New Evolutionary History Of Primates

The first take home is that wehave 186 separate species of primates. No doubt many more were eliminated in competition with ourselves.  This new paper apparently resolves the shapeof the various lineages and establishes linkages that will resolve keyquestions and inform future debate and investigation.

We are a long way from the ideasexpressed in the accompanying illustration.

Again we are watching a rapidexpansion of understanding taking place as the tools of the past couple ofdecades are vigorously applied.

A New Evolutionary History Of Primates

by Staff Writers

Washington DC (SPX) Mar 22, 2011

The findings illustrate events in primate evolutionfromancient to recent and clarify numerous taxonomic controversies. Ongoingspeciation, reticulate evolution, ancient relic lineages, unequal rates ofevolution and disparate distributions of genetic insertions/deletions among thereconstructed primate lineages are uncovered.

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/A_New_Evolutionary_History_Of_Primates_999.html

‘A robust new phylogenetic tree resolves many long-standing issues inprimate taxonomy. The genomes ofliving primates harbor remarkable differences in diversity and provide anintriguing context for interpreting human evolution.

The phylogenetic analysis was conducted by international researchers todetermine the origin, evolution, patterns of speciation, and unique features ingenome divergence among primate lineages. This evolutionary history will bepublished on March 17 in the open-access journal PLoS Genetics.

The authors sequenced 54 gene regions from 186 species spanning theprimate radiation.The analysis illustrates the importance of resolving complex, species-richphylogenies using large-scale comparative genomic approach.

Patterns of species and gene sequence evolution and adaptation relatenot only to human genome organization and genetic disease sensitivity, but alsoto global emergence of zoonoses (human pathogens originating from non-humandisease reservoirs), to mammalian comparative genomics, to primate taxonomy andto species conservation.

To date, available molecular genetic data applied to primatesystematics has been informative, but limited in scope and constrained to justspecific subsets of taxa. Now, a team of international researchers from the US, Brazil,France and Germany, haveprovided a highly robust depiction of the divergence hierarchy, mode and tempogoverning the extraordinarily divergent primate lineages.

The findings illustrate events in primate evolution from ancient torecent and clarify numerous taxonomic controversies. Ongoing speciation,reticulate evolution, ancient relic lineages, unequal rates of evolution anddisparate distributions of genetic insertions/deletions among the reconstructedprimate lineages are uncovered.

The authors said: "Advances in human biomedicine, including thosefocused on changes in genes triggeredor disrupted in development, resistance/susceptibility to infectious disease,cancers, and mechanisms of recombination and genome plasticity, can not beadequately interpreted in the absence of a precise evolutionary context orhierarchy. Resolution of the primate species phylogeny here provides avalidated framework essential in the development, interpretation and discoveryof the genetic underpinnings of human adaptation and disease."

Biochar Sequesters Nitrogen in Pastures

Anyone following this blog backeven to 2007, knows that I am unapologetic when it comes to the subject ofbiochar.  Quite simply every acre of soilon earth needs to be beneficiated with ten percent biochar to the depth ofrooting.  There may be exceptions and I maybe surprised, but rapidly expanding research is step by step bearing this out.

This is a particularly importantpaper, because it bears out that nitrogen is trapped by the biochar until it isused, even in pastures.  Optimizing itall means achieving that ten percent mark which takes years at least anddecades if one is more leisurely about it.

Everyone is arguing the carbonsequestration issue but that is irrelevant compared to the fact that thisprotocol swiftly manufactures real living soils were none existed.  Those soils retain nutrients naturally untilthey are extracted by a living plant.

What more do you need tounderstand?

Can Biochar Help Suppress Greenhouse Gases

by Staff Writers

Madison WI(SPX) Mar 23, 2011

Addition of biochar to the soil allowed for a 70% reduction in nitrous oxide fluxesover the course of the study. Nitrogen contribution from livestock urine to theemitted nitrous oxide decreased as well.

http://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/Can_Biochar_Help_Suppress_Greenhouse_Gases_999.html

Nitrous oxide is a potent greenhouse gas and a precursor to compounds thatcontribute to the destruction of the ozone. Intensively managed, grazedpastures are responsible for an increase in nitrous oxide emissions fromgrazing animals' excrement.

