PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Climate change boosts then quickly stunts plants, decade-long study shows

Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long

Climate change boosts then quickly stunts plants, decade-long study shows
2012-04-13
(Press-News.org) Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long, according to new research results.

The findings, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, show that plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but then begin to deteriorate quickly.

"We were really surprised by the pattern, where the initial boost in growth just went away," said scientist Zhuoting Wu of Northern Arizona University (NAU), a lead author of the study. "As ecosystems adjusted, the responses changed."

Ecologists subjected four grassland ecosystems to simulated climate change during a decade-long study.

Plants grew more the first year in the global warming treatment, but this effect progressively diminished over the next nine years and finally disappeared.

The research shows the long-term effects of global warming on plant growth, on the plant species that make up a community, and on changes in how plants use or retain essential resources like nitrogen.

"The plants and animals around us repeatedly serve up surprises," said Saran Twombly, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

"These results show that we miss these surprises because we don't study natural communities over the right time scales. For plant communities in Arizona, it took researchers 10 years to find that responses of native plant communities to warmer temperatures were the opposite of those predicted."

The team transplanted four grassland ecosystems from a higher to lower elevation to simulate a future warmer environment, and coupled the warming with the range of predicted changes in precipitation--more, the same, or less.

The grasslands studied were typical of those found in northern Arizona along elevation gradients from the San Francisco Peaks down to the Great Basin Desert.

The researchers found that long-term warming resulted in loss of native species and encroachment of species typical of warmer environments, ultimately pushing the plant community toward less productive species.

The warmed grasslands also cycled nitrogen more rapidly. This should make more nitrogen available to plants, scientists believed, helping plants grow more. But instead much of the nitrogen was lost, converted to nitrogen gases in the atmosphere or leached out by rainfall washing through the soil.

Bruce Hungate, senior author of the paper and an ecologist at NAU, said the study challenges the expectation that warming will increase nitrogen availability and cause a sustained increase in plant productivity.

"Faster nitrogen turnover stimulated nitrogen losses, likely reducing the effect of warming on plant growth," Hungate said. "More generally, changes in species, changes in element cycles--these really make a difference. It's classic systems ecology: the initial responses elicit knock-on effects, which here came back to bite the plants. These ecosystem feedbacks are critical--you can't figure this out with plants grown in a greenhouse."

The findings caution against extrapolating from short-term results, or from experiments with plants grown under artificial conditions, where researchers can't measure the feedbacks from changes in the plant community and from nutrient cycles.

"The long-term perspective is key," said Hungate. "We were surprised, and I'm guessing there are more such surprises in store."

INFORMATION:

Co-authors of the paper include George Koch and Paul Dijkstra, both at NAU.

-NSF-

[Attachments] See images for this press release:
Climate change boosts then quickly stunts plants, decade-long study shows

ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Center For Chiropractic & Wellness Names New Chiropractic Physician

2012-04-13
Dr. Darcy Ward, doctor of chiropractic at the Center for Chiropractic & Wellness (http://www.greensborochiropractor.com), located at 231 N. Spring St., has announced that Dr. Joshua Louwersheimer has joined the clinic as a chiropractic physician. Louwersheimer brings extensive experience to the practice in providing optimal chiropractic care and improving the overall health and functional performance of patients through techniques that include soft tissue mobilization, exercise rehabilitation, nutrition counseling and patient education. A native of Calgary, Alberta, ...

Could 'advanced' dinosaurs rule other planets?

2012-04-13
New scientific research raises the possibility that advanced versions of T. rex and other dinosaurs — monstrous creatures with the intelligence and cunning of humans — may be the life forms that evolved on other planets in the universe. "We would be better off not meeting them," concludes the study, which appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. In the report, noted scientist Ronald Breslow, Ph.D., discusses the century-old mystery of why the building blocks of terrestrial amino acids (which make up proteins), sugars, and the genetic materials DNA and ...

Pacific West Capital Group to Host Seminars in Half Moon Bay and San Mateo

2012-04-13
Pacific West Capital Group announced today that the company will host informational seminars on April 17 at Pasta Moon in Half Moon Bay and April 18 at Viognier in San Mateo, California. Pacific West Capital Group representatives will discuss investing in the Life Settlement market. The company has specialized in the sale of beneficiary interests in life settlements to individual investors for the past seven years. The life settlement market is the secondary market for life insurance. Life settlements are an alternative to traditional investments because returns are ...

Real-life scientific tail of the first 'electrified snail'

2012-04-13
The world's first "electrified snail" has joined the menagerie of cockroaches, rats, rabbits and other animals previously implanted with biofuel cells that generate electricity — perhaps for future spy cameras, eavesdropping microphones and other electronics — from natural sugar in their bodies. Scientists are describing how their new biofuel cell worked for months in a free-living snail in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. In the report, Evgeny Katz and colleagues point out that many previous studies have involved "potentially implantable" biofuel cells. ...

