The 69-year-old was about halfway up the rocky slope of Lone Mountain Friday afternoon when he was attacked by the swarm. He figured some stings wouldn’t kill him, but a fall down the mountain might, so he continued to march toward the ridge.

“The bees were in my ears. They were in my nose. They were in my mouth,” he said Tuesday as he recounted his ordeal from the parking lot of Lone Mountain Park, at the west end of Craig Road. “I was in a hell of a mess.”

Watson never got a good count, but rescuers estimate he was stung more than 300 times.

By the time he reached the top of the mountain, the bees had stopped chasing him. He sat down on the rock, dizzy with exhaustion, and was discovered a short time later by some other hikers who called 911.

Watson was plucked from the top of the ridge by a rescue helicopter and spent the next two days at Centennial Hills Hospital.

Las Vegas Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski suspects the man probably stumbled onto a colony, prompting the bees to defend their turf.

“If you go into a hive, it’s equivalent to a home invasion to humans,” he said.

According to Szymanski, the fire department has seen more bee-related calls this year than it has in the past six or seven years, though the reason for the increase is unclear.

On Saturday, a playoff softball game between Centennial and Palo Verde was interrupted when a swarm of bees invaded right field.

Last month, two landscapers wound up in the hospital after they disturbed a bee hive inside the trunk of a tree. The agitated swarm prompted police to temporarily close off part of a neighborhood north of McCarran International Airport.

But state entomologist Jeff Knight insists there has been no significant increase in bee-related incidents across Nevada; reports of bee activity simply peak in spring and early summer because “people see them more.” This is, after all, when bee colonies tend to split, sending swarms out in search of new homes.

Szymanski said the city has fielded several previous calls about bees in the Lone Mountain area, but that’s certainly not the only place where bees are found.

“You need to be aware anywhere. You need to be aware at home,” he said.

Hikers, runners or anyone who spends a lot of time outdoors should consider carrying a bonnet or handkerchief that can be used as a “sting shield” in the event of an attack, Szymanski said.

Bees tend to hone in on the carbon dioxide we exhale, which is why people who are attacked by swarms are generally stung on the face, neck and shoulders, he said.

Szymanski said you should seek medical attention if you get stung more than 10 times or have an allergy to bee stings.

“If you’re allergic, you will know within five minutes, and it’s a life-threatening situation,” he said.

Knight’s advice: If you see a swarm, stay away from it. And if you get attacked, run away as fast as you can. The bees should give up the chase after a quarter mile or so.

He went on to note that there has never been a fatal bee attack in Nevada – at least not a human fatality.

Watson said he had never been stung by a bee before Friday.

“Whatever I did on that mountain to anger those bees, I want to apologize to them,” he said with a laugh.

Watson turns 70 in a few weeks. He swims and hikes at least a few times a week to keep fit. He said he has climbed to the top of Lone Mountain at least 10 times since he moved to Las Vegas in late 2007.

The bees were scary, but the Vietnam veteran and career Army man said he never feared for his life. “It never crossed my mind that I wasn’t going to make it.”

His tongue and parts of his face were still numb on Tuesday, causing him to slur his words slightly like someone just back from getting novocaine at the dentist’s office.

But other than some black marks on his hands, swelling around his eyes and small welts on his face, he looked pretty good for a guy who got stung so many times.

He said he’s still a little weak from the ordeal, and the doctors still have him on three different medications, but he hopes to start hiking again soon.

“Now I appreciate the mountain more, and I have a great deal of respect for the honey bee,” Watson said. “There’s a lot going on planet Earth, and we’re not the only ones here.” By Henry Brean, Review Journal

The amazing insect, known as a gynandromorph, stunned scientists after it emerged from its chrysalis with a pink wing on its male side and a white wing on its female side.

Half male, half female, it is one of nature’s rarest phenomena with only 0.01 per cent of hatching butterflies being born as gynandromorph

Half male, half female, it is one of nature’s rarest phenomena with only 0.01 per cent of hatching butterflies being born as gynandromorph

It is one of natures rarest phenomena with only 0.01 per cent of hatching butterflies being born as gynandromorph.

The creature hatched at the Butterfly World Project in Chiswell Green, Hertfordshire, and was spotted by an eagle-eyed youngster on a school trip.

