Baby fish led astray by high CO2 in oceans

Date:

April 11, 2018

Source:

University of Adelaide

Summary:

Baby fish will find it harder to reach secure shelters in future acidified oceans -- putting fish populations at risk, new research has concluded.

Baby fish will find it harder to reach secure shelters in future acidified oceans -- putting fish populations at risk, new research from the University of Adelaide has concluded.

Global warming can turn monarch butterflies' favorite food into poison

Date:

April 3, 2018

Source:

Louisiana State University

Summary:

Researchers have discovered a new relationship between climate change, monarch butterflies and milkweed plants. It turns out that warming temperatures don't just affect the monarch, Danaus plexippus, directly, but also affect this butterfly by potentially turning its favorite plant food into a poison.

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Two monarch butterflies, reared by Matthew Faldyn, feeding on a benchtop in the Elderd Lab at the LSU Department of Biological Sciences.

Credit: LSU

Herring larvae could benefit from an acidifying ocean

A long-term field study in a Swedish fjord shows how rising carbon dioxide levels can affect food webs and fish survival

Date:

March 29, 2018

Source:

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Summary:

Excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making the oceans more acidic. Some studies show that's bad news for fish, including commercially important species. But a new study shows that herring might be able to tolerate this change.

These strange-looking floating objects are really giant plastic test tubes called KOSMOS mesocosms that extend roughly 19 metres deep. Researchers used them to test the response of young herring to ocean acidification.

Credit: KOSMOS/GEOMAR

Coral reef experiment shows: Acidification from carbon dioxide slows growth

Ocean acidification will severely impair coral reef growth before the end of the century if carbon dioxide emissions continue unchecked

Date:

March 14, 2018

Source:

Carnegie Institution for Science

Summary:

Ocean acidification will severely impair coral reef growth before the end of the century if carbon dioxide emissions continue unchecked. The paper represents the first ocean acidification experiment in which seawater was made artificially acidic by the addition of carbon dioxide and then allowed to flow across a natural coral reef community. The acidity of the seawater was increased to reflect end-of-century projections if carbon dioxide from greenhouse gas emissions are not abated.

This is an experimental plume of carbon dioxide-enriched seawater and a dye tracer flowing across a coral reef flat in Australia's Great Barrier Reef. This study represents the first ocean acidification experiment on a natural coral reef community and provides evidence that near-future ocean acidification projections severely depressed coral reef growth.

Credit: Photograph is courtesy of Aaron Takeo Ninokawa of UC Davis.

Green spaces in cities help control floods, store carbon

Date:

March 6, 2018

Source:

University of Wisconsin-Madison

Summary:

A new study shows that urban green spaces like backyards, city parks and golf courses contribute substantially to the ecological fabric of our cities -- and the wider landscape -- and they need to be added to the data ecologists currently use when exploring big questions about our natural world.

Payments to protect carbon stored in forests must increase to defend against rubber

Date:

March 2, 2018

Source:

University of East Anglia

Summary:

Efforts to protect tropical forests in Southeast Asia for the carbon they store may fail because protection payments are too low. A new study finds that schemes designed to protect tropical forests from clearance based on the carbon they store do not pay enough to compete financially with potential profits from rubber plantations. Without increased financial compensation for forest carbon credits, cutting forests down will remain more attractive than protecting them.