Biogeosciences

Predators or gardeners: how penguins fertilise Antarctica’s biodiversity

Anna Katsigera April 19, 2024

Sea birds contribute importantly to biogeochemical cycles in coastal ecosystems and on islands. Feeding on the marine food chain and nesting on land, they carry large amounts of marine nutrients into terrestrial ecosystems. This might be of particular importance for the nitrogen (N) cycle of terrestrial ecosystems in the antarctic. Credit: Daniel Wasner (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

On the desolate Antarctic peninsula, a colony of penguins creates a hub of biodiversity. One may ask, how exactly do those aquatic birds help maintain and enrich the variety of different kinds of organisms from plants and animals, to a wide range of insects and micro-organisms that live on our planet? The answer is quite intriguing. Scientists from the University of Science and Technology of China ...[Read More]

Soil bacteria that hunt like a wolfpack? Myxobacteria and their role in the food web

Maria Scheel April 16, 2024

A photo of a wolf in the middle and four microscopic images of colourful bacterial cultures around it.

Fig. 1 The resemblance between bacteria and a hunting wolf might not be obvious, but come take a dive into the weird ecology of Myxobacteria (Collage with photo credit Garcia et al. 2010 and Julien Riedel via pexels.com).

Picture this: bacteria that can slime their way around the soil, finding their prey, circling it, closing in on it and lysing it (or making their cell pop), just to feed on their prey. It sounds like a far stretch from a wolf to a bacteria, but even other soil predators, the comparably huge nematode worms ( up to 100 times bigger!), are afraid of these bacterial “wolves”. I went to the Soil System ...[Read More]

GeoPolicy: Fluvial geomorphology and its potential for policy impact

Chloe Hill February 9, 2024

The Isar River in Munich. Photo Credit: Simon Clark

In this month’s GeoPolicy blog post, Dr Grace Skirrow outlines how researchers can share their expertise with environmental regulators to have policy impact and the role that fluvial geomorphology can play in policy decisions. Fluvial Geomorphology and why it is relevant for policymakers Fluvial Geomorphology (“fluvial”, derived from the Latin “fluvialis”, meaning “of the river”) is the study of l ...[Read More]

Biosphere Reserves: What are they and why must we care for them?

Gillian D'Souza November 3, 2023

Credit: Thomas Plenefisch (via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Today, 3 November, is globally recognized as the International Day for Biosphere Reserves. The first edition of this observance day was marked last year, with UNESCO urging our relationship with nature needed “a radical rethink.” As Audrey Azoulay, Director-General of UNESCO explains, “The logic is simple: to improve our relationship with nature, we must first improve our understanding of how we a ...[Read More]