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Today in Science and science: New map charts the glory days of European shellfish, the unexpected lifestyles of trees, and more
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Science Adviser
4 October 2024 Today's Exemplar is from Science Senior Editor H. Jesse Smith, on a long-distance, year-delayed effect of El Niño.
But first, catch up on the latest science news, including the heyday of European oysters and how an asteroid impact may have
turned ants into farmers.
Botany | Science Live fast, die young? Maybe for animals, but not so much for trees Animals that grow and mature quickly tend to
live short lives. It's long been thought that this fundamental trade-off is also true for plants—that the largest, longest-living
trees have a more relaxed approach to life. But new research finds that's not the case, which could have big implications for
efforts to curb climate change by planting trees.
“Tree growth and longevity trade-offs fundamentally shape the terrestrial carbon balance,” the authors of a new Science paper
explain. As a tree grows, it takes carbon from the atmosphere and uses it to create its tissues—but when it dies, that carbon gets
released as it decomposes. So traits like growth rate and longevity can shape how effective trees are at combating climate change.
And understanding the trade-off between these traits and how it varies regionally could help inform forest management policies.
In the new study, researchers collected and synthesized some 3.2 million measurements from 1127 species of trees in the Americas.
And they found that the animal rule of live fast, die young only held for some trees. Others grow slow and either die young, very
old, or somewhere in between. In fact, depending on the species, the expected lifespan of a tree with a 10-centimeter-thick trunk
could be anything from 1.3 to 3195 years.
Forests around the world have a mix of trees that fall into these four growth-longevity categories, the team found. And that turns
out to be a good thing for stemming climate change, they write, because more tree trait diversity correlates with higher
productivity—and therefore soaking up more carbon. On the other hand, it means that planting just one kind of tree isn't the most
effective way to lower atmospheric carbon. “These findings have important implications for informing global restoration and
conservation efforts and for understanding the fundamental feedback between biodiversity and climate change mitigation,” they
write.
Read the paper
Historical Ecology | news from Science New map charts the glory days of European shellfish old art of oysters Oysters were
dredged from European waters, as seen in this 1874 illustration, for centuries before steam ships began to exhaust the supply.
World History Archive/Mary Evans Picture Library Oysters were once so plentiful in Europe that they were sold on the street and
slurped as quick snacks. But steam ships with powerful dredges overharvested the huge reefs. Today, wild oysters are rare, and
their former abundance is largely forgotten. A new analysis aims to jolt the memory. By combing through centuries of documents, a
team has created a map of where native oysters once thrived. At least 1.7 million hectares of sea floor around Europe—an area the
size of Northern Ireland—used to host abundant oysters, the researchers report.
More than just delicious food, oysters perform valuable ecological functions. They filter nutrients and pollution from water, and
they improve conditions for sea grass meadows, which sequester carbon. Over decades and centuries, oysters grow on top of the
shells of their ancestors, building up reefs that serve as habitat for spawning fish. To guide restoration efforts, the team
mapped the former extent of oyster populations from old nautical charts, government fisheries reports, newspaper articles, and
scientific papers dating back to the 1700s. Some of the records mentioned other types of animals living on the reefs, giving a
rough sense of the ecosystems they hosted.
A major value of the work is the inspiration it provides, says Dominic McAfee, a marine restoration ecologist who was not
involved. “It should really enable people to imagine what we've lost and the potential benefits of bringing back even a small
component of that habitat.”
Read the Full Story
Evolution | News from Science Department of unexpected consequences: An asteroid impact prompted ants to ‘farm' fungi Imagine
the world 66 million years ago, after an asteroid hurtled into Earth at the Chicxulub impact crater. Dust and soot filled the air,
blocking out the sun and shutting down photosynthesis for months or years. All the dinosaurs except for birds died, as did many
ferns and towering cycads. But at least one group thrived: “Fungi that decompose plant material had a heyday,” says research
entomologist Ted Schultz.
Now, in a new Science paper, Schultz and colleagues suggest that the cataclysm sparked a new kind of relationship: ants “farming”
fungi for food . Hundreds of ant species do this today, feeding their fungi, tending them in special chambers, and then eating
them, much like humans grow crops for our own tables. But the origins of the ant-fungi relationship have been murky. Schultz and
colleagues mined the genomes of 475 fungal species and traced their tangled family tree. Coupled with a complementary tree for
ants, the team pinpointed a date for the origins of the mutualism: about 66 million years ago. They can't prove the asteroid was
the trigger, but the timing fits. “Full-blown agriculture arose presumably fairly rapidly,” says Schultz.
