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Tag: Plants

  • Southwest Airlines flight cancellations continue to snowball

    Southwest Airlines flight cancellations continue to snowball

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    DALLAS — Travelers who counted on Southwest Airlines to get them home suffered through another wave of canceled flights Wednesday, and pressure grew on the federal government to help customers get reimbursed for unexpected expenses they incurred because of the airline’s meltdown.

    Exhausted Southwest travelers tried finding seats on other airlines or renting cars to get to their destination, but many remained stranded. The airline’s CEO said it could be next week before the flight schedule returns to normal.

    Adontis Barber, a 34-year-old jazz pianist from Kansas City, Missouri, had camped out in the city’s airport since his Southwest flight was canceled Saturday and wondered if he would ever get to a New Year’s gig in Washington, D.C.

    “I give up,” he said. “I’m starting to feel homeless.”

    By late morning on the East Coast, about 90% of all canceled flights Wednesday in the U.S. were on Southwest, according to the FlightAware tracking service. Other airlines recovered from ferocious winter storms that hit large swaths of the country over the weekend, but not Southwest.

    The Dallas airline was undone by a combination of factors including an antiquated crew-scheduling system and a network design that allows cancellations in one region to cascade throughout the country rapidly. Those weaknesses are not new — they helped cause a similar failure by Southwest in October 2021.

    The federal government is now investigating what happened at Southwest, which carries more passengers within the United States than any other airline.

    In a video that Southwest posted late Tuesday, CEO Robert Jordan said Southwest would operate a reduced schedule for several days but hoped to be “back on track before next week.”

    Jordan blamed the winter storm for snarling the airline’s “highly complex” network. He said Southwest’s tools for recovering from disruptions work “99% of the time, but clearly we need to double down” on upgrading systems to avoid a repeat of this week.

    “We have some real work to do in making this right,” said Jordan, a 34-year Southwest veteran who became CEO in February. “For now, I want you to know that we are committed to that.”

    Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who has criticized airlines for previous disruptions, said that “meltdown” was the only word he could think of to describe this week’s events at Southwest. He noted that while cancellations across the rest of the industry declined to about 4% of scheduled flights, they remained above 60% at Southwest.

    From the high rate of cancellations to customers’ inability to reach Southwest on the phone, the airline’s performance has been unacceptable, Buttigieg said. He vowed to hold the airline accountable and push it to reimburse travelers.

    “They need to make sure that those stranded passengers get to where they need to go and that they are provided adequate compensation,” including for missed flights, hotels and meals, he said Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

    In Congress, the chair of the Senate Commerce Committee also promised an investigation. Separately, two other Senate Democrats called on Southwest to provide “significant” compensation for stranded travelers, saying that the airline has the money because it plans to pay $428 million in dividends next month.

    Leaders of Southwest’s labor unions have warned for years that the airline’s crew-scheduling system, which dates to the 1990s, was inadequate, and the CEO acknowledged this week that the technology needs to be upgraded.

    The other large U.S. airlines use “hub and spoke” networks in which flights radiate out from a few major or hub airports. That helps limit the reach of disruptions caused by bad weather in part of the country.

    Southwest, however, has a “point to point” network in which planes crisscross the country during the day. This can increase the utilization and efficiency of each plane, but problems in one place can ripple across the country, leaving crews trapped out of position.

    Barber, the musician from Kansas City, already missed a performance Sunday in Dallas but had hoped to make it to Washington in time for a New Year’s performance near the National Mall.

    “I’m missing out on money,” he lamented.

    ———

    AP Writer Heather Hollingsworth in Kansas City contributed to this report.

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  • California quake occurred in very seismically active region

    California quake occurred in very seismically active region

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    LOS ANGELES — The big earthquake that rocked the far north coast of California on Tuesday originated in an area under the Pacific Ocean where multiple tectonic plates collide, creating the state’s most seismically active region.

    The Mendocino Triple Junction is the meeting place of the Gorda, Pacific and North American plates, massive moving slabs of Earth’s crust that are also known as lithospheric plates.

    WHAT’S HAPPENING?

    The small Gorda Plate — often referred to jointly with the Juan de Fuca Plate to the north — is diving under the North American plate in a process called subduction. It is part of what scientists call the Cascadia subduction zone, which stretches from Northern California into Canada.

    “In this Triple Junction area, it’s a complicated jigsaw puzzle,” said Lori Dengler, professor emeritus of geology at Cal Poly Humboldt.

    Tuesday’s magnitude 6.4 earthquake occurred at 2:34 a.m. southwest of the small Humboldt County community of Ferndale, about 210 miles (345 kilometers) northwest of San Francisco. The quake was centered offshore and numerous aftershocks have followed.

    Initial analysis by the U.S. Geological Survey points to the Gorda Plate as the quake’s source.

    “The location, depth and faulting mechanism indicate that this event likely occurred within the subducting Gorda Plate,” the USGS said.

    DOES THIS HAPPEN OFTEN?

    It was the latest in a long history of large quakes that have struck the lightly populated region of redwood forests and quaint Victorian homes as the plates grind against each other.

    The USGS said that in the past century there have been at least 40 other earthquake of magnitude 6 or larger, including six quakes of magnitude 7 or larger, within 155 miles (250 kilometers) of where Tuesday’s quake was centered.

    The quake occurred one year to the day after the nearby Dec. 20, 2021, Petrolia quake. That quake was actually two overlapping quakes of magnitudes 6.2 and 5.7, according to the USGS.

    “We have hundreds of faults in the vicinity of what we call the Triple Junction,” Dengler said. “It’s just been sheared up. There are all sorts of pieces.”

    —-

    Associated Press writer Amy Taxin contributed to this report.

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  • Hawaii winter storm: thunder, hail and power outages

    Hawaii winter storm: thunder, hail and power outages

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    HONOLULU — A strong winter storm downed trees, knocked out power and flooded soccer fields as it moved across the Hawaiian Islands. Snow fell on the Big Island’s tallest peaks.

    National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Rozanski said Tuesday that the weather is typical of the kind of storm Hawaii occasionally gets in December and January. He called these storms “infrequent but not unusual.”

    The cold front came in from the northwest, delivering thunderstorms, powerful wind gusts and high surf. Some residents reported pea-sized hail, which Rozanski said was to be expected during a storm of this kind.

    Honolulu received dozens of calls about downed trees and branches. The county’s parks department closed Waipio’s soccer fields because they were saturated.

    A power outage forced the closure of the Wailuku courthouse. That prompted Hawaii Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald to order the rescheduling of hearings, trials and filing deadlines on Maui.

    Talmadge Magno, the director of Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, said that downed trees and flooding have blocked some roads.

    Snow fell on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, including where a vent was spewing lava only a few weeks ago as Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in 38 years. Winter snow on these mountains is not uncommon at high elevations. Mauna Kea rises to 13,803 feet (4,207 meters), and Mauna Loa is 13,679 feet (4,169 m).

    The storm was still battering the Big Island as it moved east on Tuesday. Magno said his agency expects to report the extent of the storm damage to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency on Friday.

    The cold front is separate from another storm that started hitting the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday and that’s expected to move to the northern Rockies, Plains and Midwest.

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  • Hawaii winter storm: thunder, hail and power outages

    Hawaii winter storm: thunder, hail and power outages

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    HONOLULU — A strong winter storm downed trees, knocked out power and flooded soccer fields as it moved across the Hawaiian Islands. Snow fell on the Big Island’s tallest peaks.

    National Weather Service meteorologist Scott Rozanski said Tuesday that the weather is typical of the kind of storm Hawaii occasionally gets in December and January. He called these storms “infrequent but not unusual.”

    The cold front came in from the northwest, delivering thunderstorms, powerful wind gusts and high surf. Some residents reported pea-sized hail, which Rozanski said was to be expected during a storm of this kind.

    Honolulu received dozens of calls about downed trees and branches. The county’s parks department closed Waipio’s soccer fields because they were saturated.

