Explore the latest insights from top science journals in the Muser Press daily roundup, featuring impactful research on climate change challenges.
In brief:
Social media can help track species as climate changes
The “range” inhabited by many species is shifting, and this is mostly tracked by formal monitoring schemes and surveys – but these methods may struggle to spot rapid changes, and sometimes overlook urban areas.
The new study – led by the University of Exeter and published in Ecology and Evolution – examined posts about Jersey tiger moths on Instagram and Flickr.
Instagram posts revealed that the moths are unexpectedly common in towns and cities, and – more importantly – the findings demonstrate how social media can be used to monitor our fast-changing natural world.
“Wildlife surveys tend to be done in rural areas, so their information doesn’t always reflect the vital importance of towns and cities,” said Nile Stephenson, who led the study during a masters in Evolution, Behaviour and Ecology at Exeter. “Urban parks and gardens provide diverse habitats where species like the Jersey tiger moth can thrive. By accounting for biases and gaps in the data, we have developed a method that could be widely used to track many species – especially those that share our urban environments.”
Jersey tiger moths are found across much of Europe, and the researchers scoured social media for posts about them.
“Our study shows that plenty of people in towns and cities are interested in wildlife, which has the potential to increase connectedness to nature,” said Stephenson, now at the University of Cambridge. “We also found some people who are very interested in wildlife and photography, who post images of a wide range of wildlife they see. This provides reservoirs of data that scientists can use.”
Stephenson said the public can also help by posting in places such as iNaturalist and iRecord, as information from these is already used in research.
The team highlighted limitations of using social media, saying it can only be used to complement – not replace – traditional monitoring.
“Because social media is so prone to trends, we would expect to see bias – such as more sightings of species that are being widely talked about,” Stephenson said. “However, we can turn that into a positive. For example, we could improve monitoring of invasive species by making trends around recording sightings.”
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The study was funded by Research England.
Journal Reference:
Stephenson, N., Pettorelli, N. and Early, R., ‘Occupancy of Urban Habitats by the Jersey Tiger Moth Is Revealed by Social Media Data but Not Traditional Monitoring’, Ecology and Evolution 15: e71086 (2025). DOI: 10.1002/ece3.71086
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by University of Exeter
Advancing sorghum science: drought-resilient crop for Spain’s agricultural future
In a series of three recent studies, a team led by CSIC researcher at CRAG Ana I. Caño-Delgado have made significant progress in understanding the molecular mechanisms and improving the breeding of sorghum, the world’s fifth most cultivated cereal, which is particularly important in arid and semi-arid regions. The importance of this cereal lies in its role in the future of human and animal nutrition, providing a sustainable alternative for areas facing water scarcity.
Sorghum’s growing importance
Sorghum is increasingly recognised as a staple food in many parts of the world, including outside Africa where it has been cultivated for centuries, due to its multiple nutritional benefits and resistance to adverse climatic conditions. In Europe, sorghum cultivation is on the rise and is being promoted as an alternative for crop rotation especially in regions prone to water scarcity. The European Union is actively promoting sorghum cultivation as a climate-resilient crop, with a 57% increase in total sorghum production during the last decade.
France, in particular, is at the forefront of this trend with 103.000 hectares dedicated to grain sorghum cultivation last year. Meanwhile Spain is a major importer of sorghum in Europe, mainly for animal feed but with prospects for human food in the future. In 2020, 158.000 tonnes were imported into Spain, so an increase in its cultivation on the territory could reduce dependence on imports. For reference, Spain imported 303.000 tonnes of barley in the last six months, making it the third most imported crop.
CRAG’s scientific contributions
CRAG’s research efforts are at the vanguard of advancing sorghum science, focusing on improving, even further, its adaptability to stress conditions and enhancing its handling in the laboratory for future breeding processes. For the last 20 years, the research group led by Ana I. Caño-Delgado has been dedicated to the study of this cereal and has received numerous grants, including an ERC PoC from the European Research Council (ERC).
In the last six months, the group has published three scientific articles of great importance to the sector.
In the first1 of these three studies, published in the Plant Biotechnology Journal, the research team identified that mutations in the protein Sorghum bicolor brassinosteroid receptor, SbBRI1, confer drought tolerance by altering phenylpropanoid metabolism. This finding highlights a molecular mechanism for enhancing drought resistance in sorghum, a critical trait for climate-resilient agriculture.
A second work2, published in The Plant Journal, detailed a significant advancement in sorghum biotechnology: an efficient sorghum transformation method using a ternary vector system combined with morphogenic regulators. Previous tools and methods were not effective enough for studying certain varieties of sorghum, posing a significant challenge for scientists and breeders.
