For the first time, two phenomena that occur in different seasons are connected: the high temperatures advance and extend springs, so that the vegetation grows more intensely and absorbs more moisture from the soil. The consequence is much drier and warmer summers.
CREAF, part of the consortium of the project, was the organizer of the event, which took place between November 25 and 27 at the Casa Convalescència in Barcelona, to deepen the challenges is facing the citizen science.
Recently, my friend Paul Zedler raised a question between insidious and philosophical: our scientific procedure based on searching for processes and establishing causal relationships, has no significance unless it translates into actions. I had no other option than accept the premise, otherwise I would get exposed at the top of the infamous ivory tower.
A study involving three CREAF researchers has found that plants with low nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in their leaves do not reproduce every year to enable them to reproduce on a huge scale in years in which conditions are right. Oaks, holm oaks and beeches are examples of trees that behave in such a way.
Iceland’s grasslands and living organisms react strongly to warming in an initial period of five to eight years, the ecosystem will have returned to a steady state closer to its original state when more than 50 years have elapsed.
This is what shows a recent research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. This finding will help scientists work out how climate change is set to affect the planet’s different ecosystems.
A work by CSIC and CREAF scientists highlights that wild plants are more fertile and more resistant to pests than traditional crop varieties because their roots release substances that help them to capture more nutrients and fight pathogenic bacteria and fungi in the soil. If these natural properties were transferred to conventional cultivated varieties, agricultural yield could be improved and the ecological impacts of pesticides and industrial fertilizers reduced.
CREAF, as Severo Ochoa center, is a host organization of INPhINIT Incoming and offers up to 9 research projects to be carried out in a multidisciplinary and international research team.
A study published in the journal Organisms Diversity & Evolution has shown that it is variation between populations and not, as previously thought, between sexes that determines whether Hermann’s tortoises have four or five digits on their front feet.