    A power outage forced the closure of the Wailuku courthouse. That prompted Hawaii Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald to order the rescheduling of hearings, trials and filing deadlines on Maui.

    Talmadge Magno, the director of Hawaii County Civil Defense Agency, said that downed trees and flooding have blocked some roads.

    Snow fell on Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa, including where a vent was spewing lava only a few weeks ago as Mauna Loa erupted for the first time in 38 years. Winter snow on these mountains is not uncommon at high elevations. Mauna Kea rises to 13,803 feet (4,207 meters), and Mauna Loa is 13,679 feet (4,169 m).

    The storm was still battering the Big Island as it moved east on Tuesday. Magno said his agency expects to report the extent of the storm damage to the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency on Friday.

    The cold front is separate from another storm that started hitting the Pacific Northwest on Tuesday and that’s expected to move to the northern Rockies, Plains and Midwest.

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  • US braces for dangerous blast of cold, wind and snow

    US braces for dangerous blast of cold, wind and snow

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    KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A large of swath of the U.S. braced Tuesday for a dangerous mix of below-freezing temperatures, howling winds and blizzard conditions scheduled to arrive on the first day of winter and disrupt plans for millions of holiday travelers.

    The blast of wintry weather will descend upon the Plains and upper Midwest on Wednesday, then blow toward Appalachia and the East Coast. Authorities across the country are worried about the potential for power outages and warned people to take precautions to protect the elderly, the homeless and livestock — and, if possible, to postpone travel.

    The northern-most regions of the U.S. could see wind chills approaching 70 degrees below zero (minus 57 Celsius) in the coming days.

    Even warm-weather states are preparing for the worst. Texas officials are hoping to avoid a repeat of the February 2021 storm that left millions without power, some for several days. Temperatures were expected to dip to near freezing as far south as central Florida by the weekend, raising worries about the homeless.

    The drop in temperatures will be precipitous. In Denver, the high on Wednesday will be around 50 degrees (10 degrees Celsius); by Thursday, it is forecast to plummet to around zero (minus 18 Celsius).

    The heaviest snow is expected in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, according to the National Weather Service, and frigid wind will be fierce across the country’s mid-section.

    “I would not be surprised if there are lots of delays due to wind and also a lot of delays due to the snow,” said Bob Oravec, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland.

    Flights nationwide were generally on schedule by midday Tuesday, but not in Seattle. A combination of snow, rain and low visibility caused nearly 200 flight cancellations at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport Tuesday morning. Greyhound cancelled bus service between Seattle and Spokane, Washington, due to winter weather.

    In Oregon, one person died Tuesday in an accident on Interstate 84 near Rooster Rock State Park when a semi-truck collided with their SUV. Police said the thin layer of ice on the highway may have been a contributing factor.

    Nearly 113 million Americans were expected to travel 50 miles or more from home this holiday season, up 4% from last year but still short of the record 119 million in 2019, according to AAA. Most were planning to travel by car; around 6% were planning to fly.

    Several inches of snow were expected from Chicago through the Great Lakes region by Friday. Snow also was forecast in the lower Midwest. With the storm approaching, Delta, American, United and Southwest airlines said they were waiving change fees for people at airports impacted by bad weather.

    Snow and near-record cold temperatures had Montana under a winter storm warning. The National Weather Service predicted wind-chill levels that could approach 60 degrees below zero (minus 51 Celsius) by Thursday morning. Exposed skin could be frostbitten in a matter of minutes.

    Almost impossibly, the forecast was even worse for parts of Wyoming. The 1,500-resident town of Lusk could see wind chills of 70 degrees below zero (minus 57 Celsius.) The National Weather Service’s Cheyenne office said the temperature and wind chill Wednesday night into Thursday “features some of the most extreme values you will ever see!”

    “Please take precautions: Check on elderly/vulnerable, protect pets, shelter livestock, cover exposed skin!” the service said on Twitter.

    Karina Jones’ family raises about 400 head of cattle in north-central Nebraska near Broken Bow, where wind chills as low as 50 below zero (minus 46 Celsius) are expected Thursday and Friday mornings. She said Nebraska cattle ranchers are “a hearty bunch,” but the bitter cold is rough.

    Ranchers “lie awake at night praying that you did everything you could for your livestock,” Jones said.

    In Kansas, where up to 4 inches of snow is expected to accompany wind chills dipping to 40 degrees below zero (minus 40 Celsius), Shawn Tiffany runs three feedlots with about 35,000 cattle combined. He’s worried about keeping 40 employees safe and warm.

    “Every conversation I’ve had for the last four days has consisted of ‘Are you prepared and are you ready?’ Everybody is taking it very seriously,” Tiffany said.

    In Texas, where the temperature is expected to drop to around 11 degrees (minus 12 Celsius), the bitter cold was expected to be another test for the state’s power grid.

    A historic freeze in February 2021 led to one of the biggest power outages in U.S. history, knocking out electricity to 4 million customers in Texas and leading to hundreds of deaths.

    The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the state’s power grid, said last week it expects to have sufficient generation to meet anticipated electricity demand during this week’s winter blast. The council said it has implemented reforms to increase reliability, including bringing more generation online sooner if needed and purchasing more reserve power.

    But a report on the power grid that ERCOT published last month said that Texans could still face possible power outages this winter if an extreme storm prompted very high demand for electricity.

    The frigid weather offers another hurdle to the homeless. In Kansas City, Missouri, emergency shelters are opening for anyone needing warmth, food or safety. Organizers warn, though, that capacity is limited overnight.

    “We’re going to get in as many as we can,” said Karl Ploeger, chief development officer for City Union Mission, a Christian nonprofit.

    If the shelters are over-capacity at night, the mission works with other organizations to try and find alternatives spaces for people.

    “If we’re full and some other sources are full, they are going to have to figure out how to keep themselves warm. We try to avoid that, we don’t want that to happen, especially in the dangerous conditions,” Ploeger said.

    Northern Florida cities such as Tallahassee see temperatures in the low 20s (minus 3 Celsius) on Friday, Christmas Eve and Christmas nights. The forecast calls for temperatures to drop to near freezing as far south as Tampa.

    ———

    Lozano reported from Houston and Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska. Claire Rush in Portland, Oregon, Julie Walker in New York, Jeff Martin in Atlanta, Jill Zeman Bleed in Little Rock, Arkansas, Dee-Ann Durbin in Detroit and Amy Hanson in Helena, Montana, contributed to this report.

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  • Governments move closer to deal at biodiversity conference

    Governments move closer to deal at biodiversity conference

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    There were signs Sunday that negotiators were closing in on a deal at a U.N. conference that would protect nature and provide financing to set up protected areas and restore degraded ecosystems.

    China, which holds the presidency at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, released a draft deal that calls for protecting 30% of the most important global land and marine areas by 2030. Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas are protected.

    The draft also calls for raising $200 billion by 2030 for biodiversity and working to phase out or reform subsidies that could provide another $500 billion for nature. As part of that, it calls to increase to at least $20 billion annually or by some estimates triple the amount that goes to poor countries by 2025. That number would increase to $30 billion each year by 2030.

    The draft now goes to a meeting of all governments this evening and could be adopted soon after.

    “Today the world’s countries rose to the occasion and produced a historic draft that agrees to protect at least 30% of our planet,” Enric Sala, National Geographic Explorer in Residence and Pristine Seas Founder, said in a statement. “This recognizes years of work by negotiators, researchers, conservationists, and Indigenous Peoples. Now we just need to maintain the political will to get this ambition across the finish line without diminishing its scope. World leaders must remain committed to bold action in Montreal.”

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries mostly agree that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they have struggled for nearly two weeks to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries during the week, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity should be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “All the elements are in there for a balance of unhappiness which is the secret to achieving agreement in U.N. bodies,” Pierre du Plessis, a negotiator from Namibia who is helping coordinate the African group, told The Associated Press. “Everyone got a bit of what they wanted, not necessarily everything they wanted. Let’s see if there is there is a spirit of unity.”

