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Krakovna (Harvard University, Cambridge, MA), co-founder of the Future of Life Institute. However, there are concerns about how to imbue computers and machines with human ideals. “Ensuring that AI understands and internalizes human values is essential”, says Krakovna, if we are to rely on it for large-scale tasks. “If we succeed, then we would be able to trust it with solving humanity’s biggest challenges, including climate change.” But there are risks to giving machines oversight over life and

death. An AI that seeks to minimize suffering might, for instance, prevent predators from killing their prey, or parasites from infecting their hosts, thereby throwing ecosystems off balance. Of course, this assumes that vastly superior AI is inevitable; Krakovna points out that the future of artificial intellect is still uncertain. “It might not happen if scientific progress is disrupted, for example by nuclear war or stringent regulation.” But assuming we continue on the current path, some experts predict we will have machines that surpass humans in a variety of cognitive domains by 2050. So, now is the time to start talking seriously about how environmental concerns will be addressed by these new computers. “It’s very difficult to predict exactly what superhuman intelligence would be like or what it would do”, admits Krakovna, “but we expect it to have an impact of high magnitude – either extremely good or extremely bad”. 

“Scientists suspect there are many sources of methane, but their locations and how much they emit are not well known”, says study leader Magnus Gålfalk, an assistant professor at the Department of Thematic Studies– Environmental Change at Linköping University (Linköping, Sweden). “This camera allows us to locate and quantify both anthropogenic and natural hotspots [of methane emissions].” Methods to detect methane already exist, but they lack the scale currently needed: satellites measure on scales of kilometers, while handheld devices can gauge suspected point sources but are unable to map diffuse sources over large areas. The new camera, estimated to be 40–100 times more sensitive than existing technologies, relies on advanced infrared hyperspectral imaging inspired by optical methods used in astronomy. “Its sensitivity to small amounts [of methane] and its ability to

measure over time are key”, explains Gålfalk. “You don’t just see a plume of methane; you also see the gas moving and [its quantity].” For each pixel the sensor creates, it simultaneously records a high-resolution spectrum, translating into accurate quantities, mapping air motion, and quantifying methane separately from other gases. The researchers tested the camera at ground level but will focus next on natural areas, using helicopters. “If this technology can detect nearground methane from helicopters with the same sensitivity and resolution as demonstrated in the study, it will be a great tool for studies at ecosystem scales”, says Paula Matheus-Carnevali (University of CaliforniaBerkeley, Berkeley, CA), who investigated methane sources in shallow Arctic lakes as part of her PhD work at the Desert Research Institute in Nevada. “It will be interesting to see its performance in Arctic settings.” 

Can AI save our planet? Christie Wilcox Could machines more intelligent than we are help us study and protect the planet’s biodiversity? That’s one of the ideas put forth in the annual Horizon Scan of Global Conservation Issues for 2016 (Trends Ecol Evol 2015; doi:10.1016/j.tree.2015.11.007). Every year, a team of about two dozen researchers, practitioners, and journalists identify potentially influential yet underappreciated issues in ecology – and this time, artificial intelligence (AI) made the short list. “Artificial intelligence already has many applications in ecology and conservation”, the authors explain. They note that future computers and machines could do tasks that are currently impossible, like modeling complex ecosystem interactions and predicting natural events such as floods. At present, ecological considerations aren’t being factored into the discussion about AI, according to Viktoriya

Unmasking methane Sophia V Schweitzer Methane (CH4) is one of the most important greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Globally, over 60% of methane emissions come from human activities such as power generation, agriculture, and waste management. But it is also released by natural sources such as wetlands, Arctic lakes, and forests, and this will increase as the climate warms. The gas, however, is invisible to the naked eye, which makes it difficult to locate and measure emission hotspots, especially in nature. Now, researchers from Linköping and Stockholm Universities in Sweden have developed a method that uses a custom-made camera to visualize and photograph methane, allowing them to pinpoint sources, as well as quantify the amount of gas and its fluxes over time (Nature Clim Change 2015; doi:10.1038/nclimate2877). www.frontiersinecology.org

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Could our planet be in the hands of artificial intelligence some day?