Its condition is caused when the sex chromosomes fail to separate during fertilization.

The butterfly in question – a Papilio rumanzovia, also known as Scarlet Mormon – with the sex division occurring straight down the middle of the abdomen.

Louise Hawkins, Butterfly World’s chief lepidopterist said: ‘I feel very privileged to have witnessed such a rare phenomenon here at Butterfly World, especially fairly early in my career.

‘Many lepidopterists will go their whole career without ever seeing a gynandromorph. I am very lucky.’

Sadly the butterfly was born without a fully formed proboscis, feeding tube, and has since died but the creature will be preserved for future study. By Rob Waugh, The Daily Mail

In its second National Communication on Climate Change to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, India has painted a grim picture of the impact of climate change. Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan published the report Wednesday.

The report assesses that 45 per cent of the country’s forest grids will undergo changes thanks to climate change. In the report, a digital forest map of the country was used to determine spatial location of all the forested areas. This map was based on a high-resolution mapping, wherein the entire area of India was divided into over 165,000 grids. Out of these, 35,899 grids were marked as forested grids — along with the forest density and forest types.

Vulnerability assessment showed that the sensitive forested grids are spread across India. “However, their concentration is higher in the Upper Himalayan stretches, parts of Central India, northern Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats,” said the report prepared by the Environment Ministry.

Similarly, a one-degree-Celsius increase in temperature associated with increase in carbondioxide in atmosphere could hit wheat production in India unless “adaptation” strategies are adopted, the report said.

The report argued that in the absence of adaptation and CO2 fertilisation benefits, a one degree Celsius rise in temperature alone could lead to a decrease of six million tonnes of wheat production. Indian Express

Researchers found in long-term studies that some are flowering up to eight times faster than models anticipate.

The authors say that poor study design and a lack of investment in experiments partly account for the difference.

They suggest that spring flowering and leafing will continue to advance at the rate of 5 to 6 days per year for every degree celsius of warming.

The results are published in the journal Nature.

For more than 20 years, scientists have been carrying out experiments to mimic the impacts of rising temperatures on the first leafing and flowering of plant species around the world.

Researchers had assumed that plants would respond in essentially the same way to experimental warming with lamps and open top chambers as they would to changes in temperatures in the real world.

Very little has been done to test the assumption until this study lead by Dr Elizabeth Wolkovich, who is now at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

With her colleagues she studied the timing of the flowering and leafing of plants in observational studies and warming experiments spanning four continents and 1,634 plant species.

According to Dr Wolkovich, the results were a surprise.

“What we found is that the experiments don’t line up with the long term data, and in fact they greatly underestimate how much plants change their leafing and flowering with warming,” she said.

“So for models based on experimental data, then we would expect that plants are leafing four times faster and flowering eight times faster in the long term historical record than what we’re using in some of the models.”

‘Consistent message’

Observational data have been gathered by scientific bodies for many years. In the UK, the systematic recording of flowering times dates back to 1875, when the Royal Meteorological Society established a national network of observers.

Since then, data has also been recorded by full-time biologists and part-time enthusiasts, and in recent years there have been mass-participation projects such as BBC Springwatch.

This new research suggests that these observations of flowering and leafing carried out in many different parts of the world over the past thirty years are remarkably similar according to Dr Wolkovich.

“In terms of long term observations, the records are very coherent and very consistent and they suggest for every degree celsius of warming we get we are going to get a five- to six-day change in how plants leaf and flower.”

She argues that the difficulties in mimicking the impacts of nature in an artificial setting are much greater than many scientists estimate. The team found that in some cases the use of warming chambers to artificially raise temperatures can sometimes have the opposite effect.

Asters in Joshua Tree National Park, US National and international citizen scientist efforts will help provide much more data to resolve the question

“In the real world, we don’t just see changes in temperature – we see changes in precipitation and cloud patterns and other factors – so certainly when you think about replicating changes in clouds, we are very, very far away from being able to do that.

“I guess we will never get to perfectly match nature, but I am hopeful as scientists we can do much, much better, given funding resources.”

The team found that the greater investment in the design and monitoring of experiments, the more accurate the result.

“We have a very consistent message from the long-term historical records about how plants are changing, but we need to think more critically about how we fund and invest in and really design experiments,” said Dr Wolkovich.

