Category: News

Madeline Schreiber’s research will trace the long-term effects of coal ash spills

Post author By jcoker
Post date July 21, 2014

Monday, July 21, 2014
By Tonia Moxley, at The Roanoke Times

DANVILLE — Virginia Tech researchers hope a $25,000 National Science Foundation grant will help them find better ways to trace the long-term effects of coal ash spills like the one in February that fouled 70 miles of the Dan River from Eden, North Carolina, to Kerr Lake in Virginia.

The NSF RAPID grant will “help us get a snapshot of what’s going on,” said Madeline Schreiber, a Tech hydrogeosciences professor and lead researcher on the project. The Dan River grant was funded on April 4, two months after the coal ash spill, according to the NSF award notice. Tech environmental nanoscientist Marc Michel and geochemist Ben Gill are co-researchers on the project.

This first-step NSF grant will allow the team to gather data to apply for larger science grants that could lead to sophisticated ways to monitor long-term effects of this and other coal ash spills, Schreiber said.

Read the full story at the Roanoke Times

Image credit: Waterkeeper Alliance

Climate Change News

Is Brazil now the world leader in tackling climate change?

Post author By jcoker
Post date June 6, 2014

Leandro Castello is a co-author on a new paper published in Science this week. The research story is featured today in The Economist.

Slowing Amazon deforestation through public policy and interventions in beef and soy supply chains

“IN THE 1990s, when an area of Brazilian rainforest the size of Belgium was felled every year, Brazil was the world’s environmental villain and the Amazonian jungle the image of everything that was going wrong in green places. Now, the Amazon ought to be the image of what is going right. Government figures show that deforestation fell by 70% in the Brazilian Amazon region during the past decade, from a ten-year average of 19,500 km² (7,500 square miles) per year in 2005 to 5,800 km² in 2013. If clearances had continued at their rate in 2005, an extra 3.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide would have been put into the atmosphere. That is an amount equal to a year’s emissions from the European Union. Arguably, then, Brazil is now the world leader in tackling climate change.

But how did it break the vicious cycle in which—it was widely expected—farmers and cattle ranchers (the main culprits in the Amazon) would make so much money from clearing the forest that they would go on cutting down trees until there were none left? After all, most other rainforest countries, such as Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, have failed to stop the chainsaws. The answer, according to a paper just published in Science by Dan Nepstad of the Earth Innovation Institute in San Francisco, is that there was no silver bullet but instead a three-stage process in which bans, better governance in frontier areas and consumer pressure on companies worked, if fitfully and only after several false starts.”

Read more…

This research news is also featured in the New York Times.

News Research

Ignacio Moore’s research is featured in ScienceShots

Post author By jcoker
Post date December 2, 2013

A recent study by Dr. Fran Bonier (Queen’s University, Ontario, Canada and Virginia Tech, Virginia, USA), Dr. Cas Eikenaar (Institute of Avian Research, Wilhelmshaven, Germany), Dr. Paul Martin (Queen’s University), and Dr. Ignacio Moore (Virginia Tech) explores promiscuity trends across sparrows. Lower promiscuity rates among sparrows were observed at higher elevations. This is a pattern that had not previously been demonstrated across species.

Dr. Moore’s paper, “Extra-pair paternity rates vary with latitude and elevation in Emberizid sparrows”, was recently featured online in ScienceShots and will soon be published in The American Naturalist. A summary of the paper can be found here.

Global Change Interfaces of Global Change IGEP News

New interdisciplinary graduate education program examines the effects of global change

Post author By jcoker
Post date November 9, 2013

The Interfaces of Global Change graduate program was recently featured in Virginia Tech News

From VT News:

Earth’s biodiversity is like a kaleidoscope made up of distinct plants and animals; however, with each year’s turn, unique and irreplaceable species disappear.

Habitat loss, invasive species, pollution, disease, and climate change are all to blame for the current rate of extinction, which is 1,000 times higher now than before human dominance, according to Bill Hopkins, associate professor of fish and wildlife conservation in the College of Natural Resources and Environment and Fralin Life Science Institute affiliate.

Interfaces of Global Change, a new interdisciplinary graduate education program funded by the Virginia Tech Graduate School, directed by Hopkins, and partially supported by the Fralin Life Science Institute, confronts the problem of Earth’s dwindling biodiversity with a dynamic team of faculty members and doctoral students with diverse perspectives and areas of expertise.