Biochar is potentially a mitigation option for reducing the world'selevated carbon dioxide emissions, since the embodied carbon canbe sequestered in the soil. Biochar also has the potential to beneficiallyalter soil nitrogen transformations.

Laboratory tests have indicated that adding biochar to the soil couldbe used to suppress nitrous oxide derived from livestock. Biochar has been usedfor soil carbon sequestration in the same manner.

In a study funded by the Foundation for Research Science andTechnology, scientists at Lincoln University in New Zealand, conducted an experiment overan 86-day spring/summer period to determined the effect of incorporatingbiochar into the soil on nitrous oxide emissions from the urine patchesproduced by cattle.

Biochar was added to the soil during pasture renovation and gas sampleswere taken on 33 different occasions. The study was published in theMarch/April 2011 issue of the Journal of Environmental Quality.

Addition of biochar to the soil allowed for a 70% reduction in nitrousoxide fluxes over the course of the study. Nitrogen contribution from livestockurine to the emitted nitrous oxide decreased as well. The incorporation ofbiochar into the soil had no detrimental effects on dry matter yield or totalnitrogen content in the pasture.

Arezoo Taghizadeh-Toosi who conducted the study, says that under thehighest rate of biochar, ammonia formation and its subsequent adsorption ontoor into the biochar, reduced the inorganic-nitrogen pool available fornitrifiers and thus nitrate concentrations were reduced. Such effects wouldhave diminished the substrate available for microbial nitrous oxide production.

"

Research work is ongoing and still required to determine seasonaleffects, and the effects of repeated urine deposition.

The fullarticle is available for no charge for 30 days following the date ofthis summary.

Nuclear In Context?

Yet a nuclear disaster is adisaster like no other.  Neither Chernobyl nor Three mile Islandhave as yet been properly dismantled and the site restored to conventionalusage.

The tsunami is something we canhandle.  We grieve and we clean up themess as in Katrina and a decade later we have reports on lessons learned andthe world turns.  Nuclear isdifferent.  The contained metal itself isitself a storage problem because it is all irradiated and strange isotopes areproduced that are risky.  And no, I donot wish to put my body onto the work site to clean up anything.

I would like to see just onedisaster site properly torn down.  In theevent we are presently back to the conditions at TMI in which months of carefulwork was required to remove all the uranium from the site before it was simplysealed up and abandoned.  The good newsis that it can be done.

The Japannuclear emergency in context 

The Fukushimanuclear power plants survived the onslaught well, and we learned a great deal.The lessons learned will be shared with the rest of the world to the bettermentof all. Current designs could withstand even this worst-case scenario. Nuclearpower remains, safe, viable and vital.

http://www.cfact.org/a/1919/The-Japan-nuclear-emergency-in-context

March 24, 2011

by KELVIN KEMM

The earthquake and tsunami in Japandelivered a devastating one-two punch to that island nation and to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclearplant. So what does much of the world do? You guessed it. They blamed thedesigners, builders and operators of the nuclear plant for not doing a goodenough job. They call for all reactors in the world to be closed down.

Electricity has been restored to all the nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan. Thatmeans that the control panels have lit up and banished the inky darkness.Electricity is available to the electrical cooling pumps.

The overall situation is looking much better. They are not out of the woodsyet, but day by day the residual nuclear decay heat, in the reactor fuelelements, is dropping and the prospect for any major release of nuclearmaterial is diminishing.

It seems likely that the main toll from the nuclear emergency will be to asmall number of heroic plant workers and emergency responders who continue tobrave exposure to radiation to restore cooling to the reactors.

The focus for Japanand the world should remain on recovery from this crisis and we should be waryof any seeking to exploit, rather than solve the situation.