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Vancouver to go 100% renewable by 2050 Janet Pelley In 2050, residents of Vancouver, Canada, will charge their electric vehicles with renewable hydropower, use bike lanes or abundant public transit to get around town, and enjoy homes and workplaces powered by hydroelectricity, solar panels, and heat recovered from wastewater. Instead of burning fossil fuels, the city’s residents and businesses will derive all their energy needs from 100% renewable sources, according to the Renewable City Framework adopted by the city council in November. Scientists say that achieving 100% renewable power globally by 2050 is doable and necessary to allow CO2 levels to fall to 350 ppm by 2100. Vancouver is well-positioned to meet that goal because it is already the

fourth greenest city in the world, as reported by the Global Green Economy Index. But the city still uses a large amount of energy (over 59 million gigajoules per year) and just 31% of that comes from renewables. “However, this is not about replacing every kilojoule of fossil energy with a kilojoule of renewable energy”, cautions Andrea Reimer, a city counselor and deputy mayor of Vancouver. The city believes it can make big conservation gains, slashing current energy use by 35% by 2050. A key target will be buildings, which are responsible for over onehalf of the city’s CO2 emissions. Forty percent of Vancouver’s existing buildings will naturally need to be retrofitted by 2050, and the city plans to rebuild these to carbon-neutral standards. Meanwhile, all new construction must be zero-emission by 2030, in accordance with the Framework. And, as the city grows, it

E ter Kulle; license: CC BY-SA 2.0

Poaching with poison devastates African vultures Adrian Burton The use of poison by ivory poachers in Africa has surged over the past 3 years, leading to massive casualties among vultures, warns a new report (Oryx 2015; doi:10.1017/ S0030605315001209). Indeed, this deadly tactic, which can take down whole herds of elephants, now accounts for one-third of all vulture poisoning deaths since 1970. Across Africa, vultures have long been the unintended victims of poisoning when they feed on laced carcasses laid out by farmers trying to illegally kill troublesome predators. “But the number of vultures killed in these new poaching incidents is far greater than anything recorded in other types of poisoning”, explains lead author Darcy Ogada of The Peregrine Fund (Boise, ID). “The average number of vulture deaths [per poisoning event] is six for those


will encourage new developments to take the form of complete communities that mix living, working, and shopping spaces within walkable distances of each other. Such communities get people out of cars and favor efficient local energy networks that can recover waste heat from sewage. To phase out gasoline-powered vehicles, which account for more than onethird of the city’s CO 2 emissions, Vancouver will lobby the provincial and federal governments to approve vehicle and fuel standards that will lead to the adoption of electric and biofuelpowered cars. At the same time, the city will increase opportunities to walk, cycle, and take public transit. “The secret to Vancouver’s success is not just about being aspirational but about being audacious”, Reimer says, adding that the narrative of the city going green against all odds speaks to people’s hope for change at the level needed to combat global warming. 

Vultures on Africa’s savannas are threatened by ivory poachers.

associated with predator poisonings, but it is 191 for poisonings caused by ivory poachers.” In one of 11 such events recorded in the paper, 500 vultures died from feeding on a single poisoned elephant. The difference between farmerand poacher-caused events lies not only in the number of vultures affected, but also in the intent. Poachers are now deliberately targeting vultures, as their overhead circling can give away the location of an elephant massacre to rangers. “Six African vulture species have

recently had their conservation status uplisted by the IUCN; if we can’t stop the massive decline in their numbers, the future for vultures is bleak”, continues Ogada. The paper calls for African governments to tighten their control of the sale of products that are frequently used as poisons, especially aldicarb, carbofuran, and cyanide. The authors recognize, however, that this may have a limited effect on the activity of poachers, who, of course, operate outside the law. “The simple truth is that many wildlife authorities in Africa are already being overwhelmed by this new poaching tactic”, warns Jose Tavares (Director of the Vulture Conservation Foundation, Zurich, Switzerland). “International efforts to stamp out the illegal wildlife trade, especially the trade in ivory, will have to prove their worth soon if Africa’s rapidly declining vulture populations are to have a chance to recover.” 

