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154 news posts in Environment

Environment

02 Jun 2023

Underwater forest’s recovery offers hope for marine restoration across the globe

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Enric Ballesteros Scientists show that efforts to restore the building blocks of marine ecosystems are paying off, with macroalgae that provide food and shelter for other species bouncing back over 10 years of growth in an underwater seaweed forest in the Mediterranean Sea. Human activity has degraded ecosystems and damaged biodiversity around the world, but ecosystem restoration offers hope for the future. Scientists studying the restoration of underwater seaweed forests which provide other species with food and shelter have found that 10 years of restoration efforts have helped a damaged forest regrow to richness and strength comparable to forests that have never been disturbed. “Macroalgal forests are found along over one-third of the world’s coastlines and underpin entire ecosystems,” said Dr Emma Cebrian of the Centre d’Estudis Avançats de Blanes, corresponding author of the study in Frontiers in Marine Science. “In 2011, a restoration action took place in the Bay of Maó, Menorca, where a macroalga species was reintroduced in the area where it used to thrive. After 10 years, we found that the associated algal species returned to the habitat, and with them, the ecosystem functions they provide.” Under the sea Cebrian […]

Environment

10 May 2023

Scientists discover microbes in the Alps and Arctic that can digest plastic at low temperatures

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Image: Beat Stierli Scientists from Switzerland have identified 19 novel strains of cold-adapted specialist bacteria and fungi from the Alps and the Arctic region that can digest biodegradable plastics at 15°C. This ability, if upscaled to an industrial scale, will save money and energy during recycling Finding, cultivating, and bioengineering organisms that can digest plastic not only aids in the removal of pollution, but is now also big business. Several microorganisms that can do this have already been found, but when their enzymes that make this possible are applied at an industrial scale, they typically only work at temperatures above 30°C. The heating required means that industrial applications remain costly to date, and aren’t carbon-neutral. But there is a possible solution to this problem: finding specialist cold-adapted microbes whose enzymes work at lower temperatures. Scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute WSL knew where to look for such micro-organisms: at high altitudes in the Alps of their country, or in the polar regions. Their findings are published in Frontiers in Microbiology. “Here we show that novel microbial taxa obtained from the ‘plastisphere’ of alpine and arctic soils were able to break down biodegradable plastics at […]

Environment

04 May 2023

Ill-fitting gear puts female firefighters at risk: Five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: CAL FIRE_Official/Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Ill-fitting gear increases female firefighters’ risk on the job Over the past years, the number of female firefighters has been rising steadily. As of 2020, women make up 9% of firefighters in the US. Despite this, the gear they are wearing is still made for male bodies. Using 3D body scans of 189 female firefighters, US-based researchers have studied this gear to improve comfort, mobility, and safety for female firefighters. They published their results in Frontiers in Materials. The scientists found that female firefighters are wearing personal protective clothing (PPC) with significant fit issues. This reduces comfort, restricts mobility and increases safety risks on the job, they wrote. Between 15% and 21% of female firefighters were found to intentionally leave off a part of their PPC, mostly pants and coats, at least ‘sometimes,’ if not ‘nearly always’. The researchers also identified where the highest potential for design […]

Environment

20 Apr 2023

Restoring Asia’s roar: Our plan to see tigers flourish again in historic locations

By Dr Thomas Gray, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative Image: Shutterstock.com Dr Thomas Gray is a conservation biologist and Tiger Recovery Lead at the WWF Tigers Alive Initiative. His current research focuses on the active recovery of threatened Asian species and sustainable financing for landscape-scale conservation. In this newest guest editorial, he explains how habitats from which tigers have been lost could be restored and how this may help biodiversity and landscape restoration at large.  Tigers are Asia’s iconic predator and, perhaps, the most recognizable species on the planet. Tigers used to occur over vast areas of Asia: from the Black Sea of Turkey to the Korean Peninsula and south through the rainforests of south-east Asia to the islands of Java and Bali. However, as a result of centuries of persecution and habitat loss, tigers currently occur in only a tiny fraction of this historic range. More tigers, but difficult circumstances Since 2010, a ‘year of the Tiger’ under the Asian lunar calendar, there has been considerable global attention on tiger conservation. This attention appears to have reversed the decline in tiger numbers with the 2022 IUCN Red List Assessment estimating around 4,500 wild tigers remain in the world (an increase […]

