Maintaining species-rich and resilient ecosystems is key to preserving biodiversity and mitigating climate change. Here, megafauna — the part of the animal population in an area that is made up of the largest animals — plays an important role. In a new study published in the scientific journal One Earth, an international research team, of which Lund University is a part, has investigated the intricate interplay between the number of voracious herbivores and the diversity of trees in the world’s protected areas.

“Our findings reveal a fascinating and complex story of how large herbivorous animals shape the world’s natural landscapes. The tree cover in these areas is sparser, but the diversity of the tree cover is much higher than in areas without large herbivores,” says Lanhui Wang, a researcher in physical geography and ecosystem science at Lund University.

“In our global analysis, we find a substantial association between the biomass of large herbivores and varied tree cover in protected areas, notably for browsers and mixed-feeders such as elephants, bison and moose and in non-extreme climates,” explains the study’s senior author, Jens-Christian Svenning, professor at Aarhus University.

Hereby, the study supports that large wild herbivores promote a diverse vegetation structure, creating a rich habitat for many other species. This is due to the animals’ consumption of vegetation as well as physical disturbances.

According to Lanhui Wang, these new research findings highlight the need to integrate large herbivores into restoration and conservation strategies. Not only for the sake of the animals themselves but also for the vital role they play in shaping landscapes and influencing biodiversity. The researchers argue that this aspect is not sufficiently considered within the framework of sustainable land management and ecosystem restoration.

“At a time when global initiatives are intensely focused on combating climate change and biodiversity loss, our findings highlight the need for a broader and more nuanced discussion about ecosystem management and conservation measures. It is of utmost importance to integrate understanding of the ecological impact of megafauna into this,” says Lanhui Wang.

The UN has declared the 2020s as the decade of ecosystem restoration. In total, 115 countries have agreed to restore up to 100,000 square kilometres of nature in total. To achieve this, more wild-living large herbivores are needed worldwide, says Lanhui Wang.

“I believe that we will need to protect and conserve large herbivores to achieve the UN goals. Megafauna are crucial for tree cover, which in turn promotes carbon sequestration and a diversity of habitats,” says Lanhui Wang.

The study, published this week in Nature Communications, also shows some areas of the ocean are doing more of the work in heat uptake or absorption, which has implications for our understanding of sea-level rise and climate impacts.

Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from human activity traps heat within the climate system, warming air, the land surface, the oceans, and melting polar ice. Oceans do by far the most work, absorbing more than 90 per cent of the excess human-generated heat accumulated in the Earth’s climate system, moderating atmospheric temperature rises.

While ocean warming helps slow the pace of climate change, it is not without cost, says Scientia Professor Matthew England, co-author of the study from the UNSW Centre for Marine Science and Innovation.

“The world ocean, in 2023, is now the hottest ever recorded, and sea levels are rising because heat causes water to expand and ice to melt,” says Prof. England. “Ecosystems are also experiencing unprecedented heat stress, and the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events are changing rapidly, and the costs are enormous.”

“Right now, the ocean is warming at a dramatically accelerating rate, nearly doubling during the 2010s relative to the 1990s,” says Dr Zhi Li, lead author of the study from the UNSW Centre for Marine Science and Innovation. “What we wanted to do in this study was to figure out exactly where this ocean heat uptake has been occurring.”

Hotspots of ocean heat uptake

For the study, the researchers evaluated all available observations of ocean warming activity spanning modern Argo float data — an international ocean research program that collects information using robotic instruments — to those taken in the 1950s when only sparse measurements were made from ship-borne devices. They then analysed the heat uptake across water masses and quantified each water mass’s role in ocean heat content change.

They found oceanic warming has been pervasive worldwide, spreading from the surface to the deep-sea regions known as the abyssal layers and spanning each basin from the tropics to the polar regions. However, the distribution of ocean warming by region was far from uniform.

The Southern Ocean saw the largest increase in heat storage over the past two decades, holding almost the same excess anthropogenic heat as the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Ocean combined. This includes two large masses of water in the Southern Ocean that combine to fill a depth range of 300 — 1500 metres.

“Melting ice caps, extreme weather, and marine ecosystems, including coral reefs, are all highly sensitive to ocean temperature changes,” says Dr Sjoerd Groeskamp, co-author of the study from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research. “It is critical we understand exactly how and where the ocean warms — both now and into the future.”

