Month: November 2017

Categories
New Publications

Dude…Where’d this weed come from?

Globalization and other human activities such as domestication can influence population structure of the earth’s flora and fauna, having broad implications for biodiversity.  For example, Cannabis sativa (a.k.a. hemp/marijuana) has been used by humans for diverse purposes including medicine, spirituality, entertainment, and as a source of fiber for thousands of years.  Because of its broad utility, this plant has been subject to extensive cultivation, artificial selection, and global trade.  As a result, the origins and historical patterns of genetic diversity of marijuana remain ambiguous.

Using state of the science genetic tools, Drs. David Haak, Aure Bombarely, and their colleagues from the University of Tehran have revealed patterns of genetic structure of C. sativa from Iran.  Their work shows that cultivation of hemp for fiber originally arose from marijuana strains grown for medicinal/spiritual purposes. The findings have broad implications for identifying pools of genetic diversity, and the influence of human activities on this diversity, that may be important to a growing global multi-billion dollar industry.

Read the full paper:  Assessment of Genetic Diversity and Population Structure in Iranian Cannabis Germplasm

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Categories
News Research

Brian Strahm named Research Fellow and spends 6 months in New Zealand

From VT News

When most Americans think of New Zealand, images of sprawling fantasy landscapes may come to mind; however for Brian Strahm, associate professor of forest soils and biogeochemistry in the College of Natural Resources and Environment, it’s all about trees.

Strahm was named a Research Fellow of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development through its Co-operative Research Program for Biological Resource Management for Sustainable Agriculture Systems. The organization is an international body of 35 countries designed to promote economic growth, prosperity, and sustainable development across the globe.

As a Research Fellow, Strahm spent the first six months of 2017 in New Zealand partnering with scientists from Scion, the New Zealand Crown Research Institute for forestry. Together they worked to develop ways to improve forest productivity without negative environmental impacts.

“Over the last few decades, New Zealand has seen massive changes in land use, from forests to agriculture and other efforts,” Strahm explained. “There have been some environmental impacts associated with that shift, especially in terms of water quality. Not only is it a problem for communities there, it could put a black mark on the clean and green reputation New Zealand has worldwide.

“Forest products are New Zealand’s third leading export, and they want to double the nation’s forestry productivity over the next decade,” he continued. “To do so, they’re looking into nutrient management, but a lot of people are worried about potential water quality problems that might result from it.”

Nitrogen is required for plant and tree growth, and higher levels of nitrogen can help trees reach their maximum biological potential. Too much nitrogen leaking in rivers and lakes, however, can lead to eutrophication, a process that induces the growth of aquatic plants and algae, and can ultimately lead to oxygen depletion in the water.

“We’ve been working to figure out how to add nutrients like nitrogen and achieve the maximum benefit with minimal environmental impacts,” added Strahm, who is affiliated with the Global Change Center, housed in Virginia Tech’s Fralin Life Science Institute.

To explore options for fertilizing forests without harming surrounding waterways, Strahm and the scientists from Scion developed large-scale field trials to determine the fate of applied nitrogen.

The researchers partnered with forest industry professionals to find middle-aged forests to fertilize. Then, they placed small resins in the ground that could trap nitrogen moving past them in soil water. With this method, the researchers can determine how well the trees are growing and how much nitrogen is making its way into surface and ground waters.

“We have about 10 treatment plots across New Zealand’s North Island, where we’ll gather data over the next few years,” Strahm said. “We’re also looking at foliage and soil samples from historical trials where they already know if there was an increase in productivity and analyzing them for nitrogen stable isotopes now.”

“These forests are nitrogen limited, and we believe that lack of nitrogen is preventing them from growing to their potential,” he continued. “If we add nitrogen, we hypothesize that it will cause the forests to increase in biomass without too much nitrogen draining into the groundwater. We believe that the use of nitrogen stable isotopes will help us strike that balance.”