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many species were found to occur within city boundaries. “We already knew that cities can provide valuable habitat but we did not expect to find that they were substantially more important than non-urban areas for the conservation of protected species”, says Christopher Ives (Leuphana University Lüneberg, Lüneberg, Germany), co-lead author and a post-doc at RMIT University (Melbourne, Australia) at the time of the study. This pattern is likely due to the considerable threat posed by urban devel-

opment on wildlife populations, which is reflected in more species in urban regions being listed as at-risk. At the same time, however, urban areas may present opportunities for persistence for some species; the increasing occurrence of grey-headed flying foxes (Pteropus poliocephalus) in several Australian cities, for instance, may be due to the greater availability and reliability of its main foods – fruit and nectar – in urban gardens and parks, as compared with natural areas. “The fact that species of conservation concern can exist in close proximity to people is a finding that is likely to be applicable to many cities around the world”, says Ives, pointing out the important implications for national and regional conservation strategies, which typically neglect urban locations. “Cities can be both threats and opportunities for conservation, and actions taken to protect threatened species in urban areas might be more effective than focusing solely on less disturbed ecosystems.” 

is to maximize crop yield and solar production”, says SolAgra research director Winston Friedman. “We’ll test several ideas for sun sharing with crops.” One option is to space the panels so that sunlight filters between them; another is to replace sections of the panels with transparent materials. While these approaches will diminish solar energy output, Friedman hopes to partially recoup losses with another modification. “All the panels will be able to [rotate to] track the sun from east to west”, he explains. Besides keeping more farmland in crop production, combining agriculture with solar could help spare desert wildlands from massive solar installations that use already scarce water and may disrupt migrations of at-risk species like the desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) and desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni). Moreover, most farmland is relatively close to cities,

thereby minimizing the need for long-distance transmission lines that, according to Friedman, can cause energy losses of up to 30%, and carry their own environmental costs, including habitat fragmentation. “It makes a lot of sense to combine renewables with agricultural production”, comments Solano County Farm Bureau president Ryan Mahoney (Rio Vista, CA), adding that the land under existing solar arrays is barren. Solano County already combines wind power with agriculture, including livestock, and crops like barley and wheat. However, the county currently bans commercial solar projects on farmland. “My first reaction was skepticism, but then I encouraged SolAgra to present to the board”, remarks Skip Thomson, a member of the Solano County Board of Supervisors (Fairfield, CA). “If it works, it’ll be great for agriculture and for renewable energy.” 

Cities can be hotspots for at-risk species Ken Ferguson Picture an ecosystem that contains a diverse array of threatened species and chances are you won’t be imagining a cityscape, yet recent research has begun to change the perception of urban areas from that of biodiversity wastelands to potentially vital sites for conservation. Now, scientists in Australia report that urban areas may be more important for the protection of at-risk flora and fauna than previously thought (Global Ecol Biogeogr 2015; doi:10.1111/geb.12404). The researchers mapped the distributions of 1643 federally protected species in Australia and examined the degree of overlap with the 99 largest cities and towns on the continent by breaking the maps down into 1-km 2 grid cells, which were then used to compare species richness between urban and non-urban areas. Remarkably, large proportions of

Can agriculture and solar power coexist? Robin Meadows Conflicts between agriculture and solar industries have intensified in California, as public utilities cover farmland with photovoltaic panels in a rush to meet the state mandate of getting one-third of its energy from renewables by 2020. But there may be a way for crops and solar power to coexist. A new company, SolAgra (Novato, CA), just got the green light to field-test growing crops – including alfalfa, tomatoes, and sorghum – under solar panels in Solano County, California. Led by researchers at the University of California, Davis, the 10-acre (4-hectare) pilot project is slated to begin in early 2016. To make room for tractors, the pilings that support the solar arrays will be on a 40- × 50-foot (12- × 15-meter) grid and will hold the panels 18 feet (5.5 meters) above the ground. “Our goal www.frontiersinecology.org

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The grey-headed flying fox (P poliocephalus) likes to hang out in Australia’s cities.



