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Ocean Plastic Emits Chemical that Tricks Seabirds into Eating Trash

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Ocean Plastic Emits Chemical that Tricks Seabirds into Eating Trash

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Plastic smells good for some seabirds. When the common  material ends up in the ocean, it gives off a chemical that Antarctic prions, petrels and shearwaters often use to locate food, which leads the birds to ingest harmful junk instead of a real meal. Researchers let small beads of three common plastics linger off the coast of California. After a couple of weeks, the once-clean plastic accumulated grit, grime and bacteria that gave off an odiferous gas called dimethyl sulfide. Phytoplankton give off the same gas, and certain seabirds use its odor as a cue that dinner is nearby. Birds that rely more heavily on dimethyl sulfide as a beacon for a nearby meal are more likely to ingest plastic than birds that don’t, the team found. And other plankton-feeding marine animals could also be fooled.

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Plastic smells like supper for some seabirds. When the ubiquitous material ends up in the ocean, it gives off a chemical that Antarctic prions, petrels and shearwaters often use to locate food, researchers report online November 9 in Science Advances. That might lead the birds to ingest harmful junk instead of a real meal.

Researchers let small beads of three common plastics linger off the coast of California. After a couple of weeks, the once-clean plastic accumulated grit, grime and bacteria that gave off an odiferous gas called dimethyl sulfide. Phytoplankton give off the same gas, and certain seabirds use its odor as a cue that dinner is nearby. Birds that rely more heavily on dimethyl sulfide as a beacon for a nearby meal are more likely to ingest plastic than birds that don't, the team found. And other plankton-feeding marine animals could also be fooled.
Editor's note: This story was updated Nov. 22, 2016, to correct which birds are among those that respond to the smell of dimethyl sulfide. Antarctic prions, not albatrosses as previously stated, use the chemical as a food cue.

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Ocean plastic emits chemical that tricks seabirds into eating trash

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Plastic smells like supper for some seabirds. When the ubiquitous material ends up in the ocean, it gives off a chemical that Antarctic prions, petrels and shearwaters often use to locate food, researchers report online November 9 in Science Advances. That might lead the birds to ingest harmful junk instead of a real meal.

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Seagrasses Boost Ecosystem Health by Fighting Bad Bacteria

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Seagrasses Boost Ecosystem Health by Fighting Bad Bacteria

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Meadows of underwater seagrass plants might lower levels of harmful bacteria in nearby ocean waters. That could make the whole ecosystem — from corals to fish to humans — healthier. Not actually a grass, seagrasses are flowering plants with long,  leaves. They grow in shallow ocean water, spreading into vast underwater lawns. Seagrasses are “a marine powerhouse, almost equal to the rainforest. They’re one of the largest stores of carbon in the ocean,” says study coauthor Joleah Lamb, an ecologist at Cornell University.  “It’s no secret that seagrasses improve water quality,” says James Fourqurean, a biologist at Florida International University in Miami. The plants are great at removing excess nitrogen and phosphorus from coastal waters. But now, it seems, they might take away harmful bacteria, too.

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BOSTON - For a lawn that helps the environment - and doesn't need to be mowed - look to the ocean. Meadows of underwater seagrass plants might lower levels of harmful bacteria in nearby ocean waters, researchers reported February 16 during a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. That could make the whole ecosystem - from corals to fish to humans - healthier.

Not truly a grass, seagrasses are flowering plants with long, narrow leaves. They grow in shallow ocean water, spreading into vast underwater lawns. Seagrasses are "a marine powerhouse, almost equal to the rainforest. They're one of the largest stores of carbon in the ocean," says study coauthor Joleah Lamb, an ecologist at Cornell University. "But they don't get a lot of attention."

It's no secret that seagrasses improve water quality, says James Fourqurean, a biologist at Florida International University in Miami who wasn't involved in the research, which appears in the Feb. 17 Science. The plants are great at removing excess nitrogen and phosphorus from coastal waters. But now, it seems, they might take away harmful bacteria, too.

