scholarly journals Understanding the future of big sagebrush regeneration: challenges of projecting complex ecological processes

Ecosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel R. Schlaepfer ◽  
John B. Bradford ◽  
William K. Lauenroth ◽  
Robert K. Shriver
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Big Sagebrush ◽  
The Future

Retrospective Review of Microbial Ecological Processes to understand Environmental Biotechnology

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 695-708
Author(s):  
Waheed Ahmad ◽  
Tazeen . ◽  
Andleeb Farooq ◽  
Maham Irfan ◽  
Nawal Naveed Abbasi
Keyword(s):  
Microbial Communities ◽  
Microbial Ecology ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Retrospective Review ◽  
Environmental Biotechnology ◽  
Future Perspective ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
The Future ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Near Future

We—Waheed Ahmad, Andleeb Farooq, Tazeen, Maham Irfan and Nawal Naveed Abbasi— have made an attempt to explain the Retrospective review of microbial ecological processes to understand environmental biotechnology. The fields of environmental biotechnology and microbial ecology are two blossoming fields that have greatly benefited from the advancements in biology, engineering, computing and materials. Although both of the fields are traditionally varied, but the future of both the disciplines are linked to one another. Both the fields, together, provide and promise so much to help society, face and eradicate an environmental problems and challenges, sustainability, human health and security. Moreover, we have also talked about the microbial ecological processes to better understand environmental biotechnology, potential applications of these processes towards our own environment and the future perspective that where this technology is accelerating and heading towards, and what more methods and processes will be witnessed in near future to successfully eradicate and degrade the pollutants and contaminants from the environment through the interaction between microbial communities and their environment for a better, secure and sustainable ecosystem.

scholarly journals Iterative Forecasting Improves Near-Term Predictions of Methane Ebullition Rates

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan P. McClure ◽  
R. Quinn Thomas ◽  
Mary E. Lofton ◽  
Whitney M. Woelmer ◽  
Cayelan C. Carey
Keyword(s):  
Null Model ◽  
Open Water ◽  
Forecast Model ◽  
Great Promise ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Total Uncertainty ◽  
Predictive Skill ◽  
Iterative Model ◽  
The Future ◽  
Near Term

Near-term, ecological forecasting with iterative model refitting and uncertainty partitioning has great promise for improving our understanding of ecological processes and the predictive skill of ecological models, but to date has been infrequently applied to predict biogeochemical fluxes. Bubble fluxes of methane (CH4) from aquatic sediments to the atmosphere (ebullition) dominate freshwater greenhouse gas emissions, but it remains unknown how best to make robust near-term CH4 ebullition predictions using models. Near-term forecasting workflows have the potential to address several current challenges in predicting CH4 ebullition rates, including: development of models that can be applied across time horizons and ecosystems, identification of the timescales for which predictions can provide useful information, and quantification of uncertainty in predictions. To assess the capacity of near-term, iterative forecasting workflows to improve ebullition rate predictions, we developed and tested a near-term, iterative forecasting workflow of CH4 ebullition rates in a small eutrophic reservoir throughout one open-water period. The workflow included the repeated updating of a CH4 ebullition forecast model over time with newly-collected data via iterative model refitting. We compared the CH4 forecasts from our workflow to both alternative forecasts generated without iterative model refitting and a persistence null model. Our forecasts with iterative model refitting estimated CH4 ebullition rates up to 2 weeks into the future [RMSE at 1-week ahead = 0.53 and 0.48 loge(mg CH4 m−2 d−1) at 2-week ahead horizons]. Forecasts with iterative model refitting outperformed forecasts without refitting and the persistence null model at both 1- and 2-week forecast horizons. Driver uncertainty and model process uncertainty contributed the most to total forecast uncertainty, suggesting that future workflow improvements should focus on improved mechanistic understanding of CH4 models and drivers. Altogether, our study suggests that iterative forecasting improves week-to-week CH4 ebullition predictions, provides insight into predictability of ebullition rates into the future, and identifies which sources of uncertainty are the most important contributors to the total uncertainty in CH4 ebullition predictions.

scholarly journals DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY IN A SCHOOL COURSE OF GEOGRAPHY

2018 ◽  
pp. 198-202
Author(s):  
O. FEDII
Keyword(s):  
Economic Geography ◽  
Social Economic ◽  
Main Attention ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Demographic Policy

The article is devoted to the problem of studying demographic facts and processes in school geography of Ukraine. The significant need for students to study this topic is linked with social, economic, political and ecological processes from  their own and public points of view. Realizing the peculiarities of contemporary demographic policies in different regions of the world and Ukraine, students deepen knowledge about the population, determine its role in shaping the future of society. The article deals with concepts of the «demographic policy», characteristics of modern measures of demographic policy in different countries. The main attention is paid to the importance of forming students' attitude towards state measures in the conditions of the global demographic explosion and the Ukrainian demographic crisis. This research was carried out within the performance of the problem to form the demographic concepts in schoolchildren’s minds during the study of social-economic geography.

