ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

---

• First high-resolution national carbon map of Panama
• Evolution picks up hitchhikers: Pervasive genetic hitchhiking and clonal interference in evolving yeast populations
• Bees 'betray' their flowers when pollinator species decline
• Most flammable boreal forests in North America become more so
• Climate forecasts shown to warn of crop failures
• Geochemical 'fingerprints' leave evidence that megafloods eroded steep gorge
• Greening of the Earth pushed way back in time
• Sea level rise: New iceberg theory points to areas at risk of rapid disintegration
• How to survive without sex: Rotifer genome reveals its strategies
• Declining sea ice strands baby harp seals
• Sub-saharan water: Not just fossil water
• Climate threatens food security of Pacific islands
• From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish
• Loss of African woodland may impact on climate, study shows
• Nighttime heat waves quadruple in Pacific Northwest

First high-resolution national carbon map of Panama Posted: 22 Jul 2013 05:30 PM PDT Researchers have for the first time mapped the above ground carbon density of an entire country in high fidelity. They integrated field data with satellite imagery and high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging data to map the vegetation and to quantify carbon stocks throughout the Republic of Panama.

Evolution picks up hitchhikers: Pervasive genetic hitchhiking and clonal interference in evolving yeast populations Posted: 22 Jul 2013 05:30 PM PDT In a twist on "survival of the fittest," researchers have discovered that evolution is driven not by a single beneficial mutation but rather by a group of mutations, including ones called "genetic hitchhikers" that are simply along for the ride. These hitchhikers are mutations that do not appear to have a role in contributing to an organism's fitness and therefore its evolution, yet may play an important role down the road.

Bees 'betray' their flowers when pollinator species decline Posted: 22 Jul 2013 12:27 PM PDT Remove even one bumblebee species from an ecosystem and the impact is swift and clear: their floral "sweethearts" produce significantly fewer seeds. The results show how reduced competition among pollinators disrupts floral fidelity, or specialization, among the remaining bees in the system, leading to less successful plant reproduction. The alarming trend suggests that global declines in pollinators could have a bigger impact on flowering plants and food crops than was previously realized.

Most flammable boreal forests in North America become more so Posted: 22 Jul 2013 12:27 PM PDT A 2,000-square-kilometer zone in the Yukon Flats of interior Alaska -- one of the most flammable high-latitude regions of the world, according to scientists -- has seen a dramatic increase in both the frequency and severity of fires in recent decades. Wildfire activity in this area is higher than at any other time in the past 10,000 years, the researchers report.

Climate forecasts shown to warn of crop failures Posted: 22 Jul 2013 12:12 PM PDT Climate data can help predict some crop failures several months before harvest, according to a new study from an international team. Scientists found that in about one-third of global cropland, temperature and soil moisture have strong relationships to the yield of wheat and rice at harvest. For those two key crops, a computer model could predict crop failures three months in advance for about 20 percent of global cropland, according to the study

Geochemical 'fingerprints' leave evidence that megafloods eroded steep gorge Posted: 22 Jul 2013 11:15 AM PDT For the first time, scientists have direct geochemical evidence that the 150-mile long Tsangpo Gorge, possibly the world's deepest, was the conduit by which megafloods from glacial lakes, perhaps half the volume of Lake Erie, drained catastrophically through the Himalayas when their ice dams failed during the last 2 million years.

Greening of the Earth pushed way back in time Posted: 22 Jul 2013 11:15 AM PDT Conventional scientific wisdom has it that plants and other creatures have only lived on land for about 500 million years, but a new study is pointing to evidence for life on land that is four times as old -- at 2.2 billion years ago and almost half way back to the inception of the planet.

Sea level rise: New iceberg theory points to areas at risk of rapid disintegration Posted: 22 Jul 2013 11:14 AM PDT In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations.

How to survive without sex: Rotifer genome reveals its strategies Posted: 22 Jul 2013 09:32 AM PDT How a group of animals can abandon sex, yet produce more than 460 species over evolutionary time, became a little less mysterious this week with the publication of the complete genome of a bdelloid rotifer (Adineta vaga).

Declining sea ice strands baby harp seals Posted: 22 Jul 2013 09:31 AM PDT Young harp seals off the eastern coast of Canada are at much higher risk of getting stranded than adult seals because of shrinking sea ice cover caused by recent warming in the North Atlantic, according to a Duke University study.

Sub-saharan water: Not just fossil water Posted: 22 Jul 2013 09:30 AM PDT The Sahara conceals large quantities of water stored at depth and inherited from ancient times. A recent study has just shown that this groundwater is not entirely fossil, but resupplied every year. Using a method based on data obtained by satellite, scientists estimated the variations in the volume of water lying under the northern Sahara desert: the current rate of recharge is on average 1.4 km3 per year, for the period 2003-2010. This represents 40% of withdrawals, mainly for irrigation to support the oasis economy. The inputs therefore do not compensate for the withdrawals, but their existence means that these transboundary aquifers, the main water resource of semi-arid regions in Algeria and Tunisia, could be managed sustainably.

Climate threatens food security of Pacific islands Posted: 22 Jul 2013 09:30 AM PDT Isolated in the middle of the ocean, Pacific islands rely closely on fishing for their economy and food security. But global warming could considerably reduce their accessible fish resources over the coming decades.

From obscurity to dominance: Tracking the rapid evolutionary rise of ray-finned fish Posted: 22 Jul 2013 07:35 AM PDT Mass extinctions, like lotteries, result in a multitude of losers and a few lucky winners. This is the story of one of the winners, a small, shell-crushing predatory fish called Fouldenia, which first appears in the fossil record a mere 11 million years after an extinction that wiped out more than 90 percent of the planet's vertebrate species.

Loss of African woodland may impact on climate, study shows Posted: 22 Jul 2013 04:20 AM PDT A more strategic approach to managing trees across Africa could have a positive impact on the changing climate, researchers say.

Nighttime heat waves quadruple in Pacific Northwest Posted: 19 Jul 2013 11:00 AM PDT Nighttime heat waves -- events where the nighttime low is unusually hot for at least three days in a row -- are becoming more common in western Washington and Oregon.

You are subscribed to email updates from ScienceDaily: Top Environment News To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610