USDA, DOE & NSF Agree to Joint Climate Change Prediction Research Program (Mar 22, 2010)
U.S. Department of Agriculture.
USDA, DOE, and NSF created a joint research program that designates nearly $50 million to develop climate system models that provide insights on climate variability and impacts on ecosystems. USDA will support research to develop climate models that can be linked to crop, forestry, aquaculture and livestock models to assess the adequacy of potential outcomes of risk management strategies so that development and yields can be projected reliably at different spatial and temporal scales.

From International Harbor to Native Habitat: Detecting Exotic Pests Before Forest and Agricultural Invasion (Mar 16, 2010)
Ecological Society of America.
Plant pests like the fire ant cost the U.S. an estimated $37.1 billion per year in agricultural and forest ecosystem losses. Researchers propose that since these pests primarily enter the country through international hubs and spread to nearby ecosystems, the early detection of exotic pests should start at the most vulnerable urban areas. Public participation in monitoring efforts will perhaps be the most economic and efficient solution for the early detection of exotic pests.

Secretary Salazar Releases New "State of the Birds" Report Showing Climate Change Threatens Hundreds of Species (Mar 11, 2010)
Department of the Interior.
Climate change threatens to further imperil hundreds of species of migratory birds, already under stress from habitat loss, invasive species and other environmental threats, a new report, State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change concludes.

Hidden Habits and Movements of Insect Pests Revealed by DNA Barcoding (Mar 9, 2010)
University of Minnesota. University of Minnesota researchers have found a faster way to study the spread and diet of insect pests, using a technique called DNA barcoding, which involves the identification of species from a short DNA sequence. DNA barcoding can play an important role in studying the arrival of invasive species, by pinpointing the geographic source of an invading species and measuring the distances over which pest species can travel.

Pesticide Atrazine Can Turn Male Frogs into Females (Mar 1, 2010)
University of California - Berkeley.
Atrazine, one of the world's most widely used pesticides, emasculates three-quarters of adult male frogs, who then cannot reproduce, and turns one in 10 into females, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, biologists. While the experiments were performed on a common laboratory frog, the African clawed frog, field studies indicate that atrazine, a potent endocrine disruptor, similarly affects frogs in the wild, and could possibly be one of the causes of amphibian declines around the globe.