    Others praised the fact the document recognizes the rights of Indigenous communities.

    “By including strong language safeguarding the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities and recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories, the text provides an opportunity for a new era of partnership, respect and rights-based conservation,” Brian O’Donnell, the director of the Campaign for Nature, said in a statement. “This could be the paradigm shift that scientists and Indigenous leaders have been calling for.”

    But others were concerned that the draft puts off until 2050 a goal of preventing the extinction of species and preserving the integrity of ecosystems.

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey on Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Biodiversity talks in final days with many issues unresolved

    Biodiversity talks in final days with many issues unresolved

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    Negotiators at a United Nations biodiversity conference Saturday have still not resolved most of the key issues around protecting the world’s nature by 2030 and providing tens of billions of dollars to developing countries to fund those efforts.

    The United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP15, is set to wrap up Monday in Montreal and delegates were racing to agree on language in a framework that calls for protecting 30% of global land and marine areas by 2030, a goal known as “30 by 30.” Currently, 17% of terrestrial and 10% of marine areas globally are protected.

    They also have to settle on amounts of funding that would go to financing projects to create protected areas and restore marine and other ecosystems. Early draft frameworks called for closing a $700 billion gap in financing by 2030. Most of that would come from reforming subsidies in the agriculture, fisheries and energy sectors but there are also calls for tens of billions of dollars in new funding that would flow from rich to poor nations.

    “From the beginning of the negotiations, we’ve been seeing systematically some countries weakening the ambition. The ambition needs to come back,” Marco Lambertini, the director general of WWF International said, adding that they needed a “clear conservation target” that “sets the world on a clear trajectory towards delivering a nature positive future.”

    Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change Steven Guilbeault expressed more optimism. Guilbeault told The Associated Press Saturday morning that he has heard “few people talk about red lines” and that means “people are willing to talk. People are willing to negotiate.”

    “I’ve heard a lot of support for ambition from all corners of the world,” Guilbeault said. “Everyone wants to leave here with an ambitious agreement.”

    Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, the executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, told reporters Saturday afternoon that she was encouraged by the progress especially around committing resources but that a deal had not been reached yet.

    “The negotiating teams have more work to do. They have to turn promises made into plans, ambitions and actions,” she said.

    The ministers and government officials from about 190 countries mostly agree that protecting biodiversity has to be a priority, with many comparing those efforts to climate talks that wrapped up last month in Egypt.

    Climate change coupled with habitat loss, pollution and development have hammered the world’s biodiversity, with one estimate in 2019 warning that a million plant and animal species face extinction within decades — a rate of loss 1,000 times greater than expected. Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely, and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 8 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said.

    But they are struggling to agree on what that protection looks like and who will pay for it.

    The financing has been among the most contentions issues, with delegates from 70 African, South American and Asian countries walking out of negotiations Wednesday. They returned several hours later.

    Brazil, speaking for developing countries, said in a statement that a new funding mechanism dedicated to biodiversity be established and that developed countries provide $100 billion annually in financial grants to emerging economies until 2030.

    “You need a robust and ambitious package on finance that matches the ambition of the Global Biodiversity framework,” Leonardo Cleaver de Athayde, the head of the Brazilian delegation, told the AP.

    “This will cost a lot of money to implement. The targets are extremely ambitious and cost a lot of money,” he continued. “The developing countries will bear a higher burden in implementing it because most biodiversity resources are to be found in developing countries. They need international support.”

    The donor countries — the European Union and 13 countries — responded Friday with a statement promising to increase biodiversity financing. They noted they doubled biodiversity spending from 2010 to 2015 and committed to several billion dollars more in biodiversity funding since then.

    Zac Goldsmith, the U.K.’s minister for Overseas Territories, Commonwealth, Energy, Climate and Environment, acknowledged the focus cannot only be on popular protection measures like the 30 by 30 goal.

    “The 30-by-30 is a headline target, but you can’t deliver 30-by-30 without a whole range of other things being agreed as well,” he said. “We’re not gonna have 30-by-30 without finance. We’re not going to have it unless other countries do as Costa Rica has and break the link between agricultural productivity and land degradation and deforestation. And we’re not gonna be able to do any of these things if we don’t address … subsidies.”

    Even protection targets are still being squabbled over. Many countries believe 30% is an admirable goal but some countries are pushing to water the language down to allow among other things sustainable activities in those areas that conservationists fear could result in destructive logging and mining. Others want language referencing ways to better manage the other 70% of the world that wouldn’t be protected.

    Other disagreements revolve around how best to share the benefits from genetic resources and enshrining the rights of Indigenous groups in any agreement. Some Indigenous groups want direct access to funding and a voice in designating protected areas that impact Indigenous peoples.

    “Any protected areas that affect Indigenous peoples need to have the free prior informed consent of Indigenous peoples, otherwise there will be the same old patters of Indigenous peoples being displaced by protected areas,” Atossa Soltani, the director of global strategy for the Amazon Sacred Headwaters Initiative, an alliance of 30 Indigenous nations in Ecuador and Peru working to working to permanently protect 86 million acres of rainforest, said in an email interview.

    The other challenge is including language — similar to the Paris Agreement on climate change — that creates a stronger system to report and verify the progress countries make. Many point to the failures of the 2010 biodiversity framework, which saw only six of the 20 targets partially met by a 2020 deadline.

    “It’s very important for parties to see what others are doing. It’s important for civil society, people like you to track our progress or sometimes unfortunately lack thereof,” Guilbeault said. “It’s an important tool to help keep our feet to the fire. If it’s effective on climate. We should have it on nature as well.”

    ———

    Follow Michael Casey on Twitter: @mcasey1

    ———

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Nevada flower listed as endangered at lithium mine site

    Nevada flower listed as endangered at lithium mine site

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    RENO, Nev. — A Nevada wildflower was declared endangered at the only place it’s known to exist — on a high-desert ridge where a lithium mine is planned to help meet growing demand for electric car batteries, U.S. wildlife officials announced Wednesday.

    The Fish and Wildlife Service’s formal listing of Tiehm’s buckwheat and its accompanying designation of 910 acres (368 hectares) of critical habitat for the 6-inch-tall (15-centimeter-tall) flower with yellow blooms raises another potential hurdle for President Joe Biden’s “green energy” agenda.

    With an estimated remaining population of only about 16,000 plants, the service concluded that Tiehm’s buckwheat is on the brink of extinction.

    “We find that a threatened species status is not appropriate because the threats are severe and imminent, and Tiehm’s buckwheat is in danger of extinction now, as opposed to likely to become endangered in the future,” the agency said.

    The proposed mining and mineral exploration poses the biggest threat to the flower. It’s also threatened by road-building, livestock grazing, rodents that eat it, invasive plants and climate change, the service said. It said an apparent, unprecedented rodent attack wiped out about 60% of its estimated population in 2020.

    Ioneer, the Australian mining company that’s been planning for years to dig for lithium where the flower grows on federal land halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, says it has developed a protection plan that would allow the plant and the project to coexist.

    But the listing under the Endangered Species Act subjects the mine to its most stringent regulatory requirement to date.

    It also underscores the challenges facing the Biden administration in its efforts to combat climate change through an accelerated transition from fossil fuels to renewables.

    “Lithium is an important part of our renewable energy transition, but it can’t come at the cost of extinction,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director for the Center for Biological Diversity, which petitioned for the listing in 2019 and sued last year to expedite the plant’s protection.

    The mining company said the decision “provides further clarity for the path forward” and is “fully in line with Ioneer’s expectations” for development of the mine site at Rhyolite Ridge in the Silver Peak Range west of Tonopah, near the California border.

    “We are committed to the protection and conservation of the species and have incorporated numerous measures into our current and future plans to ensure this occurs,” Ioneer managing director Bernard Rowe said in a statement.

    “Our operations have and will continue to avoid all Tiehm’s buckwheat populations,” he said.

