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You might know the short-tailed shearwater and sable shearwater by the common name “muttonbirds”. These two species of seabird breed on islands off southeastern Australia. Both undertake a breathtaking two-week, non-stop flight across the Pacific to the Bering Sea, more than 10,000 km away near Alaska and Russia. Here, they spend the northern summer.

Shearwaters have to survive often-ferocious conditions. Researchers using tracking technology found a shearwater flying inside the eye of a hurricane for 11 hours at an altitude of 4,700 m and winds exceeding 200 km/hr. The bird lived.

These remarkable birds have evolved special features such as tendons in their shoulder joints allowing them to take advantage of intense winds. Rather than being harmed, they use powerful winds to catapult them vast distances while expending minimal energy.

This is why it’s puzzling when many people – and wildlife agencies – blame strong winds or “migration” for the increasing numbers of dead shearwaters seen on Australian beaches.

In our new research, we point to the real cause of deaths in Australian waters: starvation linked to climate change. Researchers overseas have also pinpointed ocean warming as a key factor in mass deaths of seabirds.

Why blame the wind?

Pelagic (ocean-going) seabirds such as shearwaters rarely approach land other than to breed on their chosen islands – or if they are sick, starving or dying and don’t have enough energy to use the wind as they want.

In these cases, the wind can often push them onshore where beachgoers might see them and assume the strong winds are to blame.

Dead or dying beach-washed shearwaters are typically found over a vast area, from Queensland to Tasmania. This means the causes of these deaths must cover a large area – it can’t just be localised storms.

Shearwaters can survive long periods without food, but they have their limits. The waters of Australia’s east coast are a hotspot for marine biodiversity. But these same waters are warming significantly faster than the global average. As more and more heat is funnelled into the oceans, the prey species the shearwaters rely on are moving elsewhere, or going deeper. With their food out of reach, the birds grow weaker and many will die.

Many beachgoers spotting a dead shearwater may think this is normal, as they have seen this before. But it’s not normal. Of the world’s roughly 10,000 bird species, about 1,800 migrate, travelling long distances every year. These include shorebirds, land birds and seabirds. Almost none are regularly found dead on beaches or anywhere else. When they are found dead, they are very often emaciated.

Mass deaths are multiplying

The death of large numbers of birds in a short time is called a “wreck”. In birds, these sad events are typically linked to less prey and warmer waters.

From 2014 to 2015, around 400,000 Cassin’s auklets died off the Pacific northwest of the United States. The mass death of these small seabirds was linked to falling prey numbers brought on by a powerful marine heatwave which spread like a wildfire across the ocean.

Of all the extra heat trapped by climate change, more than 90% pours into the ocean. While the ocean gets gradually hotter, sudden marine heatwaves can bring abrupt, unwelcome change. Marine heatwaves are now striking more often and with increasing intensity.

While some species can adapt to some levels of change, others will not. Indeed, researchers predict “more losers than winners” as the rates of ocean warming rise.

Sadly, shearwaters look to be one such species. During a strong marine heatwave over the 2023-24 southern summer, an estimated 629,000 adult shearwaters died on Australian beaches. For the short-tailed shearwater, that’s around 3% of the global population, gone in a matter of weeks.

Shearwaters are globally recognised as sentinels of ocean health. When their populations are expanding and birds are able to successfully rear their young, this indicates the surrounding ocean is healthy and robust.

The deaths of hundreds of thousands of shearwaters in a single summer is an early warning of what is to come as ocean temperatures keep rising.

Jennifer Lavers (Métis Nation ᓲᐊᐧᐦᑫᔨᐤ), Lecturer in Ornithology, Charles Sturt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

With their dazzling blooms, orchids are among the most famous and collected flowering plants on Earth.

But orchids are not just beautiful and rare. They can also provide clues into the broader health of global ecosystems.

From the outside, ecosystems can look healthy while species reproduction rates are quietly collapsing, due to a decline in the number of bees and other pollinators such as flies and wasps. That’s in part what makes pollination failure so dangerous – and so hard to detect.

However, orchids have a very specialised biology which allows them to act as early indicators of pollination decline. And as our recent research, published in the journal Global Change Biology, shows, they’re telling us pollination is under pressure and has been for a long time. This threatens everything from global biodiversity to ecosystem resilience and food production.

No plan bee

Most plants are flexible. If one pollinator disappears, another might fill the gap. But for many orchid species, there is no other pollinator.

Many orchid species rely on a single pollinator, or a very narrow group of them. To attract these pollinators, orchids use specific scents, colours and shapes.

Some orchids chemically mimic the pheromones of female insects, tricking males into attempting to mate with the flower. Others flower only during short windows of time when their pollinator is active.

This tight ecological coupling means orchids may not be able to compensate when conditions change. If climate shifts, land use changes, or pollinator activity or emergence changes, orchid reproduction may fail.

The impact of pollination failure on orchid populations may not be seen for some years, as individual orchids – many of which retreat to an underground tuber when not flowering – may live for many years or even decades.

Turning collections into data

Proving long-term pollination decline in plants has been incredibly difficult. Reduced pollination in the field, unless for an agricultural crop, often goes unnoticed.

Few studies track reproduction consistently over decades.

While widespread declines in pollinators have been documented in Europe and North America, equivalent evidence from Australasia is lacking. A major review published in 2023 even asked whether the region had dodged the bullet, but concluded a lack of data was to blame, not immunity.

But orchids leave behind a record of visitation. When pollinators visit orchids, they remove pollen packets in a way that can be seen and measured even on dried orchid specimens. And herbaria around the world hold hundreds of thousands of these specimens, collected over centuries.

In our study, we analysed more than 10,000 preserved orchid flowers collected across Australia.

These specimens act like ecological time capsules, allowing us to measure pollination services directly, long after the season in which they were collected from the wild.

We found pollination services have declined by more than 60% since the 1970s. Mean pollination services declined with increasing land-use intensity, and temporal declines in pollination service were associated with rising temperatures.

A global pattern

This is a global pattern.

The first study to apply this approach, published in 2010, showed a long-term decline in the removal of pollen packages in the orchid Pterygodium catholicum from Signal Hill, South Africa.

More recently, an analysis using collections at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the United Kingdom, examined removal of pollen packages across three orchid genera from Africa, the Americas and Europe.

That study found significant declines in pollinia removal in African (Disa) and American (Oncidium) orchids, particularly among species with deceptive or highly specialised pollination strategies. European Ophrys showed mixed trends depending on pollinator group.

Together, these studies show that declines in pollination are most pronounced in orchids that rely on specialised pollinator interactions.

This reflects broader evidence for what’s known as “pollen limitation”, where plant reproduction is constrained by a lack of effective pollination worldwide.

A window to the past

This emphasises why herbarium collections matter. Rather than stacks of old, dry plants, they provide a window to the past. This is invaluable to understanding environmental change.

Preserved orchid specimens provide rare long-term evidence of ecological change that cannot be replaced by short-term field studies.

When pollination fails, plant populations may persist for a time. But without reproduction they are already in decline.

Applying this approach across Australia’s orchid diversity could allow pollination failure to be detected earlier and more consistently at a continental scale.

Right now, orchids are sending a clear signal. Pollination is under pressure, and it has been for decades.

Joanne Bennett, Senior Research Fellow Gulbali Institute, Charles Sturt University and Heidi Zimmer, Research Scientist (Botany), Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research (joint venture between Parks Australia and CSIRO), Australian National Herbarium, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The loss of our forests is one of the biggest environmental challenges of our time.

Forests are key to curbing carbon emissions and protecting the plants, animals and humans that call Earth home.

However, we’re losing our forests at an alarming rate. Our new study shows we’ve lost roughly 300 million hectares over the past 11 years. However, it’s unclear how much of this forest has since been restored.

Either way, we’re losing a significant amount of forest despite efforts to protect it through certification, protection and other conservation schemes.

A global effort

The European Union has introduced policies aimed at eliminating products and supply chains that contribute to forest loss. Examples include palm oil, soy, coffee, cocoa, timber and rubber.

Halting forest loss is also a major focus of international declarations, such as the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use. This declaration, which more than 140 countries endorsed at the COP26 conference in 2021, aims to strengthen global efforts to reduce deforestation and land degradation.

Over the past three decades, the international community has launched forest management certification schemes to protect our forests. These include those developed by the Forest Stewardship Council and the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification.

These are voluntary, market-based schemes meant to ensure forests are being properly managed. These schemes aren’t state-controlled, but rely on the market to create incentives to pressure companies to comply. They do this by getting accredited auditors to independently assess forest management practices against approved or endorsed forest management standards. These schemes also encourage companies to buy products sourced from certified forests. About 10% of the world’s forests are currently certified under these schemes, equal to more than 400 million hectares.

Protected areas may also help curb forest loss. Protected areas are defined locations designed to help conserve nature. Globally, roughly 18% of our forests are in protected areas.

These two strategies should be reducing, or even stopping, forest loss. But they’re failing to do so at a global scale.

So, what’s actually happening?

In our new study, we measured how much forest each country lost each year, due to fire or other causes, from 2013 to 2023. An example of a fire-related cause is a severe fire that engulfs the tree canopy. Forest loss as a result of logging for agricultural or urban development is an example of a non-fire cause. We then compared this to how much forest area is certified or protected in each country.

Between 2013 and 2023, we estimate the amount of forest in protected areas increased from about 868 million hectares to 990 million hectares.

Despite this, our study shows over that period between 21 million and 32 million hectares of forest were lost each year. This tracks with earlier research finding a similar, and no less alarming, trend between 2002 and 2011.

Our study also found no evidence linking more certification and protected areas with less forest loss, at a country level. Between 2013 and 2023, nearly half of global forest loss happened in four countries. These include Russia, Brazil, Canada and the United States. This was mainly caused by fire in countries north of the equator, and non-fire causes in tropical regions such as Brazil.

What can we do?

Forest certification schemes and protected areas, while effective at a forest or local scale, may not have much of an impact on forest loss on a global level. But that’s not a reason to get rid of them.

Instead, we should consider them as just some of the tools in the toolbox. And to make them more effective, we should rethink how they are governed and implemented.

At present, forest management certification schemes are market-based. This means they are largely influenced by private companies. In contrast, most protected areas are managed by state actors, such as a country’s government.

These are two very different forms of governance that historically have not been applied in a coordinated way. For example, a government may decide to add more forest to a protected area. But if it doesn’t have the support of private companies, this may inadvertently lead to negative forest leakage. This is where unprotected forests become more vulnerable to forms of intensified logging, such as clearfelling. Clearfelling involves removing most or all of an area’s trees in one operation, meaning old-growth trees and other key parts of the forest may be lost. To avoid this, we need to coordinate certification and protected areas better.

Another approach that’s been effective is Indigenous-led management. This gives Indigenous communities control over how land is used and managed, including preventing deforestation and other types of illegal forest loss. Recent research suggests this approach can be effective in conserving forests, when used in conjunction with other strategies.

We also need to use the resources we get from our forests more appropriately and efficiently. The vast majority of logs cut from forests are used in short-lived and often disposable products, such as copy paper and pallets. Using precious forests for these low-value products is wasteful and inefficient. It might help reduce forest loss if these products came from recycled sources. To protect our forests, we need to do more with less.

Chris Taylor, Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University; David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, and Maldwyn John Evans, Senior Research Fellow, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

US President Donald Trump is a longtime climate denier and oil industry ally, who sums up his own energy policy as “drill, baby, drill”. Yet he is doing more than almost anyone to speed up the global shift from fossil fuels to clean energy and electric vehicles (EVs).

After the US and Israel struck Iran in late February, Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz and triggered the largest disruption of oil supply in history.

Ironically for Trump and his oil industry donors, this crisis may be an irreversible tipping point for clean energy. For years, fossil fuel advocates spruiked oil, gas and coal as “reliable” energy. That narrative has been reversed. Fossil fuels have become expensive and unreliable, while renewables are cheap, reliable and secure.

For the first time ever, more than 50 nations will gather next week in Colombia to hash out how to wind down and end their dependence on coal, oil and gas. The history-making conference was planned before the Iran war. But this year’s energy crisis has greatly raised the stakes.

The oil crisis is real

Iran’s closure of the narrow Strait of Hormuz stopped oil tankers reaching their destinations. But that wasn’t all. More than 60 gas and oil sites have been damaged in the conflict so far. Even if a durable ceasefire is reached, these impacts will reverberate for months and years to come.

Around 80% of the trapped crude oil was destined for the Asia-Pacific. Faced with dwindling supply, the region’s governments are implementing emergency measures such as sending workers home, banning government travel, rationing fuel and cutting school hours.

The problem is especially bad in the Pacific. Many island nations use diesel for power generation. In response, leaders declared a regional emergency.

Fuel import bills were already a major burden for Pacific nations, leading to efforts to switch to local renewables. Fuel bills could rise by A$933 million in Fiji (nearly three times the healthcare budget).

Scrambling for energy

When energy supplies are disrupted, leaders have three options: find alternate supplies, reduce use or switch to alternatives. In the very short term, countries aim to shore up supply, just as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did last week in Malaysia.

Countries have also moved to reduce use. This can have lasting effects. During the Middle East oil shocks of the 1970s, oil prices tripled and then doubled again. Authorities responded by improving energy productivity to do more with less. The world’s final oil demand per capita peaked in 1979 and has never recovered.

But the real difference from half a century ago is that fossil fuel alternatives are ready for prime time. Since the 1970s, the price of solar panels has fallen 99.9%, while the cost of wind has fallen 91% since 1984. Battery prices have fallen 99% since 1991.

This means it’s now viable for many nations to switch to these alternatives.

The European Union will accelerate electrification, after its fossil fuel bill increased more than $36 billion since February. France has doubled state aid to help households switch to EVs and electrify home heating. Import-dependent South Korea gets 70% of its crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz. It now plans to double renewables capacity within four years.

Electric vehicles at the tipping point?

This year’s oil shock shows signs of creating an unplanned social tipping point – a threshold for self-propelling change beyond which systems shift from one state to another. Climate scientists warn of climate tipping points which amplify feedback and accelerate warming. But social scientists also point to positive tipping points – collective action that rapidly accelerates climate action.

The rush to EVs is a case in point. In Australia, petrol prices surged almost 50% in March, and diesel more than 70%. It’s no surprise new EV sales are at an all-time high, while secondhand EV sales more than doubled last month.

Australia’s 1.3 million hybrid and battery electric vehicles avoid almost 15 million litres of petrol and diesel use every week.

The rush to electric transport is global. Most new Chinese cars are powered by batteries, not oil. Battery electric vehicles outsold petrol cars for the first time in Europe in January.

A conference to quit fossil fuels

The routine burning of coal, oil and gas is the primary driver of the climate crisis. The world’s highest court last year made clear nations have obligations to stop burning fossil fuels.

But fossil fuels have barely been mentioned in 30 years of global climate negotiations, due in part to blocking efforts by big fossil fuel exporters and lobbyists.

Frustrated by slow progress, a coalition of nations has bypassed global climate talks to discuss how to actually phase out fossil fuels.

The first of these summits will take place next week. More than 50 nations will gather in Santa Marta, Colombia, to discuss a potential standalone treaty to manage fossil-fuel phaseout while protecting workers and financial systems.

Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres says it comes at the “best possible moment”, as the oil crisis focuses global attention on fossil fuel dependency.

If next week’s summit produces real momentum to wean off fossil fuels amid the energy crisis, we might look back at it as a social tipping point where early adopters move in earnest – and make it easier for the rest of the world to follow.

Wesley Morgan, Research Associate, Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney and Ben Newell, Professor of Cognitive Psychology and Director of the Institute for Climate Risk and Response, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

As the crisis in the Middle East continues, much of the public focus has been on fuel prices and the cost of living. But there’s another oil-related product that often gets overlooked: plastic.

Most everyday plastics are made from “petrochemicals” that come from oil and gas. This means when energy markets fluctuate, companies that use plastic as a raw material also feel the impact.

When oil prices spike, producing “virgin” plastic becomes more expensive, though often with a delay, as higher raw material and transport costs move through the supply chain.

But what about recycling plastic? For years, this has been framed mainly as an environmental issue, and it still is. But that is no longer the whole story.

In a world increasingly shaped by volatile energy markets, geopolitical tension and supply chain shocks, recycled plastic offers something else: resilience.

From crude oil to coffee lid

Plastic is not a niche material. It is part of the hidden infrastructure of modern life. Australians use about 4 million tonnes of plastic each year.

Consider construction. Plastic is found in pipes, insulation, flooring, sealants and protective films. When the price goes up, the cost of building can increase as well. Or agriculture, which relies on plastics for irrigation lines, crop covers and chemical containers.

Packaging is even more obvious: plastic helps transport and protect food, beverages and consumer goods throughout the country.

