Air Quality and Wildfires

January 2014

Air Quality and Wildfires

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140129115056.htm

      

            Parched by lingering drought, the American West prepares for a season of potentially record breaking wildfires. New research suggests these events will be an immediate threat to people's safety and their homes, and also may negatively affect human health, agriculture, and ecosystems. Shown in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology, the study could help societies plan to lessen these effects in wildfire prone regions.

            Societies have learned to harness these powerful wild fires and better control wild blazes to minimize damage. But climate change can impact the number and severity of wildfires. "Previous studies have estimated the effect of climate change and population growth on wildfire patterns and the risk of damage to buildings and homes in California." Matthew D. Hurteau's team expanded on these findings by investigating six possible future climate scenarios.

            The team discovered that climate will likely be the motivating force behind these increases. However, a rise in wildfires will mean significant societal challenges, such as higher pollution levels, which will affect human health. Poor air quality also can lower crop yield, resulting in the suffering of forest health. 

Fungi Regulate Rainforest Diversity

January 2014

Fungi Regulate Rainforest Diversity 

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140122133827.htm

     Oxford University led research that found that fungi control diversity in rainforests by making dominant species victims of their own success. Fungi spread quickly between tightly bunched plants of the same species, preventing them from dominating and allowing a wider range of species to thrive.

     Dr. Owen Lewis of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, the man who led the study, reported, "Seedlings growing near plants of the same species are more likely to die and we now know why. It has long been suspected that something in the soil is responsible, and we've now shown that fungi play a crucial role. It's astonishing to see microscopic fungi having such a profound effect on entire rainforests. Fungi prevent any single species from dominating rainforests as they spread more easily between plants and seedlings of the same species. If lots of plants from one species grow in the same place, fungi quickly cut their population down to size, leveling the playing field to give rarer species a fighting chance. Plots sprayed with fungicide soon become dominated by a few species at the expense of many others, leading to a marked drop in diversity."

     The study looked at seedling plots across 36 sampling stations in the Chiquibul Forest Reserve, Belize, and was published in Nature. It was carried out by scientists at Oxford University and Sheffield University and funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

     Every week for 17 months, researchers sprayed plots with water, insecticide, or fungicide. They found that the fungicide 'Amistar' hindered diversity, reducing the effective number of species by 16%. Although the insecticide changed the arrangement of surviving species, it did not have an overall impact on diversity.

     Scientists believed that fungus-like microorganisms called oomycetes may also play a part in regulating rainforest diversity, but after the study, this theory proves to be unlikely. "Oomycetes are potent pathogens that can cause seeds and seedlings to rot, and were responsible for the 1840s potato famine," said Professor Sarah Gurr, formerly of Oxford University.

     The findings show that fungi play a vital role in maintaining the biodiversity of rainforests, preventing a few highly competitive species from dominating. This helps explain why tropical rainforests are more diverse than forests in temperate countries.

Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America

January 2014

"Drug trafficking leads to deforestation in Central America"

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140130141217.htm

     An article in the journal Science describes seven researchers who worked in Central America on growing evidence that drug trafficking threatens forests in remote areas of Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and nearby countries. These traffickers are slashing down forests, usually within protected areas, in order to make way for secret landing strips and roads to move drugs. Additionally, they are converting forests into agribusinesses to launder their drug profits. Kendra McSweeney, the lead author of the Science article and an associate professor of geography at The Ohio State University, says that this trafficking is a response to U.S.-led anti-trafficking efforts, especially in Mexico.

     The researchers found that the amount of new deforestation per year more than quadrupled in Honduras between 2007 and 2011, the same period when cocaine movements in the country also spiked. In the Science article, McSweeney and her co-authors write that deforestation starts with the covert roads and landing strips that traffickers create in the remote forests. The mixing of drug cash into these areas helps encourage resident ranchers, land speculators and timber traffickers to move forward with their efforts, even at the expense of the indigenous people who are often important forest protectors.

     The drug traffickers also convert the forest areas to agriculture as a way to launder their money. Although this land conversion occurs within protected areas and is therefore illegal, drug traffickers use their profits to sway government leaders to their side.

"McSweeney said more research is needed to examine the links between drug trafficking and conservation issues. But there is already enough evidence to show that U.S. drug policy has a much wider effect than is often realized."

Food Production in Africa Limited Due to Fertilizer Imbalance

January 2014

Fertilizer nutrient imbalance to limit food production in Africa

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/01/140128094718.htm

            According to a new study published in the journal Global Change Biology, an increasing inequity between phosphorus and nitrogen fertilizer use in Africa may result in crop yield reductions of nearly 30% by 2050. The underuse of phosphorus - based fertilizers in Africa currently contributes to this growing yield gap. The phosphorus - specific yield gap currently lies at around 10% for subsistence farmers, but will grow to 27% by 2050 if the recent trends continue.

            "As farmers use fertilizers for their crops, nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus build up in the soil, providing a reserve of nutrients that plants need to grow." Although this is true, fertilizer use in Africa remains very low, and in order to increase crop production, farmers must increase their fertilizer use. Though nitrogen-based fertilizer usage has started to increase in Africa in the last 10 years, the application of phosphorus to cropland has increased at the same rate, producing a "growing imbalance" between nitrogen and phosphorus levels in the soil.

            The study used data from Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) crop trials along with a recognized EPIC large-scale crop model to approximate how the imbalance affects present and future crop yields.