In the fall of 1881, with the opening of the School of Political Science, Professor Volney M. Spalding began teaching what was considered the first forestry course in the United States.
As the built environment continues to encroach on the natural, delicate ecosystems come under ever-urgent threats. Researchers at the University of Michigan are taking a focused, multifaceted lens to a global problem — assessing human-exacerbated “dead zones” in the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Erie, noting the resilience of invasive species enabled by human activity, and analyzing the impacts of our changing climate on the health and behavior of different species and ecosystems. Experts at the School for the Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), the LSA Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, and the Graham Sustainability Institute are shedding a light on how humans have disrupted ecosystems, and how they can better protect and restore them in the future.
In the fall of 1881, with the opening of the School of Political Science, Professor Volney M. Spalding began teaching what was considered the first forestry course in the United States.
When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world. But U-M scientists are looking at something a little more tangible: coral.
Six new research projects will investigate the shifting dynamics of harmful algal blooms, economic trends in coastal communities, emerging fish viruses, and other issues relevant to the Great Lakes.
New, nontoxic materials could one day keep solar panels and airplane wings ice-free, or protect first responders from frostbite and more, thanks to a new U-M-led project funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Existing materials used to accomplish these feats come with serious downsides. For instance, road salts prevent pavements and streets from freezing but also corrode concrete and enter natural freshwaters through runoff, to the detriment of aquatic life.
This winter, researchers at the U-M Biological Station in northern Michigan are strengthening their snow science with new technology to track the snowpack at an hourly rate and get a deeper understanding of the complexities of global environmental change.
Climate change is reshaping forests differently across the United States, according to a new analysis of U.S. Forest Service data. With rising temperatures, escalating droughts, wildfires and disease outbreaks taking a toll on trees, researchers warn that forests across the American West are bearing the brunt of the consequences.
A conservation easement permanently protects private land by limiting the type and amount of development on a property, and restricting other uses that would damage natural features such as rich soils and high functioning wetlands.
Since 1930, U-M has maintained the Edwin S. George Reserve (ESGR) to provide research and educational opportunities, as well as preserve native flora and fauna. The 525-hectare fenced ESGR is located in Livingston County, Michigan (about 25 miles northwest of Ann Arbor) and hosts students, postdocs and faculty as well as biologists from other universities throughout the year.
This summer’s Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” was the smallest it’s been since monitoring began in 1985, according to data released by the Chesapeake Bay Program’s monitoring partners: the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, Old Dominion University and Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The model used to make the annual forecasts was developed at U-M.
New research suggests that a realistic estimate of additional global forest carbon-storage potential is approximately 226 gigatonnes of carbon—enough to make a meaningful contribution to slowing climate change.
“Elephants, in a way, are the giant versions of canaries in a mine for the planet. If we cannot sustain animals as big and as capable and as versatile as elephants, then that means we have ripped a hole in the fabric of life on Earth in a way that could actually be very dangerous to ourselves. It could lead to our own demise.”
Humans and wildlife, including large carnivores, interact at an unprecedented scale as they increasingly share the world’s landscapes. A new U-M-led study of human-lion interactions found that lions tend to avoid human-dominated areas unless they are facing food scarcity and habitat fragmentation.
A new University of Michigan-led study finds that farmers in India have adapted to warming temperatures by intensifying the withdrawal of groundwater used for irrigation. If the trend continues, the rate of groundwater loss could triple by 2080, further threatening India’s food and water security.
Bird populations in the U.S. and Canada have declined by nearly 30% since the 1970s. This alarming number highlights an urgent need for action. While the issue may seem daunting on a large scale, there are significant measures we can take at the local level to help stem this loss and create a positive impact for native birds.
Producing palm oil has caused deforestation and biodiversity loss across Southeast Asia and elsewhere, including Central America. Efforts to curtail the damage have largely focused on voluntary environmental certification programs that label qualifying palm-oil sources as “sustainable.”
