Category: Publication

Climate change is super-charging St. Louis wildflowers (Links to an external site)

The wildflowers that bring a burst of color to meadows and forests across St. Louis are blooming later and longer than they did in previous decades, according to a study led by researchers with the Living Earth Collaborative, a signature initiative of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan. The study by Missouri Botanical Garden’s Matthew Austin and Ken Olsen, the George William and Irene Koechig Freiberg Professor of Biology is published in New Phytologist.

Shifting Climate Zones Pose a Major Threat to Terrestrial Ecosystems (Links to an external site)

New research published in Regional Environmental Change, funded in part by a Living Earth Collaborative seed grant, reveals that climate zone shifts in Kenya between 1980 and 2020 are leading to hotter and drier conditions, threatening ecological diversity and food security. The study found that tropical climate zones expanded, while arid regions grew by over 50,000 square kilometers. This shift, driven by rising temperatures and altered precipitation patterns, significantly impacts agriculture, particularly in regions dependent on rain-fed farming. The findings highlight the urgent need for adaptation strategies to mitigate the effects of climate change on ecosystems and livelihoods in Kenya and similar regions.

TGI-led research finds shifting climate regions leading to hotter, drier conditions across Kenya (Links to an external site)

Research published in Regional Environmental Change has shown that as climate zones shift toward hotter and drier conditions, ecological diversity will decline, posing a major threat to terrestrial ecosystems with far-reaching social and ecological impacts, This work was supported in part by the Taylor Geospatial Institute and a seed research grant from the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis.

Warmer weather means duller dragonflies (Links to an external site)

LEC post-doc Michael Moore led a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looking at if dragonflies have adapted with climate historically and what is projected to happen with an even warmer climate in the future.

Mankind is the problem, and we appear to be hastily destroying life around us, says a Washington University in St. Louis biodiversity expert about new research with a WashU connection. (Links to an external site)

A new study co-authored by LEC Biodiversity Fellow and president emeritus of Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter Raven, appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The research highlights the alarming rate of vertebrate species extinction, attributing it primarily to human activities.

Four ways to curb light pollution, save bugs (Links to an external site)

Writing in the scientific journal Biological Conservation, Brett Seymoure, the Grossman Family Postdoctoral Fellow of the Living Earth Collaborative at Washington University in St. Louis, and his collaborators reviewed 229 studies to document the myriad ways that light alters the living environment such that insects are unable to carry out crucial biological functions. Seymoure recommends 4 things to address this problem.