Ecology, The Environment and Conservation

Scientists have discovered that elevated atmospheric CO2 (carbon dioxide) can suppress plant growth when increases of this important greenhouse gas are combined with a broad suite of already-occurring environmental changes. According to Christopher Field, project leader and director of the new Department of Global Ecology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, “We are now getting a much richer picture of ecosystem responses to global environmental changes, and the traditional view that elevated

Management of Pacific Salmon has been an issue for years. To determine whether management goals are working, knowledge of historical populations can prove quite useful. In a recent study published in Ecology, Deanne C. Drake, Robert J. Naiman, and James M. Helfield, all of the University of Washington, paired annual tree ring growth with catch data to determine what salmon stocks looked like 200 years ago.

Born in freshwater lakes and rivers, salmon swim to the ocean where they feed and matu

Many areas, including North America’s deserts, under severe threat

According to the most comprehensive global analysis ever conducted, wilderness areas still cover close to half the Earth’s land, but contain only a tiny percentage of the world’s population. More than 200 international scientists contributed to the analysis, which will be published in the book, Wilderness: Earth’s Last Wild Places, (University of Chicago Press, 2003).

The 37 wilderness areas identified in th

A new study of snow accumulation on Canada’s highest mountain provides strong evidence that significant climate change has occurred in Western Canada over the past 150 years.

The study, which will appear in the Nov. 28th issue of Nature, examines climate change over the past 300 years and provides evidence that both surface and atmospheric temperatures have risen in Western Canada since the middle of the 19th century. Led by University of Toronto physicist, Professor Kent Moore, the

Work funded with $1.59-million from the National Science Foundation

Highly acidic drainage from an abandoned sulfide mine in Rowe is slowly cleaning itself over time, and an interdisciplinary research team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst is studying why. The group brings together experts from the fields of microbiology, geology, engineering, and science education, to determine the extent and rate of bioremediation. Researchers say their findings may enable quicker natura

Most of us don’t pay much attention to earthworms but maybe we should. New research suggests that non-native earthworms are radically changing the forest floor in the northern U.S., threatening the goblin fern and other rare plants in the process.
This is “the first research to show that exotic earthworms are harmful to rare native vegetation in northern forests,” says Michael Gundale of Michigan Technological University in Houghton, who presents this work in the December issue of Conservat