    The service’s final listing rule will be published Thursday in the Federal Register.

    The conservationists who sued to protect the plant insist that Ioneer’s mitigation plan won’t pass legal muster. They pledge to resume their court battle if necessary to protect the buckwheat’s habitat from the rush to develop new lithium deposits.

    The flowers are found on a total of just 10 acres (4 hectares) spread across about 3 square miles (7.8 square kilometers). Federal agencies are prohibited from approving any activity on federal lands that could destroy, modify or adversely affect any listed species’ critical habitat.

    Donnelly said the company’s latest operations plan for the first phase of the mine proposes avoiding a “tiny island of land” containing 75% of its population — surrounded by an open pit mine and tailings dumps within 12 feet (3.7 meters) of the flowers.

    The Bureau of Land Management is reviewing the environmental impacts of Ioneer’s latest operations and protection plans.

    But Donnelley noted that USFWS estimated in Wednesday’s final listing rule that the proposed scenario would “disturb and remove up to 38% of the critical habitat for this species, impacting pollinator populations, altering hydrology, removing soil and risking subsidence.”

    “Ioneer’s ‘Buckwheat Island’ scenario would spell doom for this sensitive little flower,” Donnelly said.

    The mine is among several renewable energy-related projects facing legal or regulatory challenges in Nevada. They include another lithium mine proposed near the Oregon border and a geothermal power plant where the Dixie Valley toad has been declared endangered in wetlands about 100 miles (160 kilometers) east of Reno.

    “Now that the buckwheat is protected, we’ll use the full power of the Endangered Species Act to ensure Ioneer doesn’t harm one hair on a buckwheat’s head,” Donnelly said.

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  • Storm blowing through California dumps snow in Sierra

    Storm blowing through California dumps snow in Sierra

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    SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Heavy snow fell in the Sierra Nevada as a winter storm packing powerful winds sent ski lift chairs swinging and closed mountain highways while downpours at lower elevations triggered flood watches Sunday across large swaths of California into Nevada.

    More than 250 miles (400 km) of the Sierra from north of Reno south to Yosemite National Park remained under winter storm warnings either until late Sunday or early Monday.

    The Heavenly ski resort at Lake Tahoe shut down some operations when the brunt of the storm hit Saturday. The resort posted video of lift chairs swaying violently because of gusts that topped 100 mph (161 kph), along with a tweeted reminder that wind closures are “always for your safety.”

    To the south, Mammoth Mountain reported that more than 20 inches (51 cm) of snow fell Saturday, with another 2 feet (.6 meters) possible as the tail end of the system moved through the eastern Sierra.

    The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab in Soda Springs, California reported Sunday morning that more than 43 inches (110 cm) had fallen in a 48-hour span.

    A 70-mile (112-km) stretch of eastbound U.S. Interstate 80 was closed Saturday “due to zero visibility” from the northern California town of Colfax to the Nevada state line, transportation officials said. Chains were required on much of the rest of I-80 and other routes in the mountains from Reno toward Sacramento.

    Many other key roads were closed because of heavy snow, including a stretch of California Highway 89 between Tahoe City and South Lake Tahoe, the highway patrol said.

    The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for the backcountry in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe where it said “several feet of new snow and strong winds will result in dangerous avalanche conditions.”

    Gusts up to 50 mph (80 kph) that sent trees into homes in Sonoma County north of San Francisco on Saturday could reach 100 mph (160 kph) over Sierra ridgetops on Sunday, the National Weather Service said.

    Heavy rain was forecast through the weekend from San Francisco to the Sierra crest with up to 2 inches (5 cm) in the Bay Area and up to 5 inches (13 cm) at Grass Valley northeast of Sacramento.

    Warnings and watches were also up across Southern California, as heavy rain caused localized flooding in greater Los Angeles.

    “Significant travel delays possible with accumulating snow on several mountain roads. This could include the Tejon Pass and Grapevine area of Interstate 5,” the National Weather Service’s LA-area office said in a statement.

    Forecasters in Arizona issued a winter storm watch for northern and central Arizona beginning Sunday evening for areas above 5000 feet (1,525 meters) including Flagstaff, Prescott and the Grand Canyon, where icy temperatures and up to a foot of snow was predicted.

    As the storm exits the U.S. West, it will push across the country and reach the Plains by mid-week, bringing significant rain and below-average temperatures, said Marc Chenard, meteorologist at the National Weather Service at the national center in College Park, Maryland.

    “It will be a busy week while this system moves across the country,” Chenard said Sunday.

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  • Storm blowing through California dumps snow in Sierra

    Storm blowing through California dumps snow in Sierra

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    SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. — Heavy snow fell in the Sierra Nevada as a winter storm packing powerful winds sent ski lift chairs swinging and closed mountain highways while downpours at lower elevations triggered flood watches Sunday across large swaths of California into Nevada.

    More than 250 miles (400 km) of the Sierra from north of Reno south to Yosemite National Park remained under winter storm warnings either until late Sunday or early Monday.

    The Heavenly ski resort at Lake Tahoe shut down some operations on Saturday when the brunt of the storm hit. The resort posted video of lift chairs swaying violently because of gusts that topped 100 mph (161 kph), along with a tweeted reminder that wind closures are “always for your safety.”

    To the south, Mammoth Mountain reported that more than 20 inches (51 cm) of snow fell Saturday, with another 2 feet (.6 meters) possible on Sunday as the tail end of the system moves through the eastern Sierra.

    The UC Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab reported Sunday morning that more than 43 inches (110 cm) had fallen in a 48-hour span.

    A 70-mile (112-km) stretch of eastbound U.S. Interstate 80 was closed Saturday “due to zero visibility” from the northern California town of Colfax to the Nevada state line, transportation officials said. Chains were required on much of the rest of I-80 in the mountains from Reno toward Sacramento.

    A stretch of California Highway 89 also was closed due to heavy snow between Tahoe City and South Lake Tahoe, the highway patrol said.

    The U.S. Forest Service issued an avalanche warning for the backcountry in the mountains west of Lake Tahoe where it said “several feet of new snow and strong winds will result in dangerous avalanche conditions.”

    Gusts up to 50 mph (80 kph) that sent trees into homes in Sonoma County north of San Francisco on Saturday could reach 100 mph (160 kph) over Sierra ridgetops on Sunday, the National Weather Service said.

    Heavy rain was forecast through the weekend from San Francisco to the Sierra crest with up to 2 inches (5 cm) in the Bay Area and up to 5 inches (13 cm) at Grass Valley northeast of Sacramento.

    Warnings and watches were also up across Southern California, as heavy rain caused localized flooding in greater Los Angeles.

    “Significant travel delays possible with accumulating snow on several mountain roads. This could include the Tejon Pass and Grapevine area of Interstate 5,” the National Weather Service said in a statement.

    As the storm exits California and Nevada, it will push across the country and reach the Plains by mid-week, bringing significant rain and below-average temperatures, said Marc Chenard, meteorologist at the National Weather Service at the national center in College Park, Maryland.

    “It will be a busy week while this system moves across the country,” Chenard said Sunday.

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  • Plant ecologist awarded NSF grant for restoring the culturally important Emory oak

    Plant ecologist awarded NSF grant for restoring the culturally important Emory oak

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    Newswise — Assistant professor Sara Souther of Northern Arizona University’s School of Earth and Sustainability (SES) is the principal investigator on a major new project focused on restoring a tree species important to the cultural heritage of tribal communities in the Southwest. 

    Acorns from the Emory oak tree are a critically important resource for the Western Apache tribal nations—including the Yavapai-Apache, Tonto Apache, San Carlos Apache and White Mountain Apache in east and central Arizona—who use it both for food and cultural and ceremonial purposes. Groves of Emory oak have been declining in health and yielding fewer acorns with each harvest for several decades due to loss of habitat, fire suppression, livestock grazing, groundwater reductions, species competition and climate change. 