Paying more for plastic

We can easily see sudden increases in fuel prices at the petrol station. But when plastic prices rise, the effects can extend to food packaging, building materials, farming supplies, medical products and household items.

Recent disruptions in global supply chains have highlighted how fragile this system can be. Many companies have learned the hard way that “just-in-time” global supply chains can easily turn into “too-late” supply chains when disruptions occur. That’s why even the threat of disruption can lift prices if traders anticipate shortages.

Australia is not immune. Many local manufacturers depend on imported raw plastics priced globally. If international prices spike, Australian businesses typically end up paying more. These higher costs can then spread across the whole economy.

This is where recycled plastic can help. This comes from used items that are collected, sorted, cleaned and processed into new materials. Since it makes use of local waste, it doesn’t depend on imported raw materials derived from fossil fuels.

Yet less than 10% of Australia’s plastic use is recycled back into the local supply, manufacturing and consumption chain. Much of the rest ends up in landfill.

Money in the bin

The fact it comes from waste doesn’t mean recycled plastic is automatically cheap. In fact, it’s more expensive than raw, virgin plastic often by 10% to 50% on average, depending on the plastic type and quality requirements.

Why? Collection systems cost money. Sorting mixed waste is technically difficult. Contamination lowers quality. Reprocessing plants need investment, energy and skilled workers.

But price is only one part of the story. Stability matters too. A manufacturer might prefer slightly higher-priced recycled materials if they provide a more dependable local supply and reduce exposure to sudden global disruptions.

This is especially crucial for businesses that plan their production months in advance. A reliable supply can be as valuable as a lower price.

We are already seeing some movement in this direction, but it is much too slow given the scale of the challenge. Despite years of talk about circular economy goals, many Australian manufacturers still see recycled plastic as a niche option for sustainability, not as a key raw material.

Where we’re getting stuck

Too often, companies that use plastic as an input make purchasing decisions that are driven by the lowest short-term price, even when that increases exposure to future shocks and supply risks. As the current crisis is showing, that can be costly.

Delays in strengthening recycling systems mean greater reliance on imported fossil-based plastics, more local waste sent to landfill or export and missed opportunities to create jobs in collection, sorting, reprocessing and advanced manufacturing.

The clear solution is to close the cost gap. There are many ways we can move in this direction, such as:

• improving collection systems
• designing packaging that is easier to recycle
• reducing contamination in household bins
• investing in modern sorting technology and more reprocessing capacity.

Individuals cannot fix global supply chains on their own, but they do shape the quality of material entering the recycling system. Buying products made with recycled content helps create demand for local recycled plastic.

Correctly sorting household waste and keeping recyclables clean can also reduce contamination, making plastics easier and cheaper to process. Reusing items where possible matters too.

The circular economy is not only built in factories and policy offices. It indeed begins at our homes.

Omid Zabihi, Research Fellow, Institute for Frontier Materials Carbon Fibre and Composites, Deakin University and Minoo Naebe, Professor, Program Lead Solving Plastic Waste Cooperative Research Centre (CRC), Deakin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia is in the middle of a fuel crisis, but the way the state and federal governments have chosen to respond signals a firm commitment to fossil fuels.

In a matter of days, Canberra found billions of dollars to make petrol and diesel cheaper. The temporary halving of the fuel excise is costing about $2.55 billion over three months (plus GST returns), simply to blunt the pain of oil prices without changing Australia’s dependence on oil.

Add in relief for heavy vehicles and loans to fuel-intensive businesses, and you have a crisis package that keeps the existing, oil-hungry system running. Fuel security, in this framing, means securing fuel, not securing mobility.

How the states responded

Victorians and Tasmanians get a brief holiday from public transport fares – a month of free or heavily discounted travel. There was no permanent increase in public transport services or enduring fare reform. There was also no new support for electric vehicles (EVs), accelerated installation of bike lanes or bus priority lanes.

Outside those two states, public transport riders got nothing. Queenslanders remain on their 50 cent fares – which is a positive. There were no new incentives for electric vehicle drivers. People walking or cycling remain invisible in the oil crisis response.

In Western Australia, the proposed policy intervention is to spend millions creating WA’s own storage of petrol and diesel.

The message seems to be: if you’re part of the fossil-fuel system, the state will cushion you; if you’re trying to live outside it (and perhaps support action on climate change), you’re on your own.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Consider if we spent just one-third of the excise relief – roughly $850 million over the same three-month window – and imagine what could be achieved if we made ending fuel use the goal.

Here’s what could be done

First, we could make all public transport free nationwide for three months and boost peak-hour frequencies where systems are already at capacity. Free fares coupled with greater frequency are not just a cost-of-living measure but a continent-wide experiment in habit formation. Give millions of Australians an easy way to test life without the car commute, and some will never go back.

Second, we could target the heaviest fuel users with rapid electrification support, similar to what mining giant Fortescue has announced. With a few hundred million dollars, government could fund tens of thousands of EV rebates for high-kilometre drivers. These include taxis, ride share, fleet vehicles and regional commuters, where the vehicle uses more than 5-6 times the amount of petrol or diesel every year than average users. Add in support for e-bikes and e-cargo bikes for households, couriers and local businesses, and you support short car trips and local deliveries that no longer need fuel.

Third, we could fast-track the infrastructure that makes these choices stick. A national push for kerbside and workplace charging would remove one of the big psychological and practical barriers to EV uptake.

At the same time, bus lanes and intersection bus priority on key corridors could be deployed quickly, and tram boulevards within a slightly longer time.

Fourth, we can begin the hard transition to electric trucks, tractors and agricultural machinery, which is underway in China. China now has 50% of its new truck sales as electric, and will release cheap versions on the global market.

Finally, instead of spending $20 million on advertising that asks drivers to use less fuel, we could spend the same amount explaining how to get through this crisis by using public transport, active transport such as walking and riding, and EVs. And, we could fund those options, as above.

Time to change the system

The point is not to pretend we can fully transform the transport system in three months, but we can make a start. The world has been surprised at how quickly solar, batteries and now EVs have been adopted. It has been the fastest energy transition in history.

With the same fiscal firepower that Canberra found to support the oil industry almost overnight, we could start to end our oil dependence.

Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University and Ray Wills, Adjunct Professor, The University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Australia has long been proud of its food production. The nation produces enough to feed 75 million people – and exports 70% of its produce.

But this position isn’t guaranteed. Intensifying climate change is putting Australian agriculture and our food system at risk.

The Australian government last year published its National Climate Risk Assessment, showing food systems already face increased risks. Stronger and more frequent heatwaves, floods, droughts and bushfires are taking a toll on farmers, livestock, crops and fisheries.

Climate change isn’t the only risk. Fuel and fertiliser shortages in the wake of the Iran war are driving up food prices. Increased competition for water in the Murray-Darling Basin, disruptions to supply chains, the dominance of major supermarkets, and the rising cost of food are also all taking a toll as many Australians go hungry.

These challenges mean Australia can no longer take its food security for granted.

How does Australia do on food security?

A country with strong food security is one where everyone has the right to access safe, nutritious and appropriate food at all times and the food system is sustainable.

You might think Australia would do well here. But in 2025, one in five households skipped meals or went whole days without eating.

Australians also tend not to eat enough nutritious food. In 2022, 36% of children and adolescents and 56% of adults fell short of their daily fruit and vegetable intake. Of all calories consumed, 42% come from ultra-processed foods which can lead to higher risks of cancer, heart disease, and early death.

Australia’s supermarket sector is one of the world’s most concentrated, as Coles and Woolworths take 67% of sales. This so-called duopoly has long been accused of keeping prices too high.

One area where Australia performs well is food availability. But this advantage is being eroded. After decades of growth, farm productivity is now declining due to more extreme climate variability, more plant and animal diseases, pressure on water supply and other resources and other factors.

Natural disasters also restrict access by cutting off crops or livestock from markets. The end result: food gets more expensive.

Climate change is already at work

As floods become more extreme, farmers are now taking serious hits – especially in Queensland.

In 2019, floods and sticky mud trapped and killed up to 500,000 cows.

In 2022, record-breaking floods caused a national lettuce shortage.

In 2023, floods hit banana, mango and avocado crops.

In 2025, over 100,000 cows died in outback Queensland due to flooding.

This summer, it happened again. Over 48,000 cattle are dead or missing after extreme flooding in northwest Queensland.

Rising temperatures also make life harder for the animals and plants we rely on. Heat stress is on the rise in livestock. When animals are too hot, their health can suffer and milk and meat production falls.

As a recent CSIRO report shows, heat stress leads to smaller vegetable yields and worse crop quality, as well as triggering painful economic and labour market shocks.

In poultry, shifting bird migration patterns are increasing risks of diseases such as avian influenza. A recent outbreak saw egg prices spike.

The waters of the Murray-Darling Basin are becoming less reliable. These rivers support 40% of Australian farms, 8,400 irrigated businesses and produces $30 billion in food and fibre annually.

Climate change is intensifying competition for scarcer water resources, adding to the long-term mismanagement of the basin’s environmental health.

What can we do to boost food security?

One overlooked response is to preserve and create more local and diverse food supply chains – especially for major cities.

Sydney once supported its population with local food production. But as the suburbs have expanded, much of this has been lost – especially in the north and south-west regions.

The city of 5.5 million still produces 20% of its own food in the Sydney Basin. But under projected housing development scenarios, this would fall 60% by 2031, leaving the city only 6% self-sufficient. Local fresh vegetable and egg supply would fall more than 90%.

Melbourne’s food bowl faces similar development pressure. At present, farms around the city of 5.4 million meet around 41% of its food needs. For instance, the Yarra Valley to the northeast supplies 78% of Victoria’s strawberries and Casey and Cardinia shires in the city’s southeast produce 90% of Australia’s asparagus. These regions are all under pressure from new housing developments.

Intensified natural disasters could also block transport of food from further afield. If Sydney’s main food transport routes were cut, reserves of fresh food would only last a few days.

Looking forward

When floods devastated Lismore in 2022, the New South Wales town had empty supermarket shelves for months after main roads and freight lines were cut.

But farmers’ markets reopened within a week. As one farmer’s market manager told experts:

supermarket shelves were completely empty [but] we had all this produce.

Lismore’s experience shows how a sudden hit from a climate change linked disaster can weaken resilience in a food system already reliant on concentrated markets and limited local diversity. But it also points to how communities can respond faster than authorities.

As we face an uncertain future, we will need much better food security planning across the continent.

Boosting resilience comes in many forms, from better water and soil management to diversifying supply chains to supporting local food producers and distributors and protecting farms on the urban fringe.

Investing in more sustainable agriculture practices can cut farm emissions, reduce reliance on synthetic fertilisers and pesticides and improve resilience to climate change.

A legislated right to food could also help ensure all Australians can access healthy and sustainable food well into the future.

Anja Bless, Lecturer in Sustainability and International Relations, University of Technology Sydney and Milena Bojovic, Lecturer in Sustainability and Environment, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You might not have heard of buffel grass, a robust and invasive grass that has spread across tens of thousands of square kilometres of inland Australia. But you might know its effects.

Most people remember the deadly 2023 fires in Maui, Hawaii, which killed more than 100 people. Many will know of the worsening bushfires in Australia’s centre. In both cases, buffel grass, (including Cenchrus ciliaris), played a role by adding fuel in dry environments.

Right now, the federal government is weighing up whether to declare buffel grass one of the worst weeds in the country – a “Weed of National Significance”.

Our new study shows buffel grass does real damage to native animals, and we can now predict the types of animals most at risk. Building on previous work, we show buffel grass affects at least three major groups – birds, reptiles and ants – in multiple habitats and regions.

What is buffel grass?

Buffel is a tussock grass, bulkier than most Australian native grasses. Native to Africa, the Middle East and Asia, buffel grass first arrived in Australia via imported camel saddles in the 1870s. It was later planted for dryland pasture as its deep roots allow it to thrive in dry climates.

Buffel grass was first planted in the 1920s and became well established by the 1960s. It enabled significant returns to the pastoral industry, including economic returns in dry years.

But now buffel grass has spread much further and is smothering Aboriginal land, conservation reserves, public places and regional and remote towns. More summer rainfall in central Australia, as part of climate change, is fuelling the growth, seeding and spread of buffel grass.

The issue is complex: although valued by many graziers, buffel grass is now spreading so rapidly and widely its severe negative impacts can no longer be ignored.

It has significant impacts on biodiversity, people’s health and safety and on cultural sites and practices, especially for Aboriginal people in central Australia. The case for recognising it as an invasive weed of national significance is compelling.

What our research found

We surveyed birds, reptiles and ants in the Aṉangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of inland South Australia in two regions, 300 kilometres apart. Survey sites included rocky hills, fertile plains, spinifex grasslands and wooded sites. We wanted to see whether buffel grass invasion changes the mix of animals species in an area, and if we could predict which types of animals would be most affected.

We found reptile, bird and ant communities had all changed where buffel grass had taken over these habitats. Certain groups of animals were consistently less common in areas affected by buffel grass.

Buffel grass changes the whole ground layer of a site; thick grass replaces open native grasses and shrubs. As we expected, animals that use the ground and need open space, such as small reptiles, ants and ground-feeding birds, were less common in buffel grass. These findings are consistent with earlier local studies of reptiles, and birds in central Australia.

Once buffel grass invades, it dominates plant communities, reducing the diversity of native plants. We predicted this would make it harder for animals with specialised diets to find food compared to animals that eat more broadly. As expected, specialist eaters were most affected, such as seed-eating ants and birds.

Birds that feed on insects were also consistently worse off. For example, the dusky grasswren is a stout wren that only lives on rocky hillsides in central Australia and specialises on eating insects. We found grasswrens on hills with spiky native spinifex grass, but not on hills where buffel had displaced spinifex. Likewise, the rufous whistler – another insectivore that prefers Acacia woodlands – was less prevalent where buffel grass had invaded.

Whole groups of animals at risk

Because these trends were mostly predictable and consistent across animal groups, habitats and regions, we expect the same thing is happening in other areas. Considering how widespread buffel grass is, whole groups of fauna across inland Australia are at risk if its invasion progresses unchecked.

Loss of major animal groups is often only evident after it is too late. With mounting evidence available, we must act now.

Buffel grass was declared a weed in South Australia in 2019, and the Northern Territory in 2024. Weed recognition can lead to more strategic research and management.

A national listing of buffel grass as a “Weed of National Significance” would be critical recognition of its impact at a continental scale. It would also mean a nationally coordinated response, which is the only way to protect whole groups of species, ecosystems and livelihoods of arid Australia. Without national policy, the spread and impacts of buffel grass will continue unchecked.

Ellen Ryan-Colton, Senior Research Officer, Australian National University and Christine Schlesinger, Professor in Environmental Science, Charles Darwin University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lord Howe Island lies in the middle of the ocean, about 700 kilometres northeast of Sydney. It’s covered in lush forest and fringed by the world’s most southerly coral reef ecosystem.

This reef system isn’t as famous as its northern neighbour, the Great Barrier Reef. Our new research in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows it plays an outsized role in keeping vast coral regions across the Pacific connected – and alive.

A small number of other reefs in the region serve a similar function. Knowing which reefs matter most for recovery and adaptation to ocean warming – and protecting them now – could make the difference between regional reef collapse and long-term resilience.

Tiny coral babies in a vast ocean

Coral reefs are in global decline, but this loss is not just about dying corals – it’s about breaking the natural connections that allow reefs to recover after marine heatwaves, cyclones and other threats.

Right now, climate change is rapidly reducing the ability of coral larvae to travel between reefs, shrinking their chances of survival by undercutting recovery.

These tiny coral babies can sometimes spend many weeks in the surface waters of the open ocean, carried by currents across hundreds or even thousands of kilometres before settling and beginning to grow.

The movement of larvae provides a constant source of replenishment for reefs, both near and far away, which is especially important when reefs are damaged.

Without this constant replenishment, some damaged reefs simply cannot recover. Connectivity isn’t a nice-to-have for coral reefs. It’s their lifeline.

Tracking dispersal across 850 reefs

Our study used ocean circulation models to simulate the trajectories of coral larvae across the southwestern Pacific Ocean from 2011 to 2024, tracking the movement of larvae across 850 reefs.

These reefs spanned the Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia, the Coral Sea and Lord Howe Island.

We traced how two key coral growth forms (fast-growing branching corals and slower-growing massive corals) move between reefs under current conditions and under projected global climate warming scenarios of 1°C, 2.5°C and 4°C above pre-industrial temperatures.

We then examined how corals moved between different types of reef, including reefs that were naturally resistant to heat stress, those that recover quickly after disturbance, and those that stay cooler because of local water currents and upwelling that naturally reduce water temperature around the reef.

This allowed us to ask not just which reefs are connected, but which kinds of reefs are sending and receiving different types of larvae.

A fragile network

We found that only a handful of reefs act as genuine hubs — places where larvae both arrive from distant sources and depart to “seed” reefs far away. Lose these stepping stones, and the entire network begins to fragment.

