ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

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• Tigers roar back: Great news for big cats in key areas
• Blades and clades: Why some grasses got better photosynthesis
• Amazon deforestation brings loss of microbial communities
• Fluctuating environment may have driven human evolution
• Bumblebees do best where there is less pavement and more floral diversity

Tigers roar back: Great news for big cats in key areas Posted: 26 Dec 2012 12:30 PM PST Biologists have reported significant progress for tigers in three key landscapes across the big cat's range due to better law enforcement, protection of habitat, and strong government partnerships.

Blades and clades: Why some grasses got better photosynthesis Posted: 26 Dec 2012 05:10 AM PST Two groups, or clades, of grasses that once had a common ancestry diverged, ultimately leaving the PACMAD clade more predisposed to evolve a more efficient, "C4" means of photosynthesis when CO2 is restricted than grasses in the BEP clade. In a new study, a research team pinpoints the anatomical differences between the clades that led to the PACMAD's tendency toward C4.

Amazon deforestation brings loss of microbial communities Posted: 26 Dec 2012 05:09 AM PST An international team of microbiologists has found that a troubling net loss in diversity among the microbial organisms responsible for a functioning ecosystem is accompanying deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. This is important because the combination of lost forest species and the homogenization of pasture communities together signal that this ecosystem is now a lot less capable of dealing with additional outside stress.

Fluctuating environment may have driven human evolution Posted: 26 Dec 2012 05:09 AM PST A series of rapid environmental changes in East Africa roughly 2 million years ago may be responsible for driving human evolution, according to researchers at Penn State and Rutgers University.

Bumblebees do best where there is less pavement and more floral diversity Posted: 26 Dec 2012 05:09 AM PST Landscapes with large amounts of paved roads and impervious construction have lower numbers of ground-nesting bumblebees, which are important native pollinators, a new study shows.

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