care spaces.

The authors add that any federal moves need to be aimed at quickly building up child-care services nationally because the status quo is not sustainable.

The report is the latest in a series of arguments being put before the Trudeau Liberals on the road to next month's budget, in which child care is expected to feature prominently.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has promised the budget will outline a plan for a national child-care system, modelled on the publicly funded program in Quebec.

Child care has been debated federally for decades, including the role Ottawa should play in an area of provincial jurisdiction

Ken Boessenkool, one of the C.D. Howe report's authors, said there is no need to shift jurisdictions, just have Ottawa help the country do more of what has worked and do it better.

"We're saying we're not on the wrong path, we just have to do more of what we've been doing and do it more quickly," said Boessenkool, the J.W. McConnell Professor of Practice at the Max Bell School of Public Policy at McGill University.

"And we don't need to blow the system up to fix it."

He said the federal government should pick a lane on what it wants to do on child care to drive the agenda, specifically focusing on funding the expansion of spaces where they are needed most.

A report this month from Deloitte Canada estimated the government could spend between $7 billion and $8 billion on child care, which would return between $1.50 and $5.80 for every dollar spent through a combination of new revenues and reduced spending on social supports.

The two reports argue the federal government is better placed financially than provinces to boost spending on child care because federal fiscal room should loosen if and when emergency COVID-19 spending subsides.

To help with household finances, Boessenkool and co-author Jennifer Robson, an associate professor of political management at Carleton University, say the government should make the federal child-care tax deduction refundable, meaning that eligible parents could get more money back from the government. At the moment, it is deemed non-refundable, so it can only lower amounts owed, not boost a tax refund.

The authors contend the change in tax treatment would help low-income families qualify for the deduction, and help middle-income families more easily afford daycare.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 30, 2021.

Jordan Press, The Canadian Press

WHO report on coronavirus origins 'only scratched the surface,' scientists say

A joint investigation by the World Health Organization and China into the origins of the coronavirus released Tuesday offered little in the form of concrete findings about how the pandemic started — something scientists say will take months and maybe years of work.

© Provided by NBC News

"This is only the start," Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food safety scientist who led the research team, said Tuesday in a news briefing. "We've only scratched the surface of these very complex set of studies that need to be conducted."

The report said the coronavirus likely emerged in bats and spread to an intermediary animal before it spilled over into humans. It also downplayed a speculative theory that the virus leaked from a lab in China, describing that scenario as "extremely unlikely."

But the report — and the probe itself — has been dogged by questions about China's transparency and willingness to cooperate. It's these questions and the political nature of the investigation that will most likely be the biggest obstacles as scientists attempt to solve one of the biggest mysteries of the pandemic.

The newly released findings are the culmination of a joint study by Chinese scientists and a WHO-led team that visited China last month. The trip was hampered by delays by China and took place more than a year after the first reported outbreak.

Joint WHO-China study says origins of coronavirus still an open question

Critics have also said the probe was limited and insufficient because it relied on access dictated by the Chinese government. Many of the Chinese scientists involved were affiliated with state-run institutions, and, in some cases, investigators did not have full access to records and raw data.

Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Seton Hall University's School of Diplomacy and International Relations, said China's support — and the transparency issues that go along with it — will continue to be a challenge moving forward.

"If you want to conduct further studies on this, you need the cooperation from China," Huang said. "I didn't find anything in the report to suggest the Chinese side said they are going to be cooperating with further investigations in China."

In his presentation of the report's findings, Embarek said all members of the research team — both the experts convened by the WHO and their Chinese counterparts — agreed to the recommendations for further research in the coming weeks and months. But it's not clear what specific commitments have been made between China and the WHO, or when additional investigations could begin.

© Provided by NBC News Peter Ben Embarek, center, and other members of the World Health Organisation team tasked with investigating the origins of Covid-19, arrive at the Pudong International Airport in Shanghai, China, on Feb. 10, 2021. (Aly Song / Reuters file)

The next round of studies aim to zero in on some of the likely pathways that were identified. The proposed investigations include combing through genomic data to identify outbreaks before December 2019 that may have been missed, and to follow possible chains of transmission from the first-known cases in humans.

"So many of the studies now, as is typical in an outbreak situation, have been casting quite a broad net, but have now provided us with a very deep dive into what happened in the early phase of this pandemic," Marion Koopmans, a Dutch virologist who was a member of the WHO delegation, said Tuesday in a news briefing. "That really will help us target the follow-up studies."