The Coral Sea reefs emerged as crucial bridges in this network, linking the southern Great Barrier Reef with New Caledonia and beyond. But perhaps the most striking finding involves Lord Howe Island.

Our modelling identified Lord Howe as a potential refugium: a place where corals may be able to persist even as warming intensifies, potentially owing to its more temperate, southerly position.

Yet its very isolation – what makes it a likely survivor – also means it has limited natural connectivity with surrounding reefs.

This situation therefore cuts both ways: while isolation helps protect its coral from extreme heat stress, it also means the reef relies less on new larvae that others could need for recovery. It therefore also means Lord Howe needs protection – not just for itself, but for the entire regional reef system that may one day depend on it.

Another important finding is that the reefs most resistant to heat stress (those classified as naturally resistant) tended to export larvae to a relatively smaller number of reefs within the wider network.

But there are techniques that enable the intentional movement of larvae from heat-tolerant reefs to more vulnerable locations. These include assisted gene flow, in which scientists deliberately move warm-adapted adult corals or their offspring to reefs that are more vulnerable to heat stress, helping to spread heat-tolerant genes more quickly across reef networks.

Protecting our marine superhighways

Our results make clear that marine protected areas should not be managed as isolated reserves but as an interconnected network, with transboundary cooperation between Australia and Pacific Island nations.

The larval corridors linking the southern Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia and Lord Howe Island do not fall within national boundaries. Neither can our conservation response.

Reefs are already fighting against warming oceans. The waters of the Lord Howe Rise and South Tasman Sea, the vast oceanic region between Australia and New Zealand through which these larval corridors flow, are under threat from industrial fishing.

Industrial fishing, pollution and climate change are pushing these ecosystems to the brink, with longlines intersecting surface waters. This cumulative pressure across these newly identified larval transport superhighways adds yet another layer of pressure onto these already stressed ecosystems.

Our research adds a new and crucial dimension to high seas protection. Our region sits directly across the larval corridors that connect and sustain coral reef systems. Protecting this ocean is not just about what lives here. It is about what passes through – fundamental for migratory and connected populations.

The least we can do is protect the superhighways through which their future flows – invisibly, at the ocean surface, some larvae no bigger than a grain of rice, carrying the genetic potential to rebuild what we stand to lose.

Kate Marie Quigley, DECRA Research Fellow in molecular ecology, James Cook University and Elise Thérèse Gisèle Dehont, PhD student in Fisheries Science and Marine Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A humpback whale repeatedly restranding in shallow waters in the Baltic Sea for more than three weeks has become the focus of a complex debate about reconciling compassion for animals with ethical, evidence-based decision making.

Affectionately known as Timmy, the whale restranded several times and has been growing weaker, failing to recover despite multiple rescue attempts.

Its struggle attracted global attention and triggered debates between experts and the public regarding intervention versus allowing a natural end.

Marine biologists and veterinarians observing the whale made a clear and evidence-based assessment earlier this month: further intervention was unlikely to succeed and would risk prolonging the animal’s suffering.

Yet public pressure – driven by empathy amplified by social media and sharpened into outrage – led German state authorities to permit renewed rescue efforts this week, framed as a “last ditch” effort.

At first glance, it seems an act of compassion. But beneath the surface lies a more difficult truth. As our research shows, when scientific advice is sidelined in favour of public sentiment, outcomes for the very animals we aim to protect can worsen.

The emotional pull of “doing something”

Large, charismatic animals like whales evoke powerful emotional responses. They are intelligent, expressive and visibly vulnerable when stranded.

For many people, choosing not to intervene feels morally unacceptable, with inaction often perceived as neglect.

Wildlife medicine, however, does not operate on instinct or optics. It relies on probabilities, welfare assessments and the recognition that intervention is not always beneficial.

In Timmy’s case, experts from the German Oceanographic Museum and the Institute for Terrestrial and Aquatic Wildlife Research, as well as international organisations, reached a consistent conclusion that the whale was unlikely to survive.

After repeated failed rescues, the environment minister for Germany’s state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania determined that continued intervention would likely worsen the whale’s condition. By then, Timmy was showing clear signs of trauma and exhaustion.

The decision was not made in isolation. In early April, the International Whaling Commission’s stranding expert panel publicly supported the German authorities. It outlined that further rescue attempts would likely increase suffering without improving survival chances.

Euthanasia, frequently suggested as an alternative, was deemed impractical, however. The whale’s partial buoyancy, combined with logistical, safety and personnel challenges meant this was not a viable option.

New Zealand’s experience

In 2021, New Zealand experienced a similar situation with Toa, a stranded orca calf.

The response was extraordinary, mobilising national and international expertise. Veterinarians, marine mammal scientists and stranding specialists contributed to an unprecedented rescue effort.

The scientific consensus, however, was sobering. Given Toa’s young age (unweaned), prolonged separation from his pod, and the challenges of reintegration, his chances of survival were extremely low.

Over time, his welfare declined during extended human care. Many experts ultimately supported euthanasia as the most humane option.

That path was not taken. Driven by public hope and attention, efforts continued. Toa died after weeks in care. In retrospect, the case raised a difficult but necessary question: when expert consensus and public sentiment diverge, which should guide decisions?

When perception overrides expertise

This tension is not anecdotal; it is well documented. Research shows that human perceptions and emotional investment can significantly shape responses to cetacean strandings, sometimes directly conflicting with recommendations based on the animal’s wefare.

In high-profile cases, decision making can shift from expert-led processes to outcomes shaped by public pressure. The patterns observed in Germany – repeated strandings, declining condition and cumulative stress – are strong predictors of poor outcomes, regardless of continued intervention.

The disconnect is clear. Experts assess welfare through measurable physiological, behavioural and environmental markers to infer the mental state of an animal. The public often evaluates it through effort, visibility and intent. The result is a compelling but flawed assumption: that doing more means doing better.

A common principle in veterinary ethics is that the ability to intervene does not justify doing so. Every rescue attempt carries risks: handling stress, injury, prolonged suffering and the diversion of limited resources.

While financial cost is often highlighted, the more critical issue is animal welfare. In repeated stranding cases, the ethical balance becomes increasingly stark.

When recovery is highly unlikely, continued intervention can shift from care to harm. In repeated stranding cases, the ethical calculus becomes sharper. Yet this is precisely the moment when public pressure tends to intensify.

A more difficult kind of care

Compassion is not the problem; it is fundamental to conservation. But compassion without evidence can mislead.

What’s at stake is trust in scientific expertise, veterinary judgement and the difficult reality that the most humane decision is not always the most emotionally satisfying one.

If every high-profile stranding becomes a referendum driven by public pressure, we risk creating a system where decisions are shaped less by animal welfare and more by public visibility.

The instinct to rally around a stranded whale reflects the best of human empathy. But real care in wildlife conservation is not always about action. Sometimes, it requires restraint.

In Toa’s case, official documents later revealed most experts had recommended euthanasia to prevent prolonged suffering.

Timmy’s situation raises a similar question. Not whether people care enough, but whether we are willing to accept that caring also means listening to science, to experience and to the difficult truths they bring.

Karen Stockin, Professor of Marine Ecology, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cities are hotter than the surrounding countryside. Paved surfaces such as asphalt and concrete trap heat and release it at night. But as climate change worsens, this is becoming a real risk for residents.

Researchers are racing to find ways to protect urban residents from rising temperatures and pollution. As recent research shows, there’s no single fix for urban heat. Different places need different solutions, from tree canopies to cool roofs to reflective pavements.

Taming urban heat doesn’t necessarily require extravagant ideas such as air-conditioned footpaths. Some of the most effective tools are simple adjustments to infrastructure we already have, using nature to cool cities down with vegetation, soil and water.

One promising solution is hiding in plain sight: our tram tracks (particularly the many sections that run on their own corridors, separated from traffic). Cities around the world have been greening their tram corridors by replacing concrete with grass or low vegetation.

The idea is not new – grass-covered tram tracks date back to Berlin in 1905 – but has seen a resurgence since the 1980s. And the results are surprisingly effective.

How does this work?

A green tram track replaces the usual concrete around tram rails with a layer of healthy vegetation. Many cities use grasses or species of sedum, a genus of drought-resistant succulents able to survive in extreme conditions such as heat, low water and constant vibration.

The plants sit on a thin substrate designed to hold moisture and drain excess water, essentially turning part of the tram corridor into green infrastructure.

These systems are typically used on sections where trams run in their own corridor, rather than in lanes shared with general traffic.

Once in place, this simple system delivers multiple benefits:

• Better stormwater management: Green tracks absorb and slow rainfall instead of letting it run straight into drains. Studies show these systems can increase water storage by 50–70%, easing pressure during intense storms and supporting “sponge city” goals, even in relatively dense areas with limited open space.

• Lower surface and air temperatures: Plants don’t trap heat like concrete does. Thermal scans of green tracks show surface temperatures are roughly 10°C lower during summer peaks.

• Less noise and vibration: The plants dampen sound and vibrations from passing trams, though this effect is modest.

Plantings along tram tracks can help trap dust and fine particles on busy corridors, and provide a small boost to local air quality.

Even these narrow strips of green tracks help biodiversity by creating continuous habitat for insects and acting as ecological connectors between parks, nature strips and street trees.

Then there are the aesthetic benefits. In many cities, residents have reported that they prefer the softer, greener look of these tracks.

Where are these tracks?

Green tram tracks are now found in dozens of cities across Europe and beyond.

Greening is popular. A study of Warsaw residents found more than 90% viewed their city’s green tracks positively, rating them around five times more favourably than conventional paved track.

A Swedish study found a similar pattern. Residents described the grassed tram track as beautiful, calming and a clear improvement over a hard, traffic-dominated corridor.

Municipal staff, however, were more cautious. They acknowledged the visual and environmental benefits but worried about long-term maintenance costs and whether the model could be scaled across the network.

How much does it cost?

Installing a green track usually costs more than a bare concrete slab. But there are ways to keep costs down.

Grass needs mowing, watering and occasional replanting, which makes councils understandably nervous about ongoing budgets.

Sedum succulents have much lower maintenance needs and can need little or no irrigation once established. This reduces lifecycle costs even if the initial planting is more expensive.

Studies comparing grass and sedum tracks have found the long-term maintenance burden is much lower for sedum, while the main visual and environmental benefits are largely preserved.

Can this work in Australia?

Australia experimented with the idea of green tram tracks well before many other countries. Almost 20 years ago, Adelaide installed a small-scale grassed track as part of the Glenelg tram extension. While small, it is now considered an early example of using a nature-based solution in railways.

Sydney now boasts a much more substantial example. The Parramatta Light Rail has more than a kilometre of green track, using sedum plantings. This makes Australia’s largest and most modern installation.

It’s a good start. But there’s much more that could be done. Australia has about 339km of tram and light rail. Melbourne has more than 250km, making it the largest network in the world. And more tracks are being built.

Green tram tracks can’t be installed everywhere. They can’t be planted where tracks are built into the road and where cars, trucks and buses would run over them. They need a protected, stable track bed with no heavy traffic.

Much of Melbourne’s tram network runs along long medians and dedicated corridors, such as St Kilda Road, where tracks are already separated from traffic and could easily support green tracks.

In recent years, Sydney has expanded its light rail network through the CBD and out to the east and west. Canberra and the Gold Coast run modern systems designed with separated trackbeds, exactly the conditions where green tracks thrive.

Green tram tracks are not a silver bullet for urban heat. But they offer something rare in transport infrastructure: a visible, popular, nature-based upgrade able to cool streets, manage water, relax neighbourhoods and improve how a city looks and feels.

As Australia invests billions in new tram and light rail lines, the benefits of green tracks are too significant to ignore.

Milad Haghani, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow in Urban Risk and Resilience, The University of Melbourne and Ryan Keenan, Honorary Senior Research Fellow; Principal Consultant, Positioning Insights, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Lord Howe Island lies in the middle of the ocean, about 700 kilometres northeast of Sydney. It’s covered in lush forest and fringed by the world’s most southerly coral reef ecosystem.

This reef system isn’t as famous as its northern neighbour, the Great Barrier Reef. Our new research, in the Journal of Applied Ecology, shows it plays an outsized role in keeping vast coral regions across the Pacific connected – and alive.

A small number of other reefs in the region serve a similar function. Knowing which reefs matter most for recovery and adaptation to ocean warming – and protecting them now – could make the difference between regional reef collapse and long-term resilience.

Tiny coral babies in a vast ocean

Coral reefs are in global decline, but this loss is not just about dying corals – it’s about breaking the natural connections that allow reefs to recover after marine heatwaves, cyclones and other threats.

Right now, climate change is rapidly reducing the ability of coral larvae to travel between reefs, shrinking their chances of survival by undercutting recovery.

These tiny coral babies can sometimes spend many weeks in the surface waters of the open ocean, carried by currents across hundreds or even thousands of kilometres before settling and beginning to grow.

The movement of larvae provides a constant source of replenishment for reefs, both near and far away, which is especially important when reefs are damaged.

Without this constant replenishment, some damaged reefs simply cannot recover. Connectivity isn’t a nice-to-have for coral reefs. It’s their lifeline.

Tracking dispersal across 850 reefs

Our study used ocean circulation models to simulate the trajectories of coral larvae across the southwestern Pacific Ocean from 2011 to 2024, tracking the movement of larvae across 850 reefs.

These reefs spanned the Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia, the Coral Sea and Lord Howe Island.

We traced how two key coral growth forms (fast-growing branching corals and slower-growing massive corals) move between reefs under current conditions and under projected global climate warming scenarios of 1°C, 2.5°C and 4°C above pre-industrial temperatures.

We then examined how corals moved between different types of reef, including reefs that were naturally resistant to heat stress, those that recover quickly after disturbance, and those that stay cooler because of local water currents and upwelling that naturally reduce water temperature around the reef.

This allowed us to ask not just which reefs are connected, but which kinds of reefs are sending and receiving different types of larvae.

A fragile network

We found that only a handful of reefs act as genuine hubs — places where larvae both arrive from distant sources and depart to “seed” reefs far away. Lose these stepping stones, and the entire network begins to fragment.

The Coral Sea reefs emerged as crucial bridges in this network, linking the southern Great Barrier Reef with New Caledonia and beyond. But perhaps the most striking finding involves Lord Howe Island.

Our modelling identified Lord Howe as a potential refugium: a place where corals may be able to persist even as warming intensifies, potentially owing to its more temperate, southerly position.

Yet its very isolation – what makes it a likely survivor – also means it has limited natural connectivity with surrounding reefs.

This situation therefore cuts both ways: while isolation helps protect its coral from extreme heat stress, it also means the reef relies less on new larvae that others could need for recovery. It therefore also means Lord Howe needs protection – not just for itself, but for the entire regional reef system that may one day depend on it.

Another important finding is that the reefs most resistant to heat stress (those classified as naturally resistant) tended to export larvae to a relatively smaller number of reefs within the wider network.

But there are techniques that enable the intentional movement of larvae from heat-tolerant reefs to more vulnerable locations. These include assisted gene flow, in which scientists deliberately move warm-adapted adult corals or their offspring to reefs that are more vulnerable to heat stress, helping to spread heat-tolerant genes more quickly across reef networks.

Protecting our marine superhighways

Our results make clear that marine protected areas should not be managed as isolated reserves but as an interconnected network, with transboundary cooperation between Australia and Pacific Island nations.

The larval corridors linking the southern Great Barrier Reef, New Caledonia and Lord Howe Island do not fall within national boundaries. Neither can our conservation response.

Reefs are already fighting against warming oceans. The waters of the Lord Howe Rise and South Tasman Sea, the vast oceanic region between Australia and New Zealand through which these larval corridors flow, are under threat from industrial fishing.

Industrial fishing, pollution and climate change are pushing these ecosystems to the brink, with longlines intersecting surface waters. This cumulative pressure across these newly identified larval transport superhighways adds yet another layer of pressure onto these already stressed ecosystems.

Our research adds a new and crucial dimension to high seas protection. Our region sits directly across the larval corridors that connect and sustain coral reef systems. Protecting this ocean is not just about what lives here. It is about what passes through – fundamental for migratory and connected populations.

The least we can do is protect the superhighways through which their future flows – invisibly, at the ocean surface, some larvae no bigger than a grain of rice, carrying the genetic potential to rebuild what we stand to lose.

Kate Marie Quigley, DECRA Research Fellow in molecular ecology, James Cook University and Elise Thérèse Gisèle Dehont, PhD student in Fisheries Science and Marine Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Around the world, people plan to plant more than 1 trillion trees this decade in an ambitious effort to slow climate change and reduce biodiversity loss. But if the past is prologue, many of those planted trees won’t survive. And if they do, they could end up as biological deserts that lack the richness and resilience of healthy forests.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The United Nations declared 2021-2030 the Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to encourage efforts to repair degraded ecosystems. Tree planting has become a centerpiece of that effort, championed by initiatives such as the Bonn Challenge and the Trillion Trees Campaign.