Serious risks remain, however, it is appropriate to place the harm and riskfrom Japan'snuclear emergency in context of the full scope of the tragedy. The death tollfrom the earthquake and tsunami stands at 9,300 with 13,800 missing. Thesenumbers continue to rise. Any death or injury is tragic, but inside the nuclearplant only one person, a crane driver died from injury sustained, and somenuclear workers may have been exposed to high levels of radiation. Outside thenuclear plant no people have been injured in any way from any radiation. Weshould also compare the harm done from this and other nuclear power emergencieswith past power plant disasters. Look at the following list (from “What is the worst kind of power plant disaster? Hint: It's notnuclear” by Annalee Newitz):

1975: Shimantan/Banqiao Dam Failure

Type of power: Hydroelectric

Human lives lost: 171,000

Cost: $8,700,000,000

What happened: Shimantan Dam in China'sHenanprovince fails and releases 15.738 billion tons of water, causing widespreadflooding that destroys 18 villages and 1500 homes and induces disease epidemicsand famine.

1979: Morvi Dam Failure
Type of power: Hydroelectric
Human lives lost: 1500 (estimated)
Cost: $1,024,000,000

What happened: Torrential rain and unprecidented flooding caused theMachchu-2 dam, situated on the Machhu river, to burst. This sent a wall ofwater through the town of Morvi in the Indian Stateof Gujarat.

1998: Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Jess Oil Pipeline Explosion
Type of power: Oil
Human lives lost: 1,078
Cost: $54,000,000

What happened:Petroleum pipeline ruptures and explodes, destroying two villagesand hundreds of villagers scavenging gasoline.

1944: East Ohio Gas Company
Type of power: Liquified natural gas (LNG)
Human lives lost: 130
Cost: $890,000,000

What happened: Explosion at LNG facility destroys one square mile of Cleveland, OH.

1907: Monongah Coal Mine
Type of power: Coal
Human lives lost: 362
Cost: $162,000,000

What happened: Underground explosion traps workers and destroys railroadbridges leading into the mine.
Compare these to:

1986: ChernobylNuclear Power Plant
Type of power: Nuclear
Human lives lost: 4,056 (Source for this number: UnitedNations Scientific Subcommittee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation)
Cost: $6,700,000,000

What happened: Mishandled reactor safety test at Chernobylnuclear reactor causes steam explosion and meltdown, necessitating theevacuation of 300,000 people from Kiev, Ukraine and dispersing radioactive materialsacross Europe.

NOTE: Monetary damage is measured in 1996 US dollars, except in accidents sincethat time measured in the dollar values of that year.

From: IO9 What is the worst kind of power plant disaster? Hint: It'snot nuclear.  By Annalee Newitz via CreativeCommons

Consider had a passenger jet landed as the devastation struck. Thepilot loses power and makes an emergency landing. The aircraft touches down,runs 300 metres beautifully, then runs into the debris. The wheels dig in andpromptly sheer off. The aircraft spins, a wing breaks off, fuel spills acrossthe sand and catches fire. The automatic escape slides deploy and most peopleget out safely and run from the wreckage.

The international news media hear of the story and splash it across the world.There is immediate concern for the passengers, but the crew does a good jobcalming them all down.

Then TV commentators say that the wheels should never have come off theaircraft. They add that the aircraft was poorly designed and built because awing came off too. Others add that the fuel tanks should never have ruptured.Other commentators want to ban all 747’s from flying, yet others want to banall aircraft from flying until the deficient designs have been corrected. TheGermans ground all their aircraft, even though their pilots say that there isnothing wrong with their fleet.

This whole scenario sounds a bit silly. Nobody would react that way. They wouldall say; “Who on earth would have expected the 747 to have landed safely underthose totally unforeseen circumstances.” They would have said that no aircraftwould ever have been designed to have survived such an attempted landing. Thepilots would have been praised for their skill and dedication.