The hemlocks of eastern North America are threatened by the hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA), an invasive, sap-sucking bug that was introduced to the eastern United States from Japan in 1951. Because HWA is a nonnative species, there are no natural predators to control its population size in eastern North America, and the region’s hemlocks haven’t evolved any resistance against it, so eastern hemlocks can be sucked dry by severe HWA infestations.
Lake Erie harmful algal blooms consisting of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, are capable of producing microcystin, a known liver toxin that poses a risk to human and wildlife health. Such blooms may force cities and local governments to treat drinking water and to close beaches, and they can harm vital local economies by preventing people from fishing, swimming, boating and visiting the shoreline.
In 2023, the dead zone is predicted to be 33% smaller than the long-term average taken between 1985 and 2022. If the forecast proves accurate, this summer’s Chesapeake Bay dead zone would be the smallest on record.
Discussions of valuable but threatened ocean ecosystems often focus on coral reefs or coastal mangrove forests. Seagrass meadows get a lot less attention, even though they provide wide-ranging services to society and store lots of climate-warming carbon.
A team of scientists including a U-M aquatic ecologist is forecasting a summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico that will cover an estimated 4,155 square miles, which is below the 5,364-square-mile average over the 36-year history of dead zone measurements in the region.
The transmission potential of Zika or dengue in Brazil may increase by 10% to 20% in the next 30 years due to warming temperatures linked to climate change, according to U-M researchers.
This year’s theme was “Global Change and Its Consequences for Green Life,” and focused on the Direct and indirect impacts of environmental change on green life survival, reproduction, and distribution, how green life can buffer the impact of global change, evolutionary responses of green life to environmental change/stress, green life functional traits and their environmental correlates, and agroecology.
In 1973, toxic flame retardant was mistakenly sent to Michigan farmers as livestock feed, causing an environmental health crisis. To this day, researchers continue to investigate the health effects of the contamination, and community members are active in advocating for clean-up efforts.
Birds across the Americas are getting smaller and longer-winged as the world warms, and the smallest-bodied species are changing the fastest.
"A lot of people think plants are boring because they don’t move in the way animals do, but I think it makes them especially interesting. Plants can’t run away from a creature trying to eat them but, instead, they have more interesting defense mechanisms to protect themselves."
There’s been a well-documented shift toward earlier springtime flowering in many plants as the world warms. The trend alarms biologists because it has the potential to disrupt carefully choreographed interactions between plants and the creatures that pollinate them. But much less attention has been paid to changes in other floral traits, such as flower size, that can also affect plant-pollinator interactions, at a time when many insect pollinators are in global decline.
New information about an emerging technique that could track microplastics from space has been uncovered by U-M researchers. It turns out that satellites are best at spotting soapy or oily residue, and microplastics appear to tag along with that residue.
U-M researchers and their colleagues used a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in Nepal as a natural experiment to test the responses of two GPS-collared tigers to dramatic reductions in traffic volume along a national highway. They found that traffic reductions relaxed tiger avoidance of roads: The globally endangered carnivores were two to three times more likely to cross the highway during the lockdown than before it.
The COVID-19 pandemic has brought to light the problem of emerging pathogens and the unpredictable dangers they pose for human health, but what most people don’t realize, is that the same processes that promote the emergence of human diseases—international travel and commerce, wildlife poaching, deforestation and climate change—have caused similar outbreaks of devastating pathogens in wildlife populations.
Mass coral bleaching events are making it harder for some species of reef fish to identify competitors, new research reveals. Scientists studying reefs across five Indo-Pacific regions found that the ability of butterfly fish individuals to identify competitor species and respond appropriately was compromised after widespread loss of coral caused by bleaching.
Dolphins and other sea creatures are affected by human disturbances in their habitat, including climate change, overfishing, noise pollution from shipping, construction, oil exploration and navy sonar activity. These types of disturbances can interrupt important animal behavior like foraging for fish and socializing, but measuring disturbance is difficult because the animals live under water.
