Amazon forests failing to keep up with climate change

A team of more than 100 scientists has assessed the impact of global warming on thousands of tree species across the Amazon to discover the winners and losers from 30 years of climate change. Their analysis found the effects of climate change are altering the rainforest's composition of tree species but not quickly enough to keep up with the changing environment.

The team, led by University of Leeds in collaboration with more than 30 institutions around the world, used long-term records from more than a hundred plots as part of the Amazon Forest Inventory Network (RAINFOR) to track the lives of individual trees across the Amazon region. Their results found that since the 1980s, the effects of global environmental change -- stronger droughts, increased temperatures and higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- has slowly impacted specific tree species' growth and mortality.

The ecosystem's response is lagging behind the rate of climate change. The data showed us that the droughts that hit the Amazon basin in the last decades had serious consequences for the make-up of the forest, with higher mortality in tree species most vulnerable to droughts and not enough compensatory growth in species better equipped to survive drier conditions."

The team also found that bigger trees -- predominantly canopy species in the upper levels of the forests -- are outcompeting smaller plants. The team's observations confirms the belief that canopy species would be climate change "winners" as they benefit from increased carbon dioxide, which can allow them to grow more quickly. This further suggests that higher carbon dioxide concentrations also have a direct impact on rainforest composition and forest dynamics -- the way forests grow, die and change.

In addition, the study shows that pioneer trees -- trees that quickly spring up and grow in gaps left behind when trees die -- are benefiting from the acceleration of forest dynamics.

In particular, the study found the most moisture-loving tree species are dying more frequently than other species and those suited to drier climates were unable to replace them.

Animal populations are shrinking due to their high-risk food-finding strategies

A study using animal-attached technology to measure food consumption in four very different wild vertebrates has revealed that animals using a high-risk strategy to find rarer food are particularly susceptible to becoming extinct, as they fail to gather food for their young before they starve.

In the first study of its kind, a team of researchers led by Swansea University used thumbnail-sized electronic tags to record the movement of a number of individual condors, cheetahs, penguins and sheep in Argentina, South Africa and Northern Ireland over a six-year period.

Nicknamed the "Daily Diary," the tags record a mass of data -- everything from the animal's minute movements through space and time, to the temperature of its environment and light levels.

The results from the tags were used to measure:

• The probability that each animal finds food items.
• The size of the food items.
• The effort used to find the food.
• The effort used for all other activities such as rest, play etc.

Professor Rory Wilson of Swansea University, a world-leading expert on animal movement and lead author of the study, said: "We know that animal populations across the world are taking a hit, with the most charismatic animals like lions and cheetahs being among the worst affected, but up until now it hasn't been clear why.

"Our study has revealed that animals that use a high-risk gambling strategy to find food, like lions and tigers, which have to search for long periods before they get lucky and find prey, are more likely to fail to accrue the energy they need to breed, compared to animals that adopt a low-risk gambling strategy, like herbivores such as zebras."

The average time the young of each species can survive without food depends on their size (larger young can survive for longer) but newly hatched or newly born young of none of the species studied can live without food for more than a few days.

Climate change/biodiversity loss: Inseparable threats to humanity that must be addressed together

Demand for bioenergy to reduce CO2 emissions from fossil fuels could cause a 10- to 30-fold increase in green energy-related land use in years to come, adding crushing pressure on habitat for plants and animals and undermining the essential diversity of species on Earth.

Speaking to government ministers and other high level representatives at a major UN biodiversity meeting in Egypt, Anne Larigauderie, Executive Secretary of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, said climate scientists foresee far more land needed for corn and other crops for bioenergy to mitigate climate change in decades to come.

Citing the latest report from the Intergovernmental Platform on Climate Change (on limiting climate warming to 1.5C), Dr. Larigauderie noted that most IPCC scenarios foresee a major increase in land area for cultivating bioenergy crops by 2050 -- up to 724 million hectares in all, an area almost the size of Australia.

"The key issue here is: where would this huge amount of new land come from?" she asked. "Is there currently such a large amount of 'marginal land' available or would this compete with biodiversity? Some scientists argue that there is very little marginal land left."She said this important issue needs to be clarified, but the demand for land for energy will almost certainly increase, with negative consequences for biodiversity.

