https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Increasingly common since 1980, persistent multi-year droughts will continue to advance with the warming climate, warns a study from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research (WSL), with Professor Francesca Pellicciotti from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) participating. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-year-extreme-droughts-frequent-severe.html Earth Sciences Thu, 16 Jan 2025 14:00:01 EST news656243341 Over a 50-year period, logging on British Columbia's Central Coast preferentially targeted the highest value locations on the landscape, according to new research from Simon Fraser University. The systematic depletion of high-value components of the environment raises concerns about future sustainability and intergenerational access to natural resources. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-chain-future-forest-sustainability.html Ecology Wed, 05 Oct 2022 16:31:03 EDT news584206261 The intensification of land use poses a major threat to biodiversity, including herbivorous insects and their host plants. If beetles, Orthoptera (grasshoppers/crickets), Heteroptera (true bugs) and Auchenorrhyncha (cicadas/leafhoppers/treehoppers/planthoppers/spittlebugs) specialize in only one or just a few plant species, they have to migrate or else they become locally extinct when their host plants disappear. On the other hand, if an insect can feed on a wide range of species, it is able to survive even if the number of plant species declines. The interaction of species from different groups of organisms is ultimately a decisive factor in ecosystem stability. https://phys.org/news/2021-05-impoverished-meadow-forest-flora-threaten.html Plants & Animals Mon, 17 May 2021 09:53:04 EDT news540463977 Reduced resilience of plant biomes in North America could be setting the stage for the kind of mass extinctions not seen since the retreat of glaciers and arrival of humans about 13,000 years ago, cautions a new study published August 20 in the journal Global Change Biology. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-fossil-pollen-vulnerability-mass-extinction.html Ecology Mon, 24 Aug 2020 12:27:34 EDT news517490832 Viruses that jump from animals to people, like the one responsible for COVID-19, will likely become more common as people continue to transform natural habitats into agricultural land, according to a new Stanford study. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-forest-loss-disease.html Ecology Wed, 08 Apr 2020 03:15:41 EDT news505534531 A new study in the journal Nature Sustainability overturns long-held interpretations of the role humans played in shaping the American landscape before European colonization. The findings give new insight into the rationale and approaches for managing some of the most biodiverse landscapes in the eastern U.S. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-climate-humans-early-forests-england.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Jan 2020 11:00:11 EST news498723044 University of Cincinnati geography researchers have identified a tipping point for deforestation that leads to rapid forest loss. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-geographers-deforestation.html Earth Sciences Tue, 07 Jan 2020 15:20:56 EST news497632848 The Amazon rainforest, energy grids, and cells in the human body share a troublesome property: They possess multiple stable states. When the world's largest tropical forest suddenly starts retreating in a warming climate, energy supply blacks out, or cells turn carcinogenic, complex-systems science understands this as a transition between two such states. These transitions are obviously unwanted. https://phys.org/news/2013-01-amazon-rainforest-human-body-cells.html General Physics Sun, 06 Jan 2013 13:00:14 EST news276686303 (Phys.org)—Some high mountain meadows in the Pacific Northwest are declining rapidly due to climate change, a study suggests, as reduced snowpacks, longer growing seasons and other factors allow trees to invade these unique ecosystems that once were carpeted with grasses, shrubs and wildflowers. https://phys.org/news/2012-11-mountain-meadows-dwindling-pacific-northwest.html Environment Fri, 02 Nov 2012 17:49:53 EDT news271097363 A recent decline in ovenbirds (Seiurus aurocapilla), a ground-nesting migratory songbird, in forests in the northern Midwest United States is being linked by scientists to a seemingly unlikely culprit: earthworms. https://phys.org/news/2012-02-earthworms-blame-decline-ovenbirds-northern.html Ecology Wed, 29 Feb 2012 12:57:41 EST news249742651 A new study reconstructing thousands of years of fire history in the southern Appalachians supports the use of prescribed fire, or controlled burns, as a tool to reduce the risk of wildfires, restore and maintain forest health and protect rare ecological communities in the region's forests. https://phys.org/news/2010-04-year-southern-appalachians.html Environment Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:40:01 EDT news189780771