Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula – Dr Nerilie Abram Presentation now online

The presentation by Dr Nerilie Abram (ANU), entitled: “Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula” presented by the Sprigg Geobiology Centre is now online.

Abstract
The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than any other region of the southern hemisphere over the past 50 years. But the short observational records of Antarctic climate don’t allow for an understanding of how unusual this recent climate warming may be. In this seminar I will present reconstructions of temperature and melt history from a highly resolved ice core record from James Ross Island on the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula. The isotope-derived temperature reconstruction gives a statistical framework to assess the rapid recent warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, and in conjunction with a spatial network of proxy records provides insights into the underlying climatic drivers. Visible melt layers in the James Ross Island ice core also yield a unique insight into the response of ice melt to changing temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 1000 years, with implications for future ice shelf and ice sheet stability in the region.

Biography
After her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, Nerilie studied for her PhD at the Australian National University where she used corals from Sumatra to learn about climate variability in the tropical Indian Ocean. She then worked for seven years as an ice core researcher at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, which included fieldwork on James Ross Island on the Antarctic Peninsula and for the NEEM deep ice core in Greenland. In 2011 Nerilie returned to ANU as a QEII research fellow awarded by the Australian Research Council. Nerilie’s research focus now spans from the tropics to Antarctica with the goal of improving understanding of the climate processes that affect Australia’s rainfall patterns. Nerilie has recently returned from a two month field season in east Antarctica where she was involved in a multinational project lead by the Australian Antarctic Division to retrieve a new 2000-year ice core climate record from Aurora Basin.

Nerilie Abram working on the ice core. Image: Paul Roger

 

 

Longest-lived animal survivor known to science now under threat

The Nautilus has long been prized for its unique shell, to be found in Renaissance Cabinets of curiosities and now sold on eBay for as much as AU$200.

Peter Ward diving at Osprey Reef, off the Great Barrier Reef. Source: Nautilus Magazine

It isn’t hard to see why. Aside from the inherent beauty of the Nautilus, the shell has some enigmatic features that only add to the aesthetics. When cut away, one of the finest natural examples of a logarithmic spiral can be seen. The Nautilus uses these chambers to adjust its buoyancy, by pumping water in and out of the chambers with different salt content and therefore density via osmosis.

Cut away of the Nautilus shell showing the logarithmic spiral. Image: Wikipedia

Professor Peter Ward, on the Environment Institute at Adelaide University, is an internationally renowned palaeontologist and world authority of the Nautilus. He has called for a global ban on the trade of the Nautilus seashell.

“Nautilus has survived every single mass extinction event that’s been thrown at it over half a billion years, now it’s being wiped out by humans to sit on a bathroom shelf or as a pretty button on someone’s shirt,” he says.

Ward has just returned from an expedition in the Philippines where he discovered the Nautilus was close to extinction at known Nautilus fishing sites.

“The Nautilus situation we found in the Philippines was mind-boggling,” says Professor Ward. “The Philippines have been at the centre of Nautilus fishing for decades. Now it is just about extinct there. And it is not just Nautilus.  In the same environments we found almost no larger fish at all where there should be large schools of many different species.”

Professor Ward says there is good reason to be concerned about the Nautilus in Western Australian deep reefs, as the largest Nautilus in the world comes from there. “We are seeing them being sold on eBay even though there is supposed to be regulation in Australia”.

“Nautilus is the ‘canary in the coalmine’ of the deep reef environment,” he says. “It tells us about the health of our deeper reefs where little ecological study is done. When Nautilus isn’t there, we know that the other fish at those depths are also at risk from overfishing or other environmental factors. We cannot rule out high acidity and warming of these formerly cool, deep waters caused by climate change, and from rising levels of silt caused by nearby deforestation.”

In the past few years Peter Ward has contributed to the breakthrough discovery that ancient Nautilus pompilius is in fact many separate species, which has overturned the widespread reference to it as a “living fossil.” Ward laments that the human toll on the nautilus may be the last discovery that he ever makes about this remarkable animal.

