A revised study led by the UAB, the CREAF and the University of Aveiro concludes that nanoplastics change the composition and diversity of gut microbiome in vertebrates and invertebrates. The effects of a widespread and prolonged exposure to nanoplastics observed in animal models can be applied to humanss.
The need for inclusive science, ranking bias, brain loss, and the responsibility to train people are the focus of a debate with the 4 CREAF researchers included in the Clarivate index of The Web of Science’s Clarivate index 2020 .
A new study published in Science reveals that the fertilizing effect of excess CO2 on vegetation is decreasing worldwide. The lack of water and nutrients limit the greening observed in recent years and can cause CO2 levels in the atmosphere to rise rapidly, temperatures to increase and there to be increasingly severe changes in the climate.
A work led by scientists from the CSIC and CREAF has analysed the correlation between diet and cancer in at least 50 countries from 1960 to 2017 and has crossed global databases from institutions such as the FAO, the WHO and the United Nations.
The scientific organization American Geophysical Union (AGU) has highlighted the researcher Josep Peñuelas as AGU Fellow, a distinguished member of the year 2020, "for his dedication and exceptional contribution to Earth and space sciences and for having contributed to advancing through research and innovation."
We have published the first international CREAF's newsletter with the purpose of improving our visibility, reputation and recruitment of talent. Its common thread is ecology as a solution and it includes current events as diverse as 'la Caixa' postdoctoral scholarships with the experience of Oriol Lapiedra and the opinion of Marc Palahí, director of the European Forest Institute, about his previous work with us.
According to a study co-authored by CREAF-based CSIC researcher Josep Peñuelas and published in Science Advances, increases in ozone in Earth’s atmosphere will be a danger to the biodiversity of the Mediterranean Basin, Japan and equatorial Africa by 2100.
Since mid-2020 CREAF has been a member of the Society for Ecological Restoration (SER), a global association of research, professionals and community leaders from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, New Zealand and North and South America, which is actively involved in the ecological recovery of degraded ecosystems, using a wide range of experience and knowledge.
Half of the world’s cropland could be used for other purposes if agricultural efficiency were improved through high-yield farming. That would mean making 576 million hectares of land available, more than 10 times the area of Spain (approximately 50 million hectares).
CREAF takes part in an international study aboy Arctic tundra leads by iDiV where they discover that tundra plants are more diverse in how they cope with cold climates than previously thought. In a warming world, these tundra plants will benefit from having a wide range of ways to adapt to the changing climate.
There is an imbalance between the amount of phosphorus we use in the production of fish and shellfish (which need it for growth, bones and shells) and the amount we obtain by harvesting them. Remedying it will require aquaculture’s mean phosphorus use efficiency to increase from its current level of 20% to 48% by 2050.
For the first time, two phenomena that occur in different seasons are connected: the high temperatures advance and extend springs, so that the vegetation grows more intensely and absorbs more moisture from the soil. The consequence is much drier and warmer summers.
A study involving three CREAF researchers has found that plants with low nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in their leaves do not reproduce every year to enable them to reproduce on a huge scale in years in which conditions are right. Oaks, holm oaks and beeches are examples of trees that behave in such a way.
Iceland’s grasslands and living organisms react strongly to warming in an initial period of five to eight years, the ecosystem will have returned to a steady state closer to its original state when more than 50 years have elapsed.
A work by CSIC and CREAF scientists highlights that wild plants are more fertile and more resistant to pests than traditional crop varieties because their roots release substances that help them to capture more nutrients and fight pathogenic bacteria and fungi in the soil. If these natural properties were transferred to conventional cultivated varieties, agricultural yield could be improved and the ecological impacts of pesticides and industrial fertilizers reduced.
Published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), a study to which the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and CREAF have contributed has revealed that the time for which forests retain carbon has fallen by between 0.2% and 0.3% every year in recent decades. Plant mortality is rising due to higher carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and, in particular, warming and droughts. The time in question, which is termed carbon turnover time, is a relevant factor in climate change projections as it is indicative of carbon sinks’ capacity to retain carbon.
Partially managing rivers to make them cleaner only by reducing the amount of phosphorus and phytoplankton, can entail undesirable changes throughout the ecosystem due to a nutrient imbalance. This is the main result of a study by researchers Carles Ibáñez at IRTA and Josep Peñuelas, CSIC researcher at CREAF, which was published by Science.
According to an article by CREAF researchers Benjamin Stocker and Josep Peñuelas published in Nature Geoscience, drought impact studies based on satellite data do not factor in the effects of soil moisture.
A study involving CREAF's Josep Peñuelas has identified the optimal temperatures of terrestrial plant ecosystems throughout the world and indicates the size of their margin for adaptation to warming. Outside that margin, ecosystem growth slows sharply.
Which plant species grow where, alongside which others - and why? In a new study, an international research team presents the world's first global vegetation database which contains over 1.1 million complete lists of plant species for all terrestrial ecosystems.
Until now, the Arctic tundra has been the domain of low-growing grasses and dwarf shrubs. But new, taller plant species have been slowly taking over this chilly neighborhood, report an international group with the participation of researchers from CSIC-CREAF.
Josep Penuelas visited China the first two weeks of May 2018 as grantee of the Distinguished Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Science.
Plants' annual growing season has lengthened, exposing them to frost more often at a time when they are particularly sensitive. That can be detrimental to their activity and lead to substantial crop yield losses.
Once rehydrated, holm oaks have a large capacity for recovery thanks to their high adaptation to the Mediterranean climate. The release of organic compounds into the soil represents a considerable loss of carbon for the holm oak and also modifies the microbial community, which may lead to additional effects on the tree.