Huang said China may be motivated to work with the WHO, but added that the government is likely cognizant of potential political fallout from the findings.

"China does have incentives to build a good reputation and show that it is indeed a responsible stakeholder in this global fight against the pandemic and future pandemics," he said, "but the politicization around tracing the origin has also raised the stakes way too high. The government is keenly aware of the negative ramifications if the study points to China as the origin of the outbreak."

Adding to the tense political atmosphere are the persistent speculations that the virus leaked from a lab. Members of the WHO-led delegation have said they did not find credible evidence to support such a hypothesis, but skeptics, including Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have promoted the theory.

Embarek said that while the current body of research seems to point to bat origins, the investigators are keeping an open mind and will follow the science.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed that nothing has been ruled out, adding that it will take time to pin down the exact origins of the virus.

"As far as WHO is concerned, all hypotheses remain on the table," he said in a statement. "This report is a very important beginning, but it is not the end. We have not yet found the source of the virus, and we must continue to follow the science and leave no stone unturned as we do."

Researchers discover new type of ancient crater lake on Mars

BROWN UNIVERSITY

Research News

IMAGE: RAISED RIDGES SPIDERING ACROSS THE FLOOR OF A MARTIAN CRATER WERE LIKELY CREATED BY RUNOFF FROM A LONG-LOST GLACIER THAT ONCE DRAPED THE PLANET'S SOUTHERN HIGHLANDS. view more 

CREDIT: NASA

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Researchers from Brown University have discovered a previously unknown type of ancient crater lake on Mars that could reveal clues about the planet's early climate.

In a study published in Planetary Science Journal, a research team led by Brown Ph.D. student Ben Boatwright describes an as-yet unnamed crater with some puzzling characteristics. The crater's floor has unmistakable geologic evidence of ancient stream beds and ponds, yet there's no evidence of inlet channels where water could have entered the crater from outside, and no evidence of groundwater activity where it could have bubbled up from below.

So where did the water come from?

The researchers conclude that the system was likely fed by runoff from a long-lost Martian glacier. Water flowed into the crater atop the glacier, which meant it didn't leave behind a valley as it would have had it flowed directly on the ground. The water eventually emptied into the low-lying crater floor, where it left its geological mark on the bare Martian soil.

The type of lake described in this study differs starkly from other Martian crater lakes, like those at Gale and Jezero craters where NASA rovers are currently exploring.

"This is a previously unrecognized type of hydrological system on Mars," Boatwright said. "In lake systems characterized so far, we see evidence of drainage coming from outside the crater, breaching the crater wall and in some cases flowing out the other side. But that's not what is happening here. Everything is happening inside the crater, and that's very different than what's been characterized before."

Importantly, Boatwright says, the crater provides key clues about the early climate of Mars. There's little doubt that the Martian climate was once warmer and wetter than the frozen desert the planet is today. What's less clear, however, is whether Mars had an Earthlike climate with continually flowing water for millennia, or whether it was mostly cold and icy with fleeting periods of warmth and melting. Climate simulations for early Mars suggest temperatures rarely peaking above freezing, but geological evidence for cold and icy conditions has been sparse, Boatwright says. This new evidence of ancient glaciation could change that.

"The cold and icy scenario has been largely theoretical -- something that arises from climate models," Boatwright said. "But the evidence for glaciation we see here helps to bridge the gap between theory and observation. I think that's really the big takeaway here."

Boatwright was able to map out the details of the crater's lake system using high-resolution images taken by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The images revealed a telltale signature of ancient streambeds -- features called inverted fluvial channels. When water flows across a rocky surface, it can leave behind course-grained sediment inside the valley it erodes. When these sediments interact with water, they can form minerals that are harder than the surrounding rock. As further erosion over millions of years whittles the surrounding rock away, the mineralized channels are left behind as raised ridges spidering across the landscape. These features, along with sediment deposits and shoreline features, clearly show where water flowed and ponded on the crater floor.

ut without any sign of an inlet channel where water entered the crater, "the question becomes 'how did these get here?"' Boatwright said.

To figure it out, Boatwright worked with Jim Head, his advisor and a research professor at Brown. They ruled out groundwater activity, as the crater lacked telltale sapping channels that form in groundwater systems. These channels usually appear as short, stubby channels that lack tributaries -- completely opposite from the dense, branching networks of inverted channels observed in the crater. A careful examination of the crater wall also revealed a distinct set of ridges that face upward toward the crater wall. The features are consistent with ridges formed where a glacier terminates and deposits mounds of rocky debris. Taken together, the evidence points to a glacier-fed system, the researchers concluded.

