Their findings showed that the unique oceanographic conditions in Florida’s Dry Tortugas National Park provided corals with an opportunity to flourish, enhancing both coral growth and survivorship while positively influencing the coral’s microbiome – the thousands of diverse microbes that are naturally associated with them. The research also indicates that restoration efforts for the species would be most successful in areas that exhibit higher food availability, or places rife with zooplankton, a key source of nutrition that aids in coral tissue building and repair.

Over the last few decades, marine disease, climate change and a number of other environmental stressors have caused the elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata) population – once a major engineer of the reef ecosystem in the Caribbean – to experience a dramatic decline. Although small patches of these corals are still found in the Caribbean, today the species appears to be functionally extinct in Florida, said Andréa Grottoli, senior author of the study and a professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University. While there are coral colonies left, there aren’t enough of them to effectively reproduce. 

“In other parts of the Caribbean, there are little pockets where there are enough of them, but in general, elkhorn coral is a highly sensitive species,” said Grottoli. “It’s no longer the primary coral on the Florida and Caribbean reefs, and that’s a huge loss to that reef ecosystem function.”

In the Florida Keys, healthy coral reefs help minimize coastal erosion and contribute greatly to the region’s economic stability through federally managed fisheries and other tourism-based ventures, providing motivation for government agencies and scientists alike to find the best strategies for restoring the vital species. 

The study, published today in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, describes how researchers aimed to do this by studying environmental variables that might contribute to the species’ survival. In 2018, researchers at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) placed replicated elkhorn colonies in five different locations along Florida’s offshore coral reef. After two years, Grottoli’s team sampled the coral’s physiology to compare how the colonies fared.

Grottoli’s team measured a number of physiological traits important to the coral’s survival, including biomass, fat content and various markers for coral feeding. 

Overall, the health profiles of the elkhorn coral greatly differed among the five areas, but only the coral samples in the Dry Tortugas thrived compared to all the other sites, said Grottoli, as certain biological traits indicated that the Dry Tortugas corals were eating more zooplankton.

The favorable conditions these corals experienced are likely due to the site’s propensity for periodic upwellings, a wind-driven oceanographic phenomenon that can bring bursts of nutrient-rich water up to the surface from colder, deeper waters. These events stimulate zooplankton production and bring large quantities of the food source into the region, making the area a veritable oasis for elkhorn coral.  

“These little pulses of extra food can make a big difference in coral survival and the things we measured are consistent with that interpretation,” said Grottoli. 

Grottoli said their research was challenged by early COVID-19 travel constraints and bad weather, but the results add to a growing body of evidence that the Dry Tortugas would be a logical place to attempt to restore elkhorn coral. The study notes that restoring elkhorn corals in the Dry Tortugas may also provide a source population for new coral recruits throughout the Florida Keys, but further research is needed to determine if other at-risk species of coral may also thrive there, Grottoli said. Still, it won’t solve all the issues facing endangered coral populations. 

“We’re trying to make smart conservation and restoration decisions, but at the core of this work is that coral reefs are declining because of climate change and local stressors like overfishing and pollution,” said Grottoli. “Until we address those two things, no matter how smart we are about coral restoration and conservation, we’re always just putting a band-aid on it.”

This work was supported by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Coastal and Marine Hazards and Resources Program and the National Science Foundation. Other Ohio State co-authors were Leila Chapron and Ann Marie Hulver, as well as Ilsa Kuffner, Lucy Bartlett, Anastasios Stathakopoulos and Erin Lyons from the U.S. Geological Survey, and Dustin Kemp and Elise Keister from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

Nicknamed “The Third Pole,” the Tibetan Plateau and neighboring Himalayas is home to the largest global store of frozen water outside of the North and South Polar Regions. This region, also known as the Asian water tower (AWT), functions as a complex water distribution system which delivers life-giving liquid to multiple countries, including parts of China,  India, Nepal, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. 

Yet due to the rapid melting of snow and upstream glaciers, the area can’t sustainably support the continued growth of the developing nations that rely on it.

“Populations are growing so rapidly, and so is the water demand,” said Lonnie Thompson, distinguished university professor of earth sciences at The Ohio State University and senior research scientist at the Byrd Polar Research Center. “These problems can lead to increased risks of international and even intranational disputes, and in the past, they have.” 

Thompson, who has studied climate change for nearly five decades, is intimately familiar with the precarious nature of the region’s hydrological situation. In 1984, Thompson became a member of the first Western team sent to investigate the glaciers in China and Tibet. Since then, he and a team of international colleagues have spent years investigating ice core-derived climate records and the area’s rapidly receding ice along with the impact it’s had on the local settlements that depend on the AWT for their freshwater needs.