But that is not what happened at the FukushimaDaiichi nuclear power plant. The world jumped on the plant owners, operators,designers and builders. The media wanted answers concerning the “catastrophe.”

Think about the similarity to the Boeing scenario. The largest Japaneseearthquake on record Miyagi-ken Oki strikes the nuclear power plant, closelyfollowed by the largest ever tsunami.

The plant shuts down, as designed. The cooling pumps operate, as designed, butthe earthquake disrupts the electric grid from which the pumps usually drawtheir power in an emergency. So the diesel backup pumps switch on, as designed,but only run for a short time before the tsunami sweeps their fuel supply tanksaway. The plant then goes over to battery power, as designed, but the batteriesonly last eight hours.

The roads have been washed away, the fire brigade and emergency units are notcoming, they cannot get through the obstructions.

The Fukushimaplant was forty years old, near retirement. Its staff did a fantastic job underthe circumstances. There was no disaster. No people outside the plant gotinjured, no property outside the plant was damaged by nuclear material. Givethe reactor crew a round of applause. Nuclear power just got a whole lot betterand safer. Nuclear power survived the onslaught well, and we learned a greatdeal. The lessons learned will be shared with the rest of the world to thebetterment of all. Current designs could withstand even this worst-casescenario. Nuclear power remains, safe, viable and vital.

Dr. Kelvin Kemm is a CFACT scientific advisor. He holds a PhD innuclear physics, is currently CEO of Stratek and lives in Pretoria, South Africa.

Cooling Buildings with Heat

This will not be quick and theprojected market is toward the larger installations.  However, this is the one sector were majorenergy savings can be effected on our installed plant.  Perhaps, we will make it all compact enoughto use in ordinary housing.

It uses heat to drive the processand likely concentrated heat, which makes implementation a real challenge.  Yet once the option is available, theincentive will exist to engineer cute solutions that lower the energy profileof dwellings.

It may be time to rethink therole of building codes and push for energy standards, as well as strengthstandards.

I know how to manufacture housingat today’s cost profile that is at least an order of magnitude stronger andprovides R-30 insulation.  It would takelittle to adapt additional engineering solutions into that protocol to minimizeall energy consumption.

It has not happened simplybecause the mandate is not there that is able to induce a switch and theconsumer is still fussy on all that.

Using Heat to Cool Buildings

Novel materials could make practical air conditioners and refrigeratorsthat use little or no electricity.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 30, 2011

BY KEVIN BULLIS

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/37210/?nlid=4289&a=f

It could soon be more practical to cool buildings using solar waterheaters and waste heat from generators. That's because of new porous materialsdeveloped by researchers from the Pacific NorthwestNational Laboratory. These materials can improve a process called adsorptionchilling, which can be used for refrigeration and air conditioning.

Adsorption chillers aretoo big and expensive for many applications, such as use in homes. Peter McGrail, who heads the research effort, predicts thatthe materials could allow adsorption chillers to be 75 percent smaller and halfas expensive. This would make them competitive with conventional,compressor-driven chillers.

All refrigerators and air conditioners cool by evaporating arefrigerant, a process that absorbs heat. They differ in how that refrigerantis condensed so that it can be reused for cooling. Unlike the technology insidemost air conditioners, which employs electrically driven compressors tomechanically compress the vaporized refrigerant, adsorption chillers useheat to condense the refrigerant. Adsorption chillers are typically far lessefficient than chillers that use electrical compressors, and are bulky andexpensive. But they have the advantage of being cheap to operate, sincethey require very little electricity. "If you have waste heat, you can runit for free," McGrail says.

So far these chillers have been limited to applications where thereis a lot of wasteheat—such as industrial facilities and power plants—or where electricityisn't always available.

Cutting their size and cost could make them attractive in moreapplications, including in homes, where they could be run using hot water from solarheaters, McGrail says.