Subsequent research has shown that this crater isn't the only one of its kind. At this month's Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, Boatwright presented research revealing more than 40 additional craters that appear to have related features.

Head says that these new findings could be critical in understanding the climate of early Mars.

"We have these models telling us that early Mars would have been cold and icy, and now we have some really compelling geological evidence to go with it," Head said. "Not only that, but this crater provides the criteria we need to start looking for even more evidence to test this hypothesis, which is really exciting.

CAPTION

The researchers mapped where water flowed and ponded within the crater floor.

CREDIT

NASA/Benjamin Boatwright

CAPTION

A topographic map shows the raised ridges (dark yellow) and low-lying areas where water ponded (white).

CREDIT

NASA/Ben Boatwright

 

Ever wondered what red foxes eat? There's a database for that

Researchers create a free, online database on global carnivore diets to help conservationists and educators

UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

Research News

 

IMAGE: CARNIDIET LOGO view more 

CREDIT: CARNIDIET - OWEN MIDDLETON, UNIVERSITY OF SUSSEX

Research into the diets of a large number of the world's carnivores has been made publicly available through a free, online database created by a PhD student at the University of Sussex.

From stoats in the UK to tigers in India, users are now able to search for detailed information about the diets of species in different geographical locations around the globe.

Created by doctoral student Owen Middleton, CarniDIET is an open-access database which aims to catalogue the diets of the world's carnivores by bringing together past peer-reviewed research. He hopes it will be a useful resource for conservationists and researchers, as well as educators and nature-lovers alike.

Owen said: "There is so much information out there that is useful for conservation, but much of it isn't digitized, or it may be difficult for people to access.

"Typically, anybody interested in species' diets would have to go through an extensive body of literature, but through CarniDIET, there's now an easy way to access this information with all the original references cited."

The main purpose of CarniDIET is to facilitate further conservation research by providing a place to easily access data describing the ecological requirements and ecological effects of many endangered species, which can vary across their geographic ranges.

However, there are also hopes that the tool can be more widely used by teachers, students and citizen scientists.

Owen said: "Species diets can vary massively geographically and CarniDIET is a really easy way to find out how the diet of a red fox might be different in the UK compared to China, or how the diets of lions and leopards differ.

"Users can search by a particular species or country, and simply click on an interactive map of the world to find out what carnivores eat in that area.

"It will be invaluable for younger school students learning about the food chain, or older students delving into a bit more depth about endangered species or working on geographical case studies."

Dr Chris Sandom, Senior Lecturer in Biology at the University of Sussex, added: "CarniDIET is a really exciting new tool for conservationists, researchers and educators.

"Understanding the diets of animals is hugely important for conservation; you can't protect animals in isolation, they're connected in food webs. If prey species are under threat or have dwindling numbers, it will have a knock-on effect on their predators, and leave those species threatened too.

"CarniDIET will be a useful tool to help demonstrate this by clearly showing which prey species carnivores are eating, and to an extent, are reliable on in particular geographical locations."

###

The tool, which will be available to use from 30 March 2021, is described in a research paper, published in Global Ecology and Biogeography. It still only covers a fraction of the available data out there and the aim is to continue developing CarniDIET by incorporating more studies and more species of carnivore. The database can be accessed at https://bit.ly/3weP1Ht.

Mysterious living monuments

How will the biggest tropical trees respond to climate change?

SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

VIDEO: INTERVIEW WITH CO-AUTHORS EVAN GORA, POST DOCTORAL FELLOW, SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE AND ADRIANE ESQUIVEL-MUELBERT, LECTURER AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM, UK. AVAILABLE WITH SPANISH SUBTITLES ON REQUEST. view more 

CREDIT: SMITHSONIAN TROPICAL RESEARCH INSTITUTE

Giant trees in tropical forests, witnesses to centuries of civilization, may be trapped in a dangerous feedback loop according to a new report in Nature Plants from researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and the University of Birmingham, U.K. The biggest trees store half of the carbon in mature tropical forests, but they could be at risk of death as a result of climate change--releasing massive amounts of carbon back into the atmosphere.

Evan Gora, STRI Tupper postdoctoral fellow, studies the role of lightning in tropical forests. Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, lecturer at the University of Birmingham, studies the effects of climate change in the Amazon. The two teamed up to find out what kills big tropical trees. But as they sleuthed through hundreds of papers, they discovered that nearly nothing is known about the biggest trees and how they die because they are extremely rare in field surveys.

