According to a study co-authored by CREAF-based CSIC researcher Josep Peñuelas and published in Science Advances, increases in ozone in Earth’s atmosphere will be a danger to the biodiversity of the Mediterranean Basin, Japan and equatorial Africa by 2100.
A study led by a CREAF-CSIC researcher has outlined a new methodology for describing changes in the life cycle of plants caused by planetary warmingwith higher precision. Daytime, rather than nocturnal temperatures determine phenological changes. The increase in temperatures, leading to an earlier spring, alters the global functioning of ecosystems.
The organisms commonly known as blue-green algae have proliferated much more rapidly than other algae in lakes across North America and Europe over the past two centuries – and in many cases the rate of increase has sharply accelerated since the mid-20th century, according to an international team of researchers led by scientists at McGill University with CREAF and CSIC researchers.
According to the study in which CREAF participated, China contributes 43% of this amount. For decades it had been thought that human activities were responsible for only around 5% of atmospherically-circulating phosphorus. More phosphorus in the air means more phosphors deposited on the ground. This can boost plant growth and the capacity to sequester atmospheric CO2; for that reason human activities may be altering the phosphorus and carbon cycles to a degree which was previously unknown
The study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, showed that forests growing in fertile soils with ample nutrients are able to sequester about 30% of the carbon that they take up during photosynthesis. In contrast, forests growing in nutrient-poor soils may retain only 6% of that carbon. The rest is returned to the atmosphere as respiration.
The team of Josep Peñuelas, researcher of CREAF and lecturer of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), was selected for a Synergy Grant, the prestigious grant offered by the European Research Council to projects by research groups of renowned excellence with interest in jointly solving vanguard research problems in the field of science.
Nightime temperatures on the planet have increased 1.4 times faster than daytime temperatures. This asymmetry alters carbon fluxes and plant growth in the northern hemisphere, according to a study in which the CREAF is participating.
The researcher Pilar Andrés will depart for two years to the USA, to Colorado to study the soil ecology of the Great Plains. Specifically, the project that she presented aims to improve the models that explain the decomposition of organic matter in the soil and contribute to the improvement of models of the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