Read the full story
The power of microbial metabolites
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Exemplar El Niño makes Northern Europe cold—and then hot a year later H. Jesse Smith, Senior Editor, Science
Scaife, AA et al. ENSO affects the North Atlantic Oscillation 1 year later. Science 386, 92–6 (2024). 10.1126.science.adk4671 One
way that weather prediction sometimes can be improved is by factoring in the effects of “atmospheric teleconnections”—links
between atmospheric conditions at distant locations, typically thousands of miles apart. If the “cause” and “effect” parts of
these connections are staggered in time, then forecasts for the regions affected can be made further in advance, which clearly is
useful for anticipating weather events. This approach can allow reliable forecasts to be made weeks or even months into the
future. Examples of longer leads are more rare—yet that is exactly what Scaife et al. have found.
They examined two big meteorological patterns: The first is called the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which is a measure of the
difference in atmospheric pressure between the area around Iceland (the ‘sub-polar low') and the area around the Azores (the
‘subtropical high'). A big difference or a strong NAO usually translates to warm weather in the Eastern US and Northern Europe,
and a chill in Southern Europe. The second pattern is the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)—the one that switches between El
Niño, where warm equatorial Pacific waters set off a suite of meteorological phenomena, and its cooler counterpart La Niña. The
team discovered that the NAO not only varied simultaneously with ENSO—as had been well documented—but that it also was affected in
the opposite way a full year later. For instance, during an El Niño, the NAO is weakened, leading to colder weather in the eastern
parts of North America and Northern Europe. But a year later, that's flipped—so you see hotter temperatures in those areas long
before a La Niña occurs.
They suggest that this delayed effect is due to the slow migration of ‘atmospheric angular momentum anomalies' from low to
extratropical Northern latitudes. Atmospheric angular momentum is essentially a measure of how the atmosphere rotates around
Earth's axis, and it usually depends on the strength of the latitudinal ‘zonal' winds that circle the planet. However, the
magnitude of this atmospheric rotation can be altered by more localized conditions. During the Northern winter, atmospheric
circulation shifts as ENSO changes, and this affects the atmospheric angular momentum near the tropical Pacific. The resulting
perturbations slowly migrate toward the poles, affecting the North Atlantic region the following winter. So, ENSO can modify the
state of the North Atlantic region long after an El Niño or La Niña ends.
That is fascinating and surprising, but even more interesting, at least to me, is the mechanism by which this process occurs. It
is much different from that of most teleconnections, which are driven by changes in planetary-scale waves in the atmosphere called
Rossby waves and the variations they cause in the jet stream.
Read the Paper
podcast podcast logo Scientific evidence that cats are liquids, and when ants started their fungus farms By Sarah Crespi, David
Grimm, Ariana Remmel | 3 October 2024
Et Cetera
Green light for new schizophrenia drug Last week, a new kind of antipsychotic was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration—the first new class of drug for schizophrenia in more than 30 years. Read that and more in Science In Brief
Hurricanes' hidden toll While the average tropical cyclone causes 24 immediate deaths, it's associated with 7000-10,000 excess
deaths. Nature Paper | Read more at Scientific American
How do you win a Nobel? Nature examined data from 346 Nobel Prizes and their 646 winners to “work out which characteristics can be
reliably linked to medals.” See the data visualization at Nature
Last but not least It's that time of the year again, and I could not be more excited. No, I'm not talking about the Nobels or
pumpkin spice latte season. I'm talking about Fat Bear Week. If you missed the first couple days, no worries—you still have time
to help select a champion! Which behemoth of a bear do you think should win it all?
In today's matchups, I have high hopes for Grazer (128)—especially given her tragic loss earlier this year—though beating 909 Jr.
is no guarantee. I'd like to see her go all the way given her dramatic transformation, though maybe the smart money is on former
champ 747 or the aptly named Chunk (32). Let me know who you're rooting for at scienceadviser@aaas.org . Christie Wilcox, Editor,
ScienceAdviser
With contributions from Erik Stokstad and Elizabeth Culotta
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Brought to you by Science Advances/AAAS e ) RN Criminology, Law & Society October 30, 2024 12:00 pm EST Register »