A few years ago, Lamb's colleagues became ill with amoebic dysentery while studying coral reefs in Indonesia, an archipelagic nation that straddles the Indian and Pacific oceans. When a city or village on one of the country's thousands of islands dumps raw sewage into the ocean, shoreline bacteria populations can spike to dangerous levels.
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Water sampled close to the shores of four small and densely populated Indonesian islands had 10 times the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's recommended exposure limit of Enterococcus bacteria, which can cause illness in humans and often signals the presence of other pathogens. But water collected from offshore tidal flats and coral reefs with seagrass beds had lower levels of the bacteria compared with similar sites without the plants less than 20 meters away. The water had lower levels of numerous bacterial species that can make fish and marine invertebrates sick, too. And field surveys of more than 8,000 coral heads showed that those growing adjacent to or within seagrass beds had fewer diseases than those growing farther away.

It's unclear how far from seagrass beds this cleaner water extends, but the benefits can ripple through the entire ecosystem, Lamb said at the news conference. Healthier corals help protect the islands from erosion. And fish less contaminated with bacteria make a better source of food for people.

Lamb is planning follow-up studies to figure out exactly how the seagrasses clean the water. Like a shag carpet, seagrasses trap small particulates drifting through the ocean and prevent them from flowing on. The plants might ensnare bacteria in the same way, building up biofilms on their blades. Or, she suggests, the leaves could be giving off antimicrobial compounds that directly kill the bacteria.

The findings are one more reason to conserve seagrasses, study coauthor Jeroen van de Water, an ecologist at the Scientific Center of Monaco, said at the news conference. Worldwide, seagrass beds are declining by 7 percent each year, thanks to pollution and habitat loss. And while restoration efforts are underway in some areas, "it's better to stop what we're doing to the meadows than to try to replant them," Lamb added. "Seagrasses are quite particular in the depth they want to be at and the environment they want to have. It's hard to start doing restoration projects if the environment isn't exactly what the seagrass prefers."

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Seagrasses boost ecosystem health by fighting bad bacteria

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BOSTON - For a lawn that helps the environment - and doesn't need to be mowed - look to the ocean. Meadows of underwater seagrass plants might lower levels of harmful bacteria in nearby ocean waters, researchers reported February 16 during a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

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In 1985, a trio of British researchers noticed a hole in the ozone layer, our protection against harmful UV rays, over the Antarctic. Almost ten years earlier in 1974, scientists had noted a link between possible damage to the ozone layer and the release of chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere. In the 1970s and 1980s, chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs were readily used in coolants for refrigeration systems and everyday propellants like hair sprays or other aerosols. CFCs are fairly stable molecules so, once released, they almost always make their way up into the stratosphere, the layer of the Earth’s atmosphere that starts about 10-20 kilometers up.

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Taking action to protect our planet can seem like a daunting or even futile task. Scientists have to navigate a complicated ecosystem with many interwoven variables in order to link an effect (like increased droughts or unusually intense storms, for example) with a cause. Politicians spanning many countries and cultural differences then have to come up with a plan, and entire industries have to agree to invest in that plan.

As we ring in the new year of 2017, let's look at one of my favorite science stories from 2016: a story that tells us that all of that is possible. Science can save the world, with a little help, of course, from the cooperation and investment of its inhabitants.

What caused the hole in the ozone layer?

