Author: postMigrator

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“It’s turning conservation on its head,” said Bill Stanley, who directs the
global climate change initiative at the Nature Conservancy. He said the
organization has a goal to protect 10 percent of major habitat types –
like grasslands, forests and freshwater systems – by 2015.”
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The New York Times
January 29, 2008

The Preservation Predicament
By CORNELIA DEAN

Conservation organizations that work to preserve
biologically rich landscapes are confronting a
painful realization: In an era of climate change,
many of their efforts may be insufficient or
beside the point.

Some scientists say efforts to re-establish or
maintain salmon runs in Pacific Northwest streams
will be of limited long-term benefit to the fish
if warming makes the streams inhospitable. Others
worry about efforts to restore the fresh water
flow of the Everglades, given that much of it
will be under water as sea level rises. Some
geologists say it may be advisable to abandon
efforts to preserve some fragile coastal barrier
islands and focus instead on allowing coastal
marshes to migrate inland, as sea level rises.

And everywhere, ecologists and conservation
biologists wonder how landscapes already under
preservation will change with the climate.

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http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story.php?id=164111&ac=PHnws

Rare blackbirds spotted in Maine
For the third year, rusty blackbirds show up in the Unity Bird Count
as well as in Blue Hill and Portland.

Blethen Maine News Service
January 22, 2008

UNITY BIRD COUNT
WHEN: Dec. 14, 2007
COUNTERS: 38
WHERE: Covered a 15-mile radius
SPOTTED: 2,631 birds; 44 species, including 440 black- capped
chickadees, 400 European starlings and three bald eagles

UNITY — Reports of the rusty blackbird’s demise may have been greatly
exaggerated.

Bird watchers who took part in the annual Christmas Bird Count in the
Unity area last month once again came across the rare songbirds.

That was surprising, since the species is believed to have dwindled
in number by 90 percent during the past 20 years and historically
comes no closer to Maine than New Jersey in the winter, said David
Potter, a Unity College professor who has led the Unity Bird Count
for 11 years.

“This is the third year we’ve seen (rusty blackbirds) at Unity
College,” Potter said. “Some of the experts are surprised they’re
wintering in Unity, Maine.”

According to the National Audubon Society, rusty blackbirds migrate
north in the spring, settle into nests near still water, then migrate
to southeastern states in the late fall.

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The Scientist Volume 22 | Issue 1 | Page 38

<http://www.the-scientist.com/2008/01/1/38/1/#>

A Sensitive Reaction
Global warming could speed up decomposition, but how much might
decomposition speed up global warming?

By Kerry Grens

To understand what might happen in the sky as carbon increases and the atmosphere warms, Matthew Wallenstein at Colorado State University is looking to the ground. Beneath our feet and spread from Pole to Pole are countless numbers of microorganisms, which are decomposing organic matter and releasing many tons of carbon into the atmosphere each year.

Like any other chemical reaction, “we know that decomposition is sensitive to temperature,” says Eric Davidson, a senior scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center in Falmouth, Mass. As temperatures rise, decomposition speeds up, and more carbon gets released into the atmosphere. This additional carbon can then create a positive-feedback loop, raising temperatures higher and thus continuing to speed decomposition. The question Wallenstein wants to answer is: Will decomposition escalate global warming?

Wallenstein is trying to understand the mechanisms underlying an unexplained phenomenon that scientists have observed in a number of soil-warming experiments: Respiration rates from soil initially rise in response to elevated temperature, but then taper off.1 “In a sense there’s some kind of natural break in the system that would bring this positive feedback to a halt,” says Jerry Melillo at the Marine Biological Laboratory. For example, in a 10-year study Melillo led in the Harvard Forest, the response to warming, as measured in carbon flux, jumped an average of 28% in each of the first six years, but by the tenth year didn’t respond at all to warming.2 In other words, the researchers found that, with elevated temperatures, decomposition (and therefore carbon dioxide) rises, but then returns to normal with time, breaking down the positive-feedback loop. Why?

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