The University of Michigan Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum has received a grant of nearly $127,000 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The grant enables a two-year project to locate and assess at-risk plant communities growing on the four properties managed by Matthaei-Nichols. The project runs through May 2013. Part old-fashioned fieldwork, part high-tech information-gathering, the project is contemporary natural history for the long term. Pivotal to the project is the use of technological recording and tracking tools to create an in-depth accounting of existing natural communities, said Matthaei-Nichols director Robert Grese. Read More
Environment
U-M’s Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum receives grant to assess at-risk plants
Canadians more likely to support policies to address climate change than Americans
Americans are less willing to open their wallets to pay for increased production of renewable energy resources than Canadians, a new University of Michigan report indicates. "Canadians are far more likely to see climate change as real and as a serious problem, and this appears to translate into greater willingness to take concrete steps in response," said Barry Rabe, Arthur Thurnau Professor of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and one of the report's authors. Read more
Study: More than 1.5 million jobs, $62 billion in wages directly tied to Great Lakes
More than 1.5 million U.S. jobs are directly connected to the Great Lakes, generating $62 billion in wages annually, according to a new analysis by Michigan Sea Grant. The analysis, released today, is based on 2009 employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and represents a conservative estimate of direct employment related to the Great Lakes in several industries, according to the authors, Michigan Sea Grant's assistant director, Jennifer Read, and research specialist Lynn Vaccaro. Read More
U-M updates innovation web site
The "Innovate!" web site has been launched as a refreshed version of the innovation economy site that has existed for the last 18 months. The new site also features a series of vignettes on faculty and student innovators and entrepreneurs. Read more
Mercury “fingerprinting” provides new insights into San Francisco Bay contaimination
Mercury contamination, a worldwide environmental problem, has been called "public enemy No. 1" in California's San Francisco Bay. Teasing out all of the possible sources of contamination was not possible in the past, but with the use of a mercury "fingerprinting" technique, researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of California, Davis, and the San Francisco Estuary Institute, have identified the main sources of mercury in bay floor sediments and shown that small fish near the base of the food web acquire their mercury from those sediments. "Without a clear answer to what was responsible for mercury in fish in San Francisco Bay, we needed a way to trace its origins," said Joel Blum, who is the John D. MacArthur Professor of Geological Sciences and a professor of ecology at U-M. "This is the first study to track mercury directly from source to sediment to food web." [Read more...]
Have we changed our ways due to the BP oil spill?
On the heels of last week's federal recommendations to help prevent another BP oil spill disaster, a University of Michigan researcher says the tragedy has come close to acting as a catalyst for deeper change—but not quite. "The BP oil spill is, potentially, a 'cultural anomaly' for institutional changes in environmental management and fossil fuel production," saidys Andrew Hoffman, professor of management and organizations at the Ross School of Business and a professor at the School of Natural Resources and Environment. "But true change in our approach to handling issues related to oil drilling, oil consumption and environmental management have yet to occur." [Read more...]
Shrinking snow and ice cover intensify global warming
The decreases in Earth's snow and ice cover over the past 30 years have exacerbated global warming more than models predict they should have, on average, new research from the University of Michigan shows. "Our analysis of snow and sea ice changes over the last 30 years indicates that this cryospheric feedback is almost twice as strong as what models have simulated," says Mark Flanner, assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences. "The implication is that Earth's climate may be more sensitive to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide and other perturbations than models predict." [Read more...]