Nature @en
Are the tropical forests losing their carbon storage capacity?
Recently published in the journal Nature Plants, a pioneering international study led by CREAF-based CSIC researcher Josep Peñuelas has used L-band passive microwave observations to measure carbon stocks and fluxes in the planet’s tropical forests more reliably than ever before.
Four Spanish scientists receive the Nature award
Yesterday, the 4th of December, the Nature Award for Mentoring took place, the awards for four exemplary scientific tutors. It was held for the first time in Spain, under a panel of judges chaired by Josep Peñuelas and met at CREAF months ago. The winners are Lluís Torner, Margarita Salas, Carlos López-Otín and Carlos Belmonte. Congratulations!!
The loss of soil carbon can accelerate climate change
The journal Nature has today published a study which had the participation of CSIC scientists at CREAF, Marc Estiarte and Josep Peñuelas, which demonstrates the relationship between the release of carbon from soils and the acceleration of climate change.
Some updates
In this new article, Jaume Terrades presents new information and updates some of his posts that he has written in his section.
The world has become greener over the past 33 years
Since 1982, Earth has become greener in an area covering 36 million km2, close to two times the size of the United States. Above all, this seems to be the result of a fertilizing effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) on plants. The study was carried out with satellite images which can capture this increase in terrestrial leaf area.
When ‘flying blind’, chaotic searching could be a good strategy
When an animal has limited information about its environment, a chaotic movement pattern could be an efficient strategy for finding what it needs. For mollusks, this could result from internal neural processes. Understanding the mechanisms for chaos generation and its connection with search behavior could help apply these types of patterns to research on humans.
CO2 absorption in European ecosystems depends on two major climatic phenomena
The worst scenario occurs when NAO and EA are in opposite phases. This ocurred in the first few years of the previous decade and during this period, the CO2 uptake was below average. Recently, NAO and EA were in the same phase and ecosystems have been able to remove more carbon from the atmosphere.
Wood and leaf densities explain how forests function across the globe
Understanding ecosystem dynamics can lead to greater benefits in forest management, species conservation, and carbon sequestration. A new study puts forward results which can be generalized for the whole globe and to 53,000 tree species thanks to the large quantity of data gathered and analyzed.