“We do need them in the future, they are the best way going forward to project how species are changing but right now what we’re doing isn’t working as well as I think it could.”

Other researchers were equally surprised by the results.

Dr This Rutishauser is at the Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He says that in light of this work scientists will have to rethink the impacts of global warming.

“The bottom line is that the impacts might be bigger than we have believed until now. That’s going to provoke a lot of work to probably revise modelling results for estimations of what’s going to happen in the future for food production especially.”

Dr Wolkovich agrees that if the models are so significantly underestimating the real world observations, there could be also be impacts on water the world over.

“If a whole plant community starts growing a week earlier than we expect according to these experiments, it’s going to take up a lot more water over the growing season and if you add to that many years of the model projections, you are going to see big changes in the water supply.”

She appeals to people to get involved in citizen science projects and help gather data on flowering and leafing, especially in remote areas.

The National Phenology Network in the US logged its millionth observation this week, and similar programmes are underway in the UK, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, and a pan-European database is under development.

“We have very few monitoring networks. We need many, many people out there observing this because it is changing faster and across more habitats than we are currently measuring – we need more help!” By Matt McGrath, BBC News

But exactly how people and large mammals like chimpanzees should live together long-term in shared landscapes remains largely unresolved.

UK researchers surveyed 134 people in 12 villages across the Hoima District of Uganda to understand how they felt about sharing the region with chimps. The landscape is a mosaic of farmland and unprotected forest fragments.

‘If we’re going to peacefully co-exist with wildlife, we need to understand local perspectives and concerns about wildlife,’ says Dr Matthew McLennan from Oxford Brookes University, lead author of the study.

McLennan and his colleague Dr Catherine Hill, also from Oxford Brookes University, found that relations between farmers and chimpanzees have deteriorated in recent years. In particular, since farmers have burned, cleared and logged unprotected forests in Uganda, this has forced local chimpanzees into conflict with farmers and local residents.

Residents claim the apes have become much more brazen as a result. They say chimps are now threatening people of all ages, going into villages to look for food, and raiding so-called cash crops. These include crops like sugarcane, cocoa and banana, on which local livelihoods often depend.

A large majority of interviewees – 86 per cent – said they thought chimpanzee numbers have increased in recent years. But the authors point out that this belief could simply reflect their growing visibility in an increasingly fragmented and deforested landscape.

Nearly three-quarters of the residents interviewed said they think chimps are dangerous, and 73 per cent said they are afraid of them. Women were much more likely than men to say chimps are dangerous, which is reflected in their greater tendency to threaten women and children.

‘Where potentially dangerous wildlife no longer have sufficient habitat, and are forced into close proximity and competition with people, we may ask whether it is appropriate to promote coexistence,’ write the researchers in their report, published in Journal for Nature Conservation.

Yet inaction is likely to put even greater pressure on the endangered chimp. Scientists estimate there are just 170,000 to 300,000 individuals left in the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa.

While chimpanzees aren’t hunted for bushmeat in Uganda – as they are elsewhere in Africa – rapidly expanding human populations are fast converting prime chimp habitat to farmland.

‘Most chimps outside protected areas will disappear in the next decade, which is mirrored across Africa. They won’t survive unless urgent steps are taken to address the degradation and conversion of their habitats,’ says McLennan. ‘But the legislation to protect these forests just isn’t there.’

‘And if we want villagers to continue sharing their environment with chimpanzees, the benefits have to considerably outweigh the risks.’

In Uganda, chimps aren’t particularly valued. ‘People don’t think about the animals; inevitably they’re much more concerned about their livelihoods,’ explains McLennan.

Forest peppered with farmland

From the villagers’ perspective, if chimps are to co-exist peacefully with people in places where forest is peppered with farmland, three key conditions may have to be met: chimps shouldn’t eat crops on which livelihoods depend, like maize and cassava; they must stay inside forests and not bother people; and people will need to make money from the apes through initiatives like ecotourism.

‘There are real problems with all of these conditions,’ says McLennan.

