Two University of Miami (UM) students have received prestigious Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for their doctoral work on coral reefs. Rachel Silverstein and Nitzan Soffer will each receive three years of support for their work in the laboratory of Dr. Andrew Baker, an assistant professor in the Division of Marine Biology and Fisheries at UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. In addition, a third student entering Baker’s lab this fall, Ross Cunning, also received an Honorable Mention in the same national NSF competition.

The quality of pollen a plant produces is closely tied to its sexual habits, ecologists have discovered. As well as helping explain the evolution of such intimate relationships between plants and pollinators, the study – one of the first of its kind and published online in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology – also helps explain the recent dramatic decline in certain bumblebee species found in the shrinking areas of species-rich chalk grasslands and hay meadows across Northern Europe.

This leaf beetle, which lives in the cloud forest on the east slope of the Andes Mountains in Ecuador, is from the family Chrysomelidae. Climate change could have a much bigger impact on such tropical species than scientists previously thought. Credit: Kimberly Sheldon, University of Washignton Polar bears fighting for survival in the face of a rapid decline of polar ice have made the Arctic a poster child for the negative effects of climate change. But new research shows that species living in the tropics likely face the greatest peril in a warmer world.

Georgia Tech researchers found that diatoms naturally remove phosphorus from the oceans. Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered a new way that phosphorus is naturally removed from the oceans – its stored in diatoms. The discovery opens up a new realm of research into an element that’s used for reproduction, energy storage and structural materials in every organism. Its understanding is vital to the continued quest to understand the growth of the oceans. The research appears in the May 2, 2008 edition of the journal Science.

Although China currently has fewer invasive woody plants than the United States, China’s potential for invasion by nonnative trees and shrubs is high, according to an article in the May 2008 issue of BioScience. Authors Ewald Weber, of the University of Zurich in Switzerland, and Bo Li, of Fudan University in Shanghai, China, examined the factors associated with alien plant species invasions and compared the history of alien plant species introductions in the United States and China, countries of similar size and latitudinal span.

Mean dissolved oxygen concentrations in the world's oceans at a depth of 400 meters (1,312 feet) with blue contours representing the lowest concentrations. Boxed areas represent ocean regions analyzed in the study. Credit: AAAS/Science An international team of physical oceanographers including a researcher from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has discovered that oxygen-poor regions of tropical oceans are expanding as the oceans warm, limiting the areas in which predatory fishes and other marine organisms can live or enter in search of food.

__IMAGE_2 Ancient Sunflower Fuels Debate About Agriculture in the Americas Researchers at the University of Cincinnati and Florida State University have confirmed evidence of domesticated sunflower in Mexico — 4,000 years before what had been previously believed.

Recovering Antarctic ozone hole may modify Southern Hemisphere climate change, amplify Antarctic warming, according to new study. A full recovery of the stratospheric ozone hole could modify climate change in the Southern Hemisphere and even amplify Antarctic warming, according to scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA.

Improved management of crops and perennials could go a long way toward alleviating the problem of hypoxia, which claims thousands of fish, shrimp and shellfish in the Gulf of Mexico each spring.

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth have developed a new scientific model that accurately maps where coral reefs are in the most trouble and identifies regions where reefs can be protected best. The model, which is being applied in areas throughout the Indian Ocean, is described in a recent issue of the UK-based journal Ecological Modelling.

Half a century after the last earth-shattering atomic blast shook the Pacific atoll of Bikini, the corals are flourishing again. Some coral species, however, appear to be locally extinct.

As well as cutting our fossil fuel emissions, planting new forests, or managing existing forests or agricultural land more effectively can capitalise on nature’s ability to act as a carbon sink. Research published online in the open access journal Carbon Balance and Management shows that although planting trees alone is unlikely to solve our climate problems, large-scale plantations could have a significant effect in the longer term.

