The date when Darwin and Wallace announced the theory of evolution

Good article from Wired.

Read this bbc article - Warming world sends plants uphill

Climate change has caused plants to seek cooler conditions at higher altitudes, scientists suggest.

A study of 171 forest species in mountain ranges of western Europe found that many plants had climbed an average of 29 metres each decade.

Smaller species such as ferns, which had shorter reproduction cycles, were the quickest to relocate, the researchers said.

The findings have been published in the Science journal.

“This is the first time that it has been shown that climate change has already had a significant effect on plant species over a wide range of temperatures during the past century,” explained Jonathan Lenoir, the paper’s lead author.

Climate ‘fingerprints’

Professor Lenoir, an ecologist at AgroParisTech, France, said the team wanted to establish whether “fingerprints of climate change were already apparent in ordinary ecosystems”.

In order to do this, the team of French and Chilean researchers compared the distribution of forest species between 1905 and 1985 with their distribution between 1986 and 2005.

“This work was possible because of two large-scale, long-term databases that have recorded the presence of forest species since 1905,” he explained.
“We used 171 species commonly found over French mountains, which are part of Mediterranean, temperature and mountainous forest ecosystems between 0m to 2,600m above sea level.

“We found a significant change in species’ altitudinal distribution towards higher elevation of about 29 metres per decade.

“Out of the 171 species, most are shifting upwards to recover temperature conditions that are optimal for their development and reproduction.”

Co-author Jean-Claude Gegout added that different types of plants displayed different responses to the temperature changes.

“Long-life plants, such as trees and shrubs, did not show significant shifts, whereas short-life species, such as herbs, showed a strong upward shift,” he said.

“Herbs, by having a short life cycle, have had several generations during a decade that allows for a faster dispersal of seeds.

“By contrast, trees have had just one or two generations during the same period of time, which may affect their ability to track the climate changes.”

Professor Gegout said that this suggested that long living woody plant species, such as trees, were likely to be more threatened by climate change than herb species like grasses.

“This may imply profound changes in the composition and structure of plant communities and animal species that depend upon them.”

The researchers concluded by saying that further studies were needed to understand the full magnitude of the changes, and to assess the impact on the ecosystems’ long-term future.

With the increase in biofuel production and increase in oil prices, its natural that the price of food is increasing. Biofuel production will increase the price of certain crops such as corn and also decrease the land available for

The lack of research into basic agricultural research means that current crops are vulnerable to pest resistant insects as seen from attacks on rice by pests. This lack a result of lack of funding into basic agricultural research with funding bodies now emphasizing on more lucrative sciences such as stem cell technology and tissue engineering.

This has not helped the situation.

The increase in oil prices also mean that many supporting services in farming; for example, machinery and transport is more expensive.

So various factors has caused a singular consequence experienced by many around the world and affecting the poor most.

UN report on food prices by BBC

BBC report on increasing food prices.

BBC report on Biofuels

Here’s the link.

You just need a bit of water…

May 1, 2008
Call to stop use of grain-based biofuels
Food scientists say such a move would cut prices of corn and other grains
WASHINGTON - BILLIONS of dollars have been poured into developing ethanol and biodiesel to help wean rich economies from their addiction to carbon-belching fossil fuels, the overwhelming source of man-made global warming.
But now some top international food scientists have recommended a halt in the use of food-based biofuels like corn-based ethanol because they say such a move would cut corn prices by 20 per cent during a world food crisis.
A ‘biofuels frenzy’ and other misguided policies have led to the global food crisis in which prices have soared and rice consumption has outpaced production, threatening a billion people with malnutrition, experts said on Tuesday.
International agriculture researchers warned that farmers will need to double global food production by 2030 to meet rising demand.
They said nations need to rethink programmes that divert foods like corn and soya beans to ‘greener’ fuel, given the expanding worldwide food crisis. Such programmes force prices higher and remove farmland from food production.
If leading nations stopped biofuel use this year, it would lead to a price decline in corn by about 20 per cent and wheat by about 10 per cent from 2009-10, said Mr Joachim von Braun of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), a global network that uses science to fight hunger.
Mr von Braun, who heads the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, the policy arm of the CGIAR, and two other scientists in the group said that work should be stepped up on the use of non-grain crops, such as switchgrass, for biofuel.
Soil sciences professor Rattan Lal of Ohio State University, who is not associated with the group, agreed with their call for a halt on the use of grain for fuel, saying: ‘We have one billion people who are food-insecure. We can’t afford the luxury of not taking care of them and taking care of gasoline.’
Mr von Braun said the US and other countries have to make a hard choice between fighting high fuel prices and fighting world hunger.
‘If you place a high value on food security for poor people, then the conclusion is clear that we step on the brake awhile,’ he said.
‘If you place a high value on national energy security, other considerations come into play.’
On Tuesday, US President George W. Bush declared that the United States should increase ethanol use because of national energy security and high gasoline prices.
A World Bank study has estimated that corn prices ‘rose by over 60 per cent from 2005-2007, largely because of the US ethanol programme’ along with market forces.
Other nations, such as South Africa, have stopped or slowed the push to ethanol. But as the US is the biggest producer, if it does nothing, other nations’ efforts will not amount to much, said Mr von Braun.
He said that many issues are causing the food crisis, especially market forces and speculation, but that biofuel use is a top cause.
But just how big biofuel’s effect is on food prices depends on who is talking.
A soon-to-be-released International Food Policy Research Institute analysis blames 30 per cent of the overall food price rise from 2000-2007 on biofuels.
An industry-funded study put the food cost rise from biofuels at 4 per cent.
WASHINGTON POST, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE


Another good resource where brilliant ideas are shared.

Sharing 3 clips here.

Darwin’s first draft of his theory of evolution now goes online, now joining the 20,000 archive items in the online archive run by Cambridge University ‘The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online‘.

This will definitely be a valuable resource for educators and scientists alike.

For more read:
Darwin’s first draft goes online

This might be a milestone in macroevolutionary studies. How does a tetrapod lose its lungs?

Sad thing is that frog faces severe threat of habitat degradation.

For more reads -

The Enigmatic Bornean Lungless Frog – Barbourula kalimantanensis (Anura: Bombinatoridae) - A First Hand Encounter - By Dr Tan Heok Hui

First Lungless Frog Found - By National Geographic

Siva’s writeup