Insects and the plants they depend on are migrating in response to climate change, but not always in the same way.
plants
An Ecosystem Never Forgets
A new study in southwestern China shows how ecosystems may exhibit “hydrological memory,” which affects how they react to extreme climate events such as heat and drought.
How Ancient Indigenous Societies Made Today’s Amazon More Resilient
Portions of the forest managed by pre-Columbian populations hold higher biomass and are more able to withstand climate change.
Glass Sand Grows Healthy Mangroves
In places with lots of glass waste, sand made from recycled material could be another tool in the coastal restoration toolbox.
Fungi, Fertilizer, and Feces Could Help Astronauts Grow Plants on the Moon
A new study offers tantalizing evidence that filamentous fungi extending from roots, along with treated astronaut waste, could provide sufficient scaffolding to help plants grow in planetary regolith.
Microplastics Have Widely Varying Effects on Soil
A new study finds that a microplastic concentration of just 0.4% alters the drainage of soil, which could affect the growth of crops and other plants.
How Might Leftover Corn Stalks Halt Fugitive Carbon?
Bio-oil made from plant waste could help limit carbon emissions from orphaned oil and gas wells. But would it help or hinder farmers’ bottom line?
Tracing Iron’s Invisible Transformations Just Beneath Our Feet
A new method that adds synthetic iron minerals to soils sheds light on hard-to-observe soil and sediment processes and may have a host of other applications in the Earth sciences and beyond.
Rising CO2 and Climate Change Reorganize Global Terrestrial Carbon Cycling
Rising CO2 and climate change are redistributing terrestrial carbon fluxes and reservoirs across latitudes and reducing carbon residence times globally.
Nitrogen Needs Could Be Limiting Nature’s Carbon Capacity
A new study suggests that past calculations of biological nitrogen fixation were overestimated by up to 66%—and that farms growing nitrogen-fixing crops may be filling in the gaps, for better or worse.