In his surprisingly emotive piece about a creature for a magazine of the same name, the Nautilus, Ward tells the story of his scientific career researching a creature that has prevailed for 500 million years. It began with his entrancement with the Nautilus shell after first seeing one in a shell shop in Hawaii as a young boy. It ended, albeit only temporarily, with the tragic death of a friend on a diving expedition in New Caledonia.

“Looking back at the myriad decisions, tests, detours, and the rest of the messy contradiction and actions that we call life, I have to marvel at the waves of chance that swept the nautilus and me into its rough seas.” Ward muses.

Ingenious: Peter Ward from Nautilus on Vimeo.

Read more about Peter Ward on the Environment Institute blog here.

Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula – Dr Nerilie Abram

The Sprigg Geobiology Centre welcomes you to attend a seminar by Dr Nerilie Abram (ANU), entitled: “Warming and ice melt on the Antarctic Peninsula“

Nerilie Abram working on the ice core. Image: Paul Roger

Abstract:
The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than any other region of the southern hemisphere over the past 50 years. But the short observational records of Antarctic climate don’t allow for an understanding of how unusual this recent climate warming may be? In this seminar I will present reconstructions of temperature and melt history from a highly resolved ice core record from James Ross Island on the northeastern Antarctic Peninsula. The isotope-derived temperature reconstruction gives a statistical framework to assess the rapid recent warming of the Antarctic Peninsula, and in conjunction with a spatial network of proxy records provides insights into the underlying climatic drivers. Visible melt layers in the James Ross Island ice core also yield a unique insight into the response of ice melt to changing temperatures on the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 1000 years, with implications for future ice shelf and ice sheet stability in the region.

Biography:
After her undergraduate degree at the University of Sydney, Nerilie studied for her PhD at the Australian National University where she used corals from Sumatra to learn about climate variability in the tropical Indian Ocean. She then worked for seven years as an ice core researcher at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, which included fieldwork on James Ross Island on the Antarctic Peninsula and for the NEEM deep ice core in Greenland. In 2011 Nerilie returned to ANU as a QEII research fellow awarded by the Australian Research Council. Nerilie’s research focus now spans from the tropics to Antarctica with the goal of improving understanding of the climate processes that affect Australia’s rainfall patterns. Nerilie has recently returned from a two month field season in east Antarctica where she was involved in a multinational project lead by the Australian Antarctic Division to retrieve a new 2000-year ice core climate record from Aurora Basin.

When: Friday, May 30, 12:10pm
Where: Mawson Lecture Theatre, University of Adelaide

If you would like to meet with Nerilie during her visit, please contact her hosts: Jonathan Tyler jonathan.tyler[at]adelaide.edu.au or John Tibby john.tibby[at]adelaide.edu.au.

 

 

From Birdsong Metrics to Ancient Arctic DNA: Selected Publications from the 1st Quarter, 2014

In the first quarter of 2014, researchers at The Environment Institute have published on a vast array of topics, from Ancient DNA in the Arctic, to birdsongs to  recommendations for improvements to guidelines such as the Ecological Footprint in order to better inform policy makers.

A selection of these publications is listed below.

1. Fifty thousand years of Arctic vegetation and megafaunal diet. Nature
Research into the type of vegetation present during the last 50 thousand years in the Arctic is presented. Rather than using fossilised pollen as the main source of data as has been the case for previous studies, this study used plant and nematode DNA from sites across the Arctic. This data brings into question the diet of megafauna such as the woolly mammoth.

2. Distribution and Diversity of Soil Microfauna from East Antarctica: Assessing the Link between Biotic and Abiotic Factors. PLOS ONE
An investigation into soil microfauna composition, abundance, and distribution in East Antarctica. The study found that where a population exists is likely to be determined by soil geochemistry.

3. Higher Levels of Multiple Paternities Increase Seedling Survival in the Long-Lived Tree Eucalyptus gracilis. PLOS ONE
Data from populations of Eucalyptus gracilis (white mallee or yorrell) across the Murray-Darling Basin in southern Australia was collected in order to gain an understanding of how local environments affect seed quality.

