Dual Polarimetric Radar Vegetation Index for monitoring forest moisture stress using time series of Sentinel-1 SAR data.

Global warming and anthropogenic climate change have intensified drought occurrences, raising concerns about their escalating frequency, intensity, and persistence. With the projection that droughts will increase at the end of the century, it is important to find efficient and cost-effective methods to assess and monitor drought impacts. We leverage freely available satellite-based remote sensing images to study drought stress in forest.

Beyond predation: Fish-coral interactions can tip the scales of coral disease.

Coral reefs are critical ecosystems, fostering biodiversity and sustaining the livelihoods of millions globally. Nonetheless, they confront escalating threats, with infectious diseases emerging as primary catalysts for extensive damage, surpassing the impacts of other human-induced stressors. Disease transmission via biotic factors, particularly during fish predation, is a crucial yet often overlooked pathway.

Stokes shift dynamics in (ionic liquid + polar solvent) binary mixtures: composition dependence.

An approximate semimolecular theory has been developed to investigate the composition dependence of Stokes shift dynamics of a fluorescent dye molecule dissolved in binary mixtures of an ionic liquid (IL) with a conventional polar solvent at different mole fractions. The theory expresses the dynamic Stokes shift as a sum of contributions from the dye-IL and the dye-polar solvent interactions and suggests substantial solute-cation dipole-dipole interaction contribution to the solvation energy relaxation. The theory, when applied to aqueous mixtures of 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hexafluorophosphate ([Bmim][PF(6)]) and tetrafluoroborate ([Bmim][BF(4)]), and binary mixtures of ([Bmim][BF(4)] + acetonitrile), predicts reduction of Stokes shift but acceleration of the dynamics upon increasing the polar solvent concentration for the most part of the mixture composition.