The Brazilian Amazon encompasses the largest tropical forest area with the highest biodiversity in the world. Since 2000, Indigenous territories and protected areas have increased substantially in the region and by 2013, Indigenous territories and protected areas accounted for 43% of the total land area and covered approximately 50% of the total forest area.

However, tensions between forest conservation and socioeconomic development goals persist. In recent years, forest conservation has been threatened by large socio-ecological changes in Brazil. Weakened forest and environmental policies and enforcement as well as impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic had devastating impacts on Indigenous groups in the region.

In this U.S.-Brazil collaborative study, Yuanwei Qin, Ph.D., and Xiangming Xiao, Ph.D., of OU’s Center for Earth Observation and Modeling, with Fabio de Sa e Silva, Ph.D., assistant professor of international studies and Wick Cary Professor of Brazilian Studies in the OU College of International Studies, worked with collaborators from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research and the National Institute for Research in Amazonia in Brazil. The research team combined multiple data sources to document and quantify the dynamics and impact of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon over the past two decades.

Because of frequent cloud cover and fire-induced smoke in the Brazilian Amazon, annual forest maps from analyses of optical images have only moderate accuracy. In a 2019 paper published by the same journal, the research team combined image data from both optical and microwave sensors to generate annual Brazilian Amazon forest maps. Using these annual forest maps, they assessed the effects of Indigenous territories and protected areas on deforestation dynamics in the Brazilian Amazon through 2021.

“Between 2000 and 2021, the areas designated as Indigenous territories or protected areas increased to cover approximately 52% of forests in the Brazilian Amazon, accounting for only 5% of net forest loss and 12% of gross forest loss in the period,” said Qin. “This finding highlights the vital role of Indigenous territories and the protected areas for forest conservation in the region.”

The protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon are subject to different state and national governance arrangements and have different management objectives, including strict protection or sustainable use. They found that from 2003 through 2021, gross forest loss fell 48% in the protected areas subject to strict protection and 11% in the protected areas subject to sustainable use.

“These varying effects on forest conservation call for more in-depth causal analyses by researchers and invite stakeholders, decision-makers, and the public to reassess existing policies for these areas. Legal designations are important, but if the law is not enforced, the intended protection of forests and biodiversity will be illusional. This is an area in which Brazil is knowingly failing,” de Sa e Silva said.

The results from this study also show that annual forest area loss was affected by Brazilian forest policies, as evidenced by a large reduction of forest area loss in the early 2000s to mid-2010s, corresponding with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva administration in 2003-2010, and renewed rise of forest area loss even among Indigenous territories and the protected areas in 2019-2021, corresponding with President Jair Bolsonaro’s administration in 2019-2022.

“How to rebuild effective policies and reduce forest area loss in the Brazilian Amazon in the coming years will be one of the grand challenges for Lula’s administration and international communities,” Xiao said.

This study adds to a portfolio of research efforts to document forest areas in the Brazilian Amazon by Qin and Xiao, including a 2019 paper, “Improved estimates of forest cover and loss in the Brazilian Amazon in 2000-2017,” published in Nature Sustainability; a 2021 paper, “Carbon loss from forest degradation exceeds that from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon,” published in Nature Climate Change; as well as two others. 

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The researchers found that the mountain plover, birds that thrive when vegetation is kept shorter by prairie dogs, almost disappeared from the study area, while migrant songbirds such as the lark bunting, which prefer taller vegetation, increased in number. Meanwhile, species including ferruginous hawks, badgers and swift foxes declined dramatically as their prey base crashed.

When an outbreak of sylvatic plague decimated black-tailed prairie dog numbers in the Thunder Basin National Grassland in 2017, researchers saw an opportunity for a “natural experiment” to explore the impact of the rodents’ die-off on the plants and other wildlife in that area of northeast Wyoming.

What they learned was that the decline in prairie dogs, along with abnormally high precipitation in 2018, combined to bring about dramatic ecosystem changes. The findings highlight the serious conservation challenges caused by boom-and-bust disease cycles in remaining Great Plains grasslands, the researchers say.

“We found that prairie dogs play a critical role for associated vegetation and wildlife communities in this system, creating important grassland habitat for numerous species while serving as prey for several predators,” says Courtney Duchardt, an assistant professor in Oklahoma State University’s Department of Natural Resource Ecology and Management who led the research as a University of Wyoming Ph.D. student in ecology. “Our research highlights how precipitation can interact with disease-induced loss of a keystone species to induce drastic and rapid shifts in wildlife communities.”

