News by Subject Atmospheric Science

As coral species die off, they may be leaving a death spiral in their wake: Their absence could be sapping life from the corals that survive. In a new study, when isolated from other species, corals got weak, died off or grew in fragile structures. The study has shown it is possible to quantify positive effects of coral biodiversity and negative effects of its absence.

Scientists have already observed and predicted that high ringed seal pup mortality rates are linked to poor environmental conditions like early ice breakup and low snow. Researchers have now gone a step further by coupling these hypotheses with forecasts of future spring snow and ice conditions, developing a mathematical model, and following it to some stark conclusions for populations off the Amundsen Gulf and Prince Albert Sound in Canada.

Two UBC Okanagan biologists, who have publicly solicited images of wild cats for their research, have answered that question. Their recently published study explains how hard it can be when it comes to wildlife classification -- even experts have difficulty agreeing on whether a cat in a picture is a bobcat or a lynx.

New research from Case Western Reserve University in how dragonflies may adapt their wing color to temperature differences might explain color variation in other animals, from lions to birds. Further, the findings could also provide evolutionary biologists clues about whether rising global temperatures might adversely affect some species.

A Columbia Engineering study confirms the urgency to tackle climate change. While it's known that extreme weather events can affect the year-to-year variability in carbon uptake, and some researchers have suggested that there may be longer-term effects, this study is the first to actually quantify the effects through the 21st century and demonstrates that wetter-than-normal years do not compensate for losses in carbon uptake during dryer-than-normal years, caused by events such as droughts or heatwaves.

Parent corals from the Gulf of Aqaba that experience increased temperatures and ocean acidification stress during the peak reproductive period are not only able to maintain normal physiological function, but also have the same reproductive output and produce offspring that function and survive as well as those which were produced under today's ambient water conditions.