Strahm will continue to receive and analyze samples from the treatment plots at his lab at Virginia Tech’s Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation for the next several years. These samples will provide an understanding of nitrogen cycling nationwide that can be a resource in land-use planning. He hopes that this project can be the start of a collaborative effort that can go on for decades.

“The data we’re getting back now will help us design future trials, and as we look at that data, we’ll be able to design even more trials based on that data. We’ll keep refining and trying to put the best information we can into the hands of decision makers, whether they’re government officials or land managers,” he said.

Strahm gave the keynote address at New Zealand’s Growing Confidence in Forestry’s Future conference before heading home to Virginia. The conference is part of a national program that brings together government representatives, forest industry professionals, scientists, and representatives from New Zealand’s Maori people who are working together to find ways to improve productivity in forests within the limits of environmental sustainability.

“I was able to provide conference attendees with a visioning talk and highlight opportunities I see for them as a nation and as an industry. I discussed what’s going on in forest fertilization in the United States, highlighted current research, and offered recommendations for what they might be able to do,” Strahm said.

“This was a fantastic experience,” he added. “I got to work with an incredibly welcoming community of scientists, and I saw the similarities and differences between their systems and ours. I think there will be a lot of opportunities for cross collaboration in the future.”

Strahm earned his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his doctorate in forest resources from the University of Washington.

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Story by Heidi Ketler

Categories
Climate Change News

Warning to humanity signed by 16,000 scientists

From CNN

More than 16,000 scientists from 184 countries have published a second warning to humanity advising that we need to change our wicked ways to help the planet.

In 1992, 1,700 independent scientists signed the “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity.” The letter warned that “human beings and the natural world are on a collision course” and if environmental damage was not stopped, our future was at risk.

That letter made headlines 25 years ago, but the world still faces daunting environmental challenges. So environmental scientist William Ripple and his colleagues decided to create a new letter that has also struck a nerve. Since it was published in the journal BioScience on Monday, hundreds more scientists have signed on to the letter.

The letter essentially says that if there is not a groundswell of public pressure to change human behavior, the planet will sustain “substantial and irreversible” harm.

“This is not about some natural phenomenon that is removed from humans,” said Ripple, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University. “If we don’t have a healthy biosphere, as it is called, if we continue to have major environmental problems and climate change problems, then this goes directly to the welfare of humans. People need to understand that we are trying to save ourselves from catastrophic huge misery.”

Though there have been a handful of positive changes, current data show that many environmental problems have gotten “alarmingly” worse since the last letter was penned.

Since 1970, carbon dioxide emissions have increased sharply, by about 90%. About 78% of that comes from fossil fuel combustion, such as through the use of coal to heat our homes and driving cars that use gas, and through basic industrial processes and human activity which accounts for the majority of the total greenhouse gas emissions increase from 1970 to 2011, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

That human activity has helped raise the global average temperature. 2016 was the warmest year on record, according to NASA. In fact, the 10 warmest years on the 136-year record have occurred since 1998, according to the most recent data available.

Though the Trump administration has said climate change programs are a “waste of your money” and that climate change itself is an “expensive hoax,” the data suggest that temperature increases will probably cause a shortage in the world’s food crops. The weather will become more damaging, with more intense storms. Sea levels will rise and threaten coastal cities like Miami and New Orleans.

The new letter lists data showing a 75% increase in the number of ocean dead zones since the publication of the first letter. Dead zones are the areas in oceans, large lakes and rivers where marine life either dies or is driven away because the zone lacks sufficient oxygen.

Although dead zones can occur naturally, they are created largely by excessive nutrient pollution from human activities like farming and industrial pollution, according to the National Ocean Service. There are many along the US East Coast and in the Great Lakes, and the second largest in the world is in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Scientists believe there are at least 405 dead zones worldwide, including near South America, Japan, China and southeast Australia.

