As Arctic summers warm, Earth’s northern landscapes are changing. Using satellite images to track global tundra ecosystems over decades, a team of researchers finds the region has become greener as warmer air and soil temperatures lead to increased plant growth.
“The Arctic tundra is one of the coldest biomes on Earth, and it’s also one of the most rapidly warming,” said Logan Berner, assistant research professor with Northern Arizona… Read more
Two researchers at the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society have won separate awards totaling $1.3M from the National Science Foundation to better understand where carbon is being stored and released in the terrestrial biosphere. Using different approaches, the two projects aim to better predict carbon storage by plants and soils in critical regions of the globe, and how that storage is being altered by changing climate patterns.… Read more
NAU scientists contribute to critical new global study showing ‘best of the last’ tropical forests urgently need protection to mitigate climate change and safeguard human well-being.
The world’s ‘best of the last’ tropical forests are at significant risk of being lost, according to a paper released today in Nature Ecology and Evolution. Of… Read more
Often maligned and largely misunderstood throughout history, bats have more recently been recognized for the important role they play in ecosystems all over the world, pollinating flowers, dispersing seeds and controlling pests by eating insects.
But many North American species are now threatened by white-nose syndrome (WNS), a deadly fungal disease affecting millions of bats, primarily in the eastern US. The Ecology and… Read more
Sept. 25, 2019
The world’s oceans are getting hotter and acidifying under climate change at unprecedented rates, threatening coastal and high-mountain communities, marine ecosystems and global fishing stocks, according to a new Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate (SROCC) released this week by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ted Schuur, a researcher in the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society (Ecoss) at Northern Arizona University, was one of the lead authors on the… Read more
Since the mid-20th century, the global human population has grown from 2.5 billion to 7.7 billion, according to the most recent United Nations estimate. Much of this growth was due to the unprecedented agricultural expansion made possible by the widespread use of synthetic pesticides starting in the 1950s.
By applying pesticides to prevent a variety of insects,… Read more