May 2021: 3 Significant environmental news I want to share

Most Significantly, on Apr 3, 2021, The Economist wrote that Carbon dioxide is not the only cause of global warming. About a quarter of the effect is a consequence of methane. And the methane problem looks a lot more tractable in the short term than does the carbon dioxide one.

Over the 20 years after its emission, a tonne of methane causes 86 times more warming than does a tonne of CO2. Also, it does not hang around. It has a half-life in the atmosphere of about a decade, so what is released soon vanishes. By contrast, CO2 lingers for hundreds, or even thousands, of years.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change envisages a 35% drop in methane emissions below 2010 levels by 2050. The IEA's numbers suggest that 14% of this is possible in the oil and gas sector alone, at no net cost.

SCIENCEFOCUS.COM, published on Apr 30, 2021, Scientists have found that only 43 percent of the cells that make up our physical form are human; the majority of what counts as “us” comprises bacteria, fungi, and other microbes. For every human gene in our bodies, there are 360 microbial genes. It’s enough to inspire an identity crisis. Your body isn’t just you.

Ask someone what a fungus eats, and perhaps they’ll guess manure, or rotting fruit, or houses, each of which counts as a correct answer. Considering what a wide variety of things fungi consume or can eat, it’s hard to guess wrong. But ask a stranger how fungi eat, and it’s a good bet you’ll stump them.

Yet many details of fungal biology, their evolutionary history, and their ecological roles in soils, plants, and the human remain a mystery.

And, PHYS.ORG, printed on May 19, 2021, A new study reveals far greater extinctions among the snakes and lizards of Guadeloupe following European colonization than previously believed. The team studied an extraordinary 43,000 individual bone remains from fossil and archaeological assemblages on six islands, ultimately revealing that 50% to 70% of Guadeloupe's squamate species went extinct after the arrival of European colonialists.

This study shows that Indigenous populations co-existed with the islands' snakes and lizards for thousands of years. The biodiversity of Guadeloupe's snakes and lizards increased during the long history of Indigenous habitation with no recorded extinctions. Yet the Guadeloupe data clearly show that Indigenous lifeways were supportive of snake and lizard biodiversity.

April 2021: 3 Significant environmental news I want to share

Most Significantly, on Apr 9, 2021, SCIENCEX.COM wrote that A unique methane-eating community of bacteria is living within the bark of a typical Australian tree species paperbark. These microbial communities were abundant, thriving, and mitigated about one-third of the substantial methane emissions from paperbark that would have otherwise ended up in the atmosphere. Scientists discovered the bark of paperbark trees provides a unique home for methane-oxidizing bacteria that consumes methane and turns it into carbon dioxide, a far less potent greenhouse gas.

Within wetland forests, scientists assumed most tree methane "treethane" emissions originate from the underlying soils. The methane is transported upwards via the tree roots and stems, then through to the atmosphere via their bark. This discovery will revolutionize how we view methane-emitting trees and the novel microbes living within them. Only through understanding why, how, which, when, and where trees emit the most methane, we more effectively plant forests that effectively draw down carbon dioxide while avoiding unwanted methane emissions.

PHYS.ORG, published on Mar 24, 2021, A new study shows that if we can keep the population fixed at current levels, the risk of population displacement due to river floods rise by ~50% for each degree of global warming. However, if the population increases, the relative global flood displacement risk is significantly higher.

And, SCIENCEFOCUS.COM, printed on Apr 9, 2021, Devastating environmental disasters have a way of bringing people together – and scientists have found the same may also hold for monkeys. New research has found that monkeys living in Cayo Santiago, Puerto Rico, made more friends and became more tolerant of each other after a major hurricane ravaged the island in 2017. Three years since hurricane devastation, the monkeys appear to have maintained the connections formed after the blow– by sitting next to each other or grooming. 

March 2021: 3 Significant environmental news I want to share

 

Most Significantly, on Mar 8, 2021, The New Youk Times wrote that Two-species of sea slug Elysia marginata and Elysia atroviridis decapitate themselves only to regrow a new body from the severed head. Researchers were astonished to observe slugs in captivity cutting off their heads after their bodies became infected with parasites. Within 3-weeks, the heads regenerate a whole, parasite-free body, though the bodies never grow back new heads.

Scientific American, published on Feb 24, 2021, Researchers are just beginning to recognize the role of burial places as protectors of biodiversity. In 2015, scientists found rare orchids thriving in cemeteries in Turkey, and another team discovered a variety of medicinal plants in the graveyards of Bangladesh in 2008. And in Ukraine in 2014, ancient burial mounds were found to safeguard the last remnants of Europe’s dwindling steppe grasslands.

China Agricultural University in Beijing conducted plant surveys in 199 family graveyards among Hebei province wheat fields. They ranged in area from two to 400 square meters. Despite their relatively small size, they were home to a total of 81 native plant species. Even the tiniest, covering just two square meters, hosted 24 plant species. Nearly half of all graveyard plants were significant food resources for insect pollinators.

And, Science, printed on Mar 4, 2021, that Earth is in the midst of an insect apocalypse, with thousands of species dwindling over several decades. Scientists have often blamed habitat loss or pesticide use. But a new study of butterflies in the western United States has found that warmer fall weather may be taking as big, if not an immense, toll. The findings are a wake-up call—not just for butterflies, but for all insects. If humans don’t take dramatic steps to curb global warming, entire ecosystems could disappear, with untold impacts on biodiversity and human health.