That’s not merely bad news for the fish that live there; it is bad news for the humans who eat the fish and other seafood that need the fish to survive. The dead zone in the Chesapeake Bay, for instance — which measures 1.89 cubic miles, or nearly the volume of 3.2 million Olympic-size swimming pools — results in the loss of tens of millions of fish, which both humans and crabs eat. It threatens the oysters there, too.

Despite the challenges there, the proposed Trump budget would cut cleanup funds for the Chesapeake Bay, the Great Lakes and other bodies of water with dead zones.

Read the full story at CNN

Related link- sign the article: http://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu

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Categories
Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Seminars, Workshops, Lectures

IGC Capstone class visits Capitol Hill for congressional operations seminar

October 23, 2017 |  Graduate students taking the Interfaces of Global Change capstone class this fall recently attended a Congressional Operations Seminar in Washington, DC, offered by the Woods Institute. The objective of the seminar was to provide the participants with a comprehensive understanding of the congressional legislative and budget processes, with an emphasis on issues relevant to the environment and natural resources. For students considering a career in the public policy arena, or just generally concerned with how science informs policy at the federal government level, the workshop provided a 2-day, front-seat view of lawmaking.

IGC fellows provided these thoughts about the experience:

  • I thought I knew how Congress operates. I was surprised by how much I learned about how things move through committees and ultimately to legislation.
  • I was pleasantly surprised to see how easy it was to sit in on senate proceedings and committee meetings. The only real hurdle to accessing these things is interest!
  • A major thing that I took away from the experience: putting a human face on Washington DC! We hear about what’s happening in that city everyday in the news, but ultimately its people who are taking these actions and making these decisions.
  • The exposure to the legislative process on Capitol Hill was insightful, as I constantly drew parallels between how Congress and the Parliament of my home country, Ghana, worked.
  • Our interaction with the staff from Congressional Research Service (CRS) was particularly refreshing in knowing that through their effort, sound science was available to Members of Congress in their decision-making.
  • It was extremely beneficial to talk to individuals who work on Capital Hill with a scientific background, and hear about their careers and how they can play a role in policy making. Specifically, I found that talking with individuals working in the Congressional Research Service was very eye opening.
  • This trip highlighted the importance of knowing how to communicate research results effectively and knowing who to communicate those results to also.
  • Getting to sit in on Senate hearings had a big impact on me. It’s good to see how transparent government activity can be. I have a much higher view of the  American system of government after seeing it in action, and hearing from people who spend a great deal of time thinking about these matters

IGC in DC: Congressional Operations Seminar

Categories
Climate Change News

Carbon emissions are rising again

From National Geographic

For a while it looked as if the world might be turning the corner.

But after a three-year stall in their growth, human-caused carbon-dioxide emissions have not, in fact, peaked, an international team of scientists announced this morning.

In 2017, global emissions of CO2 from fossil fuels and industry will once again rise by 2 percent, the scientists project, to a record 37 billion metric tons. Those emissions had increased by only a quarter of a percent from 2014 to 2016. Changes in land use, such as deforestation, will add around 4 billion metric tons of CO2 in 2017, bringing the global emissions total to an estimated 41 billion metric tons.

The resurgence tightens the time constraint on the world’s efforts to keep global warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit)—a cap scientists increasingly believe is important to ward off climate change’s most catastrophic effects.

“What’s driving, really, the global trend is this pick-up in China,” says Corinne Le Quéré of the University of East Anglia, and the lead author of one of several new emissions studies released today. An unexpected rise in coal-burning in China—due in part to a summer drought that diminished the country’s rivers and its generation of hydropower—was the biggest contributor to the global surge in emissions.

But China’s shift didn’t happen in a vacuum. Its emissions rose just as the United States and European Union each saw their emissions decrease more slowly than expected.

In the U.S., higher natural gas prices led to a slight rise in coal burning, for the first time in five years, while oil use also increased. As a result, emissions that had been declining about 1.2 percent a year dropped less than half a percent. In the E.U., emissions dropped less than a quarter percent after a decade of annual declines topping 2 percent a year.