"Big trees are hard to measure," said Esquivel-Muelbert. "They are the pain in a field campaign because we always have to go back with a ladder to climb up to find a place to measure the circumference above the buttresses. It takes a long time. Studies focusing on the reasons trees die don't have enough information for the biggest trees and often end up excluding them from their analysis."

"Because we generally lack the data necessary to tell us what kills trees that are above approximately 50 centimeters in diameter, that leaves out half of the forest biomass in most forests," Gora said.

Only about 1% of trees in mature tropical forests make it to this size. Others wait their turn in the shade below.

The other thing that makes tropical forests so special--high biodiversity--also makes it difficult to study big trees: There are so many different species, and many of them are extremely rare.

"Because only 1-2% of big trees in a forest die every year, researchers need to sample hundreds of individuals of a given species to understand why they are dying," Gora said. "That may involve looking for trees across a huge area."

Imagine a study of blood pressure in people who have lived to be 103. One would have to locate and test seniors from cities and towns around the world: a time-consuming, logistically complex and expensive proposition.

A large body of evidence shows that trees are dying faster in tropical forests than ever before. This is affecting the ability of forests to function and in particular, to capture and store carbon dioxide.

"We know the deaths of largest and oldest trees are more consequential than the death of smaller trees," Gora said. "Big trees may be at particular risk because the factors that kill them appear to be increasing more rapidly than the factors that seem to be important for smaller-tree mortality."

In large parts of the tropics, climate change is resulting in more severe storms and more frequent and intense droughts. Because big trees tower above the rest, they may be more likely to be hit by lightning, or damaged by wind. Because they have to pull ground water higher than other trees, they are most likely to be affected by drought.

Hoping to better understand what is happening to big trees, Gora and Esquivel-Muelbert identified three glaring knowledge gaps. First, almost nothing is known about disease, insects and other biological causes of death in big trees. Second, because big trees are often left out of analyses, the relationship between cause of death and size is not clear. And, finally, almost all of the detailed studies of big tropical trees are from a few locations like Manaus in Brazil and Barro Colorado Island in Panama.

To understand how big trees die, there is a trade-off between putting effort into measuring large numbers of trees and measuring them often enough to identify the cause of death. Gora and Esquivel-Muelbert agree that a combination of drone technology and satellite views of the forest will help to find out how these big trees die, but this approach will only work if it is combined with intense, standardized, on-the-ground observations, such as those used by the Smithsonian's international ForestGEO network of study sites.

Esquivel-Muelbert hopes that the impetus for this research will come from a shared appreciation for these mysterious living monuments:

"I think they are fascinating to everyone," she said. "When you see one of those giants in the forest, they are so big. My colleague and Amazonian researcher, Carolina Levis, says that they are the monuments we have in the Amazon where we don't have big pyramids or old buildings....That is the feeling, that they have been through so much. They are fascinating, not just in the scientific sense but also in another way. It moves you somehow."

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Funding for this study was from STRI, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the TreeMort project as part of the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation.

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Panama, is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution. The institute furthers the understanding of tropical biodiversity and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. Promo video.

Gora, E.M. and Esquivel-Muelbert, A. 2021. Implications of size-dependent tree mortality for tropical forest carbon dynamics. Nature Plants. doi: 10.1038/s41477-021-00879-0

CAPTION

The flowery crown of Dipteryx oleifera, one of the biggest trees on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, towers above the forest. Big trees may be most exposed to the effects of climate change: more frequent and severe drought, and the high winds and lightning of monster storms.

CREDIT

Evan Gora, STRI

CAPTION

Measuring the largest rainforest trees requires carrying a ladder out into the jungle, often to hard-to-access sites. Long term forest monitoring plots such as the Smithsonian's ForestGEO network use standard techniques to measure giant trees. However, in remote areas, researchers may decide to leave the biggest trees out of their studies, because it is too time-consuming to measure them.

CREDIT

Sean Mattson, STRI

 THE BLACK SEA IS AN INLAND SEA

In the deep sea, the last ice age is not yet over

Gas hydrate deposits in the Black Sea react to post-glacial climate changes

HELMHOLTZ CENTRE FOR OCEAN RESEARCH KIEL (GEOMAR)

Research News

 

IMAGE: DRILL CORES FROM THE MARUM-MEBO200 ARE RECOVERED ON DECK OF THE RV METEOR. view more 

CREDIT: CHRISTIAN ROHLEDER.