However, many tree-planting commitments have a critical flaw: They rely too heavily on monoculture plantations – vast areas planted with just a single tree species.

Monoculture plantations are generally one-way tickets to producing wood. But these high-yield plantations are high risk and can be surprisingly fragile. When drought, pests, or forest fires strike, entire monoculture plantations can fail at once. In one example, nearly 90% of 11 million saplings planted in Turkey died within three months due to drought and lack of maintenance.

Forests are more than just timber factories. They regulate water, store carbon, provide habitat for wildlife, cool the landscapes around them and even provide human health benefits.

Rather than gambling on a single species and hoping for the best, science now points to a smarter path that captures both ecological and economic benefits while minimizing risk: mixed-species plantings that mirror the biodiversity of a natural forest, ultimately creating forests that grow faster and are more resilient in the face of constant threats.

We are community and landscape ecologists at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. Since 2013, we and our colleagues have been rigorously testing this idea in a large, ecosystem-scale experiment called BiodiversiTREE. The verdict is striking: Trees in mixed forests don’t just survive – they outgrow their monoculture counterparts and support dramatically more biodiversity.

Trees with diverse neighbors grow larger

Thirteen years ago, we teamed up with volunteers to plant nearly 18,000 tree seedlings on 60 acres of fallow fields on the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center campus near the Chesapeake Bay.

We didn’t plant just a single species. We planted 16 different native species from all walks of tree-life. Some species were fast-growing timber species, some were mid-story species, and some were slow-growing species that might not reach full size for a century or more.

Some plots we planted with just a single species – homogenous rows of the same species over and over again. But others were planted with random allotments of four and 12 species, reflecting the middle and upper ends of tree diversity in similar-sized areas of our local forests.

We asked a simple question: What would happen if we tried to mirror nature and plant a mixture of species instead of a monoculture?

The differences over a decade later are striking.

The monoculture plots – those that survived – resemble traditional plantation forestry that historically has dominated rural lands in the Southeast and Pacific Northwest in the U.S. They contain rows of tall, narrow trees with sparse canopies and little life below.

The mixed-species plots, by contrast, are layered, complex and dynamic, with foliage filling the canopy and a diversity of plants and animals thriving underneath.

These visual contrasts reflect real ecological gains. Trees grown in mixtures, including important timber species like poplar and red oak, are up to 80% larger than the same species when grown alone. Mixed plots supported fewer leaf pathogens, more abundant caterpillar communities that provide food for birds, and increased phytochemical diversity in their leaves. We hypothesize that these leaf chemicals, some of which deter animals from eating them, reduced browsing damage from hungry deer, ultimately leading to higher tree growth in the mixed plots.

Plots with several tree species also had much fuller, denser leaf canopies, leading to cooler, shadier conditions that help understory plants flourish and support up to 50% more insects, spiders and birds.

This pattern isn’t unique to our site. The BiodiversiTREE project is part of TreeDivNet, a global network of large-scale experiments spanning more than 1.2 million trees and hundreds of species. Across continents and climates, the results are consistent: Forests with a mix of species tend to grow larger, store more carbon and better withstand stress from drought, pests and disease.

So why are monocultures still common?

Despite decades of evidence, mixed-species plantings remain relatively rare in practice. Most commercial forestry operations still rely on monocultures, and these plantations are counted toward international planting campaigns aimed at slowing climate change and reversing biodiversity loss.

The reasons are generally practical: Mixed plantings can be more complex to design, more expensive to establish and harder to manage. Crucially, until recently, there has been limited evidence that they can match or exceed the economic returns of conventional plantations.

A new experiment at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center called “Functional Forests” aims to bridge some of the gaps between science and practice. We’re developing intentionally designed combinations of trees to test whether specific mixtures of species can contribute ecological benefits while also providing timber and other services that humans need to support a thriving, sustainable economy.

Each of the 20 tree species in the Functional Forests project was chosen to provide one or more benefits, including timber, wildlife habitat, food for people, resistance to deer and climate resilience. But no single species provides all of these benefits.

Some of the nearly 200 plots will contain a single species, while others include carefully selected combinations of five species assembled based on the functions they provide. Some plots are protected from deer browsing, while others are left exposed.

By comparing these approaches, we can test how different planting strategies perform across a range of goals, from timber production to food production and from biodiversity to climate resilience.

Landowners and communities have different priorities, whether that’s producing wood, supporting wildlife or creating forests that can withstand a changing climate. The idea behind Functional Forests is to design plantings that can deliver these multiple benefits all at once, rather than optimizing for just one, essentially leveraging the positive effects of biodiversity to achieve real-world goals.

Planting 1 trillion trees wisely

The stakes are high. Restoration has become a major global investment, with hundreds of billions of dollars already being spent annually. Getting it wrong means wasted resources and missed opportunities to address some of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time.

If the world is going to plant a trillion trees, we believe it needs to do more than just put seedlings in the ground. It needs to rethink what a forest should be.

The goal isn’t just to grow trees. It’s to grow forests that last.

John Parker, Senior Scientist in Community Ecology, Smithsonian Institution and Justin Nowakowski, Senior Scientist in Spatial Ecology and Conservation, Smithsonian Institution

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

With 104 matches in 16 stadiums across Canada, the United States and Mexico, the 2026 FIFA World Cup will be soccer’s biggest event ever.

It’s our job as turfgrass researchers hired by FIFA, the game’s governing body, to make sure those pitches feel the same for players and that the grass thrives.

That’s not so simple. In fact, it seemed like an impossible challenge at first.

Picking the right turf

The scale of this job was unprecedented: three distinct climatic zones, over 3,100 miles between the farthest stadiums, and venues ranging from stadiums open to the heat of Mexico City and Miami to enclosed NFL stadiums in Dallas and Atlanta, to the cooler climates of Boston and Toronto.

Despite the unique situations of each stadium, FIFA has a long list of rules for how the fields must be built. The grass has to be real but reinforced so it can handle a lot of games and ceremonies. Each field needs an automatic irrigation system, good drainage, built-in vacuum and vents to keep the grass and soil aerated, and artificial grow lights to keep the grass healthy.

Each host city is responsible for figuring out how to meet these requirements.

Right now, eight of the 2026 host stadiums normally use artificial turf – how will they temporarily switch to real grass for the World Cup?

Even trickier, five of the stadiums have domes, which means the grass gets less sunlight. How can they keep the grass alive for eight weeks?

How can we make sure that a player competing in Philadelphia has the same on‑field experience as a player competing in Guadalajara or Seattle?

Our team at the University of Tennessee and Michigan State University has spent the past five years researching these questions to provide guidance to the host cities. Here, we’ll explore some of the most important questions we faced: which grass to grow, how it’s grown, how we plan to make it even stronger, and how to move it safely to each stadium.

Growing the grass

Typically, sod is grown on native soil. When harvested, the roots are cut, which shocks the plant and can delay root reestablishment for several weeks.

That wouldn’t work for the World Cup because games may take place within just 10 days of installation. If the roots can’t become established fast enough, the grass will be weaker and more prone to damage.

To address this, we decided to use sod grown on plastic with sand as a base.

Think of it like growing grass in a plastic tray, but on a much larger scale. When the roots reach the plastic, they spread sideways and intertwine, forming a dense rooting system. Because the roots stay intact during harvest, the sod experiences minimal stress and can be ready to play almost immediately after installation.

Sod for sports fields is typically grown in a base of sand to provide quick drainage and prevent the grass from getting compacted as the roots become established.

The problem is that growing grass in 2 inches of sand on a plastic sheet comes with risks. Because of the plastic, a single heavy rainfall while the grass is becoming established can wash the exposed sand away.

For warm‑season sod farmers – those that grow grass that thrives in high temperatures – sand washing away is less of a concern because the Bermudagrass they grow establishes quickly. On the other hand, cool‑season sod farmers usually grow Kentucky bluegrass, which germinates slowly compared to other turfgrass species, increasing the risk of washouts.

We decided to mix a faster‑germinating species – perennial ryegrass – with Kentucky bluegrass grown on plastic and then tested various seeding ratios. We found that an 84% Kentucky bluegrass and 16% perennial ryegrass mixture produced a stronger sod than pure Kentucky bluegrass alone four months after seeding. Since 2025, these findings have been used on sod farms across North America, beyond those growing grass for the World Cup.

Stabilizing the surface

“One World Cup game is equal to a Super Bowl,” FIFA officials like to remind us. Since each field will host a lot of games and ceremonies, including up to nine games over six weeks, the fields need to be extremely strong.

To make them tougher, we mix plastic fibers into the natural grass, which creates a hybrid turfgrass system. As the grass grows, its roots wrap around these plastic fibers, which helps to keep the surface stable and firm. These fibers are also colored to match the natural grass, so even if the real grass wears down, they help the field stay green.

Hybrid turfgrass systems can be created in two ways: by stitching plastic fibers into an existing grass field or by laying down a carpet of plastic fibers that is then filled with sand and seeded to grow new grass.

Stitched systems have been used in World Cup games for a long time, but carpet systems are still fairly new to the tournament – they have been used only in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.

We tested eight carpet systems to see how they performed and found that all could be successfully grown on plastic. All the surface performance tests – ball bounce, rotational resistance and surface hardness – on these eight carpets also met FIFA standards.

One type of carpet was chosen by three host cities for their stadiums: Vancouver, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia.

Getting the sod from farm to stadium

Most of the stadiums – 14 of them – will have sod that is grown on plastic, then rolled up and shipped to the venue during spring 2026. Some of the grasses won’t have to travel far, but some will be shipped in refrigerated trucks across the country. Since the sod remains fully intact after harvest, it can withstand long travel times.

Five of those stadiums don’t get enough sunlight, so they will use cool-season grasses that require less light than warm-season grasses.

While the open-air stadium in Miami will use Bermudagrass, the domed stadium in Houston, despite being at a similar latitude, will use the Kentucky bluegrass and perennial ryegrass mix. That means cross-country trips from cool-season sod farms in Denver and Washington to domed stadiums in the southern regions is essential.

It’s wild to think that this is all necessary, but the length of the tournament and unique stadium environments call for innovation.

John N. Trey Rogers, Professor of Turfgrass Research, Michigan State University; Jackie Lyn A. Guevara, Assistant Professor of Turfgrass Management, Michigan State University; John Sorochan, Professor of Plant Sciences, University of Tennessee, and Ryan Bearss, Research Assistant in Plant, Soil and Microbial Sciences, Michigan State University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Whether it’s tucking into some toast, dumplings or a bowl of fresh pasta, humans love eating wheat.

Wheat is the most widely grown cereal crop in the world. It’s produced by harvesting the dry, edible seeds of a type of cultivated grass. Once processed, these seeds can be used for food, animal feed and industrial purposes such as biofuel production.

The global demand for wheat rises year after year, largely due to population growth. In 2026, global wheat production is set to reach 820 million tonnes.

Wheat is a tough plant, able to endure drought, heat and cold. But it has limits.

The world’s major wheat-growing regions are increasingly vulnerable to climate change. More extreme weather and rainfall shortages are already making life harder for wheat farmers. And many are now facing the added challenge of securing fertiliser and fuel amid shortages linked to the Iran war.

So how can we keep growing wheat with all these pressures, and especially in a changing climate?

Wheat around the world

Wheat is a staple food for roughly three billion people around the world, of whom more than one-third live in the poorest countries. Wheat contributes more calories and protein to the world’s diet than any other crop.

Wheat is also a major economic commodity, contributing nearly $A70 billion to the global economy. Millions of farmers around the world rely on it to make a living. Australia’s graingrowers produce about 4% of the world’s wheat. But this crop is disproportionately important, as the majority is exported. This is between 10% and 20% of global wheat exports.

Our changing climate

Humans have successfully grown wheat for more than 10,000 years. Over this period, global climate and rainfall patterns have remained relatively stable.

But the climate is now very rapidly changing, due largely to our continued reliance on fossil fuels.

Wheat is a temperate-zone crop, thriving in places with moderate rainfall and mild, sunny weather. Conditions in the world’s temperate zones – geographic regions that typically have hot summers and cold winters – are getting more extreme. Rainfall patterns are also changing. Some areas are getting drier and others wetter and cloudier.

These climatic changes make it much harder for farmers to reliably grow healthy, high-yielding crops such as wheat. Recent modelling suggests average wheat yields in dryland growing regions – where farmers rely on rainfall instead of irrigation – could fall by up to 20% by the 2030s.

These changes can also make wheat crops less nutritious. One 2020 study found more carbon dioxide in the air reduces how much protein wheat grains have. This matters because food that’s low in essential nutrients, fibre or protein can contribute to “hidden hunger”, which affects people who only eat nutrient-poor foods.

Climate change may also make weeds, pests and plant diseases more of a problem. These already have a huge financial toll on Australian farmers, costing them more than $5 billion each year in agricultural losses. Just this week, farmers in two Australian states have been battling a potential mouse plague. Researchers suggest unpredictable weather – two years of drought followed by record-breaking rain – is a key factor.

So, what can we do?

In response, scientists around the world are working to develop climate-resilient, high-yielding wheat varieties.

One approach is crop plasticity – breeding crops to become more “plastic”, meaning they can more effectively adapt to harsher climatic conditions. Researchers are investigating how specific genes in crop plants could boost climate resilience. Some are examining the genes of ancestral wheat varieties to find beneficial genes that could make modern varieties more climate-resilient, meaning they tolerate more heat and require less water to grow.

Another promising research area is plant hormones. Our team has studied strigolactone, a plant hormone that helps plants perform better in warmer, drier conditions or with reduced nutrients. In our recent study, we found altering a plant’s production of strigolactone prevented yield loss, even when less fertiliser is applied. This suggests plant hormones could help certain crops adapt better to climate change.

Wheat can’t do it all

Wheat is a very versatile crop. But it can’t adapt to every new challenge. It’s time to consider growing other crops better suited to certain farming areas.

For example, climate change may turn temperate areas sub-tropical, making their summers hotter and winters milder.

As the climate keeps changing, it may work better to replace wheat with crops such as sorghum and maize, which are better suited to hot, dry conditions.

We can also grow rarer crops which look to be very resilient in the face of climate change. Ancient grains such as sorghum and teff are two examples.

That’s not to say we won’t need wheat. Securing our supplies of wheat will be essential to feed future generations. But as the climate rapidly changes, we urgently need to find creative, sustainable ways to keep producing this vital crop.

Phil Brewer, Professor in Plant Biology, La Trobe University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

On a chilly yet beautifully clear evening last November, I sat on a video call with colleagues and happened to mention the live feed from the International Space Station – a real-time broadcast from onboard cameras as the station orbits earth.

Several people hadn’t heard of it, and so I dug out the link and sent it over. We then turned to Nasa’s spot the station smartphone app, which shows you the ageing satellite’s orbital track and provides a countdown to when you can next see it. Again, I found the link and shared it on the chat.

I suddenly realised the station was going to pass directly overhead – in just a few minutes. Video beamed from the station as it advanced over the Atlantic, crossed the terminator (the line that separates day from night), and hurtled towards the southwestern tip of the UK, where I live.

Running outside, I took my phone and the live feed with me. And as I looked up at the bright, impossibly fast-moving smudge traversing the sky above, the feed showed the station’s birdseye view – and perhaps the view of the astronauts aboard – looking down on me, too.

Just 25 years ago, this kind of experience would have been hard to imagine. Yet as our lives have become increasingly interwoven with technology, so too have our encounters with the world around us. And nowhere is this more true than when it comes to viewing the night sky.

Smartphone apps now help us to identify planets, catch views of satellite clusters (for better and worse), and plan how to view supermoons. These experiences could be crucial in helping to reconnect people with the night sky and preserve a darkness that is increasingly under threat.

Simulations that allow people to view the Earth from afar, via apps or computer games, could even recreate a fascinating phenomenon reported by astronauts: the overview effect. Recently referred to by the Artemis II crew, the overview effect is described as a “a profound reaction to viewing the Earth from outside its atmosphere”. It represents a powerful form of awe and wonder and digital tools might help us unlock similar feelings from Earth too.

On May 11 2024, residents marvelled at the aurora borealis (northern lights) across parts of the UK including in southern England where they are rarely seen. The sightings made headlines across Europe, an excitement that was made possible by digital technology and heightened by digital shares and updates.

Public interest began with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Deep Space Climate satellite picking up particularly strong solar winds. This triggered an alert to users of Lancaster University’s Aurorawatch app. These stargazers started taking photos of the northern lights, which they promptly shared via social media.