This new protocol solves this problem by allowing for highly efficient transformation using Agrobacterium tumefaciens and enables the application of new breeding techniques like gene editing to accelerate crop improvement. This technology provides a useful tool for creating and studying mutants of interest with a very high efficiency in the transformation of recalcitrant sorghum (varieties that are resistant to genetic transformation), reaching 2-fold increase of the transformation efficiency.
Juan B. Fontanet-Manzaneque, lead author of both studies, underscored the significance of these breakthroughs in sorghum cultivation: “Our goal was to equip the sorghum community with not only cutting-edge molecular tools to accelerate sorghum breeding but also some key target genes essential for developing drought-resistant crops.”
The third study3, which is published in New Phytologist, characterizes the role of SbBRI1 in root development, specifically in the meristem region, linking BRI1 to cell wall metabolism and demonstrating that the sorghum SbBRI1 protein plays functionally conserved roles in plant growth and development. The root development is crucial for the overall growth and health of the plant and plays a role in how the plant responds to environmental stressors.
Andrés Rico-Medina, first author of the study, highlighted the implemented technique: “We adapted the staining and imaging protocols that are used in model plants like Arabidopsis to be useful for studies in Sorghum.” He also noted that: “This adaptation serves to bridge the gap between laboratory-based drought studies and a more agronomic context, thereby facilitating the practical application of these scientific advancements.”
Socio-economic and political implications
Sorghum is increasingly considered as a crucial crop for climate change adaptation due to its tolerance to high temperatures and drought, especially compared to maize, which is the most widely cultivated cereal in Europe and is highly susceptible to water stress. Studies show that the importance of sorghum in Europe is expected to increase because of climate change.
Also, the expansion of sorghum cultivation in Spain could create new economic opportunities for farmers, reducing dependence on imports and boosting local agricultural production. In Catalonia, more than 100.000 tonnes of sorghum were produced in 2023, more than 90% of which was destined for animal feed.
Furthermore, sorghum is a naturally gluten-free cereal, a particularly relevant characteristic in the food industry. Its adaptability and high nutritional value make it a key crop for improving food security. The rising demand for sorghum for human consumption, with an increase by around 6% in demand in 2024, highlights its potential to improve nutrition, especially when research is leading to new varieties of sorghum.
Ana I. Caño-Delgado, leader of the group, said: “This research represents a significant opportunity for CRAG to establish technology transfer projects, to encourage public-private collaboration, and to highlight the excellent work of our researchers”
These three groundbreaking scientific advancements by CRAG’s researchers not only pave the way for more sustainable and productive sorghum cultivation but also mark a critical step forward in addressing global food security and nutrition challenges. Moreover, this finding is relevant for other essential crops such as maize, wheat and rice, because they also contain brassinosteroid signalling pathways. This creates an opportunity for climate-smart agriculture, with more resilient and sustainable varieties.
Journal References:
(1) Juan B. Fontanet-Manzaneque, Natalie Laibach, Iván Herrero-García, Veredas Coleto-Alcudia, David Blasco-Escámez, Chen Zhang, Luis Orduña, Saleh Alseekh, Sara Miller, Nanna Bjarnholt, Alisdair R. Fernie, José Tomás Matus, Ana I. Caño-Delgado, ‘Untargeted mutagenesis of brassinosteroid receptor SbBRI1 confers drought tolerance by altering phenylpropanoid metabolism in Sorghum bicolor’, Plant Biotechnology Journal 22, 12 (2024). DOI: 10.1111/pbi.14461
(2) Juan B. Fontanet-Manzaneque, Jari Haeghebaert, Stijn Aesaert, Griet Coussens, Laurens Pauwels, Ana I. Caño-Delgado, ‘Efficient sorghum and maize transformation using a ternary vector system combined with morphogenic regulators’, The Plant Journal 120, 5 (2025). DOI: 10.1111/tpj.17101
(3) Andrés Rico-Medina, Natalie Laibach, Juan B. Fontanet-Manzaneque, David Blasco-Escámez, Fidel Lozano-Elena, Damiano Martignago, and Ana I. Caño-Delgado, ‘Molecular and physiological characterization of brassinosteroid receptor BRI1 mutants in Sorghum bicolor’, New Phytologist (2025). DOI: 10.1111/nph.20443
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by Center for Research in Agricultural Genomics (CRAG)
No countries on track to meet all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals
A new analysis reveals complex linkages among the United Nations’ (UN’s) 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — which include such objectives as gender equality and quality education — and finds that no country is on track to meet all 17 goals by the target year of 2030.
Alberto García-Rodríguez of Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and colleagues published these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One.