    With $1.5 million in funding from the National Science Foundation, Souther will launch a five-year project starting in March entitled “DISES: Restoration of a southwestern cultural keystone species: Integrating socio‐ecological systems to predict resilience of traditional acorn harvest by western Apache communities.” Co-PIs on the multidisciplinary conservation project, representing SES and NAU’s School of Forestry as well as the departments of biology, sociology and geography, planning & recreation, are associate professor Clare Aslan, Regents’ professor Peter Fulé, assistant professor Alark Saxena, associate teaching professor Amanda Stan, associate professor Diana Stuart, professor Andi Thode and associate professor Amy Whipple. 

    “I am extremely excited to have the resources to explore this amazing social-ecological system. For a long time, I’ve felt that wild harvest and traditional ecological practices and traditions have been viewed as niche issues within the world of conservation. It is thrilling to see this work elevated by the NSF,” Souther said.  

    “We are taking a holistic landscape-level approach to understand the threats to these woodlands. Emory oaks are a cultural keystone species for western Apache tribes and the dominant oak in the Madrean oak woodlands, which cover around 80,000 km2 across the Southwest and US-Mexico borderlands,” she said. “Despite this, the Madrean oak system is understudied. In order to conserve Emory oak, we need to quickly learn a lot about this ecosystem, and in particular, we must understand what constrains population growth and viability.” 

    Souther’s work has always focused on understanding ecocultural interactions, supporting communities connected to these landscapes and conserving land and traditions. This funding will support these goals, providing the opportunity to rapidly learn about the Madrean oak woodlands as a coupled human and natural system, she said. 

    This project builds on work done through the Emory Oak Collaborative Tribal Restoration Initiative  (EOCTRI), a collaborative partnership between NAU, the U.S. Forest Service and five different Apache tribes. Their goal is to restore and protect Emory oak stands to ensure the long-term persistence of Emory oak using tribal traditional ecological knowledge to guide goals and activities. Since 2018, the partners have worked together to identify and assess important Emory oak stands, complete clearances and begin implementing restoration and protection activities for several groves. With this new project, the team’s goals are to expand their knowledge of the Emory oak system, support the goals of EOCTRI—to conserve Emory oak trees and the traditional acorn harvest by Western Apache tribes—and provide knowledge to the EOCTRI group according to the ethics of the Chi’Chil Advisory Committee. Watch this video to learn more about EOCTRI’s efforts. 

    Souther’s project also is related to an initiative that was launched to better understand how to manage ecocultural resources on public lands—the Tribal Nations Botanical Research Collaborative (TNBRC), a U.S. Forest Service Citizen Science program in which volunteers collect information on traditionally used plants that have cultural, medicinal or economic values important to tribal communities. They record observations of these plants using the iNaturalist app on their cell phones. Scientists gather and analyze the data and use it to shape conservation and land management goals for increased sustainability. 

    Research related to Souther’s roots in rural Appalachia 

    “My work with the Emory oak builds on my past research on traditional use plant conservation in Appalachia,” Souther said. “I grew up in West Virginia, which has a rich heritage of harvesting wild plants for food, medicine and other essentials. It wasn’t until I went to Paraguay, as a Peace Corps volunteer, that I realized how much of this traditional knowledge had been lost in Appalachian culture. In Paraguay, small children knew the names and uses of all the plants growing in forests and fields nearby—which meant that most children had a working knowledge of hundreds of plants. Meanwhile, in West Virginia, most of this ecological knowledge was held by the elderly and was not actively passed down to youth. I could see our Appalachian culture disappearing, and for me, this ecocultural erosion was devastating. Harvest expeditions in Appalachia, whether to pick ramps (wild onions), blueberries or pawpaw (a fruit related to custard-apples), were part of the experience growing up in West Virginia and important for connecting with family and the land. More broadly, I feel that maintaining human connections to the land is key to human health and well-being and critical to inspire conservation of our wild spaces.” 

    Project designed to involve students from underrepresented groups  

    Souther is dedicated to outreach, mentorship and training to promote the participation of underrepresented groups in STEM, and she is using this project as an opportunity to hire several students. Souther is also a co-PI with Amy Whipple on another project designed to increase diversity in STEM targeting post-baccalaureate training for underrepresented groups, principally Indigenous communities.  

    “Coming from rural Appalachia, I connect with students who may feel like outsiders in STEM fields. It is extremely important to me to support underrepresented groups as they navigate graduate school and academia. My commitment to increasing diversity in STEM fields is personal, since support from NSF and university faculty launched my career, and also practical, because I believe that the sciences will be strengthened by diverse opinions and thinkers.” 

    The team will recruit four graduate students for this project as well as undergraduate students to support field work in the summer. Applications are available on the lab website. 

    “The broader impacts of this project will be to advance understanding and predictive modeling of stochastic drought events, which will likely drive ecological change in the Southwest and other arid regions,” Souther said. “Integrating information from Native American tribal collaborators, we will contribute to diversity and inclusion in environmental resource management, ensuring that Indigenous perspectives and needs are incorporated into decision-making.” 

    She is also working on a two-year project funded through a $538,203 award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration entitled, “Projecting socio-ecological impacts of drought in southwestern ecosystems to prioritize restoration initiatives.” Stuart and Steven Chischilly from the Navajo Technical Institute are co-PIs on this project. 

    About Northern Arizona University 

    Founded in 1899, Northern Arizona University is a community-engaged, high-research university that delivers an exceptional student-centered experience to its nearly 28,000 students in Flagstaff, at 22 statewide campuses and online. Building on a 123-year history of distinctive excellence, NAU aims to be the nation’s preeminent engine of opportunity, vehicle of economic mobility and driver of social impact by delivering equitable postsecondary value in Arizona and beyond. NAU is committed to meeting talent with access and excellence through its impactful academic programs and enriching experiences, paving the way to a better future for the diverse students it serves and the communities they represent.  

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  • Researcher aims to uncover plant invasions in the tropics

    Researcher aims to uncover plant invasions in the tropics

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    Newswise — Invasive species of plants have a knack for settling in new settings and making big changes to an ecosystem, even leading to extinctions of native species.

    Assistant Research Professor in UConn’s Institute of the Environment Julissa Rojas-Sandoval explains that invasive plants are non-native species that have been introduced into new areas generally as a result of human activities, and that they are actively spreading, causing harm to the environment, the economy, and human health.  Invasive plants may have significant long-term implications for the conservation of native biodiversity, but to combat the problem, we need to know which plants are invasive, where they’re from, and how they got there.

    Rojas-Sandoval leads an international collaboration including researchers from all Central American countries, working together to compile the most comprehensive databases of invasive plant species in Central America. The collaboration is called FINCA: Flora Introduced and Naturalized in Central America, and their first paper was published this week in Biological Invasions.

    The collaboration arose to meet a need, says Rojas-Sandoval. “While we have a good understanding of the processes and mechanisms of plant invasions in temperate regions, there is a huge gap in our knowledge about biological invasions in the tropics, and this lack of information is limiting our ability to respond to invasive plants.”

    Remediation and the impact on the conservation of biodiversity is an important focus, but invasive plants also threaten the social and economic impact aspects of the region. Rojas-Sandoval points out that for places like her native Costa Rica, which relies on eco-tourism and agriculture, the impacts of not dealing with the invasive species could be significant.

    It has been suggested that the huge diversity of plants in tropical regions may provide resistance to invasions, meaning that these ecosystems could be less threatened by invasive species because of the competition between so many different plants, but Rojas-Sandoval has studied this topic for the last 15 years and says the problem is greater than is widely understood.

    “Across the tropics, the acceleration in the rates of introduction of non-native plants, as well as increments in the rates of habitat loss and forest degradation, are transforming tropical forests and making them more susceptible and less resistant to invasions,” she says.