Incoming Ph.D. students from any department who are beginning their doctoral studies are invited to apply to the program; currently, faculty members hail from biological sciences, fish and wildlife conservation, history, biological systems engineering, civil and environmental engineering, urban affairs and planning, entomology, forest resources and environmental conservation, geosciences, and plant pathology, physiology and weed science. Students still receive their Ph.D. degree from their home department, but will focus on global change and the science-policy interface.

“The over-arching goal is to bring a diverse group of people together to discuss how global changes such as pollution, disease, and climate interact to affect the natural world that we depend on, and how we might tackle some of the most complex environmental and societal issues today,” Hopkins said. “Problem-solving depends on a diverse set of skills and perspectives, and I think the students have a chance to grow much more here than in a traditional program.”

Graduate student fellows receive research assistantship funding and participate in required interdisciplinary research courses, in which they share perspectives on major environmental problems facing the world and wrestle with complex issues such as research ethics, scientific advocacy, and how science should inform society and public policy.

Fellow Daniel Medina of Panama City, Panama, a doctoral student in biological sciences in the College of Science, said that the program has helped him better understand and articulate his role as a scientist in society. Medina works with Lisa Belden, associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, and studies the symbiotic skin bacteria of amphibians, and how they might be used to combat a deadly fungal disease that has caused numerous amphibian population declines and extinctions.

“The interaction with peers in other fields has given me a broader perspective,” Medina said. “The program has also helped me to realize how complex interactions with policymakers can be, even when we share common goals.”

In 2010, the Virginia Tech Graduate School launched the Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program initiative to promote interdisciplinary graduate education and research and offered the first four programs in fall 2011. Each of these education programs addresses a major fundamental problem or complex societal issue requiring an interdisciplinary team of scholars, according to Maura Borrego, associate dean and director of interdisciplinary programs in the Graduate School at Virginia Tech.

“The [Interdisciplinary Graduate Education Program] approach helps a university take on bigger, more complex problems,” said Borrego, who has spent significant time researching the topic as part of a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program. “It appeals to these newer generations of students we’re getting who really want to do meaningful, important work. They’re not just going to college to get a job and to get a pension and money to live on, but they really want to make a mark.”

With support from the Office of the Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost and research institutes, the Graduate School currently provides funding for 14 interdisciplinary graduate education programs, which revolve around issues as diverse as water for human health and sustainable nanotechnology. Debuting this year are Interfaces of Global Change, Human Centered Design, and Bio-Inspired Buildings.

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Global Change News Pollution

IGC IGEP Faculty and Students Work in Coal Field Restoration

Post author By jcoker
Post date November 9, 2013

Dr. Jacob Barney and Dr. Stephen Schoenholtz were recently featured in a VT News article about the Powell River Project. This long-term environmental restoration project in Southwest Virginia is over 30 years old. Dr. Schoenholtz conducted his Ph.D. research there in the late 1980’s, and now his graduate student, Tony Timpano, is continuing to work on the project. Tony is investigating the impacts of salinization on benthic macroinvertebrate communities in Appalachian streams influenced by coal mining. Tony is advised by Dr. Carl Zipper and Dr. Stephen Schoenholtz.

Read the full article about the Powell River Project at VT News.

Disease Drinking water Global Change News

Probiotics for Your Pipes

Post author By jcoker
Post date November 4, 2013

The research of Dr. Amy Pruden, a core faculty member in both the Interfaces of Global Change IGEP and the Water Interfaces IGEP, was recently featured in VT News:

“A team of Virginia Tech researchers is investigating the challenges presented by four often deadly pathogens that have been documented in household or hospital tap water. They propose fighting these opportunistic pathogens with harmless microbes – a probiotic approach for cleaning up plumbing.

Writing in the American Chemical Society journal, Environmental Science and Technology, the researchers reviewed studies of opportunistic pathogens that have colonized water systems within buildings – between the delivery point and the tap. They define a probiotic approach as intentionally creating conditions that select for a desirable microbial community, or microbiome.

“We are putting forward a new way of thinking about waterborne pathogen control,” said Amy Pruden, a professor of civil and environmental engineering whose sustainable water research is supported by the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science at Virginia Tech.

“We have new tools – the next generation DNA-sequencing tools, which have just come online in the last five years,” Pruden said. “They are providing unprecedented information about microbes in all sorts of environments, including “clean” drinking water. These tools have really surprised us by showing us the numbers and diversity of microbes. There can be thousands of different species of bacteria in a household water supply.”

