News tagged with water stress

Related topics: climate change

Mesquite trees displacing Southwestern grasslands

As the desert Southwest becomes hotter and drier, semi-arid grasslands are slowly being replaced by a landscape dominated by mesquite trees, such as Prosopis velutina, and other woody shrubs, a team of University ...

Biology / Ecology

created Mar 18, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Plants can 'remember' drought and change responses to survive

(PhysOrg.com) -- Plants subjected to a previous period of drought learn to deal with the stress thanks to their memories of the experience, new research has found.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Mar 15, 2012 | popularity 5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Pacific Northwest trees struggle for water while standing in it

Contrary to expectations, researchers have discovered that the conifers of the Pacific Northwest, some of the tallest trees in the world, face their greatest water stress during the region's eternally wet ...

Biology / Ecology

created Jul 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Climate: Risks loom for China: study

Climate change could reduce key harvests in China by a fifth if the gloomiest scenarios prove true, according to a study on Wednesday.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Sep 01, 2010 | popularity 1 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Drought drives decade-long decline in plant growth

Earth has done an ecological about-face: Global plant productivity that once flourished under warming temperatures and a lengthened growing season is now on the decline, struck by the stress of drought.

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Aug 19, 2010 | popularity 4 / 5 (16) | comments 2 | with audio podcast

Plants give up some deep secrets of drought resistance

In a study that promises to fill in the fine details of the plant world's blueprint for surviving drought, a team of Wisconsin researchers has identified in living plants the set of proteins that help them withstand water ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Aug 23, 2010 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (2) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Some corals like it hot: Heat stress may help coral reefs survive climate change

A team of international scientists working in the central Pacific have discovered that coral which has survived heat stress in the past is more likely to survive it in the future.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 30, 2012 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

DNA of ancient lost barley could help modern crops cope with water stress

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at the University of Warwick have recovered significant DNA information from a lost form of ancient barley that triumphed for over 3000 years seeing off: 5 changes in civilisation, ...

Biology / Biotechnology

created Jul 21, 2009 | popularity 4.2 / 5 (5) | comments 2

'Lab on a chip' to measure water stress in plants

(PhysOrg.com) -- Fifteen years ago, when Alan Lakso first sought to enlist Cornell's nanofabrication laboratory to develop a tiny sensor that would measure water stress in grapevines, the horticultural sciences ...

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Jul 07, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Time to find a second Earth, WWF says

Carbon pollution and over-use of Earth's natural resources have become so critical that, on current trends, we will need a second planet to meet our needs by 2030, the WWF said on Wednesday.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Oct 13, 2010 | popularity 3.4 / 5 (17) | comments 46

Irrigation's impacts on global carbon uptake

Globally, irrigation increases agricultural productivity by an amount roughly equivalent to the entire agricultural output of the U.S., according to a new University of Wisconsin-Madison study.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Aug 25, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

Europe faces drought and flood burden: climate scientist

A leading climate scientist warned Tuesday that Europe should take action over increasing drought and floods, stressing that some climate change trends were clear despite variations in predictions.

Space & Earth / Environment

created Apr 12, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (3) | comments 1

NASA studies vegetation canopy water content, soil moisture

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists seeking insight into the role vegetation plays in water fluctuation between soil and the atmosphere recently conducted research using specialized sensors during a series of NASA ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Dec 22, 2011 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Crop failures set to increase under climate change

Large-scale crop failures like the one that caused the recent Russian wheat crisis are likely to become more common under climate change due to an increased frequency of extreme weather events, a new study shows.

Biology / Ecology

created Oct 07, 2010 | popularity 2.5 / 5 (2) | comments 1

Rio Summit: Scientists warn of 'emergency on global scale'

Leading scientists on Thursday called on the upcoming Rio Summit to grapple with environmental ills that they said pointed to "a humanitarian emergency on a global scale."

Space & Earth / Environment

created Mar 29, 2012 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (13) | comments 39