In 1985, a trio of British researchers noticed a hole in the ozone layer, our protection against harmful UV rays, over the Antarctic. Almost ten years earlier in 1974, scientists had noted a link between possible damage to the ozone layer and the release of chlorofluorocarbons in to the atmosphere, work which later earned those authors, Mario Molina and Sherwood Rowland, along with Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

In the 1970s and 1980s, chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs were readily used in coolants for refrigeration systems and everyday propellants like hair sprays or other aerosols. CFCs are fairly stable molecules so, once released, they almost always make their way up into the stratosphere, the layer of the Earth's atmosphere that starts about 10-20 kilometers up (depending on where on Earth you're located). They do not stay trapped inside the walls of your apartment, as has been incorrectly suggested by the US president elect.
"Continue reading on QuickAndDirtyTips.com

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR(S)

Everyday Einstein Sabrina Stierwalt

Sabrina Stierwalt, PhD, is an astrophysicist at the University of Virginia and the host of the Everyday Einstein podcast on Quick and Dirty Tips.

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Taking action to protect our planet can seem like a daunting or even futile task. Scientists have to navigate a complicated ecosystem with many interwoven variables in order to link an effect (like increased droughts or unusually intense storms, for example) with a cause.

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Clean Power Worldwide Has Doubled in 10 Years

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Clean Power Worldwide Has Doubled in 10 Years

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Renewable energy generation grew globally by 161 gigawatts in 2016, setting another record for capacity additions and pushing clean power capacity past 2,000 GW.

That’s roughly double the amount of renewable energy that was flowing across the world’s power grids a decade ago, and it reflects the unprecedented adoption of solar, wind, hydro and other emissions-free power by the world’s largest economies. China, Europe and the United States now account for 62 percent of the world’s total installed renewable capacity, with China and the United States supporting the largest clean power portfolios. Other leaders are Brazil, Germany, Canada and India.

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Renewable energy generation grew globally by 161 gigawatts in 2016, setting another annual record for capacity additions and pushing clean power capacity past 2,000 GW, according to newly released data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.

That's roughly double the amount of renewable energy that was flowing across the world's power grids a decade ago, according to the Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates-based organization, and it reflects the unprecedented adoption of solar, wind, hydro and other emissions-free power by the world's largest economies.

China, Europe and the United States now account for 62 percent of the world's total installed renewable capacity, with China and the United States supporting the largest clean power portfolios, according to the data. Other leaders are Brazil, Germany, Canada and India.

Asia was the fastest-growing region year over year, with a 13.1 percent increase in renewable energy capacity. Africa installed 4.1 GW of new capacity in 2016, a 12 percent jump from 2015.

In addition to boosting the world's carbon-free electricity, which experts say is essential to arresting global warming, the surge in renewables "provides multiple socio-economic benefits in terms of fueling economic growth, creating jobs and improving human welfare and the environment," Adnan Amin, IRENA's director-general, said in a statement.

The 2016 growth represents an 8.7 percent jump in global renewable energy capacity from 2015, according to IRENA. Solar was the largest source of new renewable energy for the year, estimated at 71 GW, followed by wind power at 51 GW and hydropower at 30 GW.

Hydropower saw its greatest expansion in Asia, Africa and South America, while solar and wind installations were more broadly distributed, with China and the United States leading the world in year-over-year expansions for the two leading non-hydro renewable energy resources. Solar also saw multigigawatt expansions in India, Japan and the United Kingdom. India, Germany and Brazil each added more than 2 GW of wind power capacity in 2016, according to the data.

Notably, offshore wind energy saw its second-largest annual growth in 2016, with China nearly tripling its capacity in 12 months, from 559 to 1,480 megawatts. New offshore turbines also came online in Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain and the United States.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

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Clean Power Worldwide Has Doubled in 10 Years

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Renewable energy generation grew globally by 161 gigawatts in 2016, setting another annual record for capacity additions and pushing clean power capacity past 2,000 GW, according to newly released data from the International Renewable Energy Agency.