There is no question that Al Gore’s 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth is a powerful example of how scientific knowledge can be communicated to a lay audience. What is up for debate is whether it accurately presents the scientific argument that global warming is caused by human activities. Climate change experts express their opinions on the scientific validity of the film’s claims in articles just published online in Springer’s journal, GeoJournal.

Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees – which need nectar for food – are declining in several areas of the world, including California and the Netherlands.

NOAA scientists are now flying through springtime Arctic pollution to find out why the region is warming - and summertime sea ice is melting - faster than predicted. Some 35 NOAA researchers are gathering with government and university colleagues in Fairbanks, Alaska, to conduct the study through April 23.

Contaminated seaweeds in Sydney Harbour could be threatening the small animals that feed on them, according to a new study revealing that the harbour's seaweeds have the world's highest levels of copper and lead contamination.

You know that green scum creeping across the surface of your local public water reservoir" Or maybe it’s choking out a favorite fishing spot or livestock watering hole. It’s probably cyanobacteria – blue-green algae – and, according to a paper in the April 4 issue of the journal Science, it relishes the weather extremes that accompany global warming.

Indigenous peoples have contributed the least to world greenhouse gas emissions and have the smallest ecological footprints on Earth. Yet they suffer the worst impacts not only of climate change, but also from some of the international mitigation measures being taken, according to organizers of a United Nations University co-hosted meeting April 3 in Darwin, Australia.

The rapid growth of China’s industrial and transportation infrastructure is helping to establish non-native species throughout that country and “setting the stage for potentially rampant environmental damage,” according to an article in the April 2008 issue of BioScience. The article, by a Chinese-US team, describes how more than 400 alien plants and animals are now considered invasive in China, including some that are causing serious harm even though they were first documented in the country only a few years ago.

Could part of the answer to saving the Earth from global warming lie in the earth beneath our feet?

U.S. Forest Service scientists with the Institute of Pacific Islands Forestry have completed a study on ways to make high-value koa trees grow faster, while increasing biodiversity, carbon sequestration, scenic beauty and recreation opportunities in native Hawaiían forests.

CSIRO is collaborating in a NASA-funded project, using a CSIRO-designed instrument, to help develop new methods of measuring forest carbon stores on a large scale.

In an investigative report published today by Eyes on the Forest, evidence shows that a new logging road in Riau Province -- strongly indicated as illegally built by companies connected to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) -- is cutting into the heart of Sumatra’s largest contiguous peatland forest, a rare hydrological ecosystem that acts as one of the planet’s biggest carbon stores.

Can organic cropping systems be as productive as conventional systems" The answer is an unqualified, “Yes” for alfalfa or wheat and a qualified “Yes most of the time” for corn and soybeans according to research reported by scientists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and agricultural consulting firm AGSTAT in the March-April 2008 issue of Agronomy Journal.

Plant defenses go down as carbon dioxide levels go up, the researchers found. Soybeans grown at elevated CO2 levels attract many more adult Japanese beetles than plants grown at current... Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are rising at an alarming rate, and new research indicates that soybean plant defenses go down as CO2 goes up. Elevated CO2 impairs a key component of the plant’s defenses against leaf-eating insects, according to the report.

Tiny organisms play a powerful role in removing nitrate, a form of nitrogen pollution caused by human activity, in streams, according to a study by a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and published in Nature.

American eels are fast disappearing from restaurant menus as stocks have declined sharply across the North Atlantic. While the reasons for the eel decline remain as mysterious as its long migrations, a recent study by a NOAA scientist and colleagues in Japan and the United Kingdom says shifts in ocean-atmosphere conditions may be a primary factor in declining reproduction and survival rates.

The midges that periodically swarm by the billions from Iceland's Lake Myvatn are a force of nature.

How well ocean reefs recover from the growing damage caused by warming sea temperatures depends both on how much the tiny coral polyps can eat, and how healthy they can keep the microscopic algae that live inside their bodies.

NOAA scientists are reviewing unusual environmental conditions in the Pacific Ocean as the likely culprit for the dramatically low returns of Chinook and coho salmon to rivers and streams along the West Coast of the United States in 2007.