New insights into when beach sand may become unsafe for digging and other contact

2012-04-13
With summer days at the beach on the minds of millions of winter-weary people, a new study provides health departments with information needed to determine when levels of disease-causing bacteria in beach sand could pose a risk to children and others who dig or play in the sand. The report appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology. Tomoyuki Shibata and Helena M. Solo-Gabriele explain that disease-causing bacteria from sewage can cause skin infections and gastrointestinal (GI) disorders in people who come into contact with contaminated water. The U.S. ...

Itris Automation Square Enters the Japanese Market

2012-04-13
Itris Automation Square announces its entry into the Japanese market, following its recent partnership with the Japanese company A.I. Corporation (A.I.C.), based in Tokyo. A solutions vendor, A.I.C. provides marketing, development and engineering services focused on the engineering of software for embedded systems, communications and networks. Japan is an industrial center that has a high concentration of high-tech companies, particularly PLCs suppliers. A.I.C. becomes the reseller of Itris Automation Square's products in Japan. This implementation will also facilitate ...

Timing pregnancy an important health concern for women

2012-04-13
A newly published article in the journal Nursing for Women's Health highlights the importance of a woman's ability to time her childbearing. The author asserts that contraception is a means of health promotion and women who work with their health care providers to ensure they are healthy prior to conceiving can minimize their risk of complications during pregnancy and childbirth. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) there were more than four million births in the U.S. in 2009. A study by Kuklina et al. (2009) shows an increase in severe obstetric ...

Wrap my Car then Squash it!

2012-04-13
Car wrapping specialist Creative FX has transformed a black Noble M12 to promote the release of the new smartphone app, 'Squash my Car.' Launched by Speeding Hippo, 'Squash my Car' is the brainchild of motor enthusiasts and lifelong friends Stephen Holmes and Chris Kessling. It allows users to transform a picture of any car into a squashed, pint-sized racer, in just a few simple steps. The app developed by creative design agency, Masters Allen is available on the iPhone and Android for just 69p. Already the app has been gaining attention from all over the world. With ...

New research supports youth with mood and anxiety disorders

2012-04-13
LONDON, ON – 75% of mental illnesses emerge by age 25. Mood and anxiety disorders are among the most common conditions, yet there is little support for youth in this age group. A new study from Lawson Health Research Institute shows that may no longer be the case. Dr. Elizabeth Osuch, Lawson researcher and a psychiatrist at London Health Sciences Centre, heads up the First Episode Mood and Anxiety Program (FEMAP), a treatment and clinical research program geared specifically to youth ages 16-26. Traditionally, youth can only access these specialized services through ...

Data mining opens the door to predictive neuroscience

Data mining opens the door to predictive neuroscience
2012-04-13
The discovery, using state-of-the-art informatics tools, increases the likelihood that it will be possible to predict much of the fundamental structure and function of the brain without having to measure every aspect of it. That in turn makes the Holy Grail of modelling the brain in silico—the goal of the proposed Human Brain Project—a more realistic, less Herculean, prospect. "It is the door that opens to a world of predictive biology," says Henry Markram, the senior author on the study, which is published this week in PLoS ONE. Within a cortical column, the basic processing ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Plant doctor: An AI system that watches over urban trees without touching a leaf

Study tracks chromium chemistry in irradiated molten salts

Scientists: the beautiful game is a silver bullet for global health

Being physically active, even just a couple of days a week, may be key to better health

High-fat diet promote breast cancer metastasis in animal models

A router for photons

Nurses and AI collaborate to save lives, reduce hospital stays

Multi-resistance in bacteria predicted by AI model

Tinker Tots: A citizen science project to explore ethical dilemmas in embryo selection

Sensing sickness

Cost to build multifamily housing in California more than twice as high as in Texas

Program takes aim at drinking, unsafe sex, and sexual assault on college campuses

Inability to pay for healthcare reaches record high in U.S.

Science ‘storytelling’ urgently needed amid climate and biodiversity crisis

KAIST Develops Retinal Therapy to Restore Lost Vision​

Adipocyte-hepatocyte signaling mechanism uncovered in endoplasmic reticulum stress response

Mammals were adapting from life in the trees to living on the ground before dinosaur-killing asteroid

Low LDL cholesterol levels linked to reduced risk of dementia

Thickening of the eye’s retina associated with greater risk and severity of postoperative delirium in older patients

Almost one in ten people surveyed report having been harmed by the NHS in the last three years

Enhancing light control with complex frequency excitations

New research finds novel drug target for acute myeloid leukemia, bringing hope for cancer patients

New insight into factors associated with a common disease among dogs and humans

Illuminating single atoms for sustainable propylene production

New study finds Rocky Mountain snow contamination

Study examines lactation in critically ill patients

UVA Engineering Dean Jennifer West earns AIMBE’s 2025 Pierre Galletti Award

Doubling down on metasurfaces

New Cedars-Sinai study shows how specialized diet can improve gut disorders

Making moves and hitting the breaks: Owl journeys surprise researchers in western Montana

[Press-News.org] Climate change boosts then quickly stunts plants, decade-long study shows
Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long