The research is published in Ecological Applications, a journal of the Ecological Society of America that focuses on applications of ecological science to environmental problems. Others involved were Professor Jeff Beck, Associate Professor Derek Scasta and former graduate student Lauren Connell, all of UW’s Department of Ecosystem Science and Management; Ana Davidson, of Colorado State University; Jacob Hennig, of the U.S. Geological Survey; David Augustine and Lauren Porensky, of the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and David Pellatz, of the Thunder Basin Grasslands Prairie Ecosystem Association.

Black-tailed prairie dogs now occupy a small fraction of their historical range and are considered a nuisance in some areas because of their capacity to compete with livestock for forage. They also are highly susceptible to sylvatic plague, a nonnative pathogen introduced to North America in the early 1900s. The combined pressures of disease, habitat loss and control efforts that have reduced populations of the rodent also have resulted in declines in associated wildlife species. Those include birds such as burrowing owls, mountain plovers and raptors, as well as swift foxes, coyotes and badgers.

This study, conducted from 2015-19 in the Thunder Basin grassland, may be the first to specifically examine the multispecies impacts of a wide-scale plague outbreak, which reduced the area covered by prairie dog colonies from nearly 25,000 acres to only about 125 acres in the study area. The 2017 outbreak was followed by abnormally high precipitation in 2018, which caused vegetation to grow quickly and taller without the presence of prairie dogs.

The researchers found that the mountain plover, birds that thrive when vegetation is kept shorter by prairie dogs, almost disappeared from the study area, while migrant songbirds such as the lark bunting, which prefer taller vegetation, increased in number.

Meanwhile, species including ferruginous hawks, badgers and swift foxes declined dramatically as their prey base crashed.

The researchers say that, while plants and animals in Great Plains grasslands historically have been subject to variations in precipitation and other factors, the boom-and-bust cycles are likely to “destabilize” the ecosystems further. That could even be a challenge for livestock managers.

During the boom portion of the cycle, the capacity of prairie dogs to compete with livestock for available forage makes the rodents a nuisance. But the bust portion of the cycle isn’t ideal for producers, either.

“Although reduced prairie dog numbers yield increased vegetation biomass, the unpredictability of these cycles makes capitalizing on additional forage difficult for agricultural producers,” the researchers wrote. “Essentially, the undesirability and unpredictability of these cycles is potentially the one thing that most, if not all, stakeholders can agree on.”

The scientists suggest that further efforts to predict prairie dog boom-and-bust cycles will help support the compatibility of managing rangelands for both livestock and biodiversity conservation.

Earth911 is honoring the 52 years of Earth Day with 52 Actions for the Earth. Each week through Earth Day 2023, we will share an action you can take to invest in the Earth and make your own life more sustainable. Gardeners love the new year because that’s when the seed catalogs start showing up in mailboxes. If you’ve already canceled all your catalogs, this week, you can take action for the Earth by making sustainable garden plans instead of browsing catalogs for plants you’ll never actually grow.

Action: Plan a Garden

Green Gardening

Spending time in the garden is one of the easiest ways to experience the outdoors. And doing garden work makes a lot of people feel closer to nature. But ironically, a lot of the things we do to make our gardens grow aren’t very good for the environment. Lawns are the most notorious. Turfgrass is a monoculture that covers more than three times as much area as any food crop in the United States. Maintaining that massive monoculture results in pollution and health risks from fertilizers, weed killers, and gas mowers. Nearly one-third of all residential water is sprinkled on our lawns.

But lawns aren’t the only culprits. The pesticides we drench our plants in have even more impacts. Pesticides weaken our food, kill beneficial insects as well as pests, and can be toxic to wildlife and kill pets. More than 90% of Americans’ bodies contain pesticide residues. Pesticides and fertilizers contaminate our groundwater and drinking water and contribute to dead zones in oceans.

Even the plants we grow can have a negative impact. Most of the invasive species that harm natural areas were purposely introduced through cultivation, usually as ornamental plants.

Pick Your Project

This may be the year you completely relandscape to create an eco-haven. But it’s easy to dream up projects in January that are too much to manage in July. So make a realistic plan. If starting from scratch is too much, take incremental steps. Consider converting a part of your yard to a more sustainable design.