    Rojas-Sandoval explains that, as the juncture between North and South America, Central America is a regional hotspot of biodiversity, home to about 7% of the world’s plant and animal species. The region is also very vulnerable to climate change, she says:

    “Climate models predict more extreme events for Central America, more and stronger hurricanes, droughts, and other impacts related to climate change. But we don’t know how climate change is already impacting both native and invasive plant species across this region. That information is necessary to be able to start doing something.”

    Rojas-Sandoval and co-author Eduardo Chacón-Madrigal from the University of Costa Rica seized the opportunity and decided to start collecting and compiling any available information to make a comprehensive checklist necessary to address the challenges posed by invasive plants.

    They also reached out to other researchers from across Central America to see if they would be interested in collaborating and the timing was fortunate, says Rojas-Sandoval.

    “Due to COVID, people were stuck at home and, despite the many difficulties, we all had extra time to collaborate revising lists of species and providing crucial information for the project,” she says.

    The team gathered data from herbarium collections in Central America and from collections around the world as well as references from existing botanical surveys, lists of alien species, and other literature.

    “We compiled all this information into a list and then sent it to the experts in different countries so they could evaluate it. Then we did a second verification process because we wanted to be completely sure that we were dealing with species that were 100% alien to the region and to validate the occurrence and classification performed by the experts.

    “We were able to identify that species from all over the world have been introduced to different countries in Central America, and more than 60% of them have been introduced for ornamental purposes. It is good that we can identify those species, so we know where to focus for later studies.”

    The team also determined that invasive plants have made their way into all the major habitats in Central America, and the trend is steadily increasing. This information can now be used to generate specific recommendations for the governments or for the local authorities, to use their resources in the best ways possible to have an impact in controlling the invasive species, says Rojas-Sandoval, adding that the best remedy is prevention – alerting people to the issues before the plants even arrive.

    For invasive plants that have already been established, it will take education, persistence, and resources to deal with the problem. However, another important aspect of the problem is that developing countries often don’t have the additional resources needed to fully address the situation.

    “The local authorities and people in Central America and other regions in the tropics are already dealing with so many issues, including poverty, climate change, pollution, and over-exploitation of natural resources that it is even more important to optimize the use of any resources available to mitigate the impact of invasive species,” she says. “This is more bad news for many people dealing with so many problems, and it is crucial to increase awareness and support for the issue of biological invasions in the tropics.

    “The sooner we start doing something, the better the results will be.”

     

    The FINCA collaboration also includes: Eduardo Chacón-Madrigal (Universidad de Costa Rica), Lilian Ferrufino-Acosta (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Honduras), Rodolfo Flores (Los Naturalistas, Panama), Omar López (Universidad de Panamá & Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute), AnaLu MacVean (York College), Indiana Coronado (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Nicaragua), Pablo Galán and Dagoberto Rodríguez (Herbario Jardín Botánico La Laguna, El Salvador), and Yader Ruiz (Universidad de El Salvador).

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  • Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago

    Oldest DNA reveals life in Greenland 2 million years ago

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    NEW YORK — Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even the now extinct mastodon.

    “The study opens the door into a past that has basically been lost,” said lead author Kurt Kjær, a geologist and glacier expert at the University of Copenhagen.

    With animal fossils hard to come by, the researchers extracted environmental DNA, also known as eDNA, from soil samples. This is the genetic material that organisms shed into their surroundings — for example, through hair, waste, spit or decomposing carcasses.

    Studying really old DNA can be a challenge because the genetic material breaks down over time, leaving scientists with only tiny fragments.

    But with the latest technology, researchers were able to get genetic information out of the small, damaged bits of DNA, explained senior author Eske Willerslev, a geneticist at the University of Cambridge. In their study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, they compared the DNA to that of different species, looking for matches.

    The samples came from a sediment deposit called the Kap København formation in Peary Land. Today, the area is a polar desert, Kjær said.

    But millions of years ago, this region was undergoing a period of intense climate change that sent temperatures up, Willerslev said. Sediment likely built up for tens of thousands of years at the site before the climate cooled and cemented the finds into permafrost.

    The cold environment would help preserve the delicate bits of DNA — until scientists came along and drilled the samples out, beginning in 2006.

    During the region’s warm period, when average temperatures were 20 to 34 degrees Fahrenheit (11 to 19 degrees Celsius) higher than today, the area was filled with an unusual array of plant and animal life, the researchers reported. The DNA fragments suggest a mix of Arctic plants, like birch trees and willow shrubs, with ones that usually prefer warmer climates, like firs and cedars.

    The DNA also showed traces of animals including geese, hares, reindeer and lemmings. Previously, a dung beetle and some hare remains had been the only signs of animal life at the site, Willerslev said.

    One big surprise was finding DNA from the mastodon, an extinct species that looks like a mix between an elephant and a mammoth, Kjær said.

    Many mastodon fossils have previously been found from temperate forests in North America. That’s an ocean away from Greenland, and much farther south, Willerslev said.

    “I wouldn’t have, in a million years, expected to find mastodons in northern Greenland,” said Love Dalen, a researcher in evolutionary genomics at Stockholm University who was not involved in the study.

    Because the sediment built up in the mouth of a fjord, researchers were also able to get clues about marine life from this time period. The DNA suggests horseshoe crabs and green algae lived in the area — meaning the nearby waters were likely much warmer back then, Kjær said.

    By pulling dozens of species out of just a few sediment samples, the study highlights some of eDNA’s advantages, said Benjamin Vernot, an ancient DNA researcher at Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology who was not involved in the study.

    “You really get a broader picture of the ecosystem at a particular time,” Vernot said. “You don’t have to go and find this piece of wood to study this plant, and this bone to study this mammoth.”

    Based on the data available, it’s hard to say for sure whether these species truly lived side by side, or if the DNA was mixed together from different parts of the landscape, said Laura Epp, an eDNA expert at Germany’s University of Konstanz who was not involved in the study.

    But Epp said this kind of DNA research is valuable to show “hidden diversity” in ancient landscapes.

    Willerslev believes that because these plants and animals survived during a time of dramatic climate change, their DNA could offer a “genetic roadmap” to help us adapt to current warming.

    Stockholm University’s Dalen expects ancient DNA research to keep pushing deeper into the past. He worked on the study that previously held the “oldest DNA” record, from a mammoth tooth around a million years old.

    “I wouldn’t be surprised if you can go at least one or perhaps a few million years further back, assuming you can find the right samples,” Dalen said.

    ———

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Three Techniques, Three Species, Different Ways to Fight Drought

    Three Techniques, Three Species, Different Ways to Fight Drought

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    The Science

    Rising temperatures and increasing droughts have scientists looking for ways to better predict how plants will react to stress. Every study offers a little more information. Now, scientists have discovered a way to yield a wealth of insights in a single study. Combining three advanced research techniques that are rarely used together, they found they could pinpoint how different types of plants protect themselves from harsh conditions. Even more surprising? Plants try various strategies to assure their survival.

    The Impact

    When used together, the three techniques reveal a surprising amount of information about the chemical processes inside plants. Scientists can also look for patterns across plant communities. The results can help identify when plants require more water or more nutrients to keep growing during times of stress, even in diverse environments. How plants respond to drought can also have profound impacts on the movement of carbon through the environment, which ultimately influences climate. 

    Summary

    Working under the Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science (FICUS) program, scientists examined the effects of drought on chemical processes inside the roots of three tropical rainforest species. The team included researchers from the University of Arizona, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and the University of Freiburg. To understand the plant’s chemical functioning, including how it utilized carbon, the team combined cutting-edge metabolomic and imaging technologies at the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL), a Department of Energy (DOE) user facility. They used powerful nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to identify the type and structure of molecules in the plant roots. They then created detailed images of tissues using mass spectrometry (matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry) and took nanoscale measurements of elements and iisotopes (nanoscale secondary ion mass spectrometry).