Efforts to promote the future health of both wild bees and managed honeybee colonies need to consider specific habitat needs, such as the density of wildflowers. At the same time, improving other habitat measures—such as the amount of natural habitat surrounding croplands—may increase bee diversity while having mixed effects on overall bee health.
Efforts to promote the future health of both wild bees and managed honeybee colonies need to consider specific habitat needs, such as the density of wildflowers. At the same time, improving other habitat measures—such as the amount of natural habitat surrounding croplands—may increase bee diversity while having mixed effects on overall bee health.
This year’s Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” was the 10th-smallest observed since 1985, according to findings released today by the Chesapeake Bay Program and its partners, including U-M. The annual Chesapeake Bay dead zone is an area of low oxygen that forms in deep waters when excess nutrients, including both nitrogen and phosphorus, enter the water through polluted runoff and feed naturally occurring algae.
U-M Professor Ivette Perfecto recently highlighted the intersection of biodiversity conservation with agriculture on coffee farms. She stated that “about 40% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface is an agricultural system.” While many people may think that agriculture is always harmful to biodiversity, Perfecto says that many agricultural systems, such as the coffee agroforestry systems, can be diverse and “contribute significantly to the conservation of biodiversity.”
How can we boost the resilience of the world’s coral reefs, which are imperiled by multiple stresses including mass bleaching events linked to climate warming? One strategy advocated by some researchers, resource managers and conservationists is to restore populations of algae-eating reef fish, such as parrotfish. But a new study that analyzed long-term data from 57 coral reefs around the French Polynesian island of Mo’orea challenges this canon of coral reef ecology.
Termites are critical in natural ecosystems—especially in the tropics—because they help recycle dead wood from trees. Without such decayers, the world would be piled high with dead plants and animals. But these energetic wood-consuming insects could soon be moving toward the North Pole and South Pole as global temperatures warm from climate change, new research indicates.
Even relatively modest climate warming and associated precipitation shifts may dramatically alter Earth’s northernmost forests, which constitute one of the planet’s largest nearly intact forested ecosystems and are home to a big chunk of the planet’s terrestrial carbon.
From the Great Lakes to its inland rivers and streams, hiking trails to golf courses, and lakeside cottages to campgrounds, the State of Michigan has long offered a near-endless number of natural resources to enjoy each summer—and a thriving tourism industry to prove it. But like with the rest of the country, and planet, the effects of climate change not only loom in the distance, but are here and causing real challenges to our ecosystem, and the outdoor recreation it provides, right now.
U-M researchers and their partners are forecasting that western Lake Erie will experience a smaller than average harmful algal bloom this summer, which would make it less severe than 2021 and more akin to what was seen in the lake in 2020.
This summer’s Chesapeake Bay “dead zone” is expected to be smaller than the long-term average, according to a forecast released today by researchers from U-M, Chesapeake Bay Program, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and U.S. Geological Survey.
A team of scientists including a University of Michigan aquatic ecologist is forecasting a summer “dead zone” in the Gulf of Mexico of 5,364 square miles, about average for the 35-year history of the measurements. The forecast is lower than last year’s measured size and slightly lower than the five-year average measured size of 5,380 square miles. The 2022 Gulf of Mexico hypoxia forecast was released today by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which funds the work.
Reducing levels of the nutrient phosphorus to control harmful algal blooms in places like Lake Erie is actually advantageous to toxic cyanobacteria strains, which can lead to an increase in toxins in the water, according to a new modeling study.
Researchers have identified many factors that influence the timing and distribution of Lake Erie’s harmful algal blooms. Intensity and timing of spring rainstorms is part of the puzzle, as is the amount of algae-feeding nitrogen and phosphorus traveling into the lake from nearby rivers.
Neil Carter, an assistant professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability, and his colleagues investigated how the rapid development of transport infrastructure, which is a major threat to endangered species worldwide, could affect future tiger populations. Roads and railways can increase animal mortality, disrupt habitats, and exacerbate other threats to biodiversity, according to the study.