The key is improving the solid adsorbent material. In an adsorptionchiller, evaporated refrigerant is adsorbed—it adheres to a surface of a solid,such as silica gel. The silica gel can hold a large amount of water in a smallspace—it essentially acts as a sponge for the water vapor. When the gel itheated, it releases the water molecules into a chamber. As the concentration ofwater vapor in the chamber increases, the pressure rises until the watercondenses.

McGrail is replacing silica gel with an engineered material made bycreating nanoscopic structures that self-assemble into complexthree-dimensional shapes. The material is more porous than silica gel, givingit a larger surface area for water molecules to cling to. As a result, it cantrap three to four times more water, by weight, than silica gel, which helpsreduce the size of the chiller. 

Seedless Cherimoya

This item is important because wemay just have a genetic protocol for producing seedless plants on demand. Itmay not be ready yet for prime time, but the possibility is now with us.

We forget that the seedlesscultivars we do have were never anyone’s first choice in terms of flavor andmany other characteristics.  Suddenly wecan plan to optimize a variety and then proceed to produce a seedlessversion. 

How about a better banana?

If this methodology can beadapted to the rest of our universe of cultivars, we are about to witness arevolution in flavor and quality.

My first nominee is to produce aproper sweet seedless watermelon.  From thatwe can also produce dried watermelon without fuss.  Both would have tremendous commercial value.

Just how many varieties of grapesare there?  I would love to eat astrongly flavored concord grape without the seeds while retaining the interiorstructure.

Seedless cherimoya, the next banana?

March 14, 2011

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-seedless-cherimoya-banana.html

Mark Twain called it "the most delicious fruit known to man."But the cherimoya, or custard apple, and its close relations the sugar appleand soursop, also have lots of big, awkward seeds. Now new research by plantscientists in the United Statesand Spaincould show how to make this and other fruits seedless.

Going seedless could be a big step for the fruit, said Charles Gasser,professor of plant biology atUC Davis.

"This could be the next banana -- it would make it a lot morepopular," Gasser said. Bananas in their natural state have up to a hundredseeds; all commercial varieties, of course, are seedless. A paper describingthe work is published March 14 in the journal Proceedingsof the National Academy of Sciences.

Researchers José Hormaza, Maria Herrero and graduate student Jorge Loraat the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Malaga and Zaragoza,Spain, studied the seedless variety of sugar apple. When they looked closely atthe fruit, they noticed that the ovules, which would normally form seeds,lacked an outer coat.

They looked similar to the ovules of a mutant of the lab plantArabidopsis discovered by Gasser's lab at UC Davis in the late 1990s. InArabidopsis, the defective plants do not make seeds or fruit. But the mutantsugar apple produces full-sized fruit with white, soft flesh without the large,hard seeds.

The Spanish team contacted Gasser, and Lora came from Malaga to work on the project in Gasser'slab. He discovered that the same gene was responsible for uncoated ovules inboth the Arabidopsis and sugar apple mutants.

"This is the first characterization of a gene for seedlessnessin any crop plant," Gasser said.

Seedless varieties of commercial fruit crops are usually achieved byselective breeding and then propagated vegetatively, for example throughcuttings.

Discovery of this new gene could open the way to produce seedlessvarieties in sugar apple, cherimoya and perhaps other fruit crops.

The discovery also sheds light on the evolution of flowering plants,Gasser said. Cherimoya and sugar apple belong to the magnolid family of plants,which branched off from the other flowering plants quite early in theirevolution.

"It's a link all the way back to the beginning of theangiosperms," Gasser said.

Provided by University of California - Davis

Using Wind to Stabilize the Grid

It appears the idea is to usesmall local energy sources such as windmills to allow islands to be cut out ofthe grid to prevent a failure mode from propagating further.  I do not see how that could work but we maypresume there is a good reason for it, if only because it maintains a localbase load that allows time to side step the problem.

In the event, this is more towardintegrating alternative power into the grid in the best way possible.

If we have learned anything it isthat diverse distributed energy sources hugely increase the robustness of the griditself as was so recently shown in Japan were the wind is presently providingsome system reassurance.