    This combination of techniques yielded insights into different defense mechanisms plants use to survive drought. One species added woody lignin to thicken its roots. The second secreted antioxidants and fatty acids as a biochemical defense. The third appeared less affected by drought conditions, but the soil around it had a higher level of carbon. This indicates that the plant and the microbes in the soil were working together to protect the plant. Overall, this study demonstrates how multiple techniques can be combined to identify different drought-tolerance strategies and ways to keep plants thriving.

     

    Funding

    A portion of this research was performed under the FICUS exploratory effort and used resources at the DOE Joint Genome Institute and EMSL, both of which are DOE Office of Science user facilities. This research was supported in part by the European Research Council and the DOE Office of Science, Biological and Environmental Research program. The Philecology Foundation and the European Research Council also provided financial support.


    Journal Link: Environmental Science & Technology

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  • 5 plants that say `holiday season,’ and how to care for them

    5 plants that say `holiday season,’ and how to care for them

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    Holiday horticulture tends to revolve around the same handful of plants. So if you don’t already have any or all of these five holiday plants, now is the time to get them:

    PAPERWHITES

    The bulbs of these daffodil family members are pre-chilled so they can be planted now and produce flowers in a month to six weeks. If you find them for sale, by all means buy as many as you can. The only caveat is that some family members may object to the unbelievably sweet smell of their blooms.

    While you can grow these bulbs by siting their bases in just a bit of water, it is best to plant them in a shallow container of soil. They don’t need much water and will perform well if given the best light you have. If yours sprouts, you are guaranteed flowers, at least the first year. People usually toss them when they are finished, as they’re unlikely to flower again.

    POINSETTIAS

    Poinsettias, of course, are for sale in all manner of venues this time of year. Many of us buy them, keep them for the next few weeks and then toss them. The trick is to keep them alive for the holiday season.

    This requires first bringing the plant home with a minimum exposure to cold air. If you live in a cold climate, consider warming the car before transporting them. Once home, the plants should not be exposed to drafts from doorways or windows. Place them where daytime temperatures are between 65 and 75 Fahrenheit, and with 60 as an ideal night temp.

    Soak the entire pot whenever the surface turns dry. Let them drain, and keep checking the soil surface for the next dunking.

    Poinsettias should never sit in water, so if you want to keep the decorative foil that accompanies many of them, poke a hole in it to let water out.

    CHRISTMAS TREES

    These, too, are their own gardening activity. Make sure your tree is kept in plenty of water and pay the strictest attention to safety rules if you use lights. After Christmas, look for a place that will chip up and recycle your tree, or place it in a back corner of your yard as cover for birds.

    AMARYLLIS

    These are the easiest and showiest bulbs you can buy, and they produce the largest flowers you are ever likely to grow. They are usually sold together with pot and soil, and all you need to do is ensure yours is planted so that 1/3 of the top of the bulb is above the soil line.

    Keep the plant growing right through summer. Then put yours into a cool, dark location so it goes dormant, to be brought out again next holiday season for flowering.

    CHRISTMAS CACTUS

    Christmas cactuses, Schlumbergeras, are another great plant that blooms during the mid-winter holidays. They will live for dozens of holiday seasons (some are passed on from one generation to the next) and bloom each year if exposed to shortening days. Rooting cuttings is easy using just a leaf, so it is not uncommon for a clone of the same plant to be in more than one family member’s home.

    Christmas cactuses do best in bright light. When it is in bloom, a Christmas cactus should only be watered when the soil is dry. Too much water and the flowers will drop off, so this is one of those times when too dry is better than too wet.

    The rest of the year, water by soaking the pot when the surface soil dries out. Next fall, give yours natural light and keep cool, up against a window, and they will bloom again.

    ——

    Jeff Lowenfels contributes gardening stories to The Associated Press. He is the author of “Teaming With Microbes,” “Teaming With Fungi,” “Teaming With Nutrients” and the new “Teaming With Bacteria” (Timber Press). He can be reached at jeff@gardener.com.

    —-

    For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

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  • Whole Ecosystem Warming Stimulates Methane Production from Plant Metabolites in Peatlands

    Whole Ecosystem Warming Stimulates Methane Production from Plant Metabolites in Peatlands

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    The Science

    Newswise — Scientists working at the ongoing Department of Energy’s (DOE) Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) experiment use the site’s northern Minnesota bog as a laboratory. SPRUCE allowed scientists to warm the air and soil by zero to 9 degrees C above ambient temperatures to depths more than 2 m below ground. This warming simulates the effects of climate change on the carbon cycle at the whole ecosystem scale over the long term. The research found that the production of the potent greenhouse gas methane increased at a faster rate than carbon dioxide in response to warming. The results indicate that carbon dioxide release and methane production are stimulated by plants‘ release of metabolites, chemicals that plants create for protection and other functions.

    The Impact

    Soil carbon has accumulated over millennia in peatlands. These results demonstrate that peatlands’ vast, deep carbon stores are vulnerable to microbial decomposition in response to warming. This research suggests that as climate change causes peatland vegetation to have a greater proportion of vascular plants relative to mosses, peatlands will produce more methane and amplify their contribution to climate change.

    Summary

    Northern peatlands store approximately one-third of Earth’s terrestrial soil organic carbon due to their cold, water-saturated, acidic conditions, which slow decomposition. To study these soils, researchers leveraged the Spruce and Peatland Responses Under Changing Environments (SPRUCE) experiment, where they combined air and peat warming in a whole ecosystem warming treatment. The team included Georgia Institute of Technology, Florida State University, the University of Arizona, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Chapman University, the University of Oregon, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.

    The scientists hypothesized that warming would enhance the production of plant-derived metabolites, resulting in increased labile organic matter inputs to the surface peat, thereby enhancing microbial activity and greenhouse gas production. In support of this hypothesis, the researchers observed significant correlations between metabolites and temperature consistent with increased availability of labile substrates, which may stimulate more rapid turnover of microbial proteins. An increase in the abundance of methanogenic genes in response to the increase in the abundance of labile substrates was accompanied by a shift towards acetoclastic- and methylotrophic methanogenesis. The results suggest that peatland vegetation trends towards increasing vascular plant cover with warming will be accompanied by a concomitant shift towards increasingly methanogenic conditions and amplified climate-peatland feedbacks.

     

    Funding

    This material is based upon work supported by the DOE Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research program. A portion of this research was performed using the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a DOE Office of Science User Facility at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Metagenome sequence data were produced by the DOE Joint Genome Institute in collaboration with the user community.


    Journal Link: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

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    Department of Energy, Office of Science

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  • To save nature, focus on populations, not species

    To save nature, focus on populations, not species

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    Newswise — AMHERST, Mass. – Human-released greenhouse gasses are causing the world to warm, and with that warming comes increasing stress for many of the planet’s plants and animals. That stress is so great that many scientists believe we are currently in the midst of the “sixth extinction,” when entire species are disappearing up to 10,000 times faster than before the industrial era. However, scientists have been uncertain which ecosystems, and which species, are most at risk. New research, recently published in Nature Climate Change, is the first to show that the focus on species-level risk obscures a wide variability in temperature tolerance, even within the same species, and that this variability is greater for marine species than terrestrial ones. The findings have immediate implications for management and conservation practices and offer a window of hope in the effort to adapt to a rapidly warming world.

    “One of the most important biological discoveries in the last century is that evolution can happen much more quickly than previously thought,” says Brian Cheng, professor of marine ecology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the paper’s senior author. “One of the implications of this is that different populations of the exact same species can adapt to their local environments more readily than traditional biology would have thought possible.”

    It turns out that this rapid, localized adaptation may be able to help ensure survival in a warming world.

    By conducting a metanalysis of 90 previously published studies, from which Cheng and his co-authors mined data on 61 species, the team was able to construct a set of “upper thermal limits”—specific temperatures above which each species could not survive. However, by zooming in further and looking at 305 distinct populations drawn from that pool of 61 species, they found that different populations of the same marine species often had widely different thermal limits. This suggests that some populations have evolved different abilities to tolerate high temperatures. The key then, is to keep different populations of the same species connected so that the populations that have adapted to the higher temperatures can pass this advantage on to the populations with the lower thermal limits.