The team’s latest paper, of which Thompson is a co-author, was published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. Using temperature change data from 1980 to 2018 to track regional warming, their findings revealed that the AWT’s overall temperature has increased at about 0.42 degrees Celsius per decade, about twice the global average rate.

“This has huge implications for the glaciers, particularly those in the Himalayas,” Thompson said. “Overall, we’re losing water off the plateau, about 50% more water than we’re gaining.” This scarcity is causing an alarming water imbalance: Northern parts of Tibet often experience an overabundance of water resources as more precipitation occurs due to the strengthening westerlies, while southern river basins and water supplies shrink as drought and rising temperatures contribute to water loss downstream. 

According to the study, because many vulnerable societies border these downstream basins, this worsening disparity could heighten conflicts or exacerbate already tense situations between countries that share these river basins, like the long-term irrigation and water struggles between India and Pakistan.

“The way that regional climate varies, there are winners and losers,” Thompson said. “But we have to learn to work together in order to ensure adequate and equitable water supplies throughout this region.” As local temperatures continue to rise and water resources become depleted, more people will end up facing ever diminishing water supplies, he said.

Still, overall increases in precipitation alone won’t meet the increased water demands of downstream regions and countries.

To combat this, the study recommends using more comprehensive water monitoring systems in data-scarce areas, noting that better atmospheric and hydrologic models are needed to help predict what’s happening to the region’s water supply. Lawmakers should then use those observations to help develop actionable policies for sustainable water management, Thompson said. If policymakers do decide to listen to the scientists' counsel, these new policies could be used to develop adaptation measures for the AWT through collaboration between upstream and downstream countries.

After all, when things go awry in one area of the world, like the butterfly effect, they tend to have long-lasting effects on the rest of Earth’s population. “Climate change is a global process,” Thompson said. “It doesn't matter what country or what part of the world you come from. Sooner or later, you’ll have a similar problem.”

The study measured consumers’ responses to hypothetical shopping scenarios for carrots. Participants were most open to buying bunches containing imperfect carrots after being presented with both of those marketing messages promoting ugly carrots’ personal and societal benefits. Either message alone was not effective at convincing consumers to buy misfit carrots.

Findings also showed that respondents were willing to pay, with a small discount, for some level of mixed bunches containing both ugly and standard carrots, maxing out at 40% of misshapen carrots – a sign to regulators who set the tolerance level for cosmetic standards that such a practice could be profitable.

One 2018 study in North Carolina suggested that about 41% of unharvested food is edible but unmarketable because of its appearance. The researchers are assessing ways to “win” with ugly foods in the marketplace by testing consumer acceptance of imperfect foods that don’t come with a built-in discount – a tactic used by some brick-and-mortar and online retailers that hasn’t had much staying power.

“Any time you codify that cosmetically imperfect produce is somehow lesser, you’re stuck selling it for less and therefore you undermine the entire value chain,” said senior study author Brian Roe, professor in the Department of Agricultural, Environmental and Development Economics at The Ohio State University.

“We see that once you promote it as being more natural and as reducing wasted food, the discount is less than it otherwise would be – but there is also a cluster of folks who are actually willing to pay as much or more because they value reducing food waste and they value the fact that it’s got just as much nutrition as standard produce.”

Roe conducted the study with Danyi Qi and Jerrod Penn of Louisiana State University and Ran Li, an Ohio State PhD student. The research is published online ahead of print in the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services.

The researchers surveyed 1,300 U.S. residents who shopped and cooked for their households. Participants in the online survey were randomly assigned to receive one or a combination of two marketing messages: ugly carrots’ nutritional quality equals that of blemish-free produce, and there are social costs linked to throwing away food with cosmetic flaws.

Participants also selected from images of their preferred 2-pound carrot bunches and price points, with six bunches – either with or without their greenery attached – containing 0% to 100% ugly carrots and prices ranging from $2.18 to $1.39 per pound. In another choice test, consumers could select from just two options, a bunch of all standard carrots or all imperfect carrots with or without green leaves attached, in a hypothetical purchase from either a farmers market or a conventional grocery store.

Participants consistently disliked bunches that included any ugly carrots at all, and the amount they were willing to pay for any number of imperfect carrots was always lower than what they’d pay for 100% standard carrots.

But a top contender in terms of profitability for farmers did emerge from the analysis of participant responses: bunches containing 40% ugly carrots and 60% standard carrots with green leaves attached sold at farmers markets where consumers are exposed to the combined marketing messages.

“If you’re at a farmers market, you’re thinking more holistically, you’re not thinking about cosmetic perfection. You expect things to be more ‘real,’” Roe said. “So I think then people realize this is what we might expect if we’re getting produce directly from a farmer – there’s more room for imperfection because it’s probably not interpreted as imperfection. It’s interpreted as naturalness.”