K-State Research Channels Powerful Kansas Wind To Keep Electricity Running

by Staff Writers

Manhattan KA (SPX)Mar 23, 2011

The Kansaswind can potentially provide abundant renewable energy that could power thedisconnected portion of the network. For data collecting and testing purposes,the researchers plan to use the university's wind turbine north of campus, nearthe intersection of Denison and Kimball avenues, as well as four other windturbines installed at the Riley County Public Works Facility.

http://www.winddaily.com/reports/K_State_Research_Channels_Powerful_Kansas_Wind_To_Keep_Electricity_Running_999.html

One of Kansas'most abundant natural resources may hold the key to preventing major poweroutages. A team of Kansas State Universityengineers is researching ways to use Kansaswind and other distributed energy sources to avoid cascading failures.

Sakshi Pahwa, doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering,India, explored the topic for her recently completed master's project,"Distributed Sources and Islanding to Mitigate Cascading Failures in PowerGrid Networks." The project was a winner at the recent Capitol GraduateResearch Summit in Topeka.

Pahwa's co-advisers on the project include Caterina Scoglio, associateprofessor of electrical and computer engineering, and Noel Schulz, Paslayprofessor of electrical and computer engineering and K-State's first lady.Pahwa is continuing this work for her doctoral research under Scoglio and RuthDouglas Miller, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering.

The research looks at using distributed energy sources to avoidcascading failures in power grids. A cascading failure occurs when aninterconnected part of a power system fails and then triggers successive partsto fail - like the one that happened in the Northeast Blackout of 2003, a poweroutage that affected 55 million people in the United States and Canada.

To prevent cascading failures researchers are investigating atechnique called islanding, which works to minimize the impact of a powersystem fault to a small area. Islanding prevents this fault from affectingother areas and stops further disturbances in the network.

"We used a network partitioning algorithm, and then depending onwhere the fault is I can disconnect that portion of the network," Pahwasaid. "That disconnected portion can then be powered using renewable ordistributed energy sources, such as wind turbines or solar panels, and theremaining parts are still being powered by conventional sources."

The Kansaswind can potentially provide abundant renewable energy that could power thedisconnected portion of the network. For data collecting and testing purposes,the researchers plan to use the university's wind turbine north of campus, nearthe intersection of Denison and Kimball avenues, as well as four other windturbines installed at the Riley County Public Works Facility.

The university turbine was installed for Wind for Schools, a projectled by Miller, director of the Kansas Wind Application Center. The Riley Countywind turbines were installed for the Resourceful Kansas project, a cooperativeeffort between Miller, Scoglio, Riley County and the Kansas City-based consulting firm GBA,and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

"We need to set up power systems that are reliable and stable sothat when that wind is blowing, we can use that power, but when the wind isn'tblowing, there are also stable systems," Schulz said. "That's whatthis project is about - modeling the network so we understand the differentaspects for when there are changes, when the wind blows, when it doesn't andhow that affects the power system."

Scoglio and Pahwa started the project when Pahwa was a master'sstudent. As they began studying complex network systems, they turned to Schulz,a power grid expert who has done previous work with islanding. They alsocollaborated with power systems expert Anil Pahwa, professor of electrical andcomputer engineering, and Shelli Starrett, associate professor of electrical andcomputer engineering.

"With the proper design and the right intelligence, some of theproblems related to power failures can be prevented," Scoglio said."We need to make sure that the communication network willmonitor the network and detect the problem and will implement the reactionsecurely to implement these solutions."

Sakshi Pahwa's research aims to not only study the problem from atheoretical aspect, but also provide practical solutions to real-worldproblems. It also fits in with the Renewable Energy Standards Act, which wassigned in 2009 and states that major Kansas utilities should be able togenerate about 10 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2011 and 20percent by 2020.

