Lecture on ecology of infectious diseases
...ses, scientists are finding. Case in point: Native grasslands throughout the western United States are becoming the most rapidly urbanized ecosystems in the country. Black-tailed prairie dogs, an imperiled species in western states, are increasingly found in these urban grasslands. In Boulder County, Colo., f...Lehmann lovegrass won't succumb to fire
...feed livestock, has been slowly taking over native grasslands ever since. Non-native species can alter ...s under control, many land managers prefer to burn grasslands in the spring, when the plants and soil have more moisture, and the temperatures are cooler. The f...All ecosystems are equally productive under drought conditions
...drought conditions, high-productivity systems like grasslands and forests grow even less than expected. Most of ...an said, "We originally expected drought to impact grasslands to some degree, but this finding says that if we get extreme variability, there will be even less pl...Alternative states in the ocean
...tentially permanent transformations of terrestrial grasslands to forests....Tigers: Big cats need cat food
...s in 11 ecologically distinct sites in India from grasslands to dry forests over an eight-year period, with teams of biologists walking more than 4,200 miles to count prey animals, and setting hundreds of camera traps over 8,600 days of effort. Densities of ungulate prey such as deer, antelopes, wild cattle ...Plant, bird and butterfly species dwindling in the United Kingdom, researchers report
...Festuca grasslands, which are typical of temperate grasslands in Europe and elsewhere. The researchers then anal...hness. The authors estimate that Agrostis-Festuca grasslands receiving an average amount of nitrogen deposition in the United Kingdom or central Europe may have ...Study finds that fungus farming by snails causes marsh grasses to wither
...n salt marshes have been among the most productive grasslands in the world. In addition, they serve important ecological functions, including tempering coastal flooding, filtering mainland run-off, and acting as nurseries for commercially important fish and other species. Earlier research by Silliman and other...In tropics, forests are cool but croplands are hotter
... that cutting down tropical forests and converting grasslands to crops may inadvertently warm those local areas....ate wind turbulence that cools the air, and native grasslands are better adapted to the tropics than crops, in ways that also have a cooling effect. Lahouari Bo...Quarries may be last chance for many rare European butterflies
...reas have declined because many of the steppe-like grasslands that provide this habitat have been lost to intensified agriculture, conifer plantations and urbanization. Two of the researchers (Benes and Konvicka) have been butterfly enthusiasts since childhood and noticed as high school students that many stepp...New science at K-State attracts $4.2 million from National Science Foundation
...global environmental changes that are important to grasslands in Kansas: the amount and timing of precipitation, increased nitrogen, and changes in temperature. Ecological genomics will couple the tools of molecular genetics with ecology by taking advantage of the research platform and ongoing experimental wor...Plant diversity threatened by climate change and buildup of greenhouse gas, study reveals
... PNAS Online, researchers found that exposing open grasslands to large doses of CO2 gas for three years caused a... change in diversity could diminish the ability of grasslands to support birds, deer, butterflies and other wildlife as well as commercial grazing. Additive res...Crash in male saiga antelope numbers drives species closer to extinction
... future for the antelope." Once found roaming the grasslands of Central Asia and pre-Caspian in vast herds, the global population of saiga antelope has crashed to 50,000 over the past 10 years - five per cent of its previous size. The population decline has been driven by the collapse of the Soviet Union, whic...Scientists re-evaluating the meaning of 'desertification,' Duke ecologist says
...overty in rural Africa and shrubs encroaching into grasslands in southern New Mexico to dust storms in China." He noted that the United Nations established a convention in 1994 to target what it termed "poverty, drought and food insecurity in dry land countries experiencing desertification." However, "the vari...Increase in rainfall variability related to global climate change
...han previously anticipated." In this study of how grasslands respond to more variation in rainfall patterns, th... of carbon slowed, in as little as four years when grasslands are exposed to a more variable climate. Concerns about predicted climate changes resulting from huma...K-State researchers study response of prairie ecosystem
... Fay, professors of biology, has been studying how grasslands respond to increases in the variability of rainfall patterns to better understand how rapidly and to what extent ecosystems might respond to a future with a more extreme climate. Their findings appear in the latest issue of Science. A key feature of ...Livestock in salt marshes help farmers and geese
...s noted that geese seemed to have a preference for grasslands with short vegetation. STW researchers at the University of Groningen havenow discoveredthe reasons for this. The ecologists measured the preference of the geese for small experimental areas. Some areas had little grass and others had much. Some area...Scientists find grass yield, carbon storage not affected by creepy-crawlies in the soil
...il animals and then artificially reconstructed the grasslands with animals that differed in their body sizes- treatments contained small, medium or large soil fauna. The experiment ran for nine months, during which seasonal conditions were set to mimic June/July temperatures in Scotland - akin to a continuous g...Californias native grasses can be restored
...ara, Calif.) A research project to restore native grasslands to a reserve in California has yielded some promising results. The native grasslands may only need to be reseeded with native seeds without having to first eradicate the invading plants...Trees encroaching grasslands may lock up less carbon than predicted
...n repository, the rich black soils underneath many grasslands can be. And it's the grasslands once carpeting the Southwestern U.S. that are changing as a result of fire suppression and cattle gr......een destroyed. Ecologists trying to restore native grasslands may need to inoculate new plants with mycorrhizae. The fungus tends to be less abundant in agricultural sites, because the plants receive all the nutrients they need from fertilizers. But mycorrhizae might play a critical role in soil health that fer...