Mean male height in countries with a high level of GDP is 23 cm greater than in countries with a low level, a difference that has risen by 1.5 cm over the last 30 years. Thanks to a more varied diet rich in animal products, the annual nitrogen and phosphorus intake of people in wealthy countries is practically twice that of those in poor countries.
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 production of essential crops such as wheat, maize, rice, and soybean will be substantially reduced. Effective measures for climate change adaptation will be necessary, as well as improvements in crop genetics in order to reduce the impacts of climate change.
A new study led by Josep Peñuelas and published in Nature Ecology and Evolution reveals that CO2 abundance in the atmosphere no longer has a powerful fertilizing effect on vegetation. The greening that has been observed in recent years is slowing and this will cause CO2 levels in the atmosphere to rise, thus increasing temperatures and leading to increasingly severe changes in climate.
In an article in the journal Science, Josep Peñuelas warns that we must immediately begin studying the changes we are causing in the microbial world, improve water treatment systems, and change crop fertilization practices.
An extensive review of studies and databases reveals that drought and an increase in temperature are already causing species substitutions, greater aridity, higher forest fire risk, lower soil fertility, and lower water availability, among other negative impacts.
The COP21 set the maximum temperature increase for 2100 at 1.5° C. The only scenario which would allow achievement of this goal would require vastly reducing human CO2 emissions, significantly increasing the prominence of renewable energies, and the use of some type of artificial carbon sequestration technology.
Pharmaceutical and personal-care products for human and animal use are increasingly released into the environment.
Josep Peñuelas leads a study which suggests that rice yield will be more senstive to climate warming. Adaptatation polices to climate change are urgently needed to reduce its effect on rice yield.
Freshwater ecosystems near densely populated areas have levels of phosphorus which are very high and out of balance with nitrogen levels. This has resulted in altered ecosystem functioning, lower water quality, and has made water conservation more difficult.
An international team of researchers co-led by Josep Peñuelas (CSIC and CREAF) has developed a new method for monitoring changes in the photosynthetic activity of perennial conifers throughout the year. This new technique, based on the analysis of remote sensing images captured by satellites, will improve global models of atmospheric carbon capture and permit more precise predictions about 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.
CSIC and CREAF researcher Josep Peñuelas has received an honorary doctorate degree from the Estonian University of Life Sciences for his studies on global change. The university council considers his studies as excellent, and also values his international collaboration with Estonian researchers. The presentation of the award took place on September 23rd in the city of Tartu.
In the prizes to the trajectory of a scientist, people say , the hardest is to begin, because after the first award, the winner can be pretty sure that others will come. Maybe, but there are different categories of prizes. Josep Peñuelas is starting to get the big ones, those that he deserves by his contributions to ecology, his dedication and his ability to empathize in order to establish fruitful relationships with scientists all around the world.
The forest treeline shifts upward slower than temperature increase, and it can be hindered by densification of shrubs. A number of factors influence upward forest expansion, including the particular plant species growing near trees, climate change, human activity, and terrain morphology. The Tibetan Plateau, practically devoid of human pressures, offers a pristine area for study
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.
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.
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.
CREAF has participated in an international study which has estimated the total biomass production of all planetary ecosystems. These data can be used to improve accounting of the global supply of natural resources and plan strategies for boosting the sequestration of atmospheric carbon.
Leaf unfolding occurred on average about 4 days earlier every one degree increase in spring temperature between 1980 and 1994, whereas this value dropped to -2.3 days C-1 between 1999 and 2013, a decrease of over 40%. According to this study recently published in the jorunal Nature with the participaction of Josep Peñuelas, researcher from CSIC at CREAF, warmer winters and photoperiod are forcing plants to control their phenology calendars.
A study published in the journal Biochemical Systematics and Ecologyand carried out by a team of CREAF researchers has shown that pollination by insects increases emissions of the molecules that give flowers their odors. Flower fragrances are needed to attract insects and guarantee the exchange of pollen with other flowers.
A study led by a CREAF-CSIC researcher has outlined a new methodology for describing changes in the life cycle of plants caused by planetary warmingwith higher precision. Daytime, rather than nocturnal temperatures determine phenological changes. The increase in temperatures, leading to an earlier spring, alters the global functioning of ecosystems.
CREAF participated in a study which proposes that in order to understand the full impact of climate change, it is not enough to study just protected natural areas, which are mature and able to handle change; instead, it is important to focus on the study of those ecosystems which have been altered and are still recovering.
Scientists consider it key to understand why droughts kill so many trees and the influence of local forest histories on tree mortality. They also warn that we know very little about the joined effects of different disturbances on each ecosystem, and highlight the necessity to plan research projects covering more time and space.
According to the study in which CREAF participated, China contributes 43% of this amount. For decades it had been thought that human activities were responsible for only around 5% of atmospherically-circulating phosphorus. More phosphorus in the air means more phosphors deposited on the ground. This can boost plant growth and the capacity to sequester atmospheric CO2; for that reason human activities may be altering the phosphorus and carbon cycles to a degree which was previously unknown
Researchers from CREAF, CSIC, and the Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences of Estonia have found that flowers are becoming more fragrant as the global mean temperature rises. In addition, intense heat provokes changes in the composition of floral aromas, transforming the odors of natural areas. This could lead to pollinizers mistaking the identity of flowers, especially specialist species whose flower visits are guided by their own innate olfactory preferences.
Thee ability of forests to sequester carbon from the atmosphere depends on nutrients available in the forest soils, shows new research from an international team of researchers,
Nightime temperatures on the planet have increased 1.4 times faster than daytime temperatures. This asymmetry alters carbon fluxes and plant growth in the northern hemisphere, according to a study in which the CREAF is participating.
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