Exactly how heat uptake plays out over the coming decades and beyond remains highly uncertain. For example, if the oceans develop a reduced capacity to absorb heat, it will have profound implications for the rate of future climate change.

The scientists say their findings highlight an urgent need to increase monitoring of the global oceans, especially in remote locations like the polar oceans, as well as key regions of the subtropical and coastal seas to better understand and predict sea-level rise and impacts on marine ecosystems.

“Without Argo floats, for example, this study would not have been possible,” says Prof. England.

The team also call for more international action from big-emitting nations to meet their net zero carbon targets as soon as possible and limit the damage from uncontrolled ocean warming.

“Without any action, these net zero pledges are just meaningless,” says Dr Groeskamp.

If you enjoy yoga and spends a little time every day in various poses, you know the struggle of using a yoga mat that’s past its prime. Some mats wear down faster than others, but as a rule of thumb you can plan to replace a mat every couple of years. So, finding a sustainable way to dispose of it is a top priority.

Fortunately, there are more options available than simply sending old yoga mats to the landfill. They can be reused in a variety of ways. But recycling them can be quite a challenge, although a new generation of yoga mat companies and products are making progress toward more sustainably made and recyclable designs using biobased and natural rubber materials.

How To Recycle Yoga Mats

Most popular yoga mats are made from vinyl, or PVC (plastic resin code #3), which is one of the most difficult plastics to recycle. Even if your local recycling center accepts PVC, they may not take yoga mats, so be sure to call first. If your local center won’t accept them, there aren’t many recycling options available.

A very few companies do accept old yoga mats for recycling. TerraCycle offers yoga mat recycling through its Sporting Goods Zero Waste Box program. Ranging in price from $142.00 to $290.00, your yoga mat can be recycled along with any balls, sporting equipment, exercise clothing, bags, and other items you might use on the field or in the locker room.

If you live in Europe, the Continuum Collective’s Second Flow Initiative offers to recycle any brand of PVC or rubber yoga mat. The organization partners will several mat companies to offer free return shipping for your old mat when you buy a new mat from a partner; if aren’t making a new purchase, there is a fee for the mailing label.

One mat company that offers a recycling program is LovEarth in Australia. When you purchase one of LovEarth’s sustainable yoga mats, they provide the option to request a mailing label so you can send them your old mat for upcycling or recycling. Not only will you get rid of an old PVC mat, but the new mat you purchase from them is biodegradable and much safer for the environment. BeJollie, a mat retailer, offers free recycling for buyers of new mats, as well as drop-off collection points in Houston, and donates money earned by its recycling partner to the Boston Children’s Hospital

If you’d like to purchase a recycled mat, take a look at Suga’s recycled wetsuit yoga mats. The company also accepts worn-out SugaMats (and old wetsuits, of course) for recycling into new SugaMats.

Many companies have started yoga mat recycling programs, only to shut them down. Before you purchase your next mat, consider calling the manufacturer of your old mat to see if they have a take-back program. And check with the manufacturer of the new mat you’re purchasing to find out if they have a recycling program.

How To Reuse Yoga Mats

There are many creative ways to reuse old yoga mats to give them a little more life before it’s time for disposal. Here are a few suggestions, but you can explore even more ideas on Jade Yoga’s website.

Use as a Doormat

Use a few old mats as doormats. They’re perfect for guests to keep their shoes on and are also very easy to clean. Simply wipe them down to get rid of any dirt and they’re good to go.

Use as a Liner or Padding

Yoga mats work great as makeshift liners. Whether you use them in kitchen drawers or on bookshelves, these mats have just the right texture to hold things in place. Just measure the mat to the right size, cut it out carefully, and fit it into place. Old mats also work well under area rugs to stop slippage and add padding.

Use in the Garden

An old yoga mat can make a great kneeling pad for when you’re working in the garden. Just trim it down to the appropriate size. You can even cut a few strips and glue them together — or simply fold it over a few times — to give yourself even more cushioning.

Donate Your Yoga Mat

If you gave yoga a try for a while and then decided to quit, your mat probably still has some life left in it. You can reach out to local yoga studios or community and youth centers to see if they accept mat donations. In some cases, they will take them and give them out to others who can’t afford their own.

However you decide to recycle or reuse your old yoga mat, you’ll feel less stressed knowing you’re doing your part for our planet.

Editor’s Note: Originally published on January 16, 2019, this article was updated in October 2023.

