Home sellers take note: That blue jay in your backyard could add $32,000 to your asking price. An innovative study of home sales in Lubbock, Texas, suggests that planners can use relatively simple bird counts to analyze the ecological and economic values of urban landscapes. And it finds that even a single extra species […] Read More »
How is the global economic meltdown changing conservation? Which do you want first–the good news or the bad news?
It’s no coincidence that the words “economy” and “ecosystem” both originate from the same Greek word, oikos, for “home” or “household.” But rarely have the links between the complex financial and biological structures that sustain […] Read More »
Invasive, wood-boring insects are costing Americans more than $2.5 billion each year—and there is a one-in-three chance that a new wood-chomping invader could add to the toll over the next decade, according to a new analysis in PLoS ONE.
The research team, composed of scientists from U.S. and Canadian universities and from the U.S. […] Read More »
When researchers discovered a remnant population of endangered crocodiles near a Philippine national park in 1999, the future seemed bleak for the rare reptiles. Crocodiles were widely reviled and often killed, and efforts to reintroduce farmed crocodiles back into the wild were faltering in the face of local resistance. By challenging some fundamental assumptions about […] Read More »
It’s not time to throw the recycled bathwater out with the baby. Although wastewater recycling plants can produce more greenhouse gas emissions that traditional water treatment facilities, a new study finds they can still offer advantages in water-stressed regions.
Nitrous oxide, a potent warming gas, is by-product of common bacteria “that live in agricultural soils […] Read More »
It’s a pattern seen throughout the developing world: Poor communities clustered around the edges of national parks. To some scholars, it’s a sign that parks are “poverty traps” that help keep people poor. A new long-term study from Uganda, however, disputes that idea.
“There is a lot of research looking at poverty in parks, but […] Read More »
Cities are creeping into some of the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems, concludes a new analysis that takes a first crack at estimating how fast the world’s urban areas have grown over the last few decades – and how much they might grow in the future.
“The conversion of Earth’s land surface to urban uses […] Read More »
It’s not easy eating green. Despite extensive and often successful efforts to accurately label “sustainable” fish, a new genetics study suggests that some seafood traders are duping consumers into buying fraudulent flesh. Nearly one-quarter of a sample of supposedly certified “Chilean sea bass” were “actually other species” or not definitively taken from an approved fishery, […] Read More »
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions at U.S. power plants could help save some water too, a new analysis concludes.
Coal-fired and nuclear power plants are among the nation’s thirstiest water users, Munish Chandel and two colleagues at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, report in Energy Policy. In 2005, electricity generators sucked up roughly 143 billion […] Read More »
The European Union (EU) is often lauded for its ambitious goals when it comes to curbing climate change and protecting biodiversity. By 2020, for example, it has pledged to halt biodiversity losses and cut greenhouse gas emissions by 20% from 1990 levels. But efforts to reach the two goals are likely to come into increasing […] Read More »
Historians have spent years debating the consequences of the fall of the Iron Curtain that once divided capitalist Western Europe from the communist nations to the east. But they’ve probably never thought about how it affected bird populations – or how the size of a bird’s brain might influence its ability to adapt to historic […] Read More »
Hydropower is often touted as a solution to climate change. Some critics have been skeptical, however, pointing to studies suggesting that the reservoirs behind dams can emit oodles of carbon dioxide and methane, particularly in tropical regions. But those concerns appear to be overblown, concludes a new study.
When rivers are dammed, the flooding often […] Read More »
Nearly 2 billion people, or one-quarter of the world’s population, live in the basins of Asia’s ten largest rivers. Poverty, malnutrition and environmental problems are common. And nine of history’s ten deadliest natural disasters, including a 1931 Yellow River flood that took millions of lives, occurred in these regions. In light of these challenges, researchers […] Read More »
Should conservationists give up on saving some species nearing extinction today for the chance to save even more species down the road? That is the question tackled by a new study that examines how best to allocate severely limited resources to address the threat of extinction.
“The threats to biodiversity are increasing and conservation efforts […] Read More »
The batteries used to store electricity from solar panels could become a major source of lead pollution in China and India, a new study warns. It concludes both nations will need to improve mining, manufacturing and recycling practices if they want to prevent planned solar power expansions from causing massive releases of the toxic element. […] Read More »