US capital bans Styrofoam food packaging Katherine Blackwood Expanded polystyrene (aka Styrofoam or EPS) food containers are nearly as ubiquitous in US cities as takeout itself. But this is no longer true in Washington, DC, where a city law, instituted January 1, prohibits restaurants, grocery stores, and other food vendors from distributing food in the lightweight insulating material. Foods packaged outside DC, such as eggs, raw meat, and seafood, are exempt from the new regulations. The DC Council passed the ban as part of the Sustainable DC Omni bus Amendment Act of 2014, which met with relatively little resistance from food distributers, manufacturers, and recyclers. In fact, most members of the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington (RAMW) had already decided “to integrate other, more sustai nable products in their busi-

ness operations”, according to RAMW President Kathy Hollinger (Washington, DC). DC joins cities such as Seattle, Portland, and New York in banning EPS within the food service industry, although the New York ban was overturned by a judge in September 2015, following a suit filed by the Restaurant Action Alliance and several manufacturers and recyclers. While no major cities have successfully implemented recycling programs for used EPS food containers, the judge ruled that New York’s sanitation department had yet to explore all feasible recycling options. Curbside collection services tend to exclude EPS from single-stream recycling because of its bulk and brittleness, which causes it to break apart, contaminating post-consumer products. Dedicated EPS recycling operations use machines known as densifiers to compress EPS into polystyrene commodities such as picture frames. However, with the exception

of a few specific metals, recycling usually isn’t profitable without subsidies, according to Craig Benson, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA). This is especially true of used food packaging, which must be thoroughly cleaned, unlike the foam packing commonly used to ship fragile items. Benson believes that lawmakers and the public should take a holistic approach to making packaging sustainable.“In many cases we haven’t looked at the whole life cycle and really understood what the more sustainable option is”, he admits. Although EPS takes hundreds of years to degrade in landfills or the ocean, it is lighter than alternatives such as cardboard and compostable containers, so transporting EPS leaves a smaller carbon footprint. Nevertheless, if DC’s ban has the intended effect, EPS pollution will begin to leave a smaller footprint in the District’s streets, parks, and rivers. 

Artists transform plastic trash into treasure What began as a bad dream could inspire students to tackle the plastic pollution problem. Artist Aurora Robson describes the subject of her recurring childhood nightmares as “a never-ending, looping knot that continued in every direction, with blobs emerging from the blank spaces that threatened to suffocate me”. With that image in mind, and using plastic trash taken from waterways, she creates elaborate, colorful sculptures that stretch across rooms, cascade down from ceilings, and – she hopes – change people’s perspective on waste. “I wanted to transform my nightmares into something uplifting”, she explains. Robson describes plastic pollution as a “global nightmare”, and is expanding her efforts to confront the problem by addressing it in university art programs. She has © The Ecological Society of America

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Aurora Robson used plastic trash to create this piece, entitled Plant Perception.

designed a college course, “Sculpture + Intercepting the Waste Stream”, in which students forage for plastic waste in and along local waterways and use it as source material for three-dimensional sculpture projects. The sculptures are then presented and auctioned in a public art venue, with the proceeds donated to local cleanup organizations that are caring for the body of water from which the source material was collected. Robson first taught the course in 2013 at Mary Baldwin College (Staunton, VA) to 17 students; they sold every piece and raised over $1000.

Robson’s not-for-profit organization, Project Vortex (Chester, NY), operates under the same principle; it is a collaboration among artists, designers, and architects who intercept plastic from the waste stream and transform it into art. Proceeds from the sale of these professional pieces also fund local cleanup organizations. Robson envisions this concept implemented at universities across the world, seeing it as a way to consistently remove waste from rivers and other waterways, increase awareness of the plastic pollution problem, and raise funds for organizations working on the issue. “We can change our relationship with plastic waste by realizing that it is merely displaced abundance. The impulse to make art is the opposite of the impulse to throw something away”, she points out. Course information is available from the Project Vortex website (www.projectvortex.org).  www.frontiersinecology.org

