An NCEAS working group found that experiments may dramatically underestimate how plants will respond to climate change in the future. Their findings, published in Nature, indicate that shifts in the timing of flowering and leafing in plants due to global warming appear to be much greater than estimated by warming experiments. As a result, species could change far more quickly than such studies suggest, possibly affecting water supplies, pollination of crops and ecosystems.
Warming experiments underpredict plant phenological responses to climate change
E. M. Wolkovich, B. I. Cook, J. M. Allen, T. M. Crimmins, J. L. Betancourt, S. E. Travers, S. Pau, J. Regetz, T. J. Davies, N. J. B. Kraft, T. R. Ault, K. Bolmgren, S. J. Mazer, G. J. McCabe, B. J. McGill, C. Parmesan, N. Salamin, M. D. Schwartz and E. E. Cleland
Nature, 11014, May 2, 2012 (online)
UCSB
press release
UCSD
press release
Following is a sample of the media coverage of this study:
BBC News: Plants flower faster than climate change models predict
Greenwire: Experiments underestimate plants' response to warming -- study
NASA: Decades of data show spring advancing faster than experiments suggest
Reuters: Plant study flags dangers of warming world
Science: Plant experiments underestimate climate change effects
USA Today: Study: Climate change causes plants to flower earlier
Related data sets:
More information about this project's research, participants and publications
Utilizing and synthesizing data from nearly 200 published articles, NCEAS researchers examined the effects of various environmental stressors on plant growth and decomposition, two crucial processes in any ecosystem. They measured the rate of species loss in different ecosystems, and found that where there was greater plant species loss, there was an increased negative impact on plant growth and an alteration in decomposition. The effects of biodiversity loss on biomass were similar to the effects from other environmental stressors, including global warming, pollution, and acid rain. 
Upon the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, a national panel of researchers offers a new model for understanding what happened in this disaster, how to think of such events in the future, and why existing tools were inadequate to fully predict what lay before them. The findings of the NCEAS' "Ecotoxicology of the gulf oil spill: A holistic framework for assessing impacts" working group are published in the May issue of BioScience. 
NCEAS researchers report in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment that almost 70 percent of the most damaging non-native forest insects and diseases currently afflicting U.S. forests arrive via imported live plants. Once introduced, some of these imported insects and disease organisms establish, and a fraction become major economic pests. The authors describe several possible means to increase bio-security, including intensified efforts at plant inspection stations, precautionary measures that restrict plants from entering the U.S. until risks have been assessed, expanding post-entry quarantines, developing better advance knowledge about pest insects and pathogens, and developing integrated systems approaches that depend on expanded partnerships between researchers and industry.
A new study published in Landscape Ecology evaluates the ways that spatial uncertainty, landscape characteristics, and genetic stochasticity interact to influence the strength and variability of conclusions about landscape-genetics relationships. 
"Learning From the Octopus: How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight
Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters and Disease" explores security challenges we face, and shows us how we might learn to respond more effectively to the unknown threats lurking in our future. The main premise of the book is that natural organisms have learned to thrive in an unpredictable and risk filled planet without having the power to plan, predict, or try to perfect themselves.
We are pleased to announce a training workshop “Software Tools for Sensor Networks” sponsored by 
Graduate programs have placed an increasing emphasis on the importance of interdisciplinary education, but barriers to interdisciplinary training still remain. This article, published in BioScience, summarizes the lessons learned from a highly successful implementation of NCEAS' distributed graduate seminar in the new field of landscape genetics.
Infectious disease has recently joined poaching and habitat loss as a major threat to African apes. A study published in PLoS ONE explores both the risk of disease to African apes, and the status of potential interventions.
A new study published in BioScience questions claims that jellyfish are increasing worldwide, and suggests that such claims currently are not supported with any hard evidence or scientific analyses to date. Increased speculation and discrepancies about current and future jellyfish blooms by the media and in climate and science reports formed the motivation for this 