The display happened close to midnight when most people in the UK were in bed – but still scrolling. And as real-time images of the aurora quickly circulated online, masses of people went outside to see it for themselves. But, as one witness reported, many people struggled to make out the display: “I could see nothing by eye, but it was there on the camera screen, and on my phone camera too.” And so images of the sky were captured through ultra-sensitive smartphones.

From webcams in bird boxes to big-budget nature documentaries, these digital connections have come to define modern interactions with the natural world. They are now interwoven into everyday routines.

Ten million people watched the first episode of BBC’s Planet Earth III in 2023 – the same number who visit the Peak District in a year. Nature-based “relaxation” videos have achieved viral status on YouTube, amassing hundreds of millions of views each. Spotify, Audible and Netflix have made nature content a core offering to their combined half a billion subscribers. Instagram is home to pictures of 346 million sunsets – and counting.

Online relationships

Being online can also have serious consequences for mental health, but when it comes to the natural world, digital connections could also provide exciting opportunities to bolster wellbeing. Growing research has shown that engaging with digital forms of nature can lead to improvements in emotion regulation, stress reduction and attention restoration – a pathway that is already being explored by apps hoping to boost wellbeing for people who spend large amounts of time online.

These digital encounters also have the potential to affect how people behave towards the environment.

Some academics are worried that these trends might be degrading our relationship with nature, but there is substantial nuance to be found here. The real value in these experiences may lie not in their ability to simulate natural worlds, but in their capacity to stimulate interest in nature.

Harnessing technology to “rewild” our digital lives could be especially relevant when it comes to an emerging generation of young people. Take for example, the perspectives of generation alpha, the first wave of which are entering their late teens, and who, after gen Z, represent the second cohort of digital natives – hyper-connected visual learners who have never known a world without smartphones, social media, instant access to information, and for some, artificial intelligence.

Perhaps, as some have suggested, modern and digital tools could even mean that young people’s opportunities to connect with nature are unprecedented.

And so, as with some other innovations, these technological connections might enhance human experience, understanding and capability.

It could be time to recognise and embrace digital tools as part of the dynamic, evolving, and exciting way we interact with the natural world – approaches that might bring us closer to nature at a time when its future hangs in the balance.

Alex Smalley, Research Fellow in Environmental Psychology, University of Exeter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

You might go for a walk in the forest to disconnect from work and calm your nerves after a busy week. The chirping and calls of birds in the canopy above might be exactly what allows you to relax.

But what sounds soothing to humans may signal danger to other animals – and trigger fear across the forest.

In our research, published today in Current Biology, we show that when some animals spot a predator they issue a warning cry that is picked up by others and spread through the rainforest canopy. For a time, different species are linked into a shared information network, and parts of the forest briefly fall silent.

Birds and monkeys

During an expedition to a remote area of the Peruvian Amazon, working with a falconer, we used trained raptors to trigger warning calls from birds and primates. We recorded the calls then played them back into the forest and monitored how the community responded.

We already knew that birds sometimes repeat the warnings of others – occasionally even those of different species, or of primates. What we wanted to know was how widespread this behaviour is across the animal community.

We discovered that alarm calls produced by small bird species – those weighing less than 100 grams – were most often passed on. Other small birds living in the canopy were the most likely to relay the call, but other animals joined in too.

Larger species, including capuchin and spider monkeys, sometimes responded as well. Two canopy species in particular – the black-fronted and the white-fronted nunbirds – stood out as especially likely to repeat and propagate the warnings of their neighbours throughout the forest.

Sounds and silence

Alarm calls from species living in the forest understorey were far less likely to spread and be propagated by other birds or primates.

However, even when these alarm calls were not repeated, they changed the forest’s soundscape. Small canopy birds almost completely stopped singing after hearing a predator alert. At the same time, animals in lower forest layers often continued to make sounds despite the perceived threat.

Together, these findings suggest that the Amazonian canopy is not only the rainforest’s most mysterious layer – largely unexplored and home to much of its biodiversity – but also functions as an information highway, like a fibre-optic network through which animals rapidly share signals of danger.

A new layer of the ‘internet of the forest’

In the past decade, the idea of an “internet of the forest” has become popular through the concept of the “wood wide web”, where plants exchange resources and information via root systems and fungal networks. Our work points to another communication system, one operating high above the ground.

Suspended above our heads is a vast ecosystem where animals constantly listen to one another, forming an eavesdropping network that spreads critical information within seconds.

The vocal activity of birds is usually associated with finding mates and defending territories. However, we now know that sometimes this activity, or lack of it, may represent pulses of a soundscape of fear.

Next time you walk through a rainforest, look up and listen to the birds. A sudden silence may mean a raptor is gliding somewhere above the canopy.

Ettore Camerlenghi, Associate Research Fellow, Avian Behaviour, Deakin University and Ari Martínez, Assistant Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Santa Cruz

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In 1902, British explorer Robert Falcon Scott spotted a large group of large black and white birds at Ross Island, Antarctica. This was among the many milestones of Scott’s famous Discovery expedition: the first breeding colony of emperor penguins.

Now, only 124 years since this penguin colony was discovered, emperor penguins have officially been listed as endangered, along with the Antarctic fur seal. As the world warms, Antarctic krill are shifting southwards and sea ice is shrinking at record levels. And these unprecedented changes are having a domino effect on these species.

These are the first penguin and pinniped – marine mammals that have front and rear flippers – to be given this conservation status in the Southern Ocean. Their perilous situation is a critical turning point, and shows how rapidly the Antarctic environment is changing.

At the same time, the spread of highly contagious avian influenza, or bird flu, adds a new and immediate threat to Southern Ocean wildlife, compounding the pressures of climate change on stressed species.

Dramatic declines linked to climate change

The first emperor penguin breeding colony was discovered at Cape Crozier, on Ross Island, during Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition in 1902. A decade later, Scott’s Terra Nova expedition returned, in part to collect emperor penguin eggs. It was an ill-fated expedition, immortalised in Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s famous book, The Worst Journey in the World.

In the 1960s, Scott’s son, Sir Peter Scott, one of the founders of modern conservation, helped establish the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s Red List. Just 124 years after those early discoveries at Cape Crozier, that same framework has now been used to classify emperor penguins as endangered. The swift arc from discovery to extinction risk is a striking reminder of how quickly the species’ fortunes have changed.

Over nine years, between 2009 and 2018, emperor penguin numbers fell by 10%. Their numbers are expected to halve by 2073.

The decline is more pronounced for Antarctic fur seals. Hunted to the brink of extinction in the early 1880s, by 1999 their numbers had rebounded to an estimated 2.1 million mature seals. But since then, the global population has decreased by more than 50%, to about 944,000 mature individuals.

In just a decade, they have been reclassified on the IUCN’s Red List, going from of “least concern” – those species that are widespread and at low risk of extinction – to “endangered”. The IUCN’s red list is the comprehensive information source on the extinction risk status of species. This shows the remarkable speed at which these seals are declining.

Climate change and bird flu

Both of these dramatic declines are linked to climate change. Warming ocean temperatures and a reduction in sea ice affect the availability of the Antarctic fur seal’s key prey, Antarctic krill. Krill are shifting southwards and moving deeper, potentially making them less accessible to some predators. Competition with a growing population of whales has also increased.

Emperor penguins, by contrast, are completely dependent on sea ice. They use it as a stable platform for courtship, incubating their eggs and rearing chicks. But as sea ice declines and becomes less reliable, their breeding success is increasingly threatened. If the ice breaks up before chicks are fully developed, many are unable to survive.

At the same time, the spread of highly contagious bird flu adds a new and immediate threat to Southern Ocean wildlife. High mortality associated with avian influenza has also caused the uplisting of the southern elephant seal to “vulnerable” this week.

Some elephant seal populations have experienced more than 90% of pups dying, alongside sharp declines in breeding adults. These represent tens of thousands of animals lost, with many Antarctic fur seals also dying as a result of bird flu outbreaks.

We need to know more

Emperor penguins, Antarctic fur seals and southern elephant seals are three of the more widely researched Southern Ocean predators. But there is still a lot we don’t know, because of the remote location and the difficulty of sustaining research over time. And there are many species we know far less about. Antarctic ice seals, including Weddell seals, crabeater seals, leopard seals, and Ross seals, have “unknown” population trends on the IUCN red list, meaning there is not enough data to know if numbers are declining.

These recent listings make clear the urgent and ongoing need for improved, real-time monitoring. We need to know much more about wildlife health and population trends, the Antarctic environment and sea ice quality.

Human-driven threats facing Antarctic wildlife are many, and cumulative. To respond, we need to better protect Antarctic habitat and the species that live there. We need to reduce the interaction of marine species with industrial fishing. And we must improve how we assess current and suspected threats in Antarctica, when there is growing evidence of impacts.

Defining these animals as endangered is a stark reminder of how quickly Antarctica is changing before our eyes. Without a rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and sustained conservation action, these species may be lost forever.

Mary-Anne Lea, Professor in Marine/Polar Predator Ecology, University of Tasmania; Jane Younger, Senior Lecturer in Southern Ocean Vertebrate Ecology, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania, and Noemie Friscourt, Research Associate, Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In 1967, catastrophic bushfires in Tasmania killed dozens of people – and very nearly destroyed Hobart.

A year later, W.D. Jackson, Professor of Botany at the University of Tasmania, published a short but very influential article on why the fires were so bad. He suggested that after Tasmania’s wet eucalypt forests were burned by severe bushfires, there would be a high-risk period during their regrowth when they are at risk of severely burning again.

This, Jackson theorised, was because regrowing saplings form a very dense canopy, with little distance between living leaves and the leaf litter and understorey plants able to ignite canopy fires. If a second fire sweeps through, he predicted the forests could be replaced with more fire-tolerant scrub.

Was Jackson correct? Is regrowth truly more flammable? It’s very difficult to prove regrowth burns more intensely and accelerates bushfire spread, as it’s not practical to undertake neat, perfectly controlled experiments involving severe bushfires.

But sometimes, scientists get lucky. We took advantage of a natural experiment in 2019, when a severe bushfire burned through a research site spanning old growth wet Tasmanian forests and logged areas of regrowth, giving us access to data before and after the fires.

In our new research, we show Jackson was right. Regrowth does indeed burn more intensely than mature forests.

Why does this matter?

Jackson’s theory has resonated with generations of fire ecologists and fire managers in Australia and internationally, due to how it focuses on the interplay between the age of forests and the risk of bushfires.

Worldwide, vast areas of regrowth forest are recovering from clear-fell forestry and wildfires. In Tasmania alone, remote sensing data suggests a fifth of all tall wet forests are in a regrowth stage younger than 40 years old.

After an old forest is clear-felled, it is regenerated using fire to remove logging debris and then sown with seeds native to the area. This puts it in Jackson’s 30-year danger zone, which begins about 20 years after a fire, when eucalypts begin bearing gumnuts. It ends about 50 years after the fire, when trees are tall enough and moist dense understoreys have developed to lower the risk of devastating fires able to kill mature trees.

If regrowing forests make it through centuries without more fires, they could potentially become temperate rainforests, whose deeply shaded, moist understoreys put them at very low risk of fire.

If another severe fire starts before forests reach this safer period, experts have suggested the flammable regrowth could threaten entire landscapes by making fires more intense.

Some experts suggested forests regrowing from logging were a key factor in the huge area burned during the notorious 2019–20 fire season, though others have disputed this.

This is why Jackson’s theory still matters, almost 60 years after he proposed it.

Hard to test

Testing this theory has long proved difficult.

Forest ecologists have instead typically relied on indirect approaches, such as analysing how severe the fire was using satellite data, or estimating likely fire behaviour based on field measurements of the amount of fuel and how much moisture was present.

These inferential approaches can be scientifically fraught, as they are vulnerable to many assumptions that are hard to test or control for.

A previous attempt to resolve this question by experts, including the renowned Tasmanian ecologist J.B. Kirkpatrick had to be withdrawn due to technical issues. In retracting the paper, the authors noted their results had proven “highly sensitive” to variation in a small number of sites.

A natural experiment

In 2019, a lightning strike ignited a fire in Tasmania’s southwest forests. Known as the Riveaux Road fire, it burned through an area of regrowing forest used for research.

This offered a rare chance of a natural experiment. We had pre-fire data on fuel loads, canopy structure and microclimates (areas where local conditions make climate different from surrounding areas) in both mature forests and adjacent areas logged around 40 years earlier.

After the fire passed, we collected more data so we could compare the fire damage (measured by damage to tree canopy) and the effects on the microclimates in both regrowth and mature, unlogged forests.

This natural experiment was conclusive. The areas of post-logging regrowth burned more severely, due to their hotter, drier microclimates and the fact their canopies were closer to the ground.

Interestingly, we found fires in the regrowth didn’t cause the fires to spread further. This was because the damp understorey of the surrounding mature forests could contain the fires.

That’s not to say this would always be the case. The 2019 fire took place in moderate fire weather conditions, meaning it wasn’t especially hot, dry or windy. If severe fire weather was present, this dampening effect would likely have been overwhelmed.

Lots of regrowth, lots more fire

Proving Jackson’s theory isn’t good news for forests.

Climate change means fire weather will arrive more often and be more extreme. Combined with the large areas of forest regrowth, this means we will have to be ready for more fires.

In North American conifer forests, thinning out regrowth and burning off leaf litter and other fuel have proven effective in reducing the risks of fire-prone regrowth. Eucalypts have fundamentally different fire ecologies, so we can’t directly apply that research to Australia. Local research is limited, meaning we don’t know yet if this will work here.

Recent research has shown commercial thinning of regrowth in Tasmania doesn’t reduce the risk of fire, because bark, limbs and smashed trunks left after logging act as fuel.

This means we urgently need to find an effective way to reduce the risk of fires in regrowth in wet eucalypt forests in Tasmania and elsewhere in Australia.

Since the lethal fires of 1967, many Tasmanian communities – including large areas of Hobart – are now surrounded by forests still in the dangerous period of regrowth after logging or fires. 

David Bowman, Professor of Pyrogeography and Fire Science, University of Tasmania

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The tall alpine ash forests in Australia’s high country have lived in a delicate relationship with fire for tens of thousands of years.

Intensifying fire seasons are threatening this balance to the extent the Federal Government has just officially listed this forest type as an endangered ecosystem. This means these forests face a high risk of collapse or extinction.

It is alarming that alpine ash forests are facing an existential threat. What does this mean, and what can we do to save them?

What is alpine ash?

Alpine ash (Eucalyptus delegatensis) on the Australian mainland (there is a related species in Tasmania) is a tall species of eucalypt that covers over 350,000 hectares of high country across the Great Dividing Range, stretching from Canberra to east of Melbourne.

Alpine ash can grow to 90 metres tall, and when dusted with snow it forms a stunning forest that provides shelter and habitat for a range of rare mammals, such as Leadbeater’s possums and greater gliders.

It is also an important part of First Nations cultural landscapes – in north-east Victoria, the Taungurung people harvested Bogong moths (or Deberra) when the moths migrated to mountain forests where alpine ash is a key part of the landscape.

Alpine ash is a “fire sensitive” eucalypt – but its relationship with fire is paradoxical.

While mature trees die after intense fire, it also clears the way for a prolific flush of regeneration from fallen seeds. But these regenerating alpine ash trees won’t produce their own seed for 20 years.

Another severe fire during this time – the Achilles heel of the species – kills the regenerating forest, with no seed to save it. It can only be recovered by artificially sowing seeds, usually by aircraft.

This Goldilocks-like balance of fire has served Alpine ash well until now. But the increased frequency of severe fire over the last 20 years – including the Black Summer fires – has raised such concern about its ecological health that it has now been listed as “endangered” under Australia’s nature laws.

Why is alpine ash now endangered?

There are a range of factors the federal government uses to assess the status of an ecological community, those naturally-occurring species that live together in the same habitat.

There has been a major decline in numbers of alpine ash trees because of extensive and severe bushfires over the past 20 years. During these, a third of all alpine ash forest burned more than once during their vulnerable immature regrowing phase.

The frequent fires have severely affected these forests, which have lost tree cover, the usual rich mix of species and their ability to function.

In the future, we predict alpine ash forests may decline by half within the next 60 years because of more-frequent fires, which will lead to regeneration failure. To lose this much forest would be devastating for the landscape and the species that live there, and release the carbon these forests store.

Can we save alpine ash forests?

These predictions should prompt a substantial rethink of how we manage, protect and care for these forests.

Firstly, we need to change what it means to “protect forests”. Typically, mainstream forest protection focuses on stopping logging and creating national parks. In the case of alpine ash, these solutions have limited use.

Alpine ash forests are already well represented in conservation reserves, with over half in existing national parks. And climate change and more frequent fires will occur inside national parks as well as outside them. Furthermore, logging is now banned in Victoria and the ACT, and does not occur in the majority of alpine ash forests.