To determine how culture and society adapt to a changing climate, a team of researchers from the University of Maine and the University of Vermont (UVM) have conducted the first-ever study of cultural adaptation to climate change. Using the science of cultural evolution to examine data on which crops farmers plant across the U.S., their work can help inspire more effective policy solutions to survive in the face of the harmful effects of global warming.

Tim Waring, associate professor with the UMaine Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions and the School of Economics, spearheaded the project, funded by a $4 million grant from the National Science Foundation.

“Adaptation is about finding a better match to the environment. We know that humans evolve and adapt by changing their culture.” Waring says. “But we know very little about if or how culture is adapting to ongoing climate change today.”

In their paper, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, Waring and his colleagues define cultural adaptation as a population-level change, or the spread of a behavior that provides a benefit in a changed environment.

“There are three ingredients for adaptation,” says Waring, “a new practice, which provides a benefit, and then spreads.”

With these criteria, researchers compared the climate in which different crops grow best to the actual climate, using data on crops planted in each county across the U.S. for the last 14 years. They found that for much of the U.S., farmers have changed which crops they plant in a way that better matches crops to recent changes in climate.

Studying cultural adaptation to climate change can improve research because it enables more rigorous comparisons to show where adaptation is happening.

For example, in Maine, northern and western counties have changed crops in a way that follows recent climate change. But the researchers found that crop adaptation to climate change is not happening everywhere. In some regions, planted crops have become even less suited to climate change.

“Our research shows that many Maine farmers are already adapting to climate change. They always have. That’s what farmers do,” Waring says.

This new culture-based approach to climate adaptation can also provide insight to policymakers by distinguishing the process of adaptation from policy goals and beneficial outcomes for society.

For example, the team also explored if climate change influenced the use of cover crops in the U.S. They concluded that the recent surge in cover cropping may be due to cultural adaptation, but just not to climate change. Instead, many farmers are adapting their practices to take advantage of financial incentives for cover cropping.

“This shows why understanding cultural adaptation is so important. Adaptation is a powerful force, but we need to aim it at the problems we want to solve,” says Waring. “This approach opens a new frontier in climate adaptation research and policy. We are only just getting started.”

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite is sending down tantalizing views of Earth’s water, including a global composite of sea surface heights. The satellite collected the data visualized above during SWOT’s first full 21-day science orbit, which it completed between July 26 and Aug. 16.

SWOT is measuring the height of nearly all water on Earth’s surface, providing one of the most detailed, comprehensive views yet of the planet’s oceans and freshwater lakes and rivers. The satellite is a collaboration between NASA and the French space agency, CNES (Centre National d’Études Spatiales).

The animation shows sea surface height anomalies around the world: Red and orange indicate ocean heights that were higher than the global mean sea surface height, while blue represents heights lower than the mean. Sea level differences can highlight ocean currents, like the Gulf Stream coming off the U.S. East Coast or the Kuroshio current off the east coast of Japan. Sea surface height can also indicate regions of relatively warmer water – like the eastern part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean during an El Niño – because water expands as it warms.

The SWOT science team made the measurements using the groundbreaking Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument. With two antennas spread 33 feet (10 meters) apart on a boom, KaRIn produces a pair of data swaths (tracks visible in the animation) as it circles the globe, bouncing radar pulses off the water’s surface to collect surface-height measurements.

“The detail that SWOT is sending back on sea levels around the world is incredible,” said Parag Vaze, SWOT project manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “The data will advance research into the effects of climate change and help communities around the world better prepare for a warming world.”

More About the Mission

Launched on Dec. 16, 2022, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California, SWOT is now in its operations phase, collecting data that will be used for research and other purposes.

SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and CNES, with contributions from CSA (Canadian Space Agency) and the UK Space Agency. JPL, which is managed for the agency by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA provided the KaRIn instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES provided the Doppler Orbitography and Radioposition Integrated by Satellite (DORIS) system, the dual frequency Poseidon altimeter (developed by Thales Alenia Space), the KaRIn radio-frequency subsystem (together with Thales Alenia Space and with support from the UK Space Agency), the satellite platform, and ground operations. CSA provided the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA provided the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, managed the associated launch services.