‘Chimps raid maize and cassava in other areas of Africa, so those that don’t eat these crops in Uganda could easily turn to them. Converting chimp habitat to farmland will inevitably cause chimps to look for food in that farmland. And promoting eco-tourism where apes live close to people doesn’t tend to work, because wild animals get habituated to people, which can exacerbate attacks on the local residents,’ he adds.

Conservation organisations are exploring other ways to protect chimps while keeping the locals happy.

But conserving chimps in human-dominated landscapes increasingly demands that rural farmers tolerate a big, potentially dangerous mammal which may threaten their livelihoods, and which they may fear.

‘In reality, if this was happening in England, there’s no way we’d tolerate these animals walking into our houses. Why should we expect impoverished, rural farmers to put up with such troublesome neighbours?’ says McLennan.

‘Maybe the only solution is to catch the situation before it gets to that point,’ he adds. PhysOrg

Connect the Dots recognises the record-breaking heat waves in Russia, wildfires in Australia, and floods in Thailand cannot be looked at in isolation. With every new record-breaking natural disaster, it becomes increasingly clear that climate change is not a future problem — it is happening right now. It’s time to connect the dots.

“We can no longer ignore these severe and increasing weather events happening not only in other places in the world but here in our own backyard,” says 350 Aotearoa Regional Coordinator, Justin Ford-Robertson.

From “dots” fighting off sea level rise in our major cities using metaphoric human and umbrella seawalls to dots recognising destruction from a ‘1 in 500 year flooding’, New Zealand dots will be among the first of thousands across the globe and we are set to lead the way.

With New Zealand’s close proximity and relationships with Islands across the Pacific, we are close enough to know they too, possibly more than most, are feeling the brunt of climate change – and seeing it too. From the erosion of beaches, the bleaching of coral reefs, sinking islands becoming more vulnerable to rising sea levels, extreme events including hurricanes, and floods, their environments are changing.

“We have had our share of extreme weather events too including shoreline and river erosion, flooding and slips and increasingly severe storms, even tornados. It is likely these events will happen more often especially considering the impacts of sea level rise,” says Ford-Robertson.

“So, we are all standing together, with our dots, along with people across New Zealand, the Pacific and across the world.”

“We will be first to launch Connect the Dots, so let’s be among the first to make the link between extreme weather events and climate changes, since in this our Pacific and home region, the connection is obvious.”

“We owe it not only to our children, but to ourselves as well.” Scoop

Sonia Arora, an assistant professor at Kean University in New Jersey, is delving into understanding the curative properties of the neem tree in fighting the virus that causes AIDS.

Her preliminary results seem to indicate that there are compounds in neem extracts that target a protein essential for HIV to replicate. If further studies support her findings, Arora’s work may give clinicians and drug developers a new HIV-AIDS therapy to pursue.

Extracts from neem leaves, bark and flowers are used throughout the Indian subcontinent to fight against pathogenic bacteria and fungi.

“The farther you go into the villages of India, the more uses of neem you see,” said Arora.

Tree branches are used instead of toothpaste and toothbrushes to keep teeth and gums healthy, and neem extracts are used to control the spread of malaria.

Practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine, a form of traditional Indian alternative medicine, even prescribe neem extracts, in combination with other herbs, to treat cardiovascular diseases and control diabetes. The neem tree, whose species name is Azadirachta indica and which belongs to the mahogany family, also grows in east Africa.

Arora’s scientific training gave her expertise in the cellular biology of cancer, pharmacology, bioinformatics and structural biology.

When she established her laboratory with a new research direction at Kean University in 2008, Arora decided to combine her knowledge with her long-time fascination with natural products. The neem tree beckoned.

Arora dived into the scientific literature to see what was known about neem extracts. During the course of her reading, Arora stumbled across two reports that showed that when HIV-AIDS patients in Nigeria and India were given neem extracts, the amount of HIV particles in their blood dropped.

Intrigued, Arora decided to see if she could figure out what was in the neem extract that seemed to fight off the virus.

She turned to bioinformatics and structural biology to see what insights could be gleaned from making computer models of HIV proteins with compounds known to be in neem extracts.

From the literature, she and her students found 20 compounds present in various types of neem extracts. When they modelled these compounds against the proteins critical for the HIV life-cycle, Arora and her team discovered that most of the neem compounds attacked the HIV protease, a protein essential for making new copies of the virus.

