EurekAlert! - Agriculture

Public Release: 2-Jul-2009

Science
A question of height
Intelligent countryside management could improve the survival chances of animal and plant species threatened by climate change. The creation of small heat-shielded habitats and better links between habitats would counteract a moderate temperature increase, and give threatened species more time to adapt better and/or to migrate to cooler regions. This is the conclusion drawn by scientists at the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research from a British study on saving the Large Blue butterfly.

Public Release: 2-Jul-2009

Ecological Applications
Pacific Northwest forests could store more carbon, help address greenhouse issues
The forests of the Pacific Northwest hold significant potential to increase carbon storage and help mitigate greenhouse gas emissions in coming years, a recent study concludes, if they are managed primarily for that purpose through timber harvest reductions and increased rotation ages.

US Department of Energy

Public Release: 2-Jul-2009

Journal of Biogeography
Evolution: Crabs go deep to avoid hot water
Researchers from the National Oceanography Center, Southampton, have drawn together 200 years' worth of oceanographic knowledge to investigate the distribution of a notorious deep-sea giant -- the king crab. The results, published this week in the Journal of Biogeography, reveal temperature as a driving force behind the speciation and radiation of a major seafloor predator -- globally, and over tens of millions of years of Earth's history.

National Environment Research Council and Royal Society

Public Release: 2-Jul-2009

World Conference of Science Journalists

Science
Climate change and the mystery of the shrinking sheep
Changing winter conditions are causing Scotland's wild Soay sheep to get smaller despite the evolutionary benefits of having a large body, researchers report in a study that shows how climate change can trump natural selection.

Natural Environment Research Council, NIH/National Institute on Aging

Public Release: 1-Jul-2009

49th Annual Meeting of the American College of Nutrition

Journal of the American College of Nutrition
New science review examines multiple health benefits of dairy foods
In a supplement to the current issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, several prominent nutrition researchers weigh in on an updated review of the health benefits of consuming dairy foods. This supplement further contributes to the well-established evidence that consuming the recommended servings of dairy foods each day is a convenient and affordable way to get several key nutrients that many Americans do not consume enough.

National Dairy Council

Public Release: 1-Jul-2009

Journal of the American Dietetic Association
ADA releases updated position paper on vegetarian diets
The American Dietetic Association has released an updated position paper on vegetarian diets that concludes such diets, if well-planned, are healthful and nutritious for adults, infants, children and adolescents and can help prevent and treat chronic diseases including heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes.

Public Release: 1-Jul-2009
Desert rhubarb -- a self-irrigating plant
Researchers from the department of science education-biology at the University of Haifa-Oranim have managed to make out the "self-irrigating" mechanism of the desert rhubarb, which enables it to harvest 16 times the amount of water than otherwise expected for a plant in this region based on the quantities of rain in the desert. This is the first example of a self-irrigating plant worldwide.

Public Release: 1-Jul-2009

BMC Evolutionary Biology
Inbred bumblebees less successful
Declining bumblebee populations are at greater risk of inbreeding, which can trigger a downward spiral of further decline. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology have provided the first proof that inbreeding reduces colony fitness under natural conditions by increasing the production of reproductively inefficient 'diploid' males.

Public Release: 1-Jul-2009

Nature
Plants save the earth from an icy doom
Fifty million years ago, the North and South poles were ice-free and crocodiles roamed the Arctic. Since then, a long-term decrease in the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has cooled the Earth. Researchers at Yale University, the Carnegie Institution of Washington and the University of Sheffield now show that land plants saved the Earth from a deep frozen fate by buffering the removal of atmospheric CO2 over the past 24 million years.

Yale Climate and Energy Institute, National Science Foundation, US Department of Energy, Leverhulme Trust, Royal Society-Wolfson Research Merit Award

Public Release: 1-Jul-2009

BioScience
Mangrove-dependent animals globally threatened
An assessment in the July/August issue of BioScience finds that substantial numbers of terrestrial vertebrates are restricted to mangrove forests. Many of these specialized species are listed as threatened by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Prospects for mangrove-restricted animals are bleak, because more than two percent of mangrove forests are lost each year.

Public Release: 30-Jun-2009

Nature Biotechnology
Anti-biotech groups obstruct forest biotechnology
The potential of forest biotechnology to help address significant social and environmental issues is being "strangled at birth" by the rigid opposition of some groups and regulations that effectively preclude even the testing of genetically modified trees, scientists argue in a new report.

National Science Foundation

Public Release: 30-Jun-2009

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Peer pressure plays major role in environmental behavior
People are more likely to enroll in conservation programs if their neighbors do -- a tendency that should be exploited when it comes to protecting the environment, according to a pioneering study from Michigan State University.

National Science Foundation, NASA, National Institutes of Health

Public Release: 30-Jun-2009

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
A thirst for blood sparks toxic algal blooms
The blooming of toxic algae that occurs during the summer conceal a fight for life and death. Scientists at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, propose in an article published in the journal PNAS that algal blooms are created when aggressive algae kill and injure their competitors in order to absorb the nutrients they contain. "The behavior of the algae can be compared to that of blood-sucking insects," says Per Jonsson of the department of marine ecology.

Public Release: 30-Jun-2009

Applied and Environmental Microbiology
The tiny difference in the genes of bacteria
Every year, diarrhea causes around five million fatalities worldwide. Most people die due to pathogenic micro-organisms, such as bacteria or viruses, which were ingested into the gastro-intestinal tract through contaminated drinking water or food. Determining which bacterium is causing the illness in those cases is sometimes very complex. In cooperation with Chilean researchers, scientists from the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research in Braunschweig, Germany, have now developed a fine-tuned diagnostic method.

European Union

Public Release: 30-Jun-2009

Society for Experimental Biology Annual Main Meeting
Your own private global warming
Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey subjected species found in Antarctic waters to increasing levels of water temperature to learn how well they would cope with a warmer ocean. The study, to be presented at the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on Tuesday, June 30, shows that several of these species are already living really close to their upper temperature range, and that further increases could easily provoke serious ecological imbalances in this region.

British Antarctic Survey