To learn more about SWOT, visit:

https://swot.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Jane J. Lee / Andrew Wang

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

818-354-0307 / 626-379-6874

[email protected] / [email protected]

Blocked channels improve oxygen stability

A metalloenzyme with particularly high catalytic turnover rates of molecular hydrogen is called [FeFe] hydrogenase. “The turnover of hydrogen takes place at the active site, the H-cluster, inside the enzyme,” explains Thomas Happe. “The hydrogen produced inside then travels through channels to exit the enzyme.”

“Conversely, if the enzyme is exposed to molecular oxygen, the oxygen also uses specific channels to travel from the enzyme surface up to the H-cluster,” adds first author Claudia Brocks. The H-cluster is destroyed at the slightest contact with oxygen and loses the ability to produce any further hydrogen.

The Bochum research team managed to increase the oxygen stability of the [FeFe] hydrogenase enzyme CpI and explain the oxygen protection effect by using an interdisciplinary combination of methods including site-directed mutagenesis, electrochemistry, X-ray crystallography and molecular dynamics simulations. “Selective genetic modifications to an enzyme channel altered the hydrogenase enzyme CpI in such a way that we detected a significant increase in oxygen tolerance and oxygen resistance by electrochemical means,” explains Claudia Brocks. “We used molecular dynamics simulation to study channel modifications. Our analysis revealed blockages in a newly identified dynamic water channel close to the H-cluster.” Thomas Happe adds: “The protective effect against harmful oxygen is based on this channel blockage. Oxygen can only penetrate to the H-cluster with difficulty. Local structural modifications can lead to significant changes in protein dynamics.”

Once it launches in early 2024, the NISAR radar satellite mission will offer detailed insights into two types of ecosystems – forests and wetlands – vital to naturally regulating the greenhouses gases in the atmosphere that are driving global climate change.

NISAR is a joint mission by NASA and ISRO (Indian Space Research Organisation), and when in orbit, its sophisticated radar systems will scan nearly all of Earth’s land and ice surfaces twice every 12 days. The data it collects will help researchers understand two key functions of both ecosystem types: the capture and the release of carbon.

Forests hold carbon in the wood of their trees; wetlands store it in their layers of organic soil. Disruption of either system, whether gradual or sudden, can accelerate the release of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. Tracking these land-cover changes on a global scale will help researchers study the impacts on the carbon cycle – the processes by which carbon moves between the atmosphere, land, ocean, and living things.

“The radar technology on NISAR will allow us to get a sweeping perspective of the planet in space and time,” said Paul Rosen, the NISAR project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “It can give us a really reliable view of exactly how Earth’s land and ice are changing.”

Tracking Deforestation

Forestry and other land-use changes account for about 11% of net human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. NISAR’s data will improve our understanding of how the loss of forests around the world influences the carbon cycle and contributes to global warming.

“Globally, we do not understand well the carbon sources and sinks from terrestrial ecosystems, particularly from forests,” said Anup Das, an ecosystems scientist and co-lead of the ISRO NISAR science team. “So we expect that NISAR will greatly help address that, especially in less dense forests, which are more vulnerable to deforestation and degradation.”

The signal from NISAR’s L-band radar will penetrate the leaves and branches of forest canopies, bouncing off the tree trunks and the ground below. By analyzing the signal that reflects back, researchers will be able to estimate the density of forest cover in an area as small as a soccer field. With successive orbital passes, it will be able to track whether a section of forest has been thinned or cleared over time. The data – which will be collected in early morning and evening and in any weather – could also offer clues as to what caused the change, such as disease, human activity, or fire.

It’s an important set of capabilities for studying vast, often cloud-covered rainforests such as those in the Congo and Amazon basins, which lose millions of wooded acres every year. Fire releases carbon into the air directly, while the deterioration of forests reduces the absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

The data could also help improve accounting of deforestation and forest degradation – as well as forest growth – as countries that rely on logging try to shift toward more sustainable practices, said Josef Kellndorfer, a member of the NISAR science team and founder of Earth Big Data LLC, a provider of large data sets and analytic tools for research and decisions support. “Reducing deforestation and degradation is low-hanging fruit to address a substantial part of the global carbon emission problem,” he added.

Monitoring Wetland Flooding

Wetlands present another carbon puzzle: Swamps, bogs, peatlands, inundated forests, marshes, and other wetlands hold 20 to 30% of the carbon in Earth’s soil, despite constituting only 5 to 8% of the land surface.

