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Severe droughts in the Northern Hemisphere cause a widespread decline of agricultural yield, the reduction of forest carbon uptake, and increased CO2 growth rates in the atmosphere. Plants respond to droughts by partially closing their stomata to limit their evaporative water loss, at the expense of carbon uptake by photosynthesis. This trade-off maximizes their water-use efficiency (WUE), as meas
On St. Paul Island, a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge, woolly mammoths persisted until 5,600 yr BP with no known predators or competitors, providing a natural system for studying hypothesized environmental drivers of extinction. These include overheating due to rising temperatures, starvation, and drought. Here, we test these hypotheses using Niche Mapper and LPJ-GUESS to mechanistically estimat
Although natural terrestrial ecosystems have sequestered ∼25% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, the long-term sustainability of this key ecosystem service is under question. Forests have traditionally been viewed as robust carbon (C) sinks; however, extreme heat-waves, drought and wildfire have increased tree mortality, particularly in widespread semi-arid regions, which account for ∼41% of Earth's
The northern land biosphere is believed to be the main global sink of CO2, but the contribution of Europe is uncertain. While bottom-up estimates and inverse atmospheric transport studies based on atmospheric CO2 observed in situ or from space by OCO-2 point to a moderate rate of uptake, some other inversions based on remotely sensed atmospheric CO2 from GOSAT/SCIAMACHY and biomass estimates from
We test the hypothesis that climatic changes since 1800 have resulted in unrealized potential vegetation changes that represent a "climatic debt" for many ecosystems. Caledonian pinewoods, an EU priority forest type, are used as a model system to explore potential impacts of two centuries of climatic change upon sites of conservation importance and surrounding landscapes. Using methods that estima
Planets form in protoplanetary discs of gas, dust and ice around newborn stars. In the Solar System, not only planets are found as a result from the time of planet formation, but also remnant planetesimals in the form of asteroids, Kuiper belt objects and comets. Recent observations, e.g. by the space mission Rosetta, have found that comets are porous objects barely able to hold themselves togethe
New laser stepwise heating Ar-40-Ar-39 dates (415 +/- 1.8 and 414 +/- 2 Ma) from the Etive Dyke Swarm in the SW Grampian Highlands of Scotland indicate that the dykes are 10-20 Ma older than previously assumed. The dykes constitute the final phase of the Late Caledonian Granites in the region, which themselves define the end of the Caledonian Orogeny, therefore these dates can be taken as the end
The carbon dynamics of northern natural ecosystems contribute significantly to the global carbon balance. Periodic disturbances to these dynamics include insect herbivory. Larvae of autumn and winter moths (Epirrita autumnata and Operophtera brumata) defoliate mountain birch (Betula pubescens) forests in northern Scandinavia cyclically every 9-10 years and occasionally (50-150 years) extreme popul
Net primary production (NPP) is the principal source of energy for ecosystems and, by extension, human populations that depend on them. The relationship between the supply and demand of NPP is important for the assessment of socio-ecological vulnerability. We present an analysis of the supply and demand of NPP in the Sahel using NPP estimates from the MODIS sensor and agri-environmental data from
Gendered violence against woman and children has been in existence and predominant in various societies for a long period of time with its intensity varying from one factor to the other. Many nations around the world including Ghana in West Africa have measures and directives to mitigate of the persistent social menace and possibly eradicate it towards sustainable welfare and development for indiv
The topic of energy, and particularly, the growing role of renewable energy sources in decarbonizing the economy dominates European political and research agendas. Similarly, a revived political interest in Western Balkan countries from the European Union (EU) sheds light on the longstanding efforts of legislative harmonization and the modernization, decarbonization and integration of the regional
The relationship between sustainability and conflict is complex and often hard to define, yet the consequences of interaction can be catastrophic. Unsustainable practices and their consequences for the environment can contribute to conflict. War—and the energy and resource costs of preparing for war—can also have terrible impacts on the environment. In this Voices, we ask how sustainability and en
Occurring in 2015/16, the strong El Niño has been shown to significantly influence the pantropical carbon fluxes with multiple lines of evidence. However, a comprehensive understanding on the regional and vegetation-specific net ecosystem productivity (NEP) in response to this El Niño event and its recovery trajectories remain unclear. We revisited the controlling factors in the recovery of pantro
Regional offices grow of more and more importance for the interest representation in Brussels. This study involves what determines if a region takes lobbying actions, what mobilization variables are important for the performance and what lobbying strategy is supposed to be the most successful. The study is a case study on the regional mobilization within the development of the ‘EU Strategy for the
The ongoing 2023 Israel-Hamas War has severe and far-reaching consequences for the people, economy, food security, and environment. The immediate impacts of damage and destruction to cities and farms are apparent in widespread reporting and first-hand accounts from within the Gaza Strip. However, there is a lack of comprehensive assessment of the war's impacts on key Gazan agricultural land that a