For alpine ash forests to flourish, we need creative and active management, such as:

• ambitious, long-term seed collection programs so that after severe repeat bushfires we are able to rapidly sow alpine ash and stop regeneration failure. These programs can be costly, but are a long-term insurance policy

• planned burns around important alpine ash forests to reduce future fires burning these forests severely

• Ecologically informed thinning, which involves the selective removal of trees from a patch of forest. When done in young alpine ash stands it can speed up the growth of trees, and it has been shown that larger trees survive fire more often than smaller ones

But we must be realistic about how many alpine ash forests can be saved. Even with our best management, extensive areas of alpine ash will be lost.

Accepting loss

We need to work out which forests can be saved and those that cannot. One approach which may help is the ‘Resist-Accept-Direct’ framework developed by the US National Parks Service.

This acknowledges our ecosystems will be severely stressed by climate change and change is unavoidable. It gives forest managers three options:

• resist change by maintaining the current forest type. This could mean suppressing fire or resowing alpine ash after repeat fires

• accept change and embrace new ecosystems that arise. This means not intervening after frequent disturbance, and monitoring what happens

• direct change to a new type of ecosystem. This approach – the most controversial – means in forests likely to be frequently burned, alpine ash is replaced with more fire-tolerant eucalypts.

Working out which of these paths are suitable for alpine ash is a major task for land managers, researchers, and the community.

A clear warning

The listing of alpine ash as endangered is a clear warning to Australians. One of the most widespread types of forest in our high country is facing an existential threat.

Doing nothing is not an option.

We need bold and innovative action to steward alpine ash forests through the next century, before it is too late.

Tom Fairman, Forest and fire scientist, The University of Melbourne and Trent Penman, Professor in Bushfire Behaviour, School of Agriculture, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Walk across a mudflat at low tide and you might notice small, neat mounds of sediment scattered across the surface.

These so-called “chimneys” are the calling card of the humble bamboo worm (Macroclymenella stewartensis) which inhabits sandy sediments within New Zealand’s sheltered bays and estuaries.

Despite their hidden lives and small size – most measure just a few centimetres long – these worms have an outsized influence on the health of our marine environment.

But now there are troubling signs that microplastics – tiny but pervasive fragments of broken-down plastic – are disrupting the vital role the worms play, with potentially wider effects we are only just beginning to understand.

Hidden heroes of the seafloor

Over time, scientists have come to recognise the role bamboo worms and other tiny creatures have in bioturbation: a process essential to the functioning of coastal ecosystems.

When healthy, the worms burrow in the seafloor, enabling oxygenated water to enter deeper into the sediment. This, in turn, breathes life into the seabed.

The worms also feed on organic matter, helping regulate carbon and nitrogen in the sediment and surrounding waters. As they deposit small piles of waste, they provide nutrients for microscopic plants, supporting coastal food webs.

When these processes are disrupted, the impacts can ripple outward.

Nutrients can build up, increasing the risk of algal blooms that strip oxygen from the water. This can worsen conditions to the point where fish and other marine life can no longer survive.

Healthy marine sediments also act as a buffer against climate change by locking away carbon. When that balance is lost, sediments can instead release greenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide and methane.

How microplastics mess with marine life

Marine microplastics – fragments smaller than 5 millimetres from sources such as vehicle tyres, synthetic clothing fibres and degraded plastic waste – are now found from the tropics to Antarctica. Some estimates suggest there may be more than 170 trillion pieces in the world’s oceans today.

In New Zealand, scientists have been surprised to find them building up even in seemingly pristine marine environments, far from towns and major sources of pollution.

Their impacts are wide-ranging and still being uncovered.

Their small size makes them easy for marine organisms to ingest, often by mistake, where they can cause physical damage and leave animals malnourished. Microplastics can also carry toxic chemicals that interfere with reproduction and development, with these effects building up through the food chain.

When we look at how microplastics affect life on the seafloor, the picture becomes yet more complex.

In a recent study carried out at the University of Auckland’s Leigh Marine Laboratory, we found bamboo worms became less active when exposed to them.

It’s still not clear why. The worms may be ingesting plastic, absorbing chemicals from contaminated sediments, or simply finding less food if microplastics reduce algal growth.

What matters is that their behaviour shifts as microplastic levels increase – with potentially important implications for bioturbation and ecosystem health.

It might also be causing knock-on impacts for wider food chains, as seabirds and eagle rays feed on worms and other tiny creatures in the seabed.

A micro pollutant, a macro problem

While plastic continues to accumulate in the marine environment, some microplastics may break down in sediments over time. Even so, this is unlikely to offset the growing volume, meaning the overall burden continues to rise.

People can help tackle the microplastic problem by reducing the amount of plastic they buy, picking up plastic rubbish on the beach, supporting harbour clean up groups and buying clothing made of natural fibres.

Presently, there are no limits set for safe levels of microplastic pollution in New Zealand – and policies will be needed to manage the problem.

Clean coasts are highly valued by New Zealand communities, but the health of these environments depends as much on what lies beneath the surface as what is visible above it.

While attention often focuses on those “charismatic” species such as dolphins and penguins, the small organisms living in the seabed play an equally important role in keeping ecosystems functioning.

Simon Francis Thrush, Professor of Marine Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau and Yuxi You, Research Fellow, Institute of Marine Science, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Hidden among the red sandstone escarpments of Mutawintji National Park in western New South Wales lives a rare lizard, long isolated in this arid landscape.

Known to Wiimpatja Aboriginal Owners as kungaka – “the hidden one” – we have now scientifically described it as a new species: Liopholis mutawintji.

For decades, this little lizard was thought to be an isolated population of a widespread skink. However, through a research collaboration between Wiimpatja and scientists we have confirmed it as a distinct species found nowhere else on Earth.

We have been monitoring them for 25 years. We believe there may be up to only 20 individual kungaka remaining. It may be one of Australia’s rarest reptiles.

How we identified this new species

The kungaka was previously thought to be a highly isolated population of White’s skink (Liopholis whitii), a widespread species that lives in rocky habitats across south-eastern Australia.

But through analysing its genetics, and variations in body shape, we confirmed this skink is actually three distinct species. Two of these, the southern White’s skink (Liopholis whitii) and northern White’s skink (Liopholis compressicauda) occur across large areas of south-east Australia. The third – the kungaka – is restricted to Mutawintji National Park, about 500km from its closest relatives.

The kungaka represents an ancient lineage that likely originated during earlier, wetter periods in Australia’s history. As the continent dried, this skink persisted in humid rocky refuges. Today, it survives in a tiny, isolated pocket of sheltered gorge in Mutawintji, surrounded by a hot and dry expanse of saltbush and stony plains.

Wiimpatja have worked alongside ecologists and the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service to monitor the kungaka population since 2000, with surveys intensifying since 2019. Over that time, the outlook has become increasingly concerning. Fewer than 20 individuals have been counted since surveys in 2024, using pattern recognition methods from photographs. And there has been a decline in its range, the number of skinks observed and the habitat where it lives.

Goats, cats and foxes

One of the most significant threats to the kungaka is feral goats. These occur in large numbers in the region and damage the environment by overgrazing vegetation and trampling fragile rocky areas.

This damages the rocks kungaka rely on for shelter, and exposes them to predators and extreme temperatures. Goats are also a significant threat to Mutawintji’s endangered Wangarru, or yellow-footed rock-wallaby, as they compete for the same food and shelter. However, conservation work for Wangarru has been a major success story, with the population growing over the past decade.

Other threats are compounding the problem for the kungaka. Introduced predators such as cats and foxes may prey on them, while climate change is intensifying heat and drought across the region. The 2017–19 drought was the hottest and driest on record for far western NSW. For a species with such a small population, these pressures may be overwhelming.

Kungaka as family

From Warlpa Thompson: For Wiimpatja, the kungaka is inseparable from people, country and culture. Every animal and every plant have people attached to them. There would have been people whose meat, their blood, their family is the kungaka. And these people are now gone. But the lizards aren’t.

In some places the animal is gone out of the landscape, but the people are still there. Like the bilby mob that live in Wilcannia, or the dingo mob from Mutawintji. With the kungaka, we’ve got the reverse. The people are gone but the lizards are still here.

Our old people had to fight for the right to get their country back. Now we’ve got it, we’re looking at how do we bring things back. How do we bring culture back? How do we bring our animals back?

The numbers of Wangurru have boomed in the last ten years. Hopefully we can do the same with the kungaka. A big part of that is making sure that our young people are involved so they know what it means to look after country, and the plants and animals from our country.

It’s important our kids don’t just get the cultural knowledge from us, but they get the scientific knowledge and understanding, so they know everything that it is to talk for that animal, not just balanced with one side or the other.

The future of the kungaka

There is a shared responsibility to protect and conserve the kungaka. We need to control goats, cats and foxes, search for additional populations and monitor them long-term. Given the kungaka’s extremely small population size, actions such as captive breeding may be required.

Scientific description of the kungaka is just the first step. If fewer than 20 individuals remain, it stands on the brink of extinction. The survival of this unique lizard will depend on sustained, long-term collaborative partnerships.

From Warlpa Thompson: Whatever we do needs to be done on Country, and led by Wiimpatja. That knowledge has to be driven by us but we need help to look after this lizard. It’s in such a bad position that we’re going to need everyone working together, in a culturally grounded way.

Acknowledgements: scientific description and conservation of the kungaka has been a truly collaborative effort, made possible through the dedication and knowledge of many individuals. We acknowledge the important work and contributions of Gerry Swan, Lyndy Marshall, Keanu Garni Bates, Ray Hunter-McKeller, Nhalpa Thompson and Dane Trembath, whose involvement have been integral to this research and its outcomes.

Warlpa Thompson, Wiimpatja Aboriginal Owner of Mutawintji National Park, Indigenous Knowledge; Jodi Rowley, Curator, Amphibian & Reptile Conservation Biology, Australian Museum, UNSW Sydney, and Thomas Parkin, Research Officer, Herpetology, Australian Museum

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Most of Australia’s existing homes are old, uncomfortable, and expensive to run. Too many are energy inefficient, and rising electricity and gas prices are making things worse.

Mainstream programs are supporting home energy upgrades. But the transition isn’t happening quickly enough and risks leaving behind the households that could benefit most.

Innovative finance models could help. My new research shows how local initiatives can make solar and electrification more accessible.

Darebin City Council’s Solar Saver program

My research investigated a local government program in Melbourne that helped people get rooftop solar.

Running from 2014-2025, Darebin City Council’s Solar Saver program helped almost 1,200 low-income and vulnerable homeowners in the area get A$4.8 million worth of home energy upgrades.

Council paid the upfront cost of installing solar and, in later iterations of the program, reverse cycle air conditioners and hot water heat pumps.

Factoring in state government rebates, these costs were added to the homeowner’s property taxes as a “special rates charge”. The homeowner could then repay this money over ten years – interest-free.

Suppliers were selected through council tender to make the process easier for homeowners, while ensuring quality products and services including component and performance warranties. This provided certainty for residents, one of whom told me:

the council’s not going to get involved with some shonky person who’s going to come in and tell you: “Terribly sorry, we’ve got to double the price because you’ve got a nail in the wrong place on your roof” or something.

The scheme reduced financial risks and burdens for low-income homeowners.

By using council rates to repay the money, the loan is attached to the property itself rather than the homeowner.

This means any remaining debt is recouped if and when the house is sold, avoiding a situation where someone is paying a debt for solar on a house they no longer live in.

Homeowners were advised not to participate if debt repayments were more than they’d save in energy bills. Aged and disability pensioners were identified as a priority group because they were more likely to be at home during the day to reap the benefits.

Trust and relationships

Darebin Solar Saver shows how critical trust and relationships are for enabling household uptake.

Interviews with households and council officers highlighted the importance of council as an intermediary that could offer tailored and impartial advice, broker quality products and services, and channel finance without commercial terms.

Other electrification programs have shown how effective council rates notices are for household engagement.

Colleagues and I are now developing tools and resources based on these lessons to support the sector to design and deliver home energy upgrade programs.

Expanding beyond Darebin

For this model to be expanded to other local government areas, funding is needed.

Darebin City Council made a significant cash investment that other councils have struggled to replicate, even though households repay most of the costs.

Federal government could address this barrier through a national fund, while others see opportunities for commercial loans through environmental upgrade agreements (which is where councils work with banks to provide loans to households, and the loan is repaid via the resident’s rates).

Very few private renters accessed Darebin Solar Saver, highlighting a need for targeted finance, engagement, and regulation to encourage landlords to upgrade investment properties.

The Darebin Solar Saver program concluded in 2025 for a range of reasons. Council staff told me human resources and time are essential, with one noting:

We have to go through a fair amount of information to explain how solar works. We have to explain how the Solar Saver program works. Many residents struggle to actually understand or accept that you don’t have to pay anything up front, at all. That takes often several times in a conversation and written material just to prove that that’s the case.

Darebin City Council is now offering electrification rebates for a wider range of products, which are also much simpler for council to administer.

Finding alternative finance models

While over 30% of Australian households have rooftop solar, Australia needs 11 times more households to disconnect from gas each year if it’s to achieve its 2050 emissions reduction targets.

But getting off gas and getting solar panels is expensive. Studies in the US, Ireland, Norway, and among lower-income households in Victoria find cost concerns are the most common barrier to home energy upgrades.

For those with little to no available cash savings, partial subsidies and rebates are little help.

Discounted home energy upgrade loans still charge interest to be commercially viable. What’s more, many low-income homeowners may not have a high enough credit rating to get a loan from a bank. Buy Now Pay Later services typically pass on costs through the price of the solar system and late repayment fees. Interest-free loans for eligible households are no longer available from the Victorian government.

Inaccessibility is not just about cost. It’s also about a household’s ability and confidence to make decisions, especially as some solar and battery providers push bad deals.

All this means it is crucial we find more alternative finance models to help low-income households do energy upgrades.

As homes are increasingly exposed to worsening climate hazards like floods, bushfires, and cyclones, solving the finance problem will become more urgent.

Paris Hadfield, Research Fellow, Monash Sustainable Development Institute, Monash University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

More than 60% of battery system installation work inspected under a federal government green energy program is substandard and 1.2% unsafe, according to a recent report by the Clean Energy Regulator.

The Cheaper Home Batteries Program has proved hugely popular. More than a quarter of a million small-scale battery systems have now been installed under it. This equates to 7.7 gigawatt hours of installed storage capacity.

Minister for Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, says this “means less pressure at peak times, more reliability, and a cleaner, more affordable energy system”.

But the installation compliance and safety problems highlighted by the regulator’s report risk not only battery storage growth and the credibility of the scheme, but also public safety.

Substandard and unsafe installations

The Cheaper Home Batteries Program provides a discount of about 30% of the cost of an installed battery. The program is designed to accelerate the move away from fossil fuels, with energy storage critical for reducing reliance on fossil fuel generation during evening peaks.

Recent amendments to the scheme design will address issues that have blown out the cost from original estimates of A$2.3 billion to A$7.2 billion.

Between July 2025 and April 2026, the Clean Energy Regulator carried out 1,278 compliance inspections on battery systems installed under the program.

Some 60.8% of inspected system installations were found to be “substandard” and 1.2% of installs were found to be “unsafe”. The problems weren’t about the batteries themselves, but the way they had been installed.

The sample size in the regulator’s report is small – 0.5% of the total number of systems installed.

With such a small sample size, it is hard to extrapolate the level of installation non-compliance across all systems in Australia. But if similar trends continue in inspections over a larger sample size, there could be approximately 3,000 battery installs that are unsafe and a further 152,000 that are non-compliant.

From incorrect labelling to exposed wiring

Most non-compliance issues related to incorrect labelling.

Issues include missing or incorrect warning labels, unlabelled backup circuits, and missing or incorrectly positioned energy storage (ES) labels. These issues are comparatively low risk relative to issues such as loose wiring, exposed wiring, and substandard electrical work that could lead to overloading, poor battery performance or fires.

Wiring requirements for batteries are not all equal. Some battery systems come pre-assembled with all wiring and electronic equipment integrated into the battery enclosure. This reduces the electrical work required to install.

Other systems are not as integrated. They require additional wiring by the electrician to connect, and can be more challenging to install without experience. These were the systems where installations were deemed unsafe by the regulator, with reported issues such as loose connections and substandard wiring practices that pose an imminent risk.

Exposed wiring is also a common issue that needs to be addressed as a priority. If wiring is not enclosed, it can be damaged and increase the risk of a severe electric shock if touched. The independent solar energy website, SolarQuotes, highlights the exposed wiring issue well, showcasing several installations with non-compliant wiring.

For batteries, no amount of exposed cable is compliant. Cables need to be protected from mechanical damage for the full cable run, using electrical conduit or metal ducting.

Alarmingly, reports from experts in the field indicate that only 10% of installers are following these wiring practices correctly.

A quick scroll of social media groups that rate battery installation jobs visually confirms the issues. Posts of substandard installations show exposed cables, batteries placed in full sun, delicately anchored to a wall with standard masonry wall plugs or supported with loose bits of timber and pavers.