Environment

13 Apr 2023

Coral-eating fish poo may act as ‘probiotics’ for reefs

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Coral-eating fish are thought to weaken coral reefs because they consume coral tissue, whereas grazer fish are assumed to have positive effects because they eat algae that compete with corals. However, a new study shows that feces from coral-eating fish contain bacteria that can be beneficial to corals. On the other hand, feces from grazers contain high levels of pathogens that can kill corals. Until recently, fish that eat coral — corallivores — were thought to weaken reef structures, while fish that consume algae and detritus — grazers — were thought to keep reefs healthy. But scientists have discovered that feces from grazers leave large lesions on coral, possibly because they contain coral pathogens. By contrast, feces from corallivores may provide a source of beneficial microbes that help coral thrive. “Corallivorous fish are generally regarded as harmful because they bite the corals,” said Dr Carsten Grupstra of Rice University, lead author of the study published in Frontiers in Marine Science. “But it turns out that this doesn’t tell the whole story. Corallivore feces contain many of the bacterial taxa that associate with healthy corals under normal conditions, potentially resulting in the natural […]

Environment

05 Apr 2023

How a city walk may improve your mood: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. Walking in the city might be just as good for our mood as walking in nature Time spent in urban environments is associated with depletion of cognitive resources and an increasing prevalence of mental illness. Few studies, however, have measured working memory capacity. Now, writing in Frontiers in Psychology, US researchers have compared memory performance and self-reported mood before and after a 30-minute walk in a natural or urban environment. The scientists assigned participants to either a nature or an urban condition and measured differences in self-reported affect and OPSAN, a complex measure of working memory capacity, before and after going on a walk in the respective environment. Their results showed that regardless of the setting, walkers exhibited an increase in positive affect and a decrease in negative affect, suggesting that going outside for a walk can boost mood regardless of environment type. They found, however, no significant changes in working memory […]

Environment

29 Mar 2023

Lizards at US Army installation are stress eating during flyovers

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Colorado checkered whiptail, Aspidoscelis neotesselata. Image credit: Carina Kusaka Scientists studied the response of an uncommon asexual lizard, the Colorado checkered whiptail, to anthropogenic noise at the military installation Fort Carson. They compared the lizard’s behavior between dates with and without flyovers by military aircraft. On flyover dates, the lizards showed a physiological stress response and spent more time eating and less time moving. These results suggest that the lizards deal with noise pollution by eating more to maintain the energy levels. Lizards may be small, with only a single hearing bonelet compared to our three, and without earflaps, but their hearing is typically good. Most lizards can hear frequencies between 100 and 5,000 Hz (although they are most sensitive between 400 and 1,500 Hz), compared to between 20 and 20,000 Hz in humans. So how do lizards react to noise pollution? Here, scientists studied the impact of noise from low-flying military aircraft on the behavior and well-being of an uncommon lizard, the Colorado checkered whiptail (Aspidoscelis neotesselatus). This was done at the Fort Carson US military Installation near Colorado Springs, where Apache, Chinook, and Blackhawk helicopters regularly fly over, and occasionally transport aircraft […]

Environment

22 Mar 2023

Unusual Toxoplasma parasite strain killed sea otters and could threaten other marine life