In 2015, UN member countries adopted the Sustainable Development Goals with the aim of achieving “peace and prosperity for people and the planet.” However, setbacks such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and armed conflict have slowed progress, and more research is needed to clarify the underlying obstacles so they can be effectively addressed.
To help deepen understanding, García-Rodríguez and colleagues applied a suite of machine-learning tools to more than 20 years’ worth of continuous data, analyzing aggregated scores derived from 231 UN-designated indicators of progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals for 107 countries, as well as GDP data.
The analysis revealed complex linkages among the goals, with some acting synergistically and others as tradeoffs. For instance, the two goals of climate action and responsible consumption and production appear to support each other, but have a negative correlation with all 15 other goals, suggesting that our current economic system may hamper climate action goals. Meanwhile, the goal of no poverty appears to be synergistic with most other goals.
No country appears to be on track to meet all 17 goals by 2030. However, when countries are grouped according to geographical, cultural, and socioeconomic factors, different groups appear to be making progress on different goals. For instance, African and Asian countries (which have the lowest GDP) have low progress on such goals as no poverty, gender equality, and good health and well-being, but have the best progress on climate action and responsible consumption and production.
On the basis of these results, the researchers call for a new, systemic approach to achieve the 17 goals that is region-specific and accounts for the complex linkages between goals. The findings of this study could help inform such efforts.
The authors add: “It is evident that the current global production and consumption patterns are not aligning well with our climate action goals and seem to negatively impact other Sustainable Development Goals. If we genuinely aspire to a better future, immediate action is necessary.”
Journal Reference:
García-Rodríguez A, Núñez M, Pérez MR, Govezensky T, Barrio RA, Gershenson C, et al., ‘Sustainable visions: unsupervised machine learning insights on global development goals’, PLoS ONE 20 (3): e0317412 (2025). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0317412
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by PLOS
Arctic sea ice loss drives drier weather over California and wetter over Spain and Portugal
A study led by researchers from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the “la Caixa” Foundation, has used a novel approach to unravel the influence of the loss of Arctic sea ice on the planet’s climate, isolating it from other factors related to climate change.
The study, published in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, shows that on decadal timescales, the loss of Arctic ice favours the climate of the south-west of the United States – and California in particular – becoming drier on average, especially in winter. This phenomenon would also affect the climate of Spain and Portugal, favouring conditions of higher humidity in winter, although in this case the observed effect is weaker.
“There is much scientific disagreement about the remote effects of Arctic sea ice loss,” explains Ivana Cvijanovic, ISGlobal researcher and lead author of the study. “So far, many studies have focused on the long-term effects, on a scale of centuries. Others have investigated the response to sea ice loss with modelling setups that artificially impose heat to melt the sea ice, potentially affecting the simulated response.
“Some studies have been changing Antarctic and Arctic sea ice cover at the same time, making it difficult to discern their individual contributions. In our study, we have developed a methodology to assess the impact of Arctic ice loss without adding any heat fluxes, and we focused on the impacts developing within a few decades.”
To reach these conclusions, the team used three models of varying complexity. In each of them, they ran two sets of simulations, one with the historical amount of sea ice in the Arctic and one with substantially decreased sea ice cover.
The disappearance of sea ice changes the surface albedo, i.e. the reflectivity of the Arctic Ocean, but also removes the insulation between the atmosphere and the ocean surface and affects salinity profiles. These local changes in turn drive a variety of atmospheric and oceanic teleconnections that can propagate far from the Arctic.
“It should be made clear that the conclusion is not necessarily that it will rain less in California and more in the Western Mediterranean in the coming years,” says Desislava Petrova, ISGlobal researcher and last author of the study. “In addition to the ice cover loss in the Arctic, there are many other factors responding to greenhouse gas emissions and affecting the climate (atmospheric and oceanic feedbacks and circulation changes, Antarctic sea ice loss, vegetation feedbacks, etc.). In any case, understanding the influence of this phenomenon separately will help us to refine global predictions.”
“Despite all the different influences in our planet’s climate system, it is interesting to note that the anomalies in the atmospheric circulation patterns of the last few decades show some striking similarities to the patterns simulated in our study – especially events such as the Californian drought of 2012-2016,” observes Cvijanovic.
Journal Reference:
Cvijanovic, I., Simon, A., Levine, X. et al., ‘Arctic sea-ice loss drives a strong regional atmospheric response over the North Pacific and North Atlantic on decadal scales’, Communications Earth and Environment 6, 154 (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s43247-025-02059-w
Article Source:
Press Release/Material by Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal)
Featured image credit: Gerd Altmann | Pixabay
