News by Subject Agriculture

Australian pineapple, Danish trout, and Midwestern U.S. corn farmers are not often lumped together under the same agricultural umbrella. But they and many others who raise crops and animals face a common problem: excess nitrogen in drainage water. Whether it flows out to the Great Barrier Reef or the Gulf of Mexico, the nutrient contributes to harmful algal blooms that starve fish and other organisms of oxygen.

Even the mention of parasites can be enough to make some people's skin crawl. But to recent UC Santa Barbara doctoral graduate Dana Morton these creepy critters occupy important ecological niches, fulfilling roles that, in her opinion, have too often been overlooked.

An estimated 334,000 COVID-19 cases are attributable to meatpacking plants, resulting in $11.2 billion in economic damage, according to a new study led by a researcher at the University of California, Davis.

When trees die during a drought event, they die of thirst: A field study on spruce trees shows that an abrupt collapse of the hydraulic system is responsible.

A recent study revealed that to better conserve the giant trevally, an economically important game fish in the Seychelles, its nursery areas should be protected, as well as the bigger areas the large adults of the species frequently use. The study praises the Seychelles Marine Protected Areas and advises that St Joseph Atoll, the nursery area in the study, should not allow extractive fishing for species like giant trevally.

By analyzing gains and losses in the genes of phytoplankton samples collected in all major ocean regions, researchers at the University of California, Irvine have created the most nuanced and high-resolution map yet to show where these photosynthetic organisms either thrive or are forced to adapt to limited quantities of key nutrients, nitrogen, phosphorus and iron.

More severe and frequent fires in the Alaskan boreal forest are emitting vast stores of carbon, but new research from Northern Arizona University shows those losses are offset by the fast-growing deciduous trees that replace black spruce forests in the region.