Arora’s group is now working on test-tube experiments to see if the computer models hold up with actual samples.

If her work bears out, Arora is hopeful that the neem tree will give a cheaper and more accessible way to fight the HIV-AIDS epidemic in developing countries, where current therapies are priced at levels out of reach of many people.

“And, of course,” she noted, “there is the potential of discovering new drugs based on the molecules present in neem.” Newstrack India

They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface.

The team have produced the most detailed map yet of the scale and potential of this hidden resource.

Writing in the journal Environmental Research Letters, they stress that large scale drilling might not be the best way of increasing water supplies.

Across Africa more than 300 million people are said not to have access to safe drinking water.

Demand for water is set to grow markedly in coming decades due to population growth and the need for irrigation to grow crops.

Freshwater rivers and lakes are subject to seasonal floods and droughts that can limit their availability for people and for agriculture. At present only 5% of arable land is irrigated.

Now scientists have for the first time been able to carry out a continent-wide analysis of the water that is hidden under the surface in aquifers. Researchers from the British Geological Survey and University College London (UCL) have mapped in detail the amount and potential yield of this groundwater resource across the continent.

Helen Bonsor from the BGS is one of the authors of the paper. She says that up until now groundwater was out of sight and out of mind. She hopes the new maps will open people’s eyes to the potential.

“Where there’s greatest ground water storage is in northern Africa, in the large sedimentary basins, in Libya, Algeria and Chad,” she said.

“The amount of storage in those basins is equivalent to 75m thickness of water across that area – it’s a huge amount.”

Ancient events

Due to changes in climate that have turned the Sahara into a desert over centuries many of the aquifers underneath were last filled with water over 5,000 years ago.

The scientists collated their information from existing hydro-geological maps from national governments as well as 283 aquifer studies.

The researchers say their new maps indicate that many countries currently designated as “water scarce” have substantial groundwater reserves.

However, the scientists are cautious about the best way of accessing these hidden resources. They suggest that widespread drilling of large boreholes might not work.

Dr Alan MacDonald of the BGS, lead author of the study, told the BBC: “High-yielding boreholes should not be developed without a thorough understanding of the local groundwater conditions.

“Appropriately sited and developed boreholes for low yielding rural water supply and hand pumps are likely to be successful.”

With many aquifers not being filled due to a lack of rain, the scientists are worried that large-scale borehole developments could rapidly deplete the resource.

According to Helen Bonsor, sometimes the slower means of extraction can be more efficient.

“Much lower storage aquifers are present across much of sub-Saharan Africa,” she explained.

“However, our work shows that with careful exploring and construction, there is sufficient groundwater under Africa to support low yielding water supplies for drinking and community irrigation.”

The scientists say that there are sufficient reserves to be able to cope with the vagaries of climate change.

“Even in the lowest storage aquifers in semi arid areas with currently very little rainfall, ground water is indicated to have a residence time in the ground of 20 to 70 years.” Dr Bonsor said.

“So at present extraction rates for drinking and small scale irrigation for agriculture groundwater will provide and will continue to provide a buffer to climate variability.”

The publication of the new map was welcomed by the UK’s secretary of state for international development, Andrew Mitchell.

“This is an important discovery,” he said. “This research, which the British Government has funded, could have a profound effect on some of the world’s poorest people, helping them become less vulnerable to drought and to adapt to the impact of climate change.”  By Matt McGrath, BBC News

But you don’t have to depend on a wing and a prayer.

You can improve your lepidopterous popularity by serving up a smorgasbord of plants that appeal to these insects’ finicky tastes.

“If you want to create a habitat for butterflies you need to provide plants for the caterpillars and plants for the adult butterflies as well,” says Lila Higgins, who oversees the Butterfly Pavilion open through Sept. 3 at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “And you have to be fairly specific if you want the entire life cycle of a butterfly supported in your yard.”

The key is growing the right host plant for the desired butterfly in a warm, sunny spot.

Nearly every species of butterfly lays its eggs on a preferred plant that will later support and provide food for its hatched caterpillars. There are numerous sources available to help butterfly gardeners pair host plant and butterfly species.