In February the Clean Energy Regulator said it was ramping up inspections of solar battery installations as part of the Cheaper Home Batteries Program.

“I’m putting installers on notice that unsafe and non-compliant work will be identified, and we won’t hesitate to use our compliance powers,” CER Executive General Manager, Carl Binning, said.

Battery installations are complex

Well-intentioned schemes have previously been compromised by bad actors – referred to as “rebate chasers”.

The regulator sets rules limiting the number of battery installations that can be completed in one day. This is aimed at reducing the likelihood of this type of accreditation misuse.

Battery installations are complex, so there are likely to be a range of reasons why non-compliance is emerging.

Conversations colleagues and I have had with electricians operating in the industry highlight just how stretched they are trying to keep up with demand. The shortage of electricians nationally is a well-known issue exacerbating the pressure placed on current trades trying to deal with the volume of work available.

The sheer scale of demand pushes skilled trades to work to their limits. This is bound to result in things falling through the cracks in some cases.

In instances of fraud, negligence or repeat non-compliance, the Clean Energy Regulator has indicated the use of strong enforcement action. This includes stripping accreditation where necessary.

In the case where repeat non-compliance highlights gaps in knowledge across the industry, the regulator has signalled an intention to fill knowledge gaps with mandatory training.

Finding accredited installers

There is a well-defined accreditation pathway for battery installers that should be reviewed by accrediting body Solar Accreditation Australia, considering the issues identified.

In the meantime, consumers can arm themselves with the knowledge to avoid being caught out. They can reduce the risk of a non-compliant or unsafe install by engaging an accredited installer that has been pre-vetted.

Ask quoting installers for images of previous installations. A neat and tidy installation, without exposed cabling, can be a good marker for compliant installation practices.

And if you have the time and technical aptitude, familiarise yourself with the Clean Energy Regulator’s Solar Battery Inspections Checklist.

Rusty Langdon, Senior Research Consultant, Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

War in the Middle East has put a spotlight on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow sea passage through which 20% of global oil supply is shipped. But far less attention has been paid to another essential product derived from oil and gas, on which the world also relies: fertiliser.

Roughly 20–30% of global fertiliser supply, such as urea, ammonia and phosphate, comes from the Middle East. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has halted fertiliser exports from countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

For farmers in Australia, the disruption could not have come at a worse time. Most winter season grain crops are sown between April and June. While some farmers may have already secured their supply in preparation for the busy seeding season, others are still waiting for their fertiliser delivery.

How are fertilisers made?

Farmers apply fertilisers to provide their crops with essential nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium. Without adequate fertiliser, crops such as wheat, barley and canola will produce lower yields with lower protein content.

Urea is one of the world’s most important nitrogen fertilisers. Urea is produced through a carbon-intensive process known as Haber-Bosch. First, ammonia is synthesised from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen (usually derived from fossil gas). This ammonia is converted into urea, a white and odourless pellet, which is easier to transport, store and apply on farms.

With limited domestic production capacity, Australian farmers are almost completely reliant on imported urea. Australian agriculture imported 3.85 million tonnes of urea in 2024, most of it from the Middle East. With reduced global supply, the world price of urea has risen from A$675 per tonne in February, to more than $1,000 at the end of March, significantly increasing costs.

What does this mean for farmers?

Australia has limited domestic capacity to produce urea. Incitec Pivot Limited’s Gibson Island facility was Australia’s only manufacturer of urea until its closure in 2022.

A new facility planned by Strike Energy for Western Australia never broke ground, and the controversial Perdaman plant on the Burrup Peninsula won’t start producing urea until mid-2027. To make matters worse, Australia’s largest ammonia plant has been shut for two months after suffering a power outage.

Timing is everything in farming. Many Australian farmers are only weeks away from sowing. Even if fertiliser can be sourced from elsewhere in the world, it may not arrive in time.

Farmers may respond by planting fewer crops, leaving some land fallow, or turning to crops that require less fertiliser. If the Strait of Hormuz blockade persists well into 2026, we will face competing demand for fertiliser from farmers in the northern hemisphere. And Australia’s supply of “top-up” fertiliser (applied during the growing season to ensure crops reach their yield) will be affected. This could mean lower grain yields and reduced feed supply for livestock and poultry production.

Will our food cost more?

Food prices are influenced by more than fertiliser costs. Farmers are also grappling with increasing fuel costs. Soaring fuel prices affect all parts of the food supply chain, from processing and packaging, to transport, storage and retail. It is likely these collective impacts will increase food prices for customers.

Fertiliser and fuel costs constitute 25–30% of a cropping business’ total farm costs, so a sharp increase in both will significantly affect farm profitability.

Farmers only receive a small share of the price consumers pay for produce. At lower yields, farmers will face the squeeze of less production revenue and higher costs of production. While some producers may be able to weather the storm, others are facing a difficult year ahead.

Marit E. Kragt, Professor of Agricultural Economics, The University of Western Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The war on Iran has made crystal clear how shaky our reliance on fossil fuels is. It’s no surprise electric vehicles and transport have become more appealing.

In Australia, sales of electric vehicles surged 40–50% in March.

That sudden surge came after ten months of relatively slow growth, during which battery electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles made up roughly 14% of new car sales. Industry groups saw the sluggishness as a sign of the difficulties in moving beyond early adopters to the much larger mainstream market.

This market includes people who live in apartments or inner city areas with no off street parking. In Sydney’s eastern suburbs, for example, 60% of residents live in apartments or townhouses, and 50% rent.

If the millions of Australians in this position are to go electric, they have to be confident in their ability to charge cheaply and conveniently. Relying on public fast chargers won’t be enough, as queues at chargers over Easter show.

These drivers will need a high quality public kerbside charging network, where drivers can park on a street, plug in a slower but much cheaper charger and head to the shops. In our new research, we lay out what a good kerbside network should look like.

Why kerbside chargers matter

Drivers usually charge their EVs using private chargers at home, public chargers at work or at dedicated fast or ultra-fast charging stations on roads.

Kerbside chargers represent another promising option. These small box-like chargers can be attached to power poles, streetlights or mounted on the footpath. Kerbside chargers usually run at power levels similar to home charging at around 7-22kW, though some run at 30-50kW.

There’s a trade-off between speed and cost. Ultra-fast chargers (150-400kW) can charge an average EV battery from 10 to 80% in around 30 minutes, but cost significantly more than slower chargers. Kerbside chargers cost significantly less, in part because they place far less stress on the power grid.

As well as letting drivers charge without off-street parking, kerbside chargers also build confidence for all EV drivers by expanding the charger network. If one charger is occupied, another will be free.

The federal government last year announced A$40 million in grant funding to accelerate the kerbside charging rollout, which is about to be delivered. Electricity distributors are lobbying to be able to provide this infrastructure.

How do we get the rollout right?

To find out how to optimise the kerbside charger rollout, we partnered with Waverley, Woollahra and Randwick Councils in Sydney, whose kerbside network amounts to 94 spaces. It’s well used, with 27,000 charging sessions over the six months to the end of February 2026.

The data from these chargers revealed key insights. Chargers were used much more when they were located near apartments and shops, and when signs restricted use to EVs actively using the chargers.

One surprise was the fact charger usage clustered around daytime and evenings, with little overnight.

Daytime use is good news for the power grid, as it makes sense to charge EVs when floods of cheap solar are being generated. This should lead to lower charging prices during these times.

But it’s less than ideal that a third of total charger use took place during evenings, when the power grid is experiencing peak demand.

As more and more EVs appear on the roads, evening demand from chargers may rise too. Meeting this demand could require expensive grid upgrades.

Optimising the kerbside network

There’s usually a lot of flexibility in when drivers charge their EVs for daily or weekly use. Many EVs can even be set to charge when power is cheapest.

The challenge is how to get people (and vehicles) to respond to this flexibility and how to coordinate their actions at scale. One method could be to set higher prices for kerbside charging during times of peak demand.

Higher prices during evening peaks for EV charging at home could also encourage drivers to avoid peak demand, though this should ideally apply only to EV charging, not cooking dinner.

People want faster kerbside chargers

Most existing or planned kerbside chargers rely on slower, low power AC chargers (7-11 kW) able to charge an average EV from 10 to 80% in around six hours.

These are the default for kerbside charging because they are cheap and provide the same charging experience as in homes and workplaces. They work well for those who live nearby and can charge over longer periods such as across a day or overnight.

But the Sydney council data showed a clear preference for higher power DC chargers (30-50 kW) able to charge an average EV battery from 10 to 80% in two hours.

These chargers are best located near services which take 1-2 hours to complete, or near apartment blocks where many local drivers can take short turns charging.

On average, the faster DC charger sites were used four times a day, compared to once a day for slower AC chargers. Because DC chargers deliver energy much faster, each one delivered five times more energy (100 kWh per day) on average.

This means these more expensive DC chargers can be the most economic option for kerbside charging. Their higher throughput also makes them space efficient, requiring fewer contentious dedicated EV parking spaces.

Our analysis shows DC sites are most effective when coupled with two hour parking restrictions rather than allowing a four hour stay, as this reduces EVs overstaying once fully charged.

In response, the three Sydney councils have deployed more DC chargers at new sites and upgraded some existing sites.

At present, many plans for new public kerbside chargers still focus on slower AC chargers, many without dedicated EV parking spaces.

Our analysis suggests dedicated EV parking spaces are essential, and faster DC chargers should play a more prominent role. These are popular with drivers, have better economics, and require fewer dedicated EV parking spaces.

Bjorn Sturmberg, Senior Research Fellow, Collaboration on Energy and Environmental Markets, UNSW Sydney and Arastoo Teymouri, Researcher in Energy Systems, UNSW Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

A new Earthset image has been captured by the crew of Artemis II, 58 years since the iconic Earthrise photograph taken by the crew of Apollo 8. Over these past six decades, the climate has changed dramatically.

“Oh my God, look at that picture over there! There’s the Earth comin’ up. Wow, is that pretty.” That was Nasa astronaut Bill Anders’ reaction to seeing the Earth appearing to rise above the lunar horizon as their Apollo 8 spacecraft came around the Moon on Christmas Eve 1968.

Theirs were the first human eyes to see our planet at such a distance and from another celestial body. As fellow astronaut Jim Lovell said a few hours later: “The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.”

That original Earthrise image is widely credited with helping to set the mainstream environmental movement in motion. Although I wasn’t born when the Apollo 8 photo was taken, a framed print of it hangs above my desk as a reminder of the beauty and fragility of our planet.

For me as a climate scientist, these photos, taken 58 years apart, inspire me to reflect on how the Earth’s climate has changed in the interim.

The concentration of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) in our atmosphere has rapidly increased as a result of over half a century of continued and spreading industrial development, driven primarily by burning fossil fuels.

This is clearly illustrated by the Keeling curve – a graph that plots the continuous record of atmospheric CO₂ from Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii (started by Charles Keeling in 1958).

This curve shows a steep and steady increase from approximately 320 parts per million (ppm) in 1968 to about 430ppm in 2026. This increase of over one-third in the total carbon dioxide in our atmosphere shows little sign of slowing down.

That additional blanket of greenhouse gases has increased the surface temperature of our planet. Data from the World Meteorological Organization shows how the global mean temperature record (the average temperature of the Earth’s surface) has risen by approximately 1.2°C since the Apollo 8 Earthrise photo was taken. This represents most of the warming that has happened since the early industrial period in the mid-19th century.

While an average global temperature increase of 1.2°C may not sound large, it means that regional hot extremes and new records are now much more likely. For example, my team’s recent research has shown that a 40°C day in the UK (first recorded on July 19 2022) is now over 20 times more likely than it was in the 1960s.

The global average temperature has surged in the past three years – most probably driven by a combination of internal climate variability and human-made emissions (including strong reductions in industrial aerosol particle emissions that largely act to cool the planet). In 2023, temperatures jumped from the previous record of 1.29°C (set in 2016) to 1.45°C above the early-industrial 1850-1900 baseline.

This record was then immediately broken in 2024 – the first year to temporarily exceed 1.5°C. Going beyond that boundary in a single year doesn’t mean we have breached the 1.5°C target set by the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which is generally accepted to refer to a 20-year average. However, it does highlight how rapidly we are now approaching that level of warming.

Temperatures in both years were partly boosted by warmer conditions in the tropical Pacific due to El Niño, a climate phenomenon that affects weather patterns globally. Last year, after El Niño had subsided, was slightly cooler at 1.43°C. However, current forecasts give a high probability for another El Niño developing during the second half of 2026. If this materialises, we could easily exceed 1.5°C again.

A key question is whether global warming is accelerating. This is difficult to detect directly from the surface temperature record. However, a recent study found a significant acceleration after accounting for the “noise” of year-to-year variability.

The view from above

Climate science isn’t just about measuring changes in temperature.

One of the legacies of the 1960s space race was the subsequent launch of many satellite observation platforms that have transformed our ability to monitor, understand and predict changes to the global climate.

We now have continuous monitoring of many key components of Earth’s climate system, including sea surface temperature, sea level, and the extent of polar sea ice, glaciers and land surface changes. Unfortunately, many of these reveal worrying trends, such as more frequent heatwaves on land and sea, loss of Arctic sea-ice, melting glaciers and sea-level rise.

One of the most concerning recent trends comes from a set of satellite instruments called the Nasa Ceres, which have measured changes in the Earth’s energy imbalance (EEI) since 2000. EEI is the difference between the amount of solar energy absorbed by the planet and the thermal energy radiated back into space.

The Ceres data shows a strong upward trend, indicating a growing rate of accumulation of energy, consistent with an acceleration in global heating.

Looking ahead, I hope that by the time astronauts take the first Earthrise photo from Mars (perhaps in the late 2030s), we are heading towards net-zero carbon emissions and more stable global temperatures.

Achieving net zero is this century’s Moonshot. The prize is minimising the severity of the worst climate consequences of global heating – leaving our children and future generations a sustainable “grand oasis” here on Earth.

Nick Dunstone, Climate Science Fellow, Met Office Hadley Centre

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Frightening headlines predicting a Super El Niño or even a Godzilla El Niño amp up anxiety levels for farmers and residents of bushfire-prone regions.

But these phrases are not particularly accurate. The phrase “Super El Niño” makes climate scientists like me roll our eyes.

Why? Let’s find out.

What is El Niño?

The El Niño–Southern Oscillation is a natural and reoccurring climate pattern in the Pacific Ocean which can influence the chance of different weather affecting Australia.

When sea surface temperatures near the Americas are warmer than usual and the trade winds blowing from east to west across the equator weaken, climatologists call this pattern an El Niño.

El Niño events typically ramp up in winter and spring, and decay towards the end of summer and start of autumn.

During El Niño, we tend to experience warmer than usual temperatures and reduced winter-spring rainfall in Australia’s east.

We pay attention to El Niño and its opposite, La Niña, because this climate pattern has the biggest influence on year-to-year rainfall and temperature differences in eastern Australia. Drought is a key concern for farmers and rural residents, and some of the largest droughts of the past 40 years took place during El Niño years.

But problems can arise if we expect El Niño to be the only factor dictating our weather.

Why call an El Niño ‘super’?

One El Niño can be stronger or weaker than others. Scientists monitor El Niño using the Nino3.4 index, a measure of how much warmer (or cooler) than usual the ocean is in a region in the East Pacific. This region is the best at representing changes in the Pacific which can indicate El Niño.

When ocean temperatures are 0.8°C warmer than usual in that region, and the trade winds have sufficiently weakened, the Bureau of Meteorology can declare an El Niño has arrived. (The United States uses 0.5°C as the figure).

A “Super El Niño” is when the region’s ocean temperatures rise 2°C, roughly two standard deviations above normal (about a 2.5% chance of happening). While scientists first coined the term, the evocative phrase has become a favourite of media commentators.

But Australian forecasters don’t use these terms, as it doesn’t matter that much for our weather if the index goes over 2°C. What matters much more is whether an El Niño is present or not.

Why? When we measure the strength of the El Niño, we are really only referring to ocean temperatures in the eastern Pacific. But this figure is not very well correlated with less rain in eastern Australia. It also only captures ocean changes and doesn’t reflect the El Niño atmospheric changes which influence the weather systems that actually bring rain to Australia.

That’s not all. The Niño3.4 Index is just one of many indications of how Australia’s upcoming weather is likely to look. One index can’t tell the whole story. Relying on it is like looking at the BMI of a bodybuilder and declaring them obese.

Readers may wonder how scientists can define El Niño using an ocean temperature threshold when oceans are getting steadily warmer under climate change. Won’t we end up with constant El Niño?

This is a good question. It’s why the Bureau of Meteorology last year introduced a relative Niño index, to give scientists a way to account for warming due to climate change.

Should we believe winter and spring forecasts?

