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Environmental News Network -- Know Your Environment
The next mega-droughts and subsequent active wildfire seasons for the western U.S. might be predictable a full year in advance, extending well beyond the current seasonal forecast and helping segments of the economy related to agriculture, water management and forestry.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has concluded that bacteria in a lake 800 meters (2,600 feet) beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may digest methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
Like humans, some birds can spend years learning and exploring before developing more settled habits.
A study of northern gannets has shown adults return to the same patch of sea over and over again to find food.
As climate change brings new pressures to bear on wildlife, species must “move, adapt, acclimate, or die.” Erik Beever and colleagues review the literature on acclimation through behavioral flexibility, identifying patterns in examples from invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, and fishes, in the cover article for the August issue of the Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment. The authors focus on the American pika (Ochotona princeps) as a case study in behavioral adaptation.
Lakes Environmental Research announced today the issuance of patent number 9,605,212 B2 by the US Patent Office that covers a revolutionary oil sands recovery process. The “Novel Ultra-Low Water Oil-Sands Recovery Process” (NUWORP) significantly reduces, with the potential to eliminate, three of the greatest barriers to wider adoption of oil sands production.
Fear alone may be enough to cause vulnerable species to go extinct, according to a new University of Guelph study.
Prof. Ryan Norris has discovered that the mere smell of a predator affects the reproductive success of fruit flies.