4. Rapid deforestation threatens mid‐elevational endemic birds but climate change is most important at higher elevations. Biodiversity Research
The effect of deforestation and climate change on bird communities in Lore Lindu National Park, Sulawesi, Indonesia was investigated. The National Park is a globally important hotspot of avian endemism, and has lost almost 12% of its forest in the decade of 2000-2010.

5. Does the Shoe Fit? Real versus Imagined Ecological Footprints. PLOS BIOLOGY
This article seeks to demonstrate that “Ecological Footprint” measurements as currently constructed and presented misleading and cannot be used effectively in any serious science or policy context. Outlined are a set of principles that any ecological indicator should be based on in order to be scientifically sound and relevant for use in decision making.

6. Historical changes in mean trophic level of southern Australian fisheries. Marine and Freshwater Research
It is suggested that care in interpretation of mean trophic level (MTL) of catches should be taken because reductions do not necessarily reflect change in species high on the food chain by fishing pressure. They found that the change in MTL is mainly attributable to large catches of sardines.

7. Ecology Needs a Convention of Nomenclature. BioScience
A convention of ecological nomenclature as well as a transnational institution to manage it is proposed, in order to overcome the synonymy and polysemy across disciplines, which currently handicaps the progress of ecology.

8.Emerging Challenges for the Drinking Water Industry Environmental Science & Technology
Three principles that underpin alternative water source choices are introduced: Reliability, thresholds and future projections of water quality and quantity.

9. The evolution of lncRNA repertoires and expression patterns in tetrapods. Nature
The first large-scale evolutionary study of long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) repertoires and expression patterns in eleven tetrapod species is presented. About 400 highly conserved lncRNA’s (of more than 10 000 identified) probably originated an astonishing 300 million years ago at least.

10. Direct evidence for organic carbon preservation as clay-organic nanocomposites in a Devonian black shale; from deposition to diagenesis Earth and Planetary Science Letters
The temperature and oxygenation of the oceans are influenced by one of the most fundamental biogeochemical processes on Earth-the burial of organic carbon in marine sediments. This buried organic carbon also comprises the primary source of hydrocarbons. This paper presents research into the composition of Woodford Shale.

11. A guide to southern temperate seagrasses (Book, CSIRO Publishing)
A reference guide to the diverse seagrasses present in the ocean of the temperate parts of the southern hemisphere. Evolution, biology and ecology of the seagrasses is introduced. This book allows readers to rapidly identify a particular species, including those often confused with others.

12. A Potential Metric of the Attractiveness of Bird Song to Humans. Ethology
Bird species such as the common nightingale and European blackbird have songs that are known to have inspired classical music. Developing a metric for these songs might help identify birds that are present in international bird trade which could contribute to studies of invasion and conservation biology.

13. Genetics in conservation management: Revised recommendations for the 50/500 rules, Red List criteria and population viability analyses. Biological Conservation
A review of recent theoretical and empirical evidence concludes that the population rules for minimising inbreeding and for maintaining evolutionary potential in perpetuity need to be at least doubled and sections of the IUCN Red List criteria require revision, to be more effective conservation tools.

Director of the Environment Institute, Professor Bob Hill to kick off the Sprigg Geobiology Centre Seminar Series

Director of the Environment Institute, Professor Bob Hill will give a seminar entitled ‘The Decline of the Great Southern Rainforests: Cenozoic climate change and vegetation responses‘

Prof. Bob Hill

Professor Hill’s botanical research research has made significant contributions to the areas of palaeobotany, plant systematics, plant ecophysiology and applying research from these areas to interpreting changed that have occurred to Australian flora through evolutionary time.

During his career, he has won many awards including the Clarke and Burbidge Medals for his research into the impact of long-term climate change on the evolution of Australian Vegetation. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Australian Journal of Botany.

His lifetime interest in the evolution of the vegetation of Australia and Antarctica has seen Prof. Hill widley published on this subject. He is best known for his research on the fossil history of the southern beech, Nothofagus, and the southern conifers.