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What's Behind the Arctic's Mysterious Green Ice

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What's Behind the Arctic's Mysterious Green Ice

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It should be dark under the ice cover of the Arctic, and yet in 2011, scientists were perplexed when they discovered phytoplankton blooming beneath it, giving the ice a greenish hue. Now they know why: The ice has thinned enough to let light through to fuel a thriving bunch of little plants. A large bloom of phytoplankton, which is algae, was first found growing under the Arctic sea ice in 2011. Researchers said they were shocked at the discovery, because conditions under the ice should have been too dark for the plants to photosynthesize (making sugars from light, water and carbon dioxide) to survive. As global temperatures rise and the Arctic ice melts and thins, the normally reflective surface has become darker, the researchers said. Melt ponds ― dark pools of water on the ice's surface ― have also lessened the ice's reflectivity of sunlight. And so now, some of the sunlight passes through the ice.

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Melt ponds dot the surface of Arctic ice.

Credit: NASA

It should be dark under the ice cover of the Arctic, and yet in 2011, scientists were perplexed when they discovered phytoplankton blooming beneath it, giving the ice a greenish hue. Now they know why: The ice has thinned enough to let light through to fuel a thriving bunch of little plants.

A large bloom of phytoplankton, which is algae, was first found growing under the Arctic sea ice in 2011. Researchers said they were shocked at the discovery, because conditions under the ice should have been too dark for the plants to photosynthesize (making sugars from light, water and carbon dioxide) to survive. New research has shown, however, that the thinning sea ice allows enough light to pass through for the phytoplankton to bloom.

Under typical conditions, most of the sunlight that hits the Arctic sea ice gets reflected to space. But as global temperatures rise and the Arctic ice melts and thins, the normally reflective surface has become darker, the researchers said. Melt ponds ― dark pools of water on the ice's surface ― have also lessened the ice's reflectivity of sunlight. And so now, some of the sunlight passes through the ice. [ Images of Melt: Earth's Vanishing Ice]

"Our big question was, 'How much sunlight gets transmitted through the sea ice, both as a function of thickness, which has been decreasing, and the melt pond percentage, which has been increasing?'" lead study researcher Christopher Horvat said in a statement. "What we found was that we went from a state where there wasn't any potential for plankton blooms to massive regions of the Arctic being susceptible to these types of growth," added Horvat, who is a graduate student in applied mathematics at the John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) at Harvard University.

Using mathematical modeling, the researchers found that while melt ponds help the phytoplankton grow by allowing sunlight, thinner ice is the main culprit for the greening of Arctic ice.

Only two decades ago, about 3 to 4 percent of the Arctic's sea ice was thin enough for phytoplankton to take in enough sunlight to grow, they said. The new research found that today, nearly 30 percent of the sea ice is thin enough for sub-ice phytoplankton blooms. In fact, the Arctic sea ice has thinned by about 3 feet (1 meter) over the last 30 years, Horvat said.

"All of a sudden, our entire idea about how this ecosystem works is different," Horvat said. "The foundation of the Arctic food web is now growing at a different time and in places that are less accessible to animals that need oxygen."

The researchers said their model could be used to observe the blooms in the future, and measure the overall change in the Arctic's ecosystems.

The research is described in a paper published online March 29 in the journal Science Advances.

Original article on Live Science.

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What's Behind the Arctic's Mysterious Green Ice?

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It should be dark under the ice cover of the Arctic, and yet in 2011, scientists were perplexed when they discovered phytoplankton blooming beneath it, giving the ice a greenish hue. Now they know why: The ice has thinned enough to let light through to fuel a thriving bunch of little plants.

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Gobi Desert Dust Helps Sustain California's Sierra Nevada

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Gobi Desert Dust Helps Sustain California's Sierra Nevada

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Phosphorus, along with nitrogen and carbon, is crucial to the survival of life on Earth. It is generally supplied to plants as bedrock is broken down into soil over the slow machinations of geologic time. Researchers have long considered the granite formations of the Sierra Nevada to be limited in phosphorus. "In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside, said in a statement. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem." A research team found that dust from Asia accounted for an average of 20 percent of the dust at the lowest elevation and 45 percent of the total amount at the highest elevation. The greater amount of Asian dust in the higher locations, the researchers said, is because dust travels high in the atmosphere and only falls to the ground when it comes into contact with an object such as a mountain.