On the other hand, India’s emissions, which had been steadily rising about 6 percent a year, as the country industrializes and rapidly brings electricity to rural areas, are projected to increase by only 2 percent in 2017. That good news is also troubling, because it’s almost certain not to last.

With five of the hottest years on record all having come just since 2010, the big question is whether the renewed emissions growth is a one-time slip or the new normal.

“It’s hard to say whether 2017 is a hiccup on the way to a trajectory that eventually peaks and goes downward—or if it’s about returning to high growth,” Le Quéré says.

Read the full story at National Geographic

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Categories
New Courses

New Course for Spring 2018: Advanced Soils

Dr. Brian Strahm is offering a new, broad-based soils course for those that have had little exposure to the belowground world.  If you are interested in…

•    terrestrial ecosystem ecology/biogeochemistry
•    plant productivity
•    water quality/quantity
•    global and/or land use change

…but have never had soils…this class is designed for you!

The course will introduce foundational concepts in soil physics, chemistry, biology/ecology, sampling and analysis, genesis and classification, nutrient cycling, and organic matter dynamics.  The course is intended to improve your understanding of soil as a critical component of the biophysical world, and soils as highly variable landscape bodies with direct relevance to ecology and management at multiple scales.  To help develop this understanding, we will highlight contemporary soil science research and literature along the way.

So, if this sounds like the kind of thing you need, I hope to see you this spring (2018) in:

FREC 5984: Advanced Soils  |  MWF 10:10 – 11:00  |  CRN: 20005

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Flyer (PDF): FREC 5984 Advanced Soils

Categories
News

Now accepting applications for undergraduate science policy fellowships: apply by Dec. 1

The Global Change Center (GCC) offers competitive fellowships to undergraduate students to cover the cost of tuition (in-state, 6 credits), housing and fees to attend the Washington Semester Program during summer semester. This program offers a unique 11-week immersion into work experience within the nation’s capital. Students work on challenging science policy issues that shape communities locally and nationally while obtaining academic credit.

The School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at Virginia Tech offers the Washington Semester program to all undergraduate students, regardless of major, who have earned a minimum of 60 credits (Junior or Senior status) and are in good academic standing. The GCC Science Policy Fellowship is designed to support a unique track for science and engineering majors who are specifically interested in the science-policy interface.

More information can be found on our website. 

APPLY BY DECEMBER 1, 2017!

 

Categories
Evolution

Martha Munoz settles decades-old evolutionary biology question

From VT News:

Evolution can be both stimulated and halted by an animal’s behavior, it just depends which trait you’re talking about, according to a groundbreaking study led by a Virginia Tech researcher.

Dr. Marth Muñoz

The study, published Oct. 25 in the journal American Naturalist, shows behavior can be both a brake and a motor for evolution in a manner where slowing evolution in one trait actually requires accelerating evolution in another, according to Martha Muñoz, a new assistant professor of biological sciences in the College of Science and an affiliate of Virginia Tech’s Global Change Center.

Understanding this delicate stop-and-go dance can help scientists predict how animals will adapt to global change, such as climate change and habitat degradation.

In the case of the anole lizard of the Dominican Republic, thermoregulation — or the ability to control one’s own body temperature — is crucial to survival.

Although it is located in the tropics, the Dominican Republic has lots of mountainous habitat and high elevations that challenge animals like lizards, which cannot regulate their temperature internally, the way that birds and mammals (including people) do.

When the lizards migrated from warm, low elevations to cool, high elevations, body temperature regulation required the lizard to take up a new microhabitat, dwelling on boulders and sheltering in crevices, rather than formerly preferred tree limbs, which were too chilly at higher elevations.

This switch to boulders allowed the lizard to remain quite warm — just as warm, in fact, as its counterparts in the balmy lowlands — despite the much colder habitat.

In a key twist, the lizard also evolved traits important for rock dwelling, such as a flatter skull and shorter legs for skittering into crevices at the first sign of a predator. In other words, the same behavioral switch to boulders that halted physiological evolution also promoted morphological evolution.