The research team analyzed the tipping point in consumer willingness to pay that could make harvesting ugly carrots profitable – an important calculation for farmers who need a positive return on their investment into planting, picking and shipping their crops. The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has a say in the percentage of non-standard produce that can be sent to market – a limit that may need to be revisited, Roe said.

“We hope these findings will change the viewpoint of the industry. If you want to move into the ugly produce space, you probably need to rebrand it rather than locking in a discount and saying, ‘This is ugly food that should be worth less, so let’s just lock it in as being an inferior good from the get-go,” he said. “There hasn’t been a lot of rethinking of standards in light of food waste, so that would be one policy lever that could be re-examined to deal with food waste in the modern era.”

This work was supported by the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Ohio State University’s Van Buren Fund and the LSU AgCenter.

The initiative reflects the urgency of transitioning to low-carbon options for energy to reduce climate change, a priority for both Ohio State and IGS Energy. The company will invest $1 million over five years in sustainable energy research and student learning through the university’s Sustainability Institute with an aim of developing new innovations and emerging leaders to facilitate the transition.

“This new initiative with IGS Energy aligns with Ohio State’s commitment to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 and to help others reach the same important goal,” said Executive Director of the Sustainability Institute Kate Bartter.

In 2020, the university detailed its climate action plan, including steps to improve building energy efficiency, diversify sources of energy and address transportation-related emissions.

“We see a great opportunity to transfer the knowledge our researchers have to offer to the wider community through collaborations with the private sector,” Bartter said.

IGS Energy, which has made its own commitment to become carbon neutral by 2040, emphasizes the practical applications of the new relationship.

“By partnering with the Sustainability Institute at Ohio State, we can help apply the sustainability knowledge generated by university researchers to the energy needs of the real world,” said Scott White, IGS Energy president and CEO. “What we learn from this collaboration will ultimately end up in the hands of our employees, customers and the communities we serve.”

The new initiative calls for IGS to invest $750,000 in sustainability research, student programs and other projects based on an annual assessment process between the company and the university. Consumer awareness and behavior related to sustainable energy, demand response programs, and energy policy and regulatory systems are high on the list of areas to investigate. The Sustainability Institute will receive the remaining $250,000 to support its continued engagement of the business community.

“As a land-grant university, providing for the common good is always a priority,” Bartter said. “Working toward carbon neutrality through external collaborations like this initiative with IGS Energy is sure to enhance the common good.”

“Climate change presents a clear threat to communities across the globe,” said President Michael V. Drake. “Ohio State is committed to take actions that advance scientific knowledge and social understanding, and model operational techniques that will propel new solutions to climate change.”

In 2008, Ohio State established the goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050 through the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitment. The university released its first Climate Action Plan in 2011.

The 2011 plan outlined actions the university could take to advance the carbon neutrality goal. As a result of those and other actions, through the 2019 fiscal year, the university decreased its carbon emissions by over 15% while still increasing the amount of built space by nearly 11%.

Advancing upon that success, the new Climate Action Plan released today outlines how the university could achieve full carbon neutrality by 2050. In particular, the new plan details how the university could reduce 55% of its current carbon emissions by 2030, including improving building energy efficiency, diversifying sources of energy and addressing transportation-related emissions.

Some of the suggestions include:

• Revising the university’s Green Build and Energy Policy to more effectively control energy use as the university continues to grow and update its building spaces.
• Extend on-campus solar photovoltaics, and any future feasible technology, for increased renewable power generation capacity.
• Complete the existing university Green Fleet Action Plan and consider a future fuel switch from compressed natural gas to green hydrogen or renewable natural gas.
• Create new incentives to reduce the impact of driving to and from campus, including expanding campus user access to electric vehicle fueling stations.

This pace of activity is more aggressive than the International Panel on Climate Change’s recommended carbon emission reductions necessary to avoid the most acute human impacts of climate change.

As Ohio State’s Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center faculty and researchers have shown, climate change is already impacting Ohio lives. This includes heavier rainstorm events causing more flooding and decreased agricultural opportunities, and increased frequency and intensity of hot days causing stress and health impacts to those without access to cooling.

“As embodied in our land-grant mission, Ohio State takes an active role in addressing society’s challenges through our teaching, research and outreach,” said Executive Vice President and Provost Bruce A. McPheron. “By reducing our carbon emissions, the university is doing its part to minimize the negative impacts that climate change will present over time.”

The university’s mission also involves providing students of all ages and backgrounds with a breadth of awareness, knowledge and skills across disciplinary boundaries to prepare them to be global citizens.

“The students at Ohio State give me hope on so many levels. As future leaders, they want to be actively engaged in the large, challenging issues of our time, including climate change. It is important for the university to demonstrate actions like those discussed within the new Climate Action Plan to help ensure a bright future for generations of students to come,” Drake said.