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living, white and yellow microbial mats in several caves in Hawaii, Canada, New Mexico, Portugal, and Spain. The researchers identified several entire orders of Actinobacteria new to science, and found little overlap in the genomes of bacteria between the different sites, suggesting that volcanic caves are repositories of novel and rare bacterial species. “When we look at secondary mineral deposits in caves that cavers have such fun names for – popcorn, soda straws, moon milk – we have this question: how do they make ends meet as a bacterium, as a living organism?”, asks Naowarat Cheeptham (Thompson Rivers University,

Kamloops, Canada), a co-author of the study. “We found that the majority of minerals used by these bacteria [contain] magnesium and calcium, but also lead and other heavy metals in some cases. We have been taught that these materials are actually toxic to cells, so how do [the Actinobacteria] not only survive but thrive in these caves? How do they [manage] there in terms of energy extraction?” The study used scanning electron microscopy to closely examine the bacteria in cave-wall mats and found that they form a number of shapes that optimize water condensation. Mineral formations surrounding the bacteria showed evidence of both erosion (rock weathering) and deposition (precipitates associated with bacterial metabolism). Similar volcanic minerals and liquid water were recently observed on Mars by astronomers. “The more we learn about the life processes of such organisms here on Earth, the more we can stretch our imaginations to be able to detect and interpret similar features on other planets”, concludes Boston. 

sumes mostly plants and the other more hard-shelled prey – as well as teeth from the Atlantic wolffish (Anarhichas lupus), which feed almost exclusively on hard-shelled creatures such as lobsters. They looked at the teeth using high-resolution 3D surface-scanning microscopes. “The hard diets cause more damage to the tooth surface, so microscopically the tooth surface tends to be much rougher looking and craggier”, says lead author Mark Purnell. The researchers then used the microwear patterns to predict diets in a number of African cichlids (Astatoreochromis alluaudi) – a group of fish with diverse eating habits – including lab specimens raised on soft foods. “Most fish are opportunists and there tends to be a bit of a mismatch between what they are best adapted

to eat and what they generally consume”, explains Purnell. “In the context of fossils, if all you have is tooth and jaw morphology, then you can’t really consider how diet might be driving evolutionary patterns without getting into a circular argument. If you’ve got an independent way of investigating diet, you can test more hypotheses linking dietary change to morphological change.” Fish can be useful study subjects because (in contrast with other animals) they don’t employ digestive strategies that involve enamel-eroding enzymes in the mouth – something that could alter 3D microwear results. While the study technique can currently be used to predict only broad diet categories in fish (eg hard versus soft prey), the researchers hope that further research will lead to a more sophisticated understanding of fish diets. 

Volcanic caves contain mineral-munching microbes Meghan Miner Volcanic caves and lava tubes can host unique bacteria that are able to metabolize minerals, and that leave behind evidence of their presence long after they’ve gone. Understanding and identifying these bacteria – and their biosignatures – may help researchers to identify structures that could indicate the presence of life on other planets. An international team of microbiologists recently undertook the most extensive study of volcanic cave dwelling Actinobacteria to date (Front Microbiol 2015; doi:10.3389/ fmicb.2015.01342). “Actinobacteria are marvelously well adapted to very low-nutrient conditions and thrive in many types of caves”, says Penelope Boston, the Director of Cave and Karst Studies at New Mexico Tech (Socorro, NM), who was not involved in the study. The new research included samples from

Chipped fish teeth provide new view of ancient diets Meghan Miner As the first point of contact with food, teeth can retain records of diet. Studies of microwear in dentition have helped researchers uncover the eating patterns of ancient land mammals and even humans, but only recently has a study confirmed that the tiny pits and scratches on a tooth’s surface can be a reliable method of determining diet across a variety of fish species (Surf Topogr Metrol Prop 2015; doi:10.1088/2051672X/4/1/014006). Researchers from the University of Leicester (Leicester, UK) took teeth from fish in two present-day populations of sheepshead seabream (Archosargus probatocephalus) with different diets – one group con-

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Scientists explore a large volcanic cave in Hawaii.