"This project benefits the state because it reduces carbonemissions through renewable energy," Pahwa said. "It is a goodopportunity to create jobs, and renewable energy incorporation isalso a support to the conventional sources so we don't need to import fuelsfrom other countries. It helps the economy as well."

Pahwa's research was supported by the four companies involved in theK-State Electrical Power Affiliates Program:Westar Energy, Burns and McDonnell, Nebraska Public Power District and OmahaPublic Power District. Schulz directs the program, which supports undergraduateand graduate research programs.

"This research is a benefit for Kansas and the whole nation becauseI think that innovation, coming from research and support from companies suchas those that are part of the power affiliates, can really bring the countryback to a better economic situation," Scoglio said. "Innovation comeswith jobs and can really improve the whole nation."

Importance of Old Trees

I have posted many times on theneed for forest refugia.  Here we getanother lesson.  The older trees grow mossesand these mosses actually fix nitrogen which is then dropped onto the forestfloor.

In fact, proper forest husbandrymust include refugia in various shapes and sizes, but most likely best set innarrow strips that perhaps go for miles. Such strips also cater to the needs of wildlife.  Such strips are usually best set right alongthe valley drainage to protect the fishery as well.  Yet hillside strips are also called for. 

This way planned timberharvesting can follow decadal programs rather easily while also preserving a lotof natural fertility and diversity.

Even better will be the day wesimply practice selective logging from time to time that includes extensivebrush clearing through burning.

I personally think that mostforestry needs to be privately owned with a quota system put in place anddesignated refugia that is deliberately preserved. 

This shows us another controlthat can be put in place.  Just licensethe allowable cut on the basis of the number of healthy refugia trees whose ageexceeds a certain standard.  Unhealthytrees would be removed posthaste but then one would wait for their replacementsto reach the proper age before new cutting was allowed.  That should motivate everyone to be good andalso careful.

Old trees 'important for forests'

Mar 15, 2011

http://environmentalresearchweb.org/cws/article/news/45364

Bacteria living in mosses on tree branches are twice as effective at'fixing' nitrogen as those on the ground, say researchers from McGill University, Canada.

A new study by McGill's Zoë Lindo and Jonathan Whiteley shows thatlarge, ancient trees may be very important in helping forests grow.

These findings highlight the importance of maintaining the largeold-growth trees in the coastal temperate rainforests that stretch fromSouthern Alaska to Northern California.Lindo's findings suggest that interactions between old trees, mosses andcyanobacteria contribute to nutrient dynamics in a way that may actuallysustain the long-term productivity of these forests.

"What we're doing is putting large, old trees into a context wherethey're an integral part of what a forest is," says Lindo. "Theselarge old trees are doing something: they're providing habitat for somethingthat provides habitat for something else that's fertilizing the forest. It'slike a domino effect; it's indirect but without the first step, without thetrees, none of it could happen."

There are three players in this story: large, old trees; mosses thatgrow along their branches; and cyanobacteria associated with the mosses. Thecyanobacteria take nitrogen from the atmosphere and make it available to plants– a process called "nitrogen fixation" that very few organisms cando.

The growth and development of many forests is thought to be limited bythe availability of nitrogen. Cyanobacteria in mosses on the ground wererecently shown to supply nitrogen to boreal forest, but until now cyanobacteriahave not been studied in coastal forests or in canopies (tree-tops). Bycollecting mosses on the forest floor and then at 15 and 30 metres upinto the forest canopy, Lindo was able to show both that the cyanobacteria aremore abundant in mosses high above the ground, and that they "fix"twice as much nitrogen as those associated with mosses on the forest floor.

It seems moss is the crucial element; the amount of nitrogen comingfrom the canopy depends on trees having mosses.

"You need trees that are large enough and old enough to startaccumulating mosses before you can have the cyanobacteria that are associatedwith the mosses," says Lindo. "Many trees don't start to accumulatemosses until they're more than 100 years old. So it's really the densityof very large, old trees that are draped in moss that is important at a foreststand level. We surveyed trees that are estimated as being between500 and 800 years old."