Gas hydrates are a solid compound of gases and water that have an ice-like structure at low temperatures and high pressures. Compounds of methane and water, so-called methane hydrates, are found especially at many ocean margins - also in the Black Sea. In addition to a possible use as an energy source, methane hydrate deposits are being investigated for their stability, as they can dissolve with changes in temperature and pressure. In addition to releases of methane, this can also have an impact on submarine slope stability.

During a six-week expedition with the German research vessel METEOR in autumn 2017, a team from MARUM and GEOMAR investigated a methane hydrate deposit in the deep-sea fan of the Danube in the western Black Sea. During the cruise, which was part of the joint project SUGAR III "Submarine Gas Hydrate Resources" jointly funded by the BMWi and BMBF, the gas hydrate deposits were drilled using the mobile seafloor drilling device MARUM-MeBo200. The results of the investigations, which have now been published in the international journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, have provided the scientists with new insights into changes in the stability of gas hydrates.

"Based on data from previous expeditions, we selected two working areas where, on the one hand, methane hydrate and free methane gas coexist in the upper 50 to 150 metres of the hydrate stability zone and, on the other hand, a landslide and gas seeps were found directly at the edge of the gas hydrate stability zone", explains Prof. Dr. Gerhard Bohrmann, expedition leader from MARUM and co-author of the study. "For our investigations we used our drilling device MARUM-MeBo200 and broke all previous depth records with a maximum depth reached of almost 145 metres".

In addition to obtaining samples, the scientists were, for the first time, also able to carry out detailed in situ temperature measurements down to the base of the gas hydrate stability under the seabed. Previously, this baseline was determined using seismic methods, from which the so-called "bottom simulating reflector" (BSR) was obtained as an indicator of this base. "However, our work has now proven for the first time that the approach using the BSR does not work for the Black Sea", explains Dr. Michael Riedel from GEOMAR, lead author of the study. "From our point of view, the gas-hydrate stability boundary has already approached the warmer conditions in the subsurface, but the free methane gas, which is always found at this lower edge, has not yet managed to rise with it", Riedel continues. The reasons for this could be attributed to the low permeability of the sediments, which means the methane gas is still "stuck" down there and can only rise very, very slowly under its own power, according to the scientist.

"However, our new analyses of the seismic data have also shown that in a few places the methane gas can break through the BSR. There, a new BSR is just establishing itself over the 'old' reflector. This is new and has never been seen before", says Dr Matthias Haeckel, co-author of the study from GEOMAR. "Our interpretation is that the gas can rise in these places, as disturbances in the seabed here favour the flow of gas", Haeckel continues.

"In summary, we have found a very dynamic situation in this region, which also appears to be related with the development of the Black Sea since the last ice age", says Michael Riedel. After the last glacial maximum (LGM), the sea level rose (pressure increase), and when the global sea level rose above the threshold of the Bosporus, salty water from the Mediterranean Sea was able to propagate into the Black Sea. Before that, this ocean basin was basically a freshwater lake. In addition, global warming since the LGM has caused a temperature rise of the bottom water in the Black Sea. The combination of these three factors - salinity, pressure and temperature - had drastic effects on the methane hydrates, which decompose as a result of these effects. The current study exemplifies the complex feedbacks and time scales that induce climate changes in the marine environment and is therefore well suited to estimate the expected consequences of today's more rapid global warming - especially on the Arctic gas hydrate deposits.

Cruise leader Gerhard Bohrmann summarizes: "At the end of the SUGAR-3 programme, the drilling campaign with MeBo200 in the Black Sea showed us once again very clearly how quickly the methane hydrate stability in the ocean deposits also changes with environmental fluctuations".

CAPTION

Harbor test with the drilling rig MARUM-MeBo200.

CREDIT

Torsten Klein

Reference:

Riedel, M., T. Freudenthal, J. Bialas, C. Papenberg, M. Haeckel, M. Bergenthal, T. Pape, and G. Bohrmann, 2021: In-situ borehole temperature measurements confirm dynamics of the gas hydrate stability zone at the upper Danube deep sea fan, Black Sea. Earth and Planetary Sci. Lett., https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2021.116869.

Links:

http://www.gashydrat.de Gas hydrate research at MARUM

https://www.sugar-projekt.de/sugar SUGAR Project