Instead of changing what you plant, you could choose to adopt some more sustainable maintenance habits for the landscape you already have. Here are some greener gardening ideas:

Whatever you decide to do, designing on the fly while you’re at the nursery in the spring is a great way to waste money and plants. Now is the time to figure out how you’re going to make your garden more sustainable in 2023.

In a recent study published in Nature Climate Change, these researchers analyzed projections from three dozen climate models and found that the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation and the Southern Meridional Overturning Circulation will slow by as much as 42 percent by 2100. The simulations suggest that under worst-case warming, the SMOC could cease entirely by 2300.

“Analysis of the projections from 36 Earth system models over a range of climate scenarios shows that unchecked global warming could lead to a shutdown of the ocean deep circulation,” said co-author J. Keith Moore, UCI professor of Earth system science. “This would be a climate disaster similar in magnitude to complete melting of the ice sheets on land.”

The importance of overturning circulation

In the Atlantic, as warm water flows northwards on the surface, it cools and evaporates, making it saltier and denser. This heavier water sinks into the deep ocean and proceeds to the south where it eventually rises back up, carrying from the depths the nutrients that are the food foundation of marine ecosystems.

In addition, globe-spanning ocean circulation creates a powerful factory for the processing of atmospheric carbon dioxide. The basic physical and chemical interaction of seawater and air — what Moore and his colleagues call a “solubility pump” — draws CO₂ into the ocean. While the ocean circulation sends some carbon back to the sky, the net amount is sequestered in the ocean’s depths.

Additionally, a “biological pump” occurs as phytoplankton use CO₂ during photosynthesis and in forming carbonate shells. When the plankton and larger animals die, they sink, slowly decomposing and releasing the carbon and nutrients at depth. Some comes back up with circulation and upwelling, but a portion remains banked beneath the waves.

“A disruption in circulation would reduce ocean uptake of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, intensifying and extending the hot climate conditions,” Moore said. “Over time the nutrients that support marine ecosystems would increasingly become trapped in the deep ocean, leading to declining global-ocean biological productivity.”

Humans depend on the solubility pump and the biological pump to help remove some of the CO₂ emitting into the air through fossil fuel burning, land use practices and other activities, according to Moore.

“Our analysis also shows that reducing greenhouse gas emissions now can prevent this complete shutdown of the deep circulation in the future,” he said.

Joining Moore on this project, which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, were lead author Yi Liu, UCI Ph.D. student in Earth system science; Francois Primeau, professor and chair of UCI’s Department of Earth System Science; and Wei-Lei Wang, professor of ocean and Earth sciences at Xiamen University in China. The study depended substantially on simulations developed by the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6) project used to inform the IPCC climate assessments.

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Editor’s note: We’ve been living with COVID-19 for almost three years now and nearly 70% of the U.S. population has been fully vaccinated. Unfortunately, along with a bad flu season and high number of recorded RSV cases, the COVID virus continues to evolve, and cases are expected to rise as people spend more time indoors. We urge everyone to follow the CDC guidelines to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the flu, and RSV. 

The coronavirus continues to spread throughout the world, with more than 650 million confirmed cases worldwide. Since this article was first published in January 2021, several vaccines for COVID-19 have been approved and are available. These vaccines are effective at helping protect against severe disease and death from the virus.

In addition to getting vaccinated and following CDC guidelines, you can take steps to boost the immune system — its job is to protect us against harmful substances and germs. The better it can do its job, the healthier we will be. Let’s explore how to keep our immune systems healthy during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.

Adequate Vitamin D

This fat-soluble vitamin is a hormone our bodies produce in response to the sun. Vitamin D is critical for a healthy immune system and bone health. Unfortunately, studies show that 42% of the population is deficient. This is especially common in colder or cloudy climates and in individuals with darker skin. For example, studies show that Blacks — and to a lesser extent, Latinos — have higher instances of Vitamin D deficiency than their white counterparts.

Some foods contain Vitamin D, and our bodies can produce it when in the presence of sunlight. Typically, diet alone is not sufficient, and supplementing is recommended. The National Institutes of Health recommends intake of 600 IUs of Vitamin D for youth and adults and 800 IUs for seniors over 70 years of age. However, recommendations vary for optimum health, with some considerably higher. Also, exposure to sunlight helps boost Vitamin D levels. Unfortunately, this can be difficult in cold climates when the skin is covered and the sun is relatively weak.