The researchers focused on several opportunistic pathogens, including Legionella, the infamous cause of deadly Legionnaires’ disease and milder Pontiac fever; Mycobacterium avium complex, which causes pulmonary risks and is the most costly waterborne disease in terms of individual hospital visits; and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, the leading cause of hospital-acquired infections.

In addition, they looked at pathogenic free-living amoebae, which are host microorganisms that enhance the growth of bacterial pathogens in water, particularly Legionella and M. avium, by protecting them and providing a place for them to multiply.

Pruden, who still prefers to drink tap rather than bottled water, points out that these pathogens are “opportunistic” because they are most dangerous to people who are ill, such as those already in a hospital, and people with weaker immune systems, including the elderly.

“Pathogens from feces are dealt with by filtering or disinfecting. They are native to warm-blood animals and don’t survive long outside that environment. These next-generation pathogens live in biofilms in water systems,” Pruden said. “We need to develop a better understanding of conditions and types of bacteria in order to have a better opportunity to fight water-borne disease.”

Read the full article:

http://www.vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2013/11/110413-ictas-amyprudenmicrobes.html#.UnfGhfZIeMw.link

Climate Change Disease Global Change News

Moose Die-Off Alarms Scientists

Post author By jcoker
Post date October 16, 2013

Moose populations across North America are experiencing a sharp decline, and the exact cause is a mystery.

“What exactly has changed remains a mystery. Several factors are clearly at work. But a common thread in most hypotheses is climate change.

Winters have grown substantially shorter across much of the moose’s range. In New Hampshire, a longer fall with less snow has greatly increased the number of winter ticks, a devastating parasite. “You can get 100,000 ticks on a moose,” said Kristine Rines, a biologist with the state’s Fish and Game Department.

In Minnesota, the leading culprits are brain worms and liver flukes. Both spend part of their life cycles in snails, which thrive in moist environments.

Another theory is heat stress. Moose are made for cold weather, and when the temperature rises above 23 degrees Fahrenheit in winter, as has happened more often in recent years, they expend extra energy to stay cool. That can lead to exhaustion and death.

In the Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia, a recent study pinned the decline of moose on the widespread killing of forest by an epidemic of pine bark beetles, which seem to thrive in warmer weather. The loss of trees left the moose exposed to human and animal predators.”

Read the full New York Times article here.

News

First Call for Applicants

Post author By jcoker
Post date August 5, 2013

Are you a PhD student interested in exploring interdisciplinary graduate education in Global Change?

Applicants for the Interfaces of Global Change IGEP should submit the following materials to Gloria Schoenholtz, IGC Program Coordinator (schoeng@vt.edu):

1. A CV that includes your GPA and GRE scores (and TOEFL scores for international applicants).

2. Contact information for three letters of reference

3. A brief letter of support from the prospective Ph.D. mentor(s) explaining a) how the applicant’s training will benefit from the IGC IGEP, and b) an explicit funding plan that describes how stipend, tuition, and research expenses will be covered over the course of the applicant’s tenure at Virginia Tech. If Departmental support is part of the funding plan (e.g., a GTAs), appropriate written verification should be provided (e.g., signature of support from dept. head).

4. A cover letter (see details below) In your 1-page cover letter, please address these questions: What faculty member(s) will you be working with and what will be your home department? What kind of interdisciplinary research will you be doing that relates to the Interfaces of Global Change program? How will the Interfaces of Global Change IGEP benefit your career plans? Do you need to be considered for one of the 1-year GRA awards*?

First review of applicants for the 2013-2014 IGC cohort will begin April 30, 2013. Applications will continue to be considered until August 1, 2013.

APPLY

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Image credit: U.S. Global Change Research Program (www.globalchange.gov)

Interfaces of Global Change IGEP News

A New IGEP: Interfaces of Global Change

Post author By jcoker
Post date April 1, 2013

Sixteen affiliated faculty members from Virginia Tech, representing 6 colleges and 10 departments, recently received Graduate School funding to support an interdisciplinary graduate education program (IGEP) in global change. The new Interfaces of Global Change (IGC IGEP) will address the multidimensional aspects of global change and provide the next generation of scientists with a unique perspective and skill set to address the most challenging environmental issues facing society today.

Image credit: U.S. Global Change Research Program (www.globalchange.gov)