Just click from Activities and Programs to Community Science to the Los Angeles Butterfly Survey. Under the Helping Butterflies link, you’ll learn Red Admirals host on stinging nettles; Giant Swallowtails prefer citrus trees; Mourning Cloaks seek out willows; Painted Ladies are attracted to lupine; Monarch butterflies flock to milkweed.

It happens all the time at the home of Susie Baskin Vanderlip, a Long Beach native who was recovering from a ruptured appendix two years ago when she began noticing the brilliant black-and-white-banded Monarch caterpillars gorging on a red and yellow flowering plant.

“I love gardening, and I have all kinds of plants in my yard and in containers on my deck, so I must have chosen this plant for its color not knowing that it’s the host plant for the Monarch butterfly,” she says. “If you stick a milkweed in your garden in a sunny spot the butterflies will find it.

“They’re amazing.”

Vanderlip has since created a Monarch wildlife habitat in her condominium complex in Orange and produced a children’s educational DVD and companion storybook titled “The Story of Chester” — www.storyofchester.com — based on photos and video clips of a Monarch going through metamorphosis. It’s used in second-grade classrooms in two Orange County school districts and sold in the gift shop at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana.

The story goes: Chester eats, grows and transforms into a chrysalis before emerging all orange and black wings.

The rules are less specific when it comes to

providing the adult with colorful blooms for food. While some butterflies sip nectar from flowers, others, like the Mourning Cloak, feed on rotting fruit.

Mud puddles are another delicacy.

“A lot of male butterflies will go to the edge of puddles and sip the water because it has amino acids, salt and nitrogen that they don’t get from nectar,” Higgins says. “The way butterflies reproduce is they produce this little packet that contains the sperm and these nutrients, and that gets passed to the female who then will be able to fertilize her egg and use those nutrients for the development of the egg.”

With careful planning, Southern California gardeners will have butterflies – egg to larva, pupa to adult – year-round.

“If you’re going to butterfly garden, I would recommend you plant a decent-size area with host and nectar plants,” Higgins adds. “Your nectar plants will attract the adult butterflies and hopefully they’ll stay around, mate and continue the life cycle.” By Sandra Barrera, LA Daily News

According to the new research results, plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but then begin to deteriorate quickly.

“We were really surprised by the pattern, where the initial boost in growth just went away,” Zhuoting Wu, lead author of the study from Northern Arizona University (NAU), said.

“As ecosystems adjusted, the responses changed,” Wu said.

For the study, ecologists subjected four grassland ecosystems to simulated climate change during a decade-long study.

Plants grew more the first year in the global warming treatment, but this effect progressively diminished over the next nine years and finally disappeared.

The research shows the long-term effects of global warming on plant growth, on the plant species that make up a community, and on changes in how plants use or retain essential resources like nitrogen.

“The plants and animals around us repeatedly serve up surprises,” Saran Twombly, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)””s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research, said.

“These results show that we miss these surprises because we don’t study natural communities over the right time scales. For plant communities in Arizona, it took researchers 10 years to find that responses of native plant communities to warmer temperatures were the opposite of those predicted,” Twombly said.

The team transplanted four grassland ecosystems from a higher to lower elevation to simulate a future warmer environment, and coupled the warming with the range of predicted changes in precipitation–more, the same, or less.

The grasslands studied were typical of those found in northern Arizona along elevation gradients from the San Francisco Peaks down to the Great Basin Desert.

The researchers found that long-term warming resulted in loss of native species and encroachment of species typical of warmer environments, ultimately pushing the plant community toward less productive species.

The warmed grasslands also cycled nitrogen more rapidly. This should make more nitrogen available to plants, scientists believed, helping plants grow more. But instead much of the nitrogen was lost, converted to nitrogen gases in the atmosphere or leached out by rainfall washing through the soil.

Bruce Hungate, senior author of the paper and an ecologist at NAU, said the study challenges the expectation that warming will increase nitrogen availability and cause a sustained increase in plant productivity.

“Faster nitrogen turnover stimulated nitrogen losses, likely reducing the effect of warming on plant growth,” Hungate said.

“More generally, changes in species, changes in element cycles–these really make a difference. It’s classic systems ecology: the initial responses elicit knock-on effects, which here came back to bite the plants. These ecosystem feedbacks are critical–you can’t figure this out with plants grown in a greenhouse,” he added. The Siasat Daily