news 2024

Light pollution is more serious than expected: Moths not only lose their orientation directly under street lamps. Their flight behaviour is also disturbed outside the cone of light. The increasing use of artificial light at night is one of the most dramatic man-made changes on earth. Streetlights and illuminated buildings are significantly changing the environment for nocturnal animals.

In a recent study, researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena have shown how they can investigate the growth and interactions of the green algae "Ulva" and its bacterial community non-invasively and non-destructively using Raman spectroscopy.

A recent study challenges previous assumptions about the connection between CO2 in the atmosphere and temperatures in the tropics. Between 1959 and 2011, the CO2 content in the atmosphere responded twice as strongly to temperatures in the tropics than before. This has often been attributed to increasing droughts in the tropics and to changes in carbon cycle responses caused by climate change.

Artificial light at night changes the behavior of fish, even into the next generation Scientists have shown that light pollution-especially light in the blue spectrum-can alter the behavior of fish after only a few nights, and have knock-on effects for their offspring. The team studied how female zebrafish responded after being exposed to artificial light at night, which is considered to be the main source of the world's light pollution.

Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin examine the effects of multiple, co-acting global change factors on soil biota and functions in new "Nature Communications" study A research team from Freie Universität Berlin has discovered that soil properties are severely impacted when subjected to a large number of different environmental stressors.

International research team find highest speciation in Asteraceae family on oceanic islands Asteraceae, a family of flowering plants which includes daisies, sunflowers and asters, are the most diverse group of flowering plants in the world. This plant family comprises around 34,000 species, some of which are well-known, such as artichokes, chamomile, dahlias and lettuce.

Pollen not only plays a role in allergies, but also influences the local weather. Especially in spring, when large amounts are released, it contributes to the formation of ice in clouds, which can increase rainfall. A recent study led by the Institute for Meteorology at Leipzig University is the first to prove this outside the laboratory.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany, in collaboration with the Swiss Ornithological Institute in Switzerland and the University of Vienna in Austria, investigated how young golden eagles improve their flight skills as they age. Their results, published in eLife, show that as golden eagles improve their flying skills, they become able to explore a broader area within their range in the central European Alps.

In 1974, scientists first sounded the alarm about the destruction of the ozone layer caused by human activities. Yet it would take several more years for the global community to reach a consensus on banning ozone-depleting chemicals. At the time, Paul Crutzen and his research team played a pivotal role in bringing this issue to the world's attention.

Canopy gaps in a mixed floodplain forest have a direct effect on forest soil temperature and moisture, but only have a minor impact on soil biological activity. This is the conclusion of a study by Leipzig University, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, which was recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Canopy gaps in a mixed floodplain forest have a direct effect on forest soil temperature and moisture, but only have a minor impact on soil biological activity. This is the conclusion of a study by Leipzig University, the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, which was recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

The birds save more energy prior their migration to the south than they consume during the flight itself Millions of birds migrate every year to escape winter, but spending time in a warmer climate does not save them energy, according to research by the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Konstanz, Germany.

Researchers at Göttingen University find climate traffic light system prevents consumer deception A research team led by the University of Göttingen found that the label 'climate neutral' makes food appear significantly more climate-friendly than it actually is. Even when information about how the damage to the climate is being offset was explained, this did not stop consumers having the wrong perception about the product.

A research team of scientists from Freie Universität Berlin and Princeton University provide insights into the origins of complete metamorphosis in insects More than sixty percent of all'animal species are insects. The majority of these species undergo complete metamorphosis, whereby the larva transforms into a pupa and then an adult.

A team of researchers from Jena and Ulm have developed an innovative approach to precisely influence the properties of light-absorbing materials, so-called chromophores. They focused on specific iron compounds, demonstrating that small changes in their chemical structure can control how these compounds react to light.

Dangerous mixtures: pesticides in combination can have unexpected effects on the development of honeybees. This is shown by a new study from the Biocenter. Honeybees are social insects. Their colony only survives as a community, and healthy new generations are very important. It is therefore not surprising that honeybees invest significant care and resources into their offspring: nurse bees feed the young larvae with a food juice made from nectar and pollen which they produce in a gland in their head.

Special features of the Arctic climate, such as the strong reflection of the sun's rays on the light-colored snow surface or the low position of the sun, intensify global warming in the Arctic. However, researchers are constantly faced with the challenge of mapping the climatic processes responsible for this in order to make reliable weather forecasts.

Satellite and street view images provide basis for more precise evaluation of the environmental conditions that favor the presence of Aedes aegypti The Aedes aegypti mosquito is responsible worldwide for the spread of infectious diseases such as dengue, Zika, chikungunya, and yellow fever. To combat the widely transmitted diseases affecting millions, detailed mosquito distribution maps with data on the spatial and temporal spread of populations are of major importance.

Researchers at Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen and Kobe University discovered populations of female brown algae that reproduce from unfertilised gamete s'and thrive without males. They used -Amazonalgae to shed light on the phenotypic and genetic consequences of shift from sexual to asexual reproduction.

It's not just us humans who suffer from heatwaves. Researchers at the University of Würzburg discovered that hot temperatures rob bumblebees of their sense of smell - and makes them struggle when searching for food. Climate change is affecting ecosystems in many different ways. One of its consequences are increasingly longer and more intense periods of heat, which affect essential natural processes - such as pollination.