    In other words, imagine a wide-ranging marine species, such as the diminutive Atlantic killifish, which occurs from the warm Florida coast of the United States north to the frigid waters of Newfoundland, Canada. The northern killifish populations may be better able to withstand warming waters if some of their southern kin are able to naturally shift their range to the north.

    “Scale matters,” says Matthew Sasaki, a marine biologist and evolutionary ecologist who completed this research as part of his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Connecticut and is the paper’s lead author. “The patterns you see across species aren’t the same you see within species, and the big-picture story doesn’t necessarily match what is happening on the local level.”

    In yet another twist, the team, which was funded by the National Science Foundation and was composed of biologists specializing in terrestrial as well as marine ecosystems, discovered that this intra-species variability was primarily a feature of animals living in the ocean and intertidal areas. Populations of widespread species that live on land or in freshwater exhibit far more homogeneity in their thermal limits, and thus could be more sensitive to rising temperatures. However, on land, plants and animals can take advantage of microclimates to cool down and avoid extreme temperatures, by moving into shady spots, for example.

    Taken together, the research suggests that a one-size-fits-all-species approach to conservation and management won’t work. Instead, write the authors, we need to understand how populations have adapted to their local conditions if we want to predict their vulnerability to changing conditions. A more effective approach would include ensuring that marine species can find wide swaths of undamaged habitat throughout their entire range, so that different populations of the same species can mix and pass on the adaptations that help them survive warmer waters. And on land, we need to maintain large patches of cool ecosystems—such as old-growth forests—that terrestrial species can use as refuges.

    “The glimmer of hope here,” says Cheng, “is that with conservation policies tailored to individual populations, we can buy them time to adapt to the warming world.”

     

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    University of Massachusetts Amherst

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  • Avocado Benefits, Sustainability & How To Consume Them Daily

    Avocado Benefits, Sustainability & How To Consume Them Daily

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    Not exactly. “While avocados don’t directly burn fat, they are a good source of nutrients to support weight loss or maintain weight,” Wilson explains. “The high fat and fiber content in avocados can help people feel more satiated, which helps to regulate appetite. And we know that people who eat fiber-rich foods, like fruits and vegetables, tend to maintain a healthier body weight7 compared to those who don’t.”

    A study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association helps bust the belly fat myth. The subjects were split into two groups: One group ate a large avocado every day for six months, while the other made no changes to their diet. After six months, the researchers found no differences in belly fat between the two groups. However, the group that ate a daily avocado did experience a decrease in total and LDL cholesterol.

    “This proves an important point: There are no silver bullets in nutrition,” says Munnelly. “Eating avocados but doing 10 other things in your daily life that contribute to high cholesterol and extra belly fat might not get you the results you’re looking for.”

     

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    Colleen Travers

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  • National Christmas Tree blazes to life with Biden lighting

    National Christmas Tree blazes to life with Biden lighting

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    WASHINGTON — “Five, four, three, two, one!” and the towering National Christmas Tree blazed with bright color Wednesday evening as President Joe Biden marked a century-old American tradition leading the lighting near the White House.

    The president, joined by first lady Jill Biden and host LL Cool J, led the festive crowd braving damp, chilly weather in a countdown before the tree was illuminated.

    Biden delivered brief remarks on American unity and promise, concluding exuberantly as Jill Biden blew a kiss, “From the Biden family to you, Merry Christmas, America!”

    The tradition dates back to 1923 when President Calvin Coolidge walked from the White House to the Ellipse to light a 48-foot fir tree decorated with 2,500 electric bulbs in red, white and green, as a local choir and a quartet from the U.S. Marine Band performed. The lighting ceremony has been carried out year after year—drawing thousands to Washington—with a few exceptions during times of war and national tragedy.

    The current 27-foot white fir was planted just last year.

    Vice President Kamala Harris and second gentleman Doug Emhoff joined the Bidens to watch some of the evening’s musical performances.

    In 2020, due to COVID-19 health concerns, the lighting did not have a live audience. After President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on Nov. 22, 1963, President Lyndon Johnson postponed the ceremony until days before Christmas as the nation observed a thirty-day period of national mourning. And the tradition was paused from 1941 to 1945 during World War II.

    CBS will broadcast the tree lighting ceremony on the evening of Dec. 18, one week before Christmas. This year’s ceremony included performances by the U.S. Marine Band, Ariana DeBose, Shania Twain, the Estefans and others.

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  • Mangroves: environmental guardians of our coastline

    Mangroves: environmental guardians of our coastline

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    Newswise — They are the salt-tolerant shrubs that thrive in the toughest of conditions, but according to new UniSA research, mangroves are also avid coastal protectors, capable of surviving in heavy metal contaminated environments.

    The researchers found that grey mangroves (Avicennia marina) can tolerate high lead, zinc, arsenic, cadmium and copper in contaminated sediment – without sustaining adverse health impacts themselves.

    The study tested the health of grey mangroves living around the Port Pirie smelter. Using leaf chlorophyll content as a proxy to plant health, mangroves were found to be unaffected by metallic contaminants, despite lead and zinc levels being 60 and 151-fold higher than regulatory guidance values.

    The findings highlight the vital role of mangroves in stabilising polluted regions, and the importance of protecting these ‘coastal guardians’ around the world.

    The study also coincides with a $3 million federal government initiative to restore mangrove forests in Adelaide’s north.

     Dr Farzana Kastury from UniSA’s Future Industries Institute says that ability of mangroves to withstand high metal concentrations make them invaluable in managing polluted environments.

    “Mangroves are the ideal eco-defender: they protect our coastlines from erosion and sustain biodiversity, but they also have an incredible ability to trap toxic contaminants in their sediments,” Dr Farzana says.

    “Grey mangroves are known for their tolerance of potentially toxic elements, but until now, little has been known about the health of these plants in the Upper Spencer Gulf.

    “Our research found that grey mangroves were able to adapt and survive exposure to very high levels of lead and zinc – without adverse health effects in their chlorophyll content – demonstrating how valuable they are to coastal ecosystems.”

    Other, ongoing work being done at Port Pirie by UniSA’s Associate Professor Craig Styan suggests there may be 4-7 times more metals stored in the sediments in mangroves than in adjacent unvegetated mudflats.  Assoc Prof Styan said that, generally, a greater concentration of metals found in sediments means greater contamination risk for the animals and plants living on/in them.

    “The levels of bioavailable metals we measured in the surface sediments in mangrove stands are the same as adjacent mudflats, meaning that although mangroves storing significantly more metals this doesn’t appear to increase the risk of contamination for the many animals that use mangrove habitats,” Prof Styan says.

    “People should nonetheless still refer to the SA Department of Health’s advice if they are considering eating fish caught near the smelter.”

    Mangroves (along with tidal marshes and seagrasses) are part of the blue carbon ecosystem; when protected or restored, they sequester and store carbon, but when degraded or destroyed, they emit stored carbon into the atmosphere as greenhouse gases.

    Dr Kastury says understanding the role of mangrove forests in safely stabilising metallic contaminants in highly polluted areas is imperative – not only for South Australian communities, but also around the world.

    “Globally, over a third of mangrove forests have disappeared, mostly due to human impact such as reclaiming land for agriculture and industrial development and infrastructure projects,” Dr Kastury says.

    “We must protect our mangrove forests so that they can continue their job in protecting our environment.”

     

    Notes for editors:

    • Globally, mangrove forest, tidal marshes and seagrass meadows store more than 30,000 teragrams (or 30 trillion kilograms) of carbon across 185 million hectares, potentially reducing around three per cent of global carbon emissions.
    • In 1992, an oil spill from the Era, at Port Bonython, released 300 tonnes of bunker fuel was released into Spencer Gulf, with a small slick of condensate getting into the mangroves south of Port Pirie. Mangroves do very badly in oil spills, and you can still see the scars of where the oil landed to this day.

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    University of South Australia

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