Browse Items (128 total)
- Collection: Environmental Systems & Societies
Sort by:
A Global System for Monitoring Ecosystem Service Change
Earth's life-support systems are in flux, yet no centralized system to monitor and report these changes exists. Recognizing this, 77 nations agreed to establish the Group on Earth Observations (GEO). The GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON)…
A marine biogenic source of atmospheric ice-nucleating particles
The presence of ice in clouds can influence cloud lifetime, precipitation and radiative properties; here, organic material at the sea–air interface, possibly associated with phytoplankton cell exudates, is shown to nucleate ice under conditions…
A Rosetta Stone for Nature’s Benefits to People
After a long incubation period, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is now underway. Underpinning all its activities is the IPBES Conceptual Framework (CF), a simplified model of the interactions between…
Agricultural policy: Govern our soils
Luca Montanarella calls for a voluntary international agreement to protect the ground beneath our feet from erosion and degradation.
Agriculture: Increase water harvesting in Africa
Meeting global food needs requires strategies for storing rainwater and retaining soil moisture to bridge dry spells
Animal geographies II. Methods
Animal geographies challenge not only the place and placing of the human and the animal but, critically, the methods we use to engage with both in relation. This second review considers the various methodological implications of a more-than-human…
Australia is ‘free to choose’ economic growth and falling environmental pressures
A multi-model framework that accounts for climate, water, energy, food, biodiversity and economic activity in Australia reveals that a sustainable society that enjoys economic improvement without ecological deterioration is possible, but that…
Beauty varies with the light
Experimental work on guppies suggests that variation in light between microhabitats is what makes females prefer different male signal combinations, thus explaining the evolution and persistence of colour variation in males.
Before we drown we may die of thirst
The island nation of Kiribati is one of the world's most vulnerable to rising sea levels. But residents may have to leave well before the ocean claims their homes.
Biodiversity increases the resistance of ecosystem productivity to climate extremes
Data from experiments that manipulated grassland biodiversity across Europe and North America show that biodiversity increases an ecosystem’s resistance to, although not resilience after, climate extremes.
Biogeography of Mediterranean Hotspot
Biodiversity Re-Evaluating the 'Tertiary
Relict' Hypothesis of Macaronesian Laurel
Forests
The Macaronesian laurel forests (MLF) are dominated by trees with a laurophyll habit comparable to evergreen humid forests which were scattered across Europe and the Mediterranean in the Paleogene and Neogene. Therefore, MLF are traditionally…
Broad plumes rooted at the base of the Earth's mantle beneath major hotspots
A whole-mantle seismic imaging technique, combining accurate wavefield computations with information contained in whole seismic waveforms, is used to reveal the presence of broad conduits beneath many of Earth’s surface hotspots, supporting the idea…
Climate change and the permafrost carbon feedback
A large amount of organic carbon stored in frozen Arctic soils (permafrost) could be released as carbon dioxide and methane in a warming climate, which would accelerate the pace of climate change; this review suggests that release of greenhouse gas…
Contribution of changes in atmospheric circulation patterns to extreme temperature trends
This study identifies statistically significant trends in mid-atmospheric circulation patterns that partially explain observed changes in extreme temperature occurrence over Eurasia and North America; although the underlying cause of circulation…
Cultural geography II: Cultures of nature (and technology)
Recent cultural geographic research, located at a variety of settings (laboratory, clinic, battlefield, container port), has emphasized culture’s productive dimensions through studies of the linked construction of nature, culture, and technologies.…
Decadal slowdown of a land-terminating sector of the Greenland Ice Sheet despite warming
Whether or not an increase in meltwater will make ice sheets move more quickly has been contentious, because water lubricates the ice–rock interface and speeds up the ice, but also stimulates the development of efficient drainage; now, a long-term…
Featured Item
MegaRegions
Emerging MegaRegions in the Unites States. Megaregions are characterized by a socio-spatial expansion of population, commerce, and resources across a…