When wetlands flood, bacteria go to work digesting organic matter (mostly dead plants) in the soil. Through this natural process, wetlands are the planet’s largest natural source of the potent greenhouse gas methane, which bubbles to the water’s surface and travels into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, when wetlands dry out, the carbon they store is exposed to oxygen, releasing carbon dioxide.

“These are huge reservoirs of carbon that can be released in a relatively short time frame,” said Erika Podest, a NISAR science team member and a carbon cycle and ecosystems researcher at JPL.

Less well understood is how changing temperature and precipitation patterns due to climate change – along with human activities such as development and agriculture – are affecting the extent, frequency, and duration of flooding in wetlands. NISAR will be able to monitor flooding, and with repeated passes, researchers will be able to track seasonal and annual variations in wetlands inundation, as well as long-term trends.

By coupling NISAR’s wetlands observations with separate data on the release of greenhouse gases, researchers should gain insights that inform the management of wetland ecosystems, said Bruce Chapman, a NISAR science team member and JPL wetlands researcher. “We have to be careful to reduce our impact on wetland areas so that we don’t worsen the situation with the climate,” he added.

NISAR is set to launch in early 2024 from southern India. In addition to tracking ecosystem changes, it will collect information on the motion of the land, helping researchers understand the dynamics of earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, and subsidence and uplift (when the surface sinks and rises). It will also track the movements and melting of both glaciers and sea ice.

More About the Mission

NISAR is an equal collaboration between NASA and ISRO and marks the first time the two agencies have cooperated on hardware development for an Earth-observing mission. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, leads the U.S. component of the project and is providing the mission’s L-band SAR. NASA is also providing the radar reflector antenna, the deployable boom, a high-rate communication subsystem for science data, GPS receivers, a solid-state recorder, and payload data subsystem. ISRO’s U R Rao Satellite Centre in Bengaluru, which is leading the ISRO component of the mission, is providing the spacecraft bus, the S-band SAR electronics, the launch vehicle, and associated launch services and satellite mission operations.

To learn more about NISAR, visit:

https://nisar.jpl.nasa.gov/

News Media Contacts

Andrew Wang / Jane J. Lee

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.

626-379-6874 / 818-354-0307

[email protected] / [email protected]

According to a new study co-authored by a Tulane University researcher and published in the journal Nature Food, making simple substitutions like switching from beef to chicken or drinking plant-based milk instead of cow’s milk could reduce the average American’s carbon footprint from food by 35%, while also boosting diet quality by between 4-10%, according to the study.

These findings highlight the potential of a “small changes” approach that researchers believe could encourage more consumers to adopt climate-friendly eating habits. Food production accounts for 25-33% of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions with beef production being a primary contributor.

“This study shows that cutting dietary carbon emissions is accessible and doesn’t have to be a whole lifestyle change,” said Diego Rose, senior author and nutrition program director at Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. “It can be as simple as ordering a chicken burrito instead of a beef burrito when you go out to eat. When you’re at the grocery store, move your hand one foot over to grab soy or almond milk instead of cow’s milk. That one small change can have a significant impact.”

The study, which analyzed diet data from over 7,700 Americans, identified commonly eaten foods with the highest climate impact and simulated replacing them with nutritionally similar, lower-emission options.

“For us, substitutes included swapping a beef burger for a turkey burger, not replacing your steak with a tofu hotdog,” said Anna Grummon, lead author and assistant professor of pediatrics and health policy at Stanford University. “We looked for substitutes that were as similar as possible.”

The largest projected reductions in emissions were seen in mixed dishes: burritos, pastas and similar popular dishes where it’s easy to substitute a lower-impact protein instead of beef.

The study expanded on past research by including dietary data for children. Whereas it may be more effective for an adult to focus on protein swaps, Grummon said switching children to plant-based milk can have a “meaningful impact on the carbon footprint” and help start positive habits earlier.

Identifying healthy alternatives to high-carbon foods was not the intent of the study. And yet, swapping to lower carbon foods showed “sizable improvements in how healthy the diets were.”

While these substitutes are not intended as a cure-all for climate objectives or personal health goals, they are evidence that small changes can have a large impact.

“There is overlap between sustainable diets and healthy diets,” Grummon said. “Our study shows that changing just one ingredient, making one swap, can be a win-win, resulting in meaningful changes in both climate outcomes and how healthy our diets are.”

Other co-authors of the study included Cristina Lee and Thomas Robinson of Stanford University and Eric Rimm of Harvard University.