A Southern Hemisphere autumn in the Pacific Ocean is sort of like January in your average Australian office job. As you slowly ease into the work year, you set a bunch of optimistic goals which may or may not eventuate.

Over autumn, the Pacific Ocean is similarly noncommittal. It can indicate future outcomes that don’t always happen.

Meteorologists have a term for this. It’s called the Autumn Predictability Barrier. What it means is that El Niño forecasts are the least reliable during autumn.

So while forecasts of the Pacific Ocean might be pointing towards an El Niño, history warns us to take forecasts made in autumn for later in the year with a big lump of salt.

At present, the European, US and Australian model forecasts of Niño3.4 indicate a strong El Niño might develop. But this isn’t conclusive.

The forecasts made in March 2017 are worth looking at. Here, models confidently predicted a moderate and long-lasting El Niño, similar to forecasts in March 2026. What happened instead was a short-lived, weak El Niño.

How should we think of El Niño forecasts?

As a scientist who has researched seasonal forecasts of Australian rainfall, my advice is to ignore autumn headlines warning of a potentially catastrophic “Super El Niño”.

These get more clicks than more accurate headlines pointing out long-term forecasts at this time of year are uncertain. It’s worth waiting until the end of autumn or early winter before taking El Niño forecasts too seriously.

The current gold standard for Australian seasonal forecasts are the Bureau of Meteorology’s long-range forecasts. But even here, these forecasts become quite uncertain more than a month in the future. It’s important to regularly check for updated forecasts.

Will we get an El Niño this year? The only scientifically accurate answer as of April 9 2026 is “maybe”. It’s way too early to say anything other than that an El Niño is more likely to form this year than a La Niña.

Kimberley Reid, Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Atmospheric Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Humans are creatures of rhythms. As far as we know, humans have always sung and always danced. We can recognise a song by its rhythm alone, regardless of whether it is played fast or slow.

We seem to have an almost effortless capacity to pick up on rhythmic patterns, and we have presumed this ability to require the very large and powerful human brain.

But our new research, published today in the journal Science, shows humans are not alone in mastering rhythm. Even the bumblebee, which has a brain the size of a sesame seed, has an ability to quickly learn abstract rhythms.

A world full of rhythms

Rhythms are everywhere in nature.

We hear them in the songs of birds and frogs and the ultrasonic hunting chirps of bats. And we see them in the flashing displays of fireflies, the rhythmic shakes of a peacock’s tail, the waggle dances of honey bees and the courtship dances of fruit flies.

But, up to now, we have assumed these were innate rhythmic patterns: the animals are not learning a rhythm; they are simply rolling out an evolved behavioural program.

Apart from humans, only a few species of birds and mammals have been shown to be able to learn and recognise the structure of a rhythm regardless of whether it is played fast or slow.

This reinforced the perception that only smart animals with big brains can learn a rhythm. But big-brained animals are the exception in the animal kingdom. Most animals have evolved tiny brains (by our standards) and they can still solve all the problems they need to solve to survive and thrive.

But can they recognise rhythm?

Following the bumblebeat

To explore this, our team from Southern Medical University and Macquarie University worked with bumblebees – big beautiful bees that are easy to keep and train, and are hugely motivated to collect sips of nectar to take back their nest.

Working with individually labelled bumblebees, we trained them to forage from artificial flowers with embedded LED lights we could control. One flashing light pattern offered a sugary treat, while flowers with another flashing pattern did not.

The only way bees could distinguish the patterns was by their rhythmic structure. In this way we could train the bees to prefer one rhythmic pattern of flashes over another – for example, dot-dash-dot-dash (repeating) versus dot-dot-dash-dash (repeating).

Once the bees had been trained for an afternoon, we tested them on flashing flowers that offered no sugar. We found bees preferred to visit the flower flashing the rhythm that had been rewarded with sugar in training. This shows they could learn to recognise a rhythm linked to reward.

Without any extra training of the bees, we could show they could recognise their trained rhythm regardless of whether it was played faster or slower. This shows bees had learned a rhythm regardless of tempo – the first evidence that bees had learned a flexible rhythm.

Recognising the rhythm

To test the bees further, we asked whether they could recognise a rhythm regardless of how it was presented.

Bees are deaf at the frequencies we can hear, but are very sensitive to vibration. We trained bumblebees in a maze with a vibrating floor at the junction in the maze.

We could make the floor pulse with rhythm. Using this technique, we trained bees that one rhythm (say, dot-dot-dash-dash) meant the sugar reward was located in the left arm of the maze, whereas another rhythm (say, dot-dash-dot-dash) meant the sugar reward was in the right arm.

We knew bees could learn the maze because their success in finding the sugar first time improved with training. Once the bees were trained and performed well in the maze, we changed the maze so now there was a flashing LED light at the junction and no vibrating floor.

The bees trained with vibration were able to use the rhythmic pulses of light to work out which arm of the maze to pick to find the sugar. This showed bees could recognise a rhythm regardless of how it was played out. In other words, the bees had a sense of abstract rhythm.

As far as we know, this ability has only previously been shown in humans.

Changing the rhythm of our understanding

That the bumblebees did so well in these tests of rhythm learning changes how we think about what is needed to perceive and learn rhythm.

In humans and mammals, rhythm learning is very complicated, involving multiple regions of our large and complex brains.

But perhaps there are simpler ways a tiny brain can achieve the same thing.

Brains themselves are full of rhythms as neurons pulse with impulses. Many neural circuits use rhythmic properties of synchronous and asynchronous nerve impulses to organise their function. Perhaps there is something in the rhythmic properties of brains themselves that attunes them to detect rhythms in nature.

If we can capture that insight, and give miniature sensors a capacity to detect rhythmic temporal structure, there could be all sorts of applications: from lightweight solutions to speech and music recognition to diagnosis of heart irregularities, or pre-epileptic brain waves.

Andrew Barron, Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

While stopped in heavy Melbourne traffic recently, I noticed that what looked like a shadow under a row of spotted gums (Corymbia maculata) along a major road was actually a stain on the concrete kerb.

As a botanist, it caught my attention; biological stains always have an interesting story attached.

Stains like these – under many tree species, on your car after certain leaves have fallen on them, and on your timber deck after rain has washed leaves onto it – are from tannins leaching out of foliage.

Tannins are astringent and bitter-tasting chemicals found in many leaves; they’re what add flavour to red wines, chocolate and tea. Oak timber is high in tannins, and it’s the tannins in oak barrels that enrich the flavour of some wines.

So tannin stains on concrete, cars and decks may be unsightly, but that doesn’t mean tannins are unimportant.

Important to plants

When it rains, materials such as amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and sugars can be washed or leached from leaves of trees. These contribute to the complex chemistry of soils. Many of the microflora and fauna in the ground, which contribute to healthy soils, depend on these chemicals for their growth and proliferation.

Among the many chemicals that are leached from leaves are tannins.

Tannins are important to plants as their bitter taste makes the leaves unpalatable; it’s the plant’s way of trying to dissuade animals from eating their leaves.

Some caterpillars and grasshoppers are turned off by tannins; koalas and possums cope with tannins by having specialised gut microbes that allow them to consume high-tannin diets.

If you spot a water-filled cavity or hollow in a tree trunk, or in between the trunks and a branch, it is often dark brown or even black due to the tannins that have leached into it.

These tannins can be efficient in preventing insects and other pests from growing in the water, although mosquito larvae can be quite resilient if the concentration of tannin is low.

Sometimes forests and felled timber leach so much tannin into streams and rivers they create a blackwater river, where the water may look and taste bad, but is often safe to drink.

The brown stains seen in Tidal River at Wilson’s Promontory, Victoria, and the Franklin River, Tasmania, are caused by tannins.

The dark colour of tannin streams does not mean they are unhealthy, and may indicate the tree canopy cover upstream is in good nick.

Tannins leached into soil can play an important role in the rate of litter decomposition, which is important to ecosystem function.

When tannin levels are high, they slow down litter decomposition. That means the leaf litter can be a food source for bugs for a long time. It also reduces soil drying and protects soil microbes.

Useful to humans, too

A number of tree species contain tannins that contribute to the durability and the distinctive colours of their timbers.

The name tannin comes from their use, particularly in days gone by, in the tanning of leather. However, they are also used in the dyeing of fabrics and as wood preservatives.

Tannins range in colour from pale yellows through orange to dark browns that are almost black. Their chemical structure means they bind well with fibres such as cotton and linen for long-lasting and environmentally-friendly colours.

We are just learning of their many environmental roles, and their impact on human health has yet to be fully explored (we do know they can be anti-oxidants and anti-carcinogenic).

As for that tannin stain I spotted while stuck in traffic, it’s likely it’ll still be there next time I drive past. Concrete is very porous and the tannins from the leaves above will be topped up each time it rains. So stains like this may be more or less permanent.

Tannin stains can generally be washed from vehicles and other non-porous surfaces quite easily, but a high pressure spray may be required to clean up tannin-embedded concrete, slate or stone paving surfaces. Warm or hot water may help.

For such a common stain on concrete, there is much we don’t know about tannins and so much to learn.

Gregory Moore, Senior Research Associate, School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Most of us want to recycle, but it can sometimes be hard to know exactly how.

Do jar lids and bottle caps go in the yellow bin? What kinds of plastic can be recycled?

And given that food residue can mess up the machines used to recycle waste, how clean do things need to be before they get recycled?

Much depends on where you live

The first thing to know is what’s accepted in your yellow-lidded kerbside bin depends on where you live and what your local material recovery facility can actually recycle.

Online search tools such as Recycling Near You and the Australasian Recycling Label’s “check locally” feature let you enter your postcode and look up how to dispose of specific items.

When in doubt, check for Australasian Recycling Labels on packaging before you bin it. A “chasing arrows” symbol indicates the item is accepted in more than 80% of kerbside recycling bins. However, not all packaging has these labels. Some carry multiple labels.

Aluminium

Aluminium is what soft drink cans are made from, and it’s a high value metal. It’s worth recycling, but size matters.

Aluminium doesn’t contain iron, so it’s not magnetic.

In other words, the magnets used in waste recycling facilities to separate metals from other recyclables won’t pick up aluminium cans or foil.

Instead, aluminium items are sorted using a process known as eddy current separation.

When items travel along a conveyor belt at a sorting facility, they move past a fast-spinning magnetic rotor at the end. This rotor creates a repelling force that flicks the aluminium items off the conveyor belt and into collection bins.

But this force isn’t strong enough to recover small items like jar lids and wine bottle caps.

When it comes to recycling metal jar lids and metal or plastic bottle caps, every recycling facility has different rules.

Some need the lids to be left on their containers. Others require lids larger than 5cm to be removed before placing them in your mixed recycling bin or dropped off at a collection site.

If you’re not sure, ask your local council or search Recycling Near You or the Australasian Recycling Label site.

Plastic

Recycling plastic is great, but only about 46% of collected plastic is processed domestically, with a lot sent overseas for processing.

Most plastic still ends up in landfill due to contamination and low recovery rates.

Packaging made from a single type of plastic, such as translucent high-density polyethylene (HDPE) milk bottles, are easiest to recycle into new products.

But only around 40% of these get collected for recycling through kerbside bins and dedicated drop-off locations; the rest don’t get collected at all.

Plastic caps and labels on HDPE bottles are often made from a different type of plastic (polypropylene), so they should be removed before recycling.

Rigid plastics, such as drink bottles, are easier to recycle than soft plastics, but their quality degrades with each recycling cycle.

Most single-use soft plastic packaging ends up in landfill.

Chemical recycling for soft plastics is a relatively new technology in Australia. However, it’s not widely available, is expensive and comes with environmental and health concerns.

Contamination

Recycling systems can only work effectively when packaging is clean and free from contaminants.

Food and liquid remnants, labels and small pieces of packaging can get tangled in machinery. Even small amounts of food residue can introduce germs and odours into recycling loads.

This is difficult and costly to remove, and ultimately reduces the quality of recycled materials, especially those intended for food packaging.

Packaging doesn’t need to be squeaky clean, but it should be rinsed and placed in the recycling bin dry.

Labels and seals on packaging are also an issue. Paper labels and water-soluble glues generally wash off during processing. However, tamper-proof seals – such as the ring around the base of a soft drink bottle lid – and plastic-coated labels don’t. These materials are hard to remove and can contaminate the recycling process.

Plastic-coated and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) labels – which you sometimes find on, for instance, a punnet of strawberries or milk bottle – are a challenge. They’re usually made from a different plastic than the container itself, which means they can’t be recycled together.

Removing them before disposal helps ensure a cleaner, more recyclable product.

Multi-layered packaging is another problem. Cardboard-like items such as long life milk cartons and potato chip tubes are made from layers of paper, plastic and sometimes metal foil – all laminated together.

Since these layers can’t be separated easily or efficiently, the packaging can’t be recycled through most kerbside bins. It usually ends up in landfill.

The bigger picture

Consumers still bear the burden of responsibility on knowing what can and can’t be recycled. At the end of the day, recycling infrastructure is still limited and too much is being landfilled.

We must redesign packaging for reuse and to work within the system we have.

Emily Bryson, Lecturer in Science, CQUniversity Australia

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Plants are often seen as passive organisms, rooted in one place and largely unable to react to the world around them.

But a new field of research is challenging these assumptions and showing that plants are as sophisticated as animals in detecting and adjusting to environmental signals.

Plants can perceive light through specialised proteins, detect sound vibrations and respond to touch via mechano-sensitive channels, recognise chemical signals released by neighbouring plants, and even retain memories of past experiences through changes in their DNA.

My own research focuses on how plants detect the passage of time as part of their seasonal cycle, but that is merely one aspect of a major reconsideration of their sensory capacity – and the parallels with animal senses.

Plants can see colours

Anyone who has noticed a flower turning its head to track the sun knows plants can detect light. Like animals, plants sense light signals using specialised receptors, each for a different wavelength (or colour) of light.

Phytochromes detect red and far-red light and cryptochromes and phototropins respond to blue and ultraviolet light. These sensors transform light cues into molecular signals to coordinate a plant’s daily circadian rhythms.

Emerging research suggests trees can even identify the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. This cue may act as a seasonal switch, triggering a transition in key physiological processes such as leaf ageing and bud setting.

My research identified a specific gene, known as Early-Flowering-3, in European beech trees (Fagus sylvatica) which seems to control seasonal responses such as energy storage, changes in plant hormone signals and preparing for winter.

But light detection is only one sense plants use to perceive their world.

Tuning into their environment

Plants can also listen. Studies show they can detect vibrations caused by chewing insects or the buzz of pollinating bees, and they respond to the sound of flowing water by directing roots towards it.

Plants can also generate their own vibrations. When under stress, tobacco and tomato plants emit ultrasonic clicks that provide information about the plants’ condition, including the level of dehydration or injury. These clicks can be heard using a sound recorder.

Scientists also documented what happens when they play sounds to plants. They observed changes in the membranes of their cells and the chemical signalling along ion channels. While plants do not have nerves, these channels function in a similar way, acting as tiny gateways to transmit information in and out of cells.

The exact receptors plants use to perceive sound remain unclear, but we are now investigating whether they sense vibrations through tiny hair-like structures on leaf surfaces.

Don’t touch me

Beyond vibrations, plants also respond directly to physical touch, often in striking ways.

Familiar examples include the touch-me-not plant (Mimosa pudica) or the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), which respond to touch by rapidly closing their leaves.

These examples illustrate plants’ ability to perceive and respond to mechanical stimuli. But beyond these rapid movements, plants also detect rain and damage caused by browsing herbivores. The latter prompts plants to activate defence responses such as the production of toxins or depositing lignin to make themselves less palatable.

Just like animals, plants contain specialised proteins that detect these physical forces. These mechanical sensing proteins convert physical stimuli into biochemical signals, often through calcium signalling.

Plants remember the past to decide the future

Changes in temperature provide a good example of plants remembering that winter has passed. Remembering cold temperatures helps them flower at the right time when spring arrives.

As observed in animals, these memories are stored through epigenetic mechanisms – chemical changes to DNA that don’t affect the genetic code.

Epigenetic changes alter the way genes are packaged and read, creating a molecular record of past conditions.

In New Zealand, for example, trees remember temperatures from previous summers to synchronise their reproduction across entire forests – a phenomenon known as masting.

Masting triggers widespread seed production – and subsequent pest outbreaks that can threaten native wildlife. Researchers revealed that removable markers generate temporary chemical tags that can switch genes off. This allows masting plants to carry information from one year to the next.

Together, these findings show that plants can see, hear, feel and remember in ways parallel to our own sensory systems. Far from being passive or unresponsive, plants respond to environmental clues in sophisticated and complex ways.

Rethinking plant life in this way challenges long-held ideas about intelligence, awareness and communication in the natural world.

Samarth Kulshrestha, Research Fellow in Molecular Biology, University of Canterbury

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.