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image by Mr Laird Henkel, California Department of Fish and Wildlife Four sea otters that stranded in California were found to have died of an unusually severe form of toxoplasmosis, a disease caused by the microscopic parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Scientists warn that this new strain, never previously reported in aquatic animals, could potentially pose a health threat to other marine wildlife and humans. Scientists in California are raising the alarm about a newly reported form of toxoplasmosis that kills sea otters and could also infect other animals and people. Although toxoplasmosis is common in sea otters and can sometimes be fatal, this unusual strain appears to be capable of rapidly killing healthy adult otters. This rare strain of Toxoplasma hasn’t been detected on the California coast before, and may be a recent arrival, but scientists are concerned that if it contaminates the marine food chain it could potentially pose a public health risk. “I have studied Toxoplasma infections in sea otters for 25 years — I have never seen such severe lesions or high parasite numbers,” said Dr Melissa Miller of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, corresponding author of the study […]

Environment

15 Mar 2023

What does flattery do to our brains? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. What praise and flattery does to our brains Both sincere praise and flattery are rewarding in different ways, but the various effects of these types of praise are not obvious. Now, researchers from Japan have published an article in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in which they examined the brain activity of participants who received sincere praise or flattery after performing a visual search task. Using neuroimaging, the researchers found different effects of praise. The activation of the part of the brain modulating reward and pleasure processing was higher when participants received sincere praise than when they received flattery. The scientists also observed a socio-emotional effect, based on the positive feedback conveyed by praise. Altogether, they found that the neural dynamics of the rewarding and socio-emotional effects of different types of praise differ. Article link:https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2023.985047/full Fish bone matrix may help heal bone defects Biocompatibility and osteogenic activity are properties of decalcified bone […]

Environment

15 Mar 2023

Rapid surge in highly contagious killer fungus poses new threat to amphibians across Africa

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Researchers studied the prevalence of the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) in a total of 16,900 historical and recent museum specimens, wild-living individuals, and literature records of amphibians from Africa. Bd causes chytridiomycosis, a contagious and lethal disease of amphibians that has driven hundreds of species worldwide to extinction. Only amphibian species in Africa had so far escaped chytridiomycosis epizootics, but the present study shows that this reprieve is now likely over. Mass fungus infections that drive populations worldwide to near-collapse don’t just occur in science fiction. Chytridiomycosis, the worst vertebrate disease in recorded history, has already wiped out hundreds of species of amphibians around the world. Due to a large part to this fungal disease, 41% of amphibians are currently threatened with extinction. Only species living in Africa seemed to have been relatively spared from the scourge of chytridiomycosis – at least so far. Now, a study in Frontiers in Conservation Science has shown that this reprieve was likely temporary: the results show that the fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), the pathogen that causes chytridiomycosis, is by now firmly established throughout Africa. It may so far have been overlooked there, but it is likely that […]

Environment

07 Mar 2023

Wings, not webs: Certain bugs are the winners of urbanization, impacting cities’ insect diversity

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Dr Marion Chatelain. Occurrence and abundance of the ‘cucumber green spider’ decreased along the rural-urban gradient. Urban spread goes hand in hand with wildlife habitat loss and fragmentation. This impacts all animals, down to the smallest. Scientists found that the level of urbanization impacts arthropod abundance, richness, and diversity, factors which likely alter the foraging behavior of bigger animals. Cities are bursting with life, both human and animal. The smallest of them, insects, spiders, and ants are easily overseen, but their presence – or absence – in cities has wide-reaching effects. Scientists in Austria have published a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, which found a correlation between the presence of arthropods – invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton; among them are bees, insects, and spiders – and level of urbanization. “We show that richness and diversity of arthropods on trees and bushes decreases along the rural-urban gradient,” said first author Dr Marion Chatelain, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. “More specifically, we show that urbanization disfavors wingless groups, particularly so on trees. Indeed, web spiders and springtails are less likely to be found in the city, where, on the […]

Environment

28 Feb 2023

12 exotic bacteria found to passively collect rare earth elements from wastewater