scholarly journals Sediment supply dampens the erosive effects of sea-level rise on reef islands

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Megan E. Tuck ◽  
Murray R. Ford ◽  
Paul S. Kench ◽  
Gerd Masselink
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level Rise ◽  
Sea Level ◽  
Physical Stability ◽  
Physical Modelling ◽  
Sediment Supply ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Geomorphic Response ◽  
The Future ◽  
Reef Islands ◽  
The Impact

AbstractLarge uncertainty surrounds the future physical stability of low-lying coral reef islands due to a limited understanding of the geomorphic response of islands to changing environmental conditions. Physical and numerical modelling efforts have improved understanding of the modes and styles of island change in response to increasing wave and water level conditions. However, the impact of sediment supply on island morphodynamics has not been addressed and remains poorly understood. Here we present evidence from the first physical modelling experiments to explore the effect of storm-derived sediment supply on the geomorphic response of islands to changes in sea level and energetic wave conditions. Results demonstrate that a sediment supply has a substantial influence on island adjustments in response to sea-level rise, promoting the increase of the elevation of the island while dampening island migration and subaerial volume reduction. The implications of sediment supply are significant as it improves the potential of islands to offset the impacts of future flood events, increasing the future physical persistence of reef islands. Results emphasize the urgent need to incorporate the physical response of islands to both physical and ecological processes in future flood risk models.

The Future of the Shortgrass Steppe

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid C. Burke ◽  
William K. Lauenroth
Keyword(s):  
Tallgrass Prairie ◽  
Biological Diversity ◽  
Driving Forces ◽  
Human Impacts ◽  
Shortgrass Steppe ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Grassland Ecosystems ◽  
The Future ◽  
One Year

Where lies the future of the shortgrass steppe? In prior chapters we have described the remarkable resilience of the shortgrass steppe ecosystem and its organisms to past drought and grazing, and their sensitivity to other types of change. Emerging from this analysis is the idea of vulnerability to two main forces: future changes in precipitation or water availability, and direct human impacts. What are the likely changes in the shortgrass steppe during the next several decades? Which of the changes are most likely to affect major responses in the plants, animals, and ecosystem services of the shortgrass steppe? In this chapter we evaluate the current status of the shortgrass steppe and its potential responses to three sets of factors that will be driving forces for the future of the steppe: land-use change, atmospheric change, and changes in diseases. Referring to the early 1900s, James Michener in his novel Centennial (1974) wrote the following:… The old two-part system that had prevailed at the end of the nineteenth century— rancher and irrigator—was now a tripartite cooperation: the rancher used the rougher upland prairie; the irrigation farmer kept to the bottom lands; and the drylands gambler plowed the sweeping 0 eld in between, losing his seed money one year, reaping a fortune the next, depending on the rain. It was an imaginative system, requiring three different types of man, three different attitudes toward life. . . . (p. 1081)… Even today, because of the strong water limitation for cropping, the shortgrass steppe remains relatively intact, or at least unplowed, in contrast to other grassland ecosystems (Samson and Knopf, 1994). More than half of the shortgrass steppe remains in untilled, landscape-scale tracts, compared with only 9% of tallgrass prairie and 39% of mixed-grass prairie (The Nature Conservancy, 2003). These large tracts, including those in the national grasslands (Pawnee, Cimarron, Comanche, and Kiowa/Rita Blanca), provide the greatest opportunity for preserving key ecological processes and biological diversity.

scholarly journals What if fertility decline is not permanent? The need for an evolutionarily informed approach to understanding low fertility

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1692) ◽  
pp. 20150157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Oskar Burger ◽  
John P. DeLong
Keyword(s):  
Fertility Decline ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Transition Theory ◽  
Low Fertility ◽  
High Fertility ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Demographic Traits ◽  
The Future ◽  
Population Sizes ◽  
Evolutionary Point

‘Demographic transition theory’ assumes that fertility decline is irreversible. This commonly held assumption is based on observations of recent and historical reductions in fertility that accompany modernization and declining mortality. The irreversibility assumption, however, is highly suspect from an evolutionary point of view, because demographic traits are at least partially influenced by genetics and are responsive to social and ecological conditions. Nonetheless, an inevitable shift from high mortality and fertility to low mortality and fertility is used as a guiding framework for projecting human population sizes into the future. This paper reviews some theoretical and empirical evidence suggesting that the assumption of irreversibility is ill-founded, at least without considerable development in theory that incorporates evolutionary and ecological processes. We offer general propositions for how fertility could increase in the future, including natural selection on high fertility variants, the difficulty of maintaining universal norms and preferences in a large, diverse and economically differentiated population, and the escalating resource demands of modernization.

scholarly journals A Review of the Biological, Social, and Regulatory Constraints to Intensive Plantation Culture

2005 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall Rousseau ◽  
Don Kaczmarek ◽  
John Martin
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Stand Productivity ◽  
Regulatory Constraints ◽  
The Future ◽  
Substantial Progress ◽  
Intensively Managed ◽  
Forest Lands