Balanced & Healthy Diet

As we all know, a healthy diet rich in fruits and vegetables promotes health. Specifically, there is also evidence that zinc, selenium, iron, copper, folic acid, and vitamins A, B6, C, and E impact our immune systems. Avoid fried and processed foods and eat a variety of nutrient-dense foods.

Restful Sleep

In 1910, most people slept nine hours per night. Now, 40% of adults in the U.S. report getting less than six hours each night. About 30% to 40% of people in the U.S. report experiencing insomnia each year. The trend of inadequate sleep seems to be increasing over time. Although many of us are aware of the importance of sleep, we just don’t get enough of it.

There are many things we can do to embrace sound sleep. One of the most crucial steps is to acknowledge its importance and make restful sleep a priority.

Create a sleep routine and try to go to bed and wake up at roughly the same time each day. Ensure the bedroom is dark while you sleep and avoid electronic screens before bed. Don’t eat large meals or drink alcohol late at night. Relax before going to bed, allowing yourself to unwind. Make sure that your pillows and mattress are comfortable for your body type and sleep position.

Proper Hydration

Because every cell, tissue, and organ in our bodies relies on proper hydration, it is essential to immune health. How much water we need depends on our level of activity, body size, climate, diet, and other factors. Although there is no agreed-upon recommendation for water intake, some sources recommend eight glasses a day. One way to ensure you are adequately hydrated is to drink enough water that your urine is clear and you don’t feel thirsty.

Reduce Stress

Because of the strong mind-body connection, stress has a significant impact on our overall health. Although some stress is unavoidable, establish healthy habits to help combat it. Regular exercise, yoga, meditation, vibrant friendships, laughter, and creative outlets are all helpful. Likewise, it’s crucial to avoid factors that increase stress, such as toxic relationships and overspending.

Gut Health

There is an increasing body of evidence that our gut health shapes our physical health. Our microbiome can impact mental health, body weight, immune health, and the prevalence of disease. Some of the factors that impact gut health are listed above, such as reducing stress, adequate hydration, regular exercise, and eating a balanced diet. Also, eating a prebiotic and probiotic-rich diet can help.

Probiotics are microorganisms that can improve gut flora while inhibiting unhealthy bacteria. Prebiotics help increase the growth and activity of probiotics. Thus, it’s helpful to have the two combined for a balanced gut.

Prebiotic-rich foods include onions, garlic, asparagus, oats, apples, flaxseeds, seaweed, and dandelion greens. Probiotic-rich foods include raw kimchi, sauerkraut, kombucha, yogurt (with active or live cultures), kefir, pickles (not containing vinegar), and miso. Also, taking a probiotic supplement can be helpful.

Originally published on January 11, 2021, this article was updated in December 2022.

The Surface Water and Ocean Topography (SWOT) satellite launched into Earth orbit on Friday, Dec. 16, from Vandenberg Space Force Base in central California, and engineers are working to prepare the mission to begin measuring the height of water on over 90% of Earth’s surface, providing a high-definition survey of our planet’s water for the first time.

But before it can do that, the satellite would need to unfold its large mast and antenna panels (see above) after successfully deploying the solar panel arrays that power the spacecraft. The mission monitors and controls the satellite using telemetry data, but it also equipped spacecraft with four customized commercial cameras to record the action.

The solar arrays fully deployed shortly after launch, taking about 10 minutes.

The antennas successfully deployed over four days, a process that was completed on Dec. 22. The two cameras focused on the KaRIn antennas captured the mast extending out from the spacecraft and locking in place but stopped short of capturing the antennas being fully deployed (a milestone the team confirmed with telemetry data.)

Thirty-three feet (10 meters) apart, at either end of the mast, the two antennas belong to the groundbreaking Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument. Designed to capture precise measurements of the height of water in Earth’s freshwater bodies and the ocean, KaRIn will see eddies, currents, and other ocean features less than 13 miles (20 kilometers) across. It will also collect data on lakes and reservoirs larger than 15 acres (62,500 square meters) and rivers wider than 330 feet (100 meters) across.

KaRIn will do this by bouncing radar pulses off the surface of water on Earth and receiving the signals with both of those antennas, collecting data along a swath that’s 30 miles (50 kilometers) wide on either side of the satellite.

The data SWOT provides will help researchers and decision-makers address some of the most pressing climate questions of our time and help communities prepare for a warming world.

