Earth and environmental sciences articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    The value of having a diversity of species within an ecosystem is well appreciated: species-rich communities are thought to produce more stable ecosystem services. But population diversity within a species is important too. Here, the effects of diversity in population and life history in a heavily exploited Alaskan salmon species are quantified. The results show that population diversity increases the resilience of this ecosystem, and hence the value of salmon fisheries.

    • Daniel E. Schindler
    • , Ray Hilborn
    •  & Michael S. Webster

  • News & Views |

    Density variations within Earth's mantle may be a significant driver of both horizontal and vertical surface movements. The fingerprints of such mantle processes have been found in the Mediterranean region.

    • Rinus Wortel
    •  & Rob Govers

  • News Feature |

    New England fishermen have mixed feelings about a programme designed to allow overfished species to recover. Mark Schrope reports on how catch shares have scientists fishing for answers.

    • Mark Schrope

  • News Feature |

    The Icelandic eruption has given researchers the opportunity of a lifetime. Katharine Sanderson talks to scientists working around the clock to study the volcano and its effects.

    • Katharine Sanderson

  • Books & Arts |

    A plan to pull millions out of poverty while addressing climate change fails to acknowledge the importance of dispersing power to the people, explains Iqbal Quadir.

    • Iqbal Quadir

  • Regions |

    Conducting research at some of Earth's most remote locales requires more than just a willingness to travel. Katharine Sanderson offers a research guide.

    • Katharine Sanderson

  • Letter |

    It is expected that closely related organisms are more likely to show similar ecological interactions than less related ones. But this has been tested only for certain types of interaction, and in a restricted set of taxa. Now interaction networks have been constructed for 116 different clades of related organisms, across the entire tree of life, and including all types of interaction. The results reveal significant conservatism across the board, including both specialist and generalist species.

    • José M. Gómez
    • , Miguel Verdú
    •  & Francisco Perfectti

  • Letter |

    Here, first-principles methods have been applied to calculate diffusion rates in the mineral post-perovskite under the conditions found in the Earth's lower mantle. The results show that the diffusion of Mg2+ and Si4+ in post-perovskite is extremely anisotropic. This could render post-perovskite up to four orders of magnitude weaker than perovskite, and might reconcile seismic observations of a D” reflector with recent experiments showing that the perovskite to post-perovskite transition is too wide to cause sharp reflectors.

    • M. W. Ammann
    • , J. P. Brodholt
    •  & D. P. Dobson

  • Letter |

    A pinwheel array of deep troughs has been one of the most perplexing features of the north polar layered deposits on Mars. Many ideas have been put forward about how it formed, but there is as yet no consensus. Here, penetrating radar has been used to rule out erosional cutting as a mechanism for the formation of the array. Instead, it is concluded that the troughs are largely depositional in origin, and have migrated to the poles and upwards in elevation over the past two million years or so.

    • Isaac B. Smith
    •  & John W. Holt

  • Letter |

    Ceratopsians — horned dinosaurs — were distinctive features of the fauna of the Cretaceous period in East Asia and western North America. There have been hints that they might also have occurred elsewhere, but this has not been definitive, until now. The discovery of a ceratopsian, Ajkaceratops kozmai, from what is now Hungary shows that Late Cretaceous biogeography still has surprises in store.

    • Attila Ősi
    • , Richard J. Butler
    •  & David B. Weishampel

  • Editorial |

    US agencies have moved too slowly in gathering key data on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

  • Opinion |

    Plumes of dissolved gas could be used to determine how much oil has leaked into the Gulf of Mexico, says David Valentine — if the studies are done soon.

    • David Valentine

  • Books & Arts |

    A book promoting the use of informatics to help us live greener lives could have been enhanced by following interactive design principles, suggests Nick Salafsky.

    • Nick Salafsky

  • News & Views |

    The influence of the region where the lower mantle meets the core extends to Earth's surface. A computational study of mineral properties shows one way forward in understanding this enigmatic zone.

    • James A. Van Orman

  • News & Views |

    Fossils from the famed Burgess Shale continue to deliver fresh perspectives on a dramatic episode in evolutionary time. The latest revelations bear on the early history of cephalopod molluscs.

    • Stefan Bengtson

  • Letter |

    Many large mammals became extinct worldwide at the end of the Pleistocene epoch, around 12,000 years ago. Here, it is shown that smaller mammals, which often provide much more comprehensive fossil records than large mammals, were much less likely to respond to the Pleistocene–Holocene transition by becoming extinct. Instead, diversity and evenness suffered, so that less abundant species became rarer, with more generalist 'weedy' species becoming more common.

    • Jessica L. Blois
    • , Jenny L. McGuire
    •  & Elizabeth A. Hadly

  • Letter |

    The upper 300 m of the world's oceans act as a giant heat sink and have absorbed the majority of the excess energy generated by anthropogenic greenhouse gases. But the magnitude of the oceanic heat uptake is uncertain, and differing estimates have led to questions regarding the closure of the global energy budget. Here, a comparison of ocean heat content estimates is presented; the conclusion is that a robust warming of 0.64 W m−2 occurred from 1993 to 2008.

    • John M. Lyman
    • , Simon A. Good
    •  & Josh K. Willis

  • Letter |

    The direction of tectonic plate motion at the Earth's surface and the flow field of the mantle inferred from seismic anisotropy are well correlated globally, implying large-scale coupling between the mantle and surface plates. But the fit is poor at subduction zones. Here, three-dimensional numerical models of buoyancy-driven deformation for the Alaska subduction–transform system are used to find the origin of the regional decoupling of flow. The results imply local rapid transport of geochemical signatures through subduction zones.

    • Margarete A. Jadamec
    •  & Magali I. Billen

  • Letter |

    Rising global temperatures resulting from climate change have been predicted to increase the future incidence of infectious diseases, including malaria. However, it is known that the range of malaria has contracted through a century of economic development and disease control. This contraction has now been quantified, and compared with the predicted effects of climate on malaria incidence. It is suggested that the impact of rising temperature is likely to be minor.

    • Peter W. Gething
    • , David L. Smith
    •  & Simon I. Hay

  • News & Views |

    A reappraisal of the messy data on upper-ocean heat content for 1993–2008 provides clear evidence for warming. But differences among various analyses and inconsistencies with other indicators merit attention.

    • Kevin E. Trenberth

  • Column |

    An oil slick will not re-engage the public with environmental issues, warns Colin Macilwain, but it might lead to a saner US energy policy.

    • Colin Macilwain

  • Letter |

    Accelerated uplift and global cooling have been suggested as possible causes for a fourfold increase in global sedimentation rates, and by inference in erosion rates or weathering fluxes, during the past 5 million years. Here, proxy evidence is provided that indicates stable weathering fluxes in the late-Cenozoic era. It is proposed that processes different from an increase in denudation caused Cenozoic global cooling.

    • Jane K. Willenbring
    •  & Friedhelm von Blanckenburg

  • Letter |

    The Burgess Shales of British Columbia are famous for having yielded fossils of soft-bodied creatures from the Middle Cambrian period. Although similar faunas are now known from localities as far apart as China and Greenland, they seem to have died out before the end of the Cambrian. Or did they? Here, the discovery of a Burgess Shale-type fauna from the Ordovician period in Morocco is reported, showing that creatures of this type persisted beyond the end of the Cambrian.

    • Peter Van Roy
    • , Patrick J. Orr
    •  & Derek E. G. Briggs

  • News & Views |

    Increased erosion associated with the rise of the world's great mountain ranges has been held to be the cause of a prolonged episode of past climate cooling. That connection is now brought into doubt.

    • Yves Goddéris

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