Abstract Substantial progress continues to be made in a variety of biological fields toward increasing plantation productivity. Productivity in a wide variety of forest ecosystems is controlled by environmental variables, cultural treatments, the genotypes deployed, and the interactions thatmay exist among these various factors. Effective and efficient increases in productivity require a thorough understanding of these complex interactions. A thorough understanding of the biological limits to productivity and the development of effective genetic resources and cultural regimesto overcome some of these limitations is only one facet that forest managers must currently address. New management strategies for future plantations inherently carry new challenges and limitations that must prove to be substantially more profitable and ecologically sound than current technologies.To operate in the social context we currently face, industrial forest lands will continue to represent a range of management intensities with differing primary management objectives. On many of our most intensively managed forest lands, clonal plantation forestry is becoming the future. Thenext step in this progression may be the use of genetically modified trees. The form that intensive forest management will take in the future in the United States is subject to factors beyond the development of improved cultural regimes or new genotypes that may be deployed. Government restrictionsmay greatly impede or halt new technologies. Beyond controls imposed by formal regulations, negative public sentiment has been seen in the form of boycotts of retail markets thus pressuring the industry to use more costly management strategies. Research that is not directly related to stand productivity but rather possible impacts of increasing stand productivity to the environment and other ecological processes will draw even greater attention. South. J. Appl. For. 29(2):105–109.

scholarly journals Simulation of Spatiotemporal Land Use Changes for Integrated Model of Socioeconomic and Ecological Processes in China

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (13) ◽  
pp. 3627 ◽  
Author(s):  
Honglei Jiang ◽  
Xia Xu ◽  
Mengxi Guan ◽  
Lingfei Wang ◽  
Yongmei Huang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystem ◽  
Integrated Model ◽  
Sustainable Land Use ◽  
Land Use Land Cover ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Allocation Model ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
The Future

Land use/land cover changes (LULCC) have been affected by ecological processes as well as socioeconomic and human activities, resulting in several environmental problems. The study of the human–environment system combined with land use/land cover dynamics has received considerable attention in recent decades. We aimed to provide an integrated model that couples land use, socioeconomic influences, and ecosystem processes to explore the future dynamics of land use under two scenarios in China. Under Scenario A, the yield of grain continues to increase, and under Scenario B, the yield of grain remains constant. This study created a LULCC model by integrating a simple global socioeconomic model, a Terrestrial ecosystem simulator (TESim), and a land use allocation model. The results were analyzed by comparing spatiotemporal differences under predicted land use conditions in the two alternative scenarios. The simulation results showed patterns that varied between the two scenarios. In Scenario A, grassland will expand in the future and a large reduction in cropland will be observed. In Scenario B, the augmented expansion of cropland and a drastic shrinkage of forest area will be the main land use conversion features. Scenario A is more promising because more land is preserved for ecological restoration and urbanization, which is in line with China’s Grain for Green Program. Economic development should be based on ecological protection. The results are expected to add insight to sustainable land use development and regional natural resource management in China.

scholarly journals Major Consequences of Land-Use Changes for Ecosystems in the Future in the Agro-Pastoral Transitional Zone of Northern China

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (19) ◽  
pp. 6714
Author(s):  
Xia Xu ◽  
Honglei Jiang ◽  
Lingfei Wang ◽  
Mengxi Guan ◽  
Tong Zhang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Land Cover ◽  
Environmental Protection ◽  
Land Cover Change ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Northern China ◽  
Transitional Zone ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
The Future

Assessing the effects of future land use and land cover change (LULC) on ecological processes and functions is crucial for improving regional sustainability in arid and semiarid areas. Taking the Agro-Pastoral Transitional Zone of Northern China (APTZNC) as an example, four IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios scenarios (Scenario of economic emphasis on a regional scale (A1B), Scenario of economic emphasis on a global scale (A2), Scenario of environmental protection on a regional scale (B1), Scenario of environmental protection on a global scale (B2)) were adopted in the study to analyze the influence of the future land use and land cover change on the net primary production (NPP), soil organic matter (SOM), soil total nitrogen (TN), and soil erosion (ERO) using the model of Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator-Land use/land cover model (TES-LUC) linking ecological processes and land-use change dynamics. The results were analyzed from the perspectives of LULC components, LULC conversions, and landscape patterns under the four scenarios. The main results include the following: (1) Environmentally oriented scenarios (A1B and B1) experienced the conservation of forest and grassland; economically oriented scenarios (A2 and B2) were characterized by significant loss of natural land covers and expansion of agricultural and urban land uses. (2) The NPP and soil nutrients are the highest while the ERO is the lowest in the woodland; the trend in cultivated land is opposite to that in woodland; the grassland ecosystem function is relatively stable and could make an important contribution to effectively mitigate global climate change. (3) The general trend in NPP, SOM, and TN under the four scenarios is B1 > A1B > baseline (2010) > B2 > A2, and that in ERO is A2 > B2 > baseline (2010) > A1B > B1. (4) Trade-offs between ecosystem functions and the ecological effects of LULC can be evaluated and formulated into decision-making.

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