The Open University’s Creative Climate project seeks to bring issues such as climate change out of the public arena and into individuals’ homes via personal video diaries, audio tracks, short films and text.  All these resources are stored and catalogued in one easily accessible online platform.

You can browse the Creative Climate website and watch a video diary of a polar scientist commenting on his recent expedition and his observations on the changing sea ice patterns in the Arctic.

Through the project you will be able to watch how local community groups are trying to change the way transport, energy and waste in your part of town and contribute your own thoughts and experiences.

Designed by Dr Joe Smith, a leading specialist in  environmental communications and public understanding, this 10-year project aims to respond directly to limitations of existing environmental media and learning content and unlock the power of the web to enhance environmental understanding and action.

Read more here

Source – Kew Magazine, Autumn 2013, p 18 – from feature written by Gail Vines

Researchers in the UK have shown for the first time that plants can communicate by sending signals along a network of underground fungi that link the roots of nearby plants. (Ecology letters, vol 16, p 835).

Mycorrhizal fungi can serve as channels for the transmission of ‘infochemicals’ which can act as an early warning system, alerting neighbours to herbivore attack so they can take defensive action.

Aphids find host plants by homing in on a cocktail of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted by their leaves and when insects begin to feed, the plants respond by emitting very different VOCs that repel aphids while attracting aphid enemies like parasitic wasps.

Researchers – Lucy Gilbert at the James Hutton Institue in Aberdeen and David Johnson at the University of Aberdeen, together with PhD student Zdenka Babikova and biochemists at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire – showed that when broad bean plants were forewarned of approaching aphids, they switched their output of VOCs to defensive mode before any aphids reached them.

This worked when the plants were connected together underground by fungi around and between their roots.  Only plants connected by underground fungi were able to respond in this way: cut off from the fungal network, the plants continued to give off aphid-attracting chemicals.

The Kew story states that implications could be far reaching – insect ecologists might need to take note of the activity of fungi in the soil and farmers could avoid ploughing and artificial fertilizers to encourage mycorrhizal fungi.

Note:  did you know that fungi are more closely related to humans than they are to plants?

For further information click here for the Kew website.

Also, click here to see a video of the Kew Fungariam

As reported by The Telegraph, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has produced the first part of its latest assessment on climate change. The report is the fifth by the IPCC and the first in six years.

In the 19th century a small number of American grey squirrels were introduced to Britain and it is well known that they are now pushing the native red squirrel to extinction – a human induced ecological disaster.

In recent years it was discovered that the greys carry the squirrelpox virus which doesn’t harm them but induces a horrible lingering death in nearly all red squirrels that become infected.  Until 2012 it was believed that the disease was confined to mainland UK, but last year it was discovered also in Ireland.

The Wildlife Ark Trust is a small UK charity raising funds to sponsor research into the development of a squirrelpox vaccine to protect reds against the disease.

An effective vaccine candidate has now been discovered but it needs to be developed and the charity is raising money towards the next phase of research costing £198,000.

Contact the charity for further information.

Photos by Sarah McNeil

Click here to find out more.

Thanks to MYOO and Plastiki for sharing.