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Sequoia trees seen along the Trail of the 100 Giants in the Sequoia National Monument in the southern Sierra Nevada mountains.

Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

After the conservationist John Muir devotedly hiked the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the late 19th century, he penned some of the greatest American nature writing ever put to paper and launched the Sierra Club, which remains one of the most influential members of the nation's conservation movement.

Thanks to his efforts and those of generations that followed, the wild beauty of Muir's beloved Sierra Nevada and its giant sequoias continues to thrive, albeit with a much greater amount of stress due to human-caused climate change. But new research suggests an unlikely ally in the preservation of Muir's iconic muse.

Credit, it seems, must be given to dust.

In a paper published today in the journal Nature Communications, a team of researchers found that dust provides a much greater amount of nutrients to vegetation in the Sierra Nevada than previously thought. The dust comes from as far away as the Gobi Desert in Central Asia and as nearby as California's Central Valley.

Phosphorus, along with nitrogen and carbon, is crucial to the survival of life on Earth. It is generally supplied to plants as bedrock is broken down into soil over the slow machinations of geologic time. Researchers have long considered the granite formations of the Sierra Nevada to be limited in phosphorus.

"In recent years it has been a bit of mystery how all these big trees have been sustained in this ecosystem without a lot of phosphorus in the bedrock," Emma Aronson, an assistant professor of plant pathology and microbiology at UC Riverside, said in a statement. "This work begins to unravel that mystery and show that dust may be shaping this iconic California ecosystem."

RELATED: Extreme Climate Change Millions of Years Ago Caused Mammals to Shrink

Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of drought around the world, which will likely mean more dust moving around in the atmosphere. Understanding the role of dust migration in providing nutrients to plants will help researchers anticipate the effects of global warming.

The team, which included researchers from University of California campuses in Riverside and Merced, collected dust samples from four locations in the Sierra Nevada mountains, ranging in elevation from 1,300 to 8,800 feet.

Nicholas Dove, a UC Merced graduate student, was responsible for collecting the dust.

"Harvesting dust for scientific purposes is surprisingly rudimentary," he said in a statement. "We use many household supplies: Wooden posts hold up bundt pans filled with marbles, and the dust settles in the marble matrix. We collect this dust by 'washing' the marbles with sterile water. The water is filtered and, voila, you have your dust."

The pans were fixed atop 6-foot-high poles in order to avoid dust contamination from the researchers' boots.

The scientists identified the geographic origin of the dust samples by examining their isotopes.

They found that dust from Asia accounted for an average of 20 percent of the dust at the lowest elevation and 45 percent of the total amount at the highest elevation. The greater amount of Asian dust in the higher locations, the researchers said, is because dust travels high in the atmosphere and only falls to the ground when it comes into contact with an object such as a mountain.

Dust from the Central Valley was greater at lower elevations, which was expected. But the team found more Central Valley dust at higher elevations later in the dry season, which is significant because their study took place during the peak of what is likely the worst drought to hit California in a millennium.

"Considering we took our measurements in 2014, in the middle of the drought, this makes us think that the drought is a factor here," Aronson said.

Funding for the study was provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

"This research reveals that the transport of dust in the atmosphere is important for the ecological health of many parts of our planet," said Richard Yuretich, program director for the NSF's Critical Zone Observatory Network. "Complex cycles and feedbacks regulate conditions at the surface of the Earth. This study adds a significant piece to our knowledge of how the Earth works and what we can do to keep it functioning properly."

WATCH: Using Drones to Predict the Future of Climate Change

Originally published on Seeker.

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Gobi Desert Dust Helps Sustain California's Sierra Nevada

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After the conservationist John Muir devotedly hiked the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the late 19th century, he penned some of the greatest American nature writing ever put to paper and launched the Sierra Club, which remains one of the most influential members of the nation's conservation movement.