Join us for the first in the series of Sprigg Geobiology Centre Seminars for 2014.

When: Friday, March 14, 12:10pm
Where: Mawson Lecture Theatre, University of Adelaide

 

Animal Armageddon scientist descends on Adelaide. Welcome to Peter Ward.

Peter Ward. Source: Nautilus Magazine

You may come to the conclusion that the research of Peter Ward is somewhat fatalistic. He did after all, coin the term Medea Hypothesis, which proposes that multicellular life as we know it is suicidal. However, the very poison of complex life may also be able to save it.

Showcased in his TED talk, Peter tells a story of the mass extinctions of Earth’s past in contrast to the plot of Hollywood blockbusters Deep Impact and Armageddon.

He proposes that many of the mass extinctions or “Animal Armageddons” of Earth’s history have been caused not by the impact of extraterrestrial bodies, but by bacteria.

Rapid global warming causes oceans to become depleted in oxygen, which allows buildup of a gas poisonous to complex life, hydrogen sulfide (H₂S). Bacteria on the other hand thrives on H₂S, and so its domination of the planet is abetted.

As it turns out, the hydrogen sulfide poison present at the boundary of these mass extinctions may actually have a medical application to sustain human life. Not all mammals were wiped out during the mass extinctions of the past, or you wouldn’t be here reading this. Those that survived underwent an adaptation to cope with small amounts H₂S due to the series of exposures to high atmospheric hydrogen sulfide they experienced.

Hydrogen Sulfide may be used to facilitate lowering of core body temperature following trauma, to allow time for transport to hospital. Understanding Earth’s history provides an opportunity to revolutionise medicine.

Peter Ward’s work to uncover the secrets of Earth’s mass extinctions has been profiled in internet think tank BigThink.com, and inspired the Discovery Channel documentary Animal Armageddon.

Peter Ward diving at Osprey Reef, off the Great Barrier Reef. Source: Nautilus Magazine

This is research immersed in philosophy, that extends to the depths of the oceans. Work conducted with such passion and creativity is often sparked from a childhood experience. And so it is with Peter Ward.

In his surprisingly emotive piece in about a creature for a magazine of the same name, the Nautilus, Ward tells the story of a career researching a creature that has prevailed for 500 million years. It began with his entrancement with the Nautilus shell after first seeing one in a shell shop in Hawaii as a young boy. It ended, albeit temporarily, with the tragic death of a friend on a diving expedition in New Caledonia.

Ward visited Adelaide late last year to give a presentation concerning specific new data coming from research into the K/Pg mass extinction at field sites in Antarctica, the late Devonian mass extinction based on work just finished in the Canning Basin of Australia, and the Permian mass extinction from new work in both South Africa and Western Canada. He is now working at School of Earth and Environmental Sciences the University of Adelaide.

In a video interview for Nautilus magazine in answer to the question “What is your proudest achievement as a scientist?” Peter Ward muses “that I have been able to instill in students that it [science] is FUN.”

Our guess is that students are in for a real treat. The Environment Institute welcomes Peter Ward!

Prof Peter Ward podcast available

Professor Peter Ward

The podcast from the presentation by Professor Peter Ward is now available for download.

Peter D. Ward, Ph.D, is a paleontologist and professor in the Departments of Geology and Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He also serves as an adjunct professor of zoology and astronomy. His research specialties include the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event and mass extinctions generally. His books include the best-selling “Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe” (co-author Donald Brownlee, 2000), “Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future” (2007), and “The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?” (2009).

A taxonomy of mass extinctions based on new geobiological research in the Gondwana Continents

Mass extinctions have been the subject of intense curiosity and study from the dawn of the discipline of Geology as a modern science.  The topic has informed (or clashed) with fundamental principles of Geology through its history, including Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism, and most recently a nascent “Neocatastrophism”.  In this talk Professor Peter Ward will communicate new information from  geobiological research by his group that pertains to this debate.

