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Dairy Cow
Judy Anderson

Climate change, antibiotics may threaten soil

Researchers say livestock antibiotic residues can degrade microbe activity when combined with rising temperatures. That doesn't mean making animals suffer, however.

study by researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, has shown that when rising temperatures combine with antibiotic residues expelled by livestock, it degrades soil microbe efficiency, soil resilience to future stress, and its ability to trap carbon…

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London
Flickr

Study: Climate change increases global risk to urban forests

In a recent study published in Nature, researchers found that more than half of urban trees in 164 cities around the world were already experiencing temperature and precipitation conditions that were beyond their limits for survival.

Climate change threatens the health and survival of urban trees and the various benefits they deliver to urban inhabitants. Here, we show that 56% and 65% of species in 164 cities across 78 countries are currently exceeding temperature and precipitation conditions experienced in their geographic range, respectively. We assessed 3,129 tree and shrub species, using three metrics related to climate vulnerability: exposure, safety margin and risk.

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Park Slope
iStock

Research: Declining urban and community tree cover in the United States

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that cities are losing some 36 million trees every year, wiped out by development, disease and, increasingly, climate stressors like drought.

Urban forests provide many benefits to society, including moderating climate, reducing building energy use and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), improving air and water quality, mitigating rainfall runoff and flooding, enhancing human health and social well-being and lowering noise impacts (Nowak and Dwyer, 2007)…

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Urban Trees
Cokko Swain via American Forests

Cities are rethinking what kinds of trees they’re planting

Inclusive conservation means working with, and for, people and of diverse landscapes, including villages, hamlets, town centers, and cities (and if your region has different language for more populated areas, let me know). That's true with climate change action, too.

The U.S. Forest Service estimates that cities are losing some 36 million trees every year, wiped out by development, disease and, increasingly, climate stressors like drought. In a recent study published in Nature, researchers found that more than half of urban trees in 164 cities around the world were already experiencing temperature and precipitation conditions that were beyond their limits for survival.

“So many of the trees that we’ve relied upon heavily are falling out of favor now as the climate changes…”

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Prairie
Unsplash

A fresh look into grasslands as carbon sinks

While scientific interest in grassland soil for carbon sequestration is not new, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Colorado State University have provided a fresh analysis of the existing research on soil carbon sequestration in grasslands.

The researchers also found that continuous livestock grazing reduces plant cover, diversity, and productivity, and that seasonal or rotational grazing show the least negative effects and can even promote soil carbon storage.

“[We found that grassland ecosystems’] plant and microbial biodiversity and functions can be restored by improving grassland management, leading to substantial carbon removal from the atmosphere thus contributing to climate change mitigation”…

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Cow
Creative Commons

Research report: Antibiotics and temperature interact to disrupt soil communities and nutrient cycling

A study by researchers at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, has shown that when rising temperatures combine with antibiotic residues expelled by livestock, it degrades soil microbe efficiency, soil resilience to future stress, and its ability to trap carbon.

Soils contain immense diversity and support terrestrial ecosystem functions, but they face both anthropogenic and environmental stressors. While many studies have examined the influence of individual stressors on soils, how these perturbations will interact to shape soil communities and their ability to cycle nutrients is far less resolved. Here, we hypothesized that when soils experience multiple stressors their ability to maintain connected and stable communities is disrupted, leading to shifts in C and N pools.

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Study
Forterra

The impact of climate change in the Pacific Northwest

Forterra is a very interesting land trust, one I recommend you follow. Here they note: "Changes in temperatures and precipitation will also affect our mental and physical health. In addition to increasing risk of injury and exposure to toxics or hazardous substances in floodwaters, we can expect higher rates of respiratory and heat-related illnesses and water- and food-borne diseases. Not to mention the added stress that will come from dealing with damage, disruption, and tragedy. This is especially true for vulnerable populations..."

“Instead of feeling overwhelmed, it helps focus on the things we can control. To address climate change, we need to reduce our emissions and increase carbon sequestration. Forterra’s approach is two-fold: restoring our ecosystems, which are natural carbon sinks, and facilitating sustainable new development that both builds social equity and has a smaller carbon footprint.

“Through our community real estate program, we apply our expertise in negotiation, financing, and entitlement to support local communities in fostering well-being. One example of this is cross-laminated timber (CLT), a wood panel product made by gluing together layers of lumber stacked in alternating perpendicular directions. CLT reduces the cost of construction to make homes more affordable, creates new jobs in struggling rural communities, enhances forest health and stores more carbon when paired with sustainable harvesting. Learn about our work with a CLT modular prototype here…”

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Meg And Friend
Judy Anderson

Climate change is here. Nature-based solutions can help.

In 2017, Openlands completed a strategic plan to guide [their] work in communities and across our region. [Their] vision for the region is a landscape that includes a vast network of land and water trails, tree-lined streets, and intimate public gardens within easy reach of every city dweller. It includes parks and preserves large enough to provide natural habitat and to give visitors a sense of the vast prairies, woodlands, and wetlands that were here before the cities. Climate action is part of this effort.

Openlands works across the Chicago metropolitan region to advance nature-based solutions to climate change, improve the health and well-being of communities, and create a more verdant region for all.

Learn more about [their] work and how you can get involved to help make a more sustainable, equitable region with Openlands…

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Strat Plan

Openlands strategic plan

In 2017, Openlands completed a strategic plan to guide [their] work in communities and across our region. [Their] vision for the region is a landscape that includes a vast network of land and water trails, tree-lined streets, and intimate public gardens within easy reach of every city dweller.

Openlands’ vision for the region is a landscape that includes a vast network of land and water trails, tree-lined streets, and intimate public gardens within easy reach of every city dweller. It also includes parks and preserves big enough to provide natural habitat and to give visitors a sense of the vast prairies, woodlands, and wetlands that were here before the cities. In sum, Openlands believes that protected open space is critical for the quality of life of our region.

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Ghost Forest
Flickr

To best fight climate change, ‘Blue Carbon’ habitats must first survive it

Researchers in North Carolina are studying how much carbon is released during this transition from trees to wetlands. As lands react to climate change, our understanding of what that means shifts too.

Increasingly, U.S. coastal landscapes are home to “ghost forests”—the remnants of healthy forests ravaged by rapid saltwater intrusion and increased flooding caused by climate change-related events, such as sea-level rise, hurricanes, and drought.

Sometimes, salt-tolerant marsh grasses replace coastal freshwater forests, but because of the release of stored carbon as trees decompose, this transition may result in a temporary net loss of stored carbon and increase the release of other greenhouse gases such as methane [a very powerful climate change accelerator].

Initial research suggested that tree stems in ghost forests may serve as a type of straw, allowing the release of methane into the atmosphere from the degraded trees, said Melinda Martinez, a Mendenhall post-doctorate/research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey within the Wetland and Aquatic Research Center in Lafayette, Louisiana…

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