In the context of global climate change, these findings suggest that the effects of rising temperatures won’t be limited to directly impacting organisms’ physiology — because of their behavior, it could indirectly impact other features, like their morphology, as well. Such predictions, however, would not have been likely without this new understanding of the multidimensional ways in which behavior impacts evolution.

“Our observation settles a decades-long scientific question about whether behavioral inertia — the ability for behavior to function as a brake for evolution — can occur at the same time as behavioral drive — the ability for behavior to function as a motor for evolution,” said MuñozMuñoz, who is also affiliated with the Fralin Life Science Institute.  “This is a question that first presented itself in the 1940s, and we think we’ve finally come to a conclusion with this paper.”

“This study is a great example of the subtle way that organism and environment interact in evolution — it’s not a one-way relationship, it’s a far more interactive dance,” said Michael Kearney, an associate professor in the School of BioSciences at the University of Melbourne who served as an associate editor for the manuscript.

“Dr. Muñoz’s findings significantly advance our fundamental knowledge of evolutionary processes, and also have broad implications for understanding how animals are responding to rapid environmental changes caused by humans,” said William Hopkins, director of the Global Change Center.  “We are thrilled that Dr. Muñoz has joined the Virginia Tech community.”

The project was part of Muñoz’s doctoral work in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University, which she completed in 2014.  The co-author on the paper was Jonathan B. Losos, a professor in the in the same department at Harvard University.

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Story by Lindsay Key, Communications Director, Fralin Life Science Institute

Categories
Climate Change Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Seminars, Workshops, Lectures

Susan Hassol leads Science Communication Workshop for IGC Graduate Students

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The Interfaces of Global Change graduate program (IGC) was pleased to welcome Susan Hassol, Director of Climate Communication, for a full-day science communication workshop at the North End Center on Friday, November 3, 2017.

This workshop was an opportunity for Virginia Tech IGC students to learn and practice the skills needed to more effectively communicate their science. Susan introduced the group to the science of science communication, including psychological and sociological considerations, with a special focus on climate change.

During the workshop, the students were led through a discussion about the partisan gap on climate change and how to break through the noise. They also explored message-crafting techniques for various settings, practiced them, and got feedback from the group. Other aspects of the workshop included practicing media interviews and debunking common myths about climate change.

“One thing I observed is the fact that Susan put all these communication techniques in the context of climate change, and I think that makes it easier for us to apply them to our own area of study,” said Fadoua El Moustaid, who was a workshop participant. “I also liked the video examples that were woven into the day.  They really fit and helped stimulate discussion.”

“I learned a ton and I thought it was really great,” said IGC Fellow, Nicole Ward. “I also appreciated the additional resources (links and handouts) that will allow me to refer back to this content later.”

Brooke Bodensteiner had this to say about the day: “Overall, it was a phenomenal workshop and I enjoyed it very much. It has given me a lot to think about moving forward!”

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Categories
Interfaces of Global Change IGEP Outreach Schools and science fairs

IGC GSO hosts outreach activities at the 2017 Virginia Tech Science Festival

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Graduate students in the Interfaces of Global Change Program participated in The Virginia Tech Science Festival on Saturday, November 4th.

The IGC Grad Student Organization sponsored an outreach table at the Festival Expo in Newman Library from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. Their station, named “The Balance of Nature”, was focused on learning about ways that children can help take care of the Earth and keep nature in balance. The interactive station featured block and coloring activities along with sticker prizes.

Other Global Change Center-affiliated labs participated in outreach at the Science Festival, including the McGlothlin Lab, The Paleobiology & Geobiology Research Groups, and The Virginia Tech Stream Team.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_gallery type=”image_grid” images=”20313,20319,20346,20314,20315,20316,20318,20317,20326″ title=”The Virginia Tech Science Festival: Fall 2017″][/vc_column][/vc_row]