Specific new data coming from research into the K/Pg mass extinction at field sites in Antarctica, the late Devonian mass extinction based on work just finished in the Canning Basin of Australia, and the Permian mass extinction from new work in both South Africa and Western Canada.  The talk will conclude with a rough attempt at proposing a “taxonomy” of mass extinction causes.

Listen to the podcast

Best selling author and TED speaker, Peter Ward in Adelaide.

Professor Peter Ward

Join us to hear from Professor Peter Ward,

When: 3pm, August 21, 2013.
Where: Mawson Lecture Theatre, the University of Adelaide
Cost: FREE

Peter D. Ward, Ph.D., is a paleontologist and professor in the Departments of Geology and Biology at the University of Washington in Seattle. He also serves as an adjunct professor of zoology and astronomy. His research specialties include the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event and mass extinctions generally. His books include the best-selling “Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe” (co-author Donald Brownlee, 2000), “Under a Green Sky: Global Warming, the Mass Extinctions of the Past, and What They Can Tell Us About Our Future” (2007), and “The Medea Hypothesis: Is Life on Earth Ultimately Self-Destructive?” (2009).

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A taxonomy of mass extinctions based on new geobiological research in the Gondwana Continents

Mass extinctions have been the subject of intense curiosity and study from the dawn of the discipline of Geology as a modern science.  The topic has informed (or clashed) with fundamental principles of Geology through its history, including Catastrophism, Uniformitarianism, and most recently a nascent “Neocatastrophism”.  In this talk Professor Peter Ward will communicate new information from  geobiological research by his group that pertains to this debate.

Specific new data coming from research into the K/Pg mass extinction at field sites in Antarctica, the late Devonian mass extinction based on work just finished in the Canning Basin of Australia, and the Permian mass extinction from new work in both South Africa and Western Canada.  The talk will conclude with a rough attempt at proposing a “taxonomy” of mass extinction causes.

Peter’s TED talk has had over 280 000 views and his books are bestsellers. Don’t miss out to hear him in Adelaide.

Assessing Future Drought and Megadrought Risk – Prof Jonathan Overpeck Seminar Today

The Sprigg Geobiology Centre, The Environment Institute and the Centre for Tectonics, Resources and Exploration present Professor Jonathan Overpeck, Departments of Geosciences and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, USA and visiting VCCCAR Fellow and Visiting Professor, School of Earth Sciences, University of Melbourne, on Friday 14 June 2013.

The presentation is titled ‘Assessing Future Drought and Megadrought Risk’ and examines the increased risk of droughts with climate change and how humans can mitigate the risk.

When: Friday 14 June
Time: 3pm – 4pm
Where: Mawson Lecture Theatre, North Terrace Campus, The University of Adelaide (map)
Cost: Free

All welcome!

Abstract

Increased drought risk is (and will be) arguably one of the most certain and troubling aspects of anthropogenic climate change for many parts of the world. At the same time, it is emerging in the scientific literature that state-of-the-art climate and Earth system models are not able to simulate the full range of drought, whether decade-scale droughts like seen recently in both the SW US, and Australia, or multidecadal “megadroughts” that eclipse droughts of the instrumental era in both duration and severity. Evidence for this assertion will be examined, particularly as it comes from the paleoclimatic record of several continents, in both semi-arid and wetter regions. The implications for decision-making will also be discussed, including the on-going operational use, in the United States, of no-regrets drought planning strategies that incorporate paleoclimatic data. Fortunately, because droughts will still occur for natural reasons as well as anthropogenic, increased drought preparedness is a clear “no-regrets” climate change adaptation strategy.

The Carbon Key seminar recording on carbon levels and evolution now available

Recently, Environment Institute member Professor Martin Kennedy presented a seminar as part of the University of Adelaide’s Research Tuesdays Seminar Series entitled The Carbon Key.

The Carbon Key outlined the relationship between carbon levels and the evolution and stability of complex life, and how understanding this relationship is allowing more accurate predictions of future change.

The video from the seminar can now be streamed on the University of Adelaide’s live stream website.

View the video here.