Not What It Was: Forest Structure, Services May Be Lost Even As Forms Remain

Managed forests may appear healthy even though they are losing some
of the ecological and biodiversity values they once had.
(Photo by Oregon State University)

From Oregon State University

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A forest may look like a forest, have many of the same trees that used to live there, but still lose the ecological, economic or cultural values that once made it what it was, researchers suggest this week in articles in Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences.

One study outlines services and functions that are disappearing in mountain ash forests in Australia, and a commentary in the journal pointed out that many of the same issues are in play in forests of the Pacific Northwest, the grasslands of the Great Basin, and other areas.

After the Unthinkable: Reefs Recovered Faster After Mass Extinction Than First Thought

Reef-forming sponges, Early Triassic era(Photo by the University
of Zuric)

Metazoan-dominated reefs only took 1.5 million years to recover after the largest species extinction 252 million years ago, an international research team including paleontologists from the University of Zurich has established based on fossils from the southwestern USA.

Harsh living conditions caused by major fluctuations in the carbon content and sea levels, overacidification and oxygen deficiency in the seas triggered the largest mass extinction of all time at the end of the Permian era 252 million years ago. Life on Earth was also anything but easy after the obliteration of over 90 percent of all species: Throughout the entire Early Triassic era, metazoan-dominated reefs were replaced by microbial deposits. Researchers had always assumed it took the Earth as long as five million years to recover from this species collapse. Now, however, an international team, including the paleontologist Hugo Bucher from the University of Zurich and his team of researchers, has proven that reefs already existed again in the southwest of what is now the USA 1.5 million years after the mass extinction. These were dominated by metazoan organisms such as sponges, serpulids and other living creatures, the researchers report in Nature Geoscience.

Drone's Over The West: A Labor Saving Way to Monitor Vast Rangelands

Photo by Stephen Ausmus

Story by Dennis O'Brien

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists have found that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), a tool used by the military, may be suitable for keeping an eye on changing land-use patterns across vast tracts of western rangeland.

Ranchers, government agencies and private land managers often need to survey vast, remote rangelands to see how they are being altered by floods, forest fires or other events. Ground-based surveys can be costly and time-consuming. Satellite imagery is improving, but satellites can't provide the resolution needed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for its assessments of millions of acres of federally owned lands, or by private land owners who want to monitor erosion control, the creep of invasive species, or other land-use changes. UAVs allow operators to survey large areas whenever they want, such as immediately after a major rain storm or forest fire.

At the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Jornada Experimental Range in Las Cruces, N.M., Al Rango, Jeff Herrick and Craig Winters, along with Andrea Laliberte, a New Mexico State University researcher, are studying the potential effectiveness of a 20-pound UAV with a 6-foot wingspan that cruises 700 feet above the earth, collecting digital images.

Ocean Salt: Aquarius Yields NASA's First Global Map of Ocean Salinity

The first global map of the salinity, or saltiness, of Earth's ocean surface
produced by NASA's new Aquarius instrument reveals a rich tapestry of
global salinity patterns, demonstrating Aquarius' ability to resolve
large-scale salinity distribution features clearly and with sharp contrast.
(Photo by NASA/GSFC/JPL-Caltech)

NASA's new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity, or saltiness, of Earth's ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission's anticipated discoveries. Its rich tapestry of global salinity patterns demonstrates Aquarius' ability to resolve large-scale salinity distribution features clearly and with sharp contrast. The map provides a much better picture of ocean surface salinity than the Aquarius science team expected to have this early in the mission.

NOAA and partners demonstrate success of multibeam sonar to detect and map deep-sea gas seeps

A perspective of the seafloor showing preliminary results of has seeps detected NOAA Ship Okeanos
Explorer multibeam sonar in vicinity of Biloxi Dome in Northern Gulf of Mexico.  Gas seep locations are shown
as blue dots and are overlaid on the seafloor bathymetry that was collected. (Image produced by the University
of New Hampshire Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping/Joint Hydrographic Center using IVS Fledermaus Software.)

Multibeam sonar, an echo sounding technology commonly used to map the seafloor, can also be used to map and detect gaseous seeps in the water column, according to scientists testing the technology on board NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer last week in the Gulf of Mexico. Unlike other types of sonar, multibeam technology is able to survey a wide area of the seafloor and water column.

The ship’s multibeam system produced data to make high-resolution maps of gas in the water column in depths ranging from 3,000 to 7,000 feet (1,000 to 2,500 meters).

Observations of Climate Change from Indigenous Alaskans

The village of St. Mary's, Alaska where USGS scientists conducted
interviews with hunters and elders to document their observations of
climate change.  The village lies in the Yukon River Basin on the banks
of the Andrewafsky River, a tributary of the Yukon River.
(Photo by the School District of St. Mary's, Alaska)

Personal interviews with Alaska Natives in the Yukon River Basin provide unique insights on climate change and its impacts, helping develop adaptation strategies for these local communities.

The USGS coordinated interviews with Yup'ik hunters and elders in the villages of St. Mary's and Pitka's Point, Alaska, to document their observations of climate change. They expressed concerns ranging from safety, such as unpredictable weather patterns and dangerous ice conditions, to changes in plants and animals as well as decreased availability of firewood.

"Many climate change studies are conducted on a large scale, and there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding how climate change will impact specific regions," said USGS social scientist Nicole Herman-Mercer. "This study helps address that uncertainty and really understand climate change as a socioeconomic issue by talking directly to those with traditional and personal environmental knowledge."

By integrating scientific studies with indigenous observation, these multiple forms of knowledge allow for a more comprehensive understanding of the complex challenges posed by climate change. The indigenous knowledge encompasses observations, lessons and stories about the environment that have been handed down for generations, providing a long history of environmental knowledge. These observations can also help uncover new areas for scientists to study.

A Rising Problem: New Coral Dating Method Hints at Possible Future Sea-Level Changes

WHOI geochronologist William G. Thompson, lead author of the study,
sampling a fossil coral on Great Inagua Island, Bahamas in 2006.
(Photo by H.A. Curran, Smith College)

New evidence of sea-level oscillations during a warm period that started about 125,000 years ago raises the possibility of a similar scenario if the planet continues its more recent warming trend, says a research team led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

In a paper published online in the Sept. 11 Nature Geoscience, the researchers report data from an improved method of dating fossil coral reef skeletons in the Bahamas.  By calculating more accurate ages for the coral samples than previously possible, they found that sea levels were considerably less stable than earlier believed--oscillating up and down by 4 to 6 meters (13-20 feet) over a few thousand years about 120,000 years ago during a period known as the Last Interglacial.