By Mischa Dijkstra, Frontiers science writer Scientists have shown that the biomass of 12 previously unstudied strains of cyanobacteria from around the globe is efficient at the biosorption of the rare earth elements lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, and terbium from aqueous solutions. This allows these rare elements, for which demand is steadily growing, to be collected from wastewater from mining, metallurgy, and the recycling of e-waste, and reused. Rare earth elements (REEs) are a group of 17 chemically similar metals, which got their name because they typically occur at low concentrations (between 0.5 and 67 parts per million) within the Earth’s crust. Because they are indispensable in modern technology such as light emitting diodes, mobile phones, electromotors, wind turbines, hard disks, cameras, magnets, and low-energy lightbulbs, the demand for them has increased steadily over the past few decades, and is predicted to rise further by 2030. As a result of their rarity and the demand they are expensive: for example, a kilo of neodymium oxide currently costs approximately €200, while the same amount of terbium oxide costs approximately €3,800. Today, China has a near-monopoly on the mining of REEs, although the discovery of promising new finds (more than one million metric […]

Environment

16 Feb 2023

From microplastic waste to large, ancient squirrels: Five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

By Deborah Pirchner, Frontiers science writer Image: Shutterstock.com At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed. UK seafloor sediments rich in microplastics For years, plastics have made up a large portion of the debris polluting the marine environment. Much of this plastic consists of particles under 5mm in any dimension. Writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, an international team of researchers from the UK and Norway examined the occurrence and abundance of microplastics in UK seafloor sediments between 2013 and 2021. The scientists used a fast-screening approach for the detection and quantification of microplastics in sediment samples. They detected microplastics in every sample collected from 15 sites around the UK, which supports the argument that seafloor sediments are suitable matrices for the long-term monitoring of microlitter. The adoption of seafloor sediments as a common indicator for microlitter for the north-east-Atlantic region would allow for future assessments at a regional level as well as regional action plans rather than isolated national remediation measures, the researchers pointed out. The […]

Environment

13 Feb 2023

European big cat population threatened with extinction as genetics show the population is near collapse

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Eurasian lynxes dispersed across the Swiss border with France in the late 1970s, but the population remains small and fragile. Scientists took genetic samples from lynxes in France and determined that the population’s genetic health is so dangerously tenuous it could be extinct in a generation. Scientists warn that if action isn’t taken soon, the Eurasian lynx will vanish from France. This elusive wild cat, which was reintroduced to Switzerland in the 1970s, moved across the French border by the end of the decade. But a genetic study published in Frontiers in Conservation Science showed that the lynx population in France is in desperate need of help to survive. “Given the rapid loss of genetic diversity, we estimate that this population will go extinct in less than 30 years,” said Nathan Huvier of the Centre Athenas, corresponding author. “This population urgently needs new genetic material to become sustainable.” The missing lynx This population of lynxes, hidden deep within the Jura Mountains, is not well known. Observations by scientists estimate its size at a maximum of 150 adults and suggest that it is poorly connected to larger, healthier populations in Germany and Switzerland, […]

Environment

02 Dec 2022

‘The Maya had, and continue to have, a creative impact on forest composition’ – Dr Anabel Ford

El Pilar, an ancient Maya site in Belize In our Frontier Scientists series, we talk to Dr Anabel Ford, a leading researcher on the ancient Maya, about her career and research interests. Ford recently published a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution in which she stressed the importance of the traditional milpa land use system for the Maya civilization, not only in the Classical Period, but also today. Dr Anabel Ford is a US archeologist who specializes in the ancient Maya of Central America. In 1983, she led the team that encountered the ancient Maya city of El Pilar in Belize. Ford is a faculty member of the Institute of Social Behavioral and Economic Research at the University of California Santa Barbara and the director of the MesoAmerican Research Center at the same university. She is an expert on the still-flourishing forest gardens of the Maya region, built up over several millennia of traditional land use by the Maya people. Recently she published the study, “Scrutinizing the paleoecological record of the Maya forest” in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. In the paper, she focuses on the traditional milpa-forest garden cycle, where maize, beans, squashes, tomatoes, and many others are […]