Climate, life and the movement of continents: New connections

A new study by The University of Texas at Austin has demonstrated a possible link between life on Earth and the movement of continents. The findings show that sediment, which is often composed of pieces of dead organisms, could play a key role in determining the speed of continental drift. In addition to challenging existing ideas about how plates interact, the findings are important because they describe potential feedback mechanisms between tectonic movement, climate and life on Earth.

Sediment is created when wind, water and ice erode existing rock or when the shells and skeletons of microscopic organisms like plankton accumulate on the seafloor. Sediment entering subduction zones has long been known to influence geological activity such as the frequency of earthquakes, but until now it was thought to have little influence on continental movement. That's because the speed of subduction was believed to be dependent on the strength of the subducting plate as it bends and slides into the viscous mantle, the semi molten layer of rock beneath Earth's crust. Continental movement is driven by one plate sinking under another so, in this scenario, the strength of the portion of the plate being pulled into Earth's mantle (and the energy required to bend it) would be the primary control for the speed of the plate movement, with sediment having little effect.

However, prior research  had shown the subducting plates may be weaker and more sensitive to other influences than previously thought. This led researchers to look for other mechanisms that might impact plate velocity. They estimated how different types of rock might affect the plate interface - the boundary where subducting plates meet. Subsequent modelling showed that rock made of sediment can create a lubricating effect between plates, accelerating subduction and increasing plate velocity.

Researchers said this new model also offers a compelling explanation for variations found in plate speed, such as India's dramatic northward acceleration some 70 million years ago. The authors propose that as India moved through equatorial seas teeming with life, an abundance of sedimentary rock formed by organic matter settling on the seafloor created a lubricating effect in the subducting plate. India's march north accelerated from a stately 5 centimeters per year (about 2 inches) to an eye-watering 16 centimeters per year (about 6 inches). As the continent accelerated the amount of sediment being subducted decreased and India slowed before finally colliding with Asia.

Researchers also suggest these feedback mechanisms would have been very different in the early Earth before the formation of continents and the emergence of life. Although their model does not examine the origins of these feedback mechanisms, it does raise compelling questions about the interaction between continental movement and life on Earth.

Powerful new map depicts environmental degradation across Earth

Geographers have created a new world map showing dramatic changes in land use over the last quarter century. Researchers turned high-resolution satellite images from the European Space Agency into one of the most detailed looks so far at how people are reshaping the planet.

The digital map illustrates how 22 percent of the Earth's habitable surface has been altered in measurable ways, primarily from forest to agriculture, between 1992 and 2015. The map tells a new story everywhere you look, from wetlands losses in the American Southeast to the devastation of the Aral Sea to deforestation in the tropics and temperate rainforests.

The map of the United States shows huge losses of wetlands in the Southeast along with growing urbanization outside cities.

The map illustrates the dramatic disappearance of the Aral Sea, which dried up in the 1990s after farmers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan diverted its tributaries for cotton fields.It is a total disaster. This is a big saltwater lake fed by two rivers. They diverted water for cotton and the sea dried up into grassland. Today, you see huge boats sitting in the middle of fields.

Government to approach Supreme Court seeking relief for old private vehicles and tractors

With a blanket ban in NCR on all diesel vehicles that are over 10 years old and petrol vehicles which are 15 year old in force, the road transport ministry will approach the Supreme Court to keep tractors and private cars out of the purview of the order.
The ministry has decided to implead itself before the apex court in an ongoing case seeking reconsideration of its order prohibiting the plying of old vehicles beyond the specified age.
NGT had earlier ordered ban on all such vehicles on NCR roads to reduce vehicular pollution. This order was challenged in the Supreme Court, but it was dismissed.

Hospitals cut use of antibiotics, find it saves lives and money

Antibiotics are so overprescribed that a Kochi hospital managed to cut down the use of restricted antibiotics — considered the last-resort medicines for seriously ailing patients by as much as 86% over the past two years with no adverse effect on the number of deaths.
Doctors at Hinduja Hospital, Mumbai, ask patients to take antibiotics for only one day prior to surgery against the previous practice of taking them for a few days.