More About the Mission

SWOT was jointly developed by NASA and the French space agency Centre National d’Études Spatiales (CNES), with contributions from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the UK Space Agency. JPL, which is managed for NASA by Caltech in Pasadena, California, leads the U.S. component of the project. For the flight system payload, NASA is providing the Ka-band Radar Interferometer (KaRIn) instrument, a GPS science receiver, a laser retroreflector, a two-beam microwave radiometer, and NASA instrument operations. CNES is providing 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 is providing the KaRIn high-power transmitter assembly. NASA is providing the launch vehicle and the agency’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy Space Center, is managing the associated launch services.

To learn more about SWOT, visit:

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

These biofilms aren’t just unpleasant and unappealing however, they can be seriously troublesome. For example, in the medical field, the formation of biofilm can reduce the effectiveness of antibiotic treatments. The key to understanding biomass formation lies in understanding how bacteria behave en masse.

A new paper in EPJE by Heinrich-Heine-Universität, Düsseldorf, Germany, researcher Davide Breoni and his co-authors presents a mathematical model for the motion of bacteria that includes cell division and death, the basic ingredients of the cell cycle.

The team developed a mathematical model of bacterial movement in process creating a link between statistical physics and biophysics.

“Our new model belongs to a class of models for ‘active matter’ that currently encounter a lot of interest in statistical physics,” Breoni says. “This field studies the collective properties of particle systems that have their own energy source — bacteria are an exemplary case.”

The model devised by the team delivered a surprise by suggesting that when it comes to movement bacteria can act as a unit.

“In the course of our investigation, we found out that the model predicts that the formation of bacterial colonies can occur through the build-up of travelling waves, concentrated ‘packages’ of bacteria,” Breoni adds. “We did not expect this to arise from such a simple model as ours.”

He believes that the results should be interesting to the general public who may be aware of bacterial colonies, but not know how they move in a collective way.

Breoni concludes by pointing out this is a very simple model suggesting how the research could proceed from here. “We could try to make the model more realistic and confront the results to experiment to test its predictions,” he says. “On the other hand, this research is very much curiosity-driven and results from intense discussions among the researchers — an approach we’d like to maintain so we can continue to surprise ourselves with our findings.”

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Fucoidan: Brown algae slime is not a favourite dish

Algae take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and use the carbon to grow. They release up to a third of the carbon they absorb back into the seawater, for example in the form of sugary excretions. Depending on the structure of these excretions, they are either quickly used by other organisms or sink towards the seafloor.

“The excretions of brown algae are very complex and therefore incredibly complicated to measure,” says first author Hagen Buck-Wiese from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. “However, we have managed to develop a method to analyse them in detail.” With this method, the researchers scrutinised a large number of different substances. The so-called fucoidan turned out to be particularly exciting. “Fucoidan made up about half of the excretions of the brown algae species we studied, the so-called bladderwrack,” says Buck-Wiese. Fucoidan is a recalcitrant molecule. “The fucoidan is so complex that it is very hard for other organisms to use it. No one seems to like it.” As a result, the carbon from the fucoidan does not return to the atmosphere quickly. “This makes the brown algae particularly good helpers in removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere in the long term — for hundreds to thousands of years.”

Brown algae could bind almost all of Germany’s carbon dioxide emissions

Brown algae are remarkably productive. It is estimated that they absorb about 1 gigaton (one billion tons) of carbon per year from the air. Using the results of the present study, this would mean that up to 0.15 gigatons of carbon, equivalent to 0.55 gigatons of carbon dioxide, are sequestered by brown algae each year in the long term. For comparison: Germany’s annual greenhouse gas emissions currently amount to about 0.74 gigatons of carbon dioxide, according to the Federal Environment Agency (Umweltbundesamt, estimation for 2020).

“And even better: The fucoidan does not contain any nutrients such as nitrogen,” Buck-Wiese explains further. Thus, the growth of the brown algae is not affected by the carbon losses.

More species and sites

For the current study, Buck-Wiese and his colleagues from the MARUM MPG Bridge Group Marine Glycobiology, which is based at both the Bremen Max Planck Institute and MARUM — Centre for Marine and Environmental Sciences at the University of Bremen, conducted their experiments at the Tvärminne Zoological Station in southern Finland. “Next we want to look into other brown algae species and other locations,” says Buck-Wiese. “The great potential of brown algae for climate protection definitely needs to be further researched and utilised.”

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