scholarly journals Invasive Plants and Climate Change Will Alter Desert Landscapes

Eos ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Kornei

In experiments conducted in Biosphere 2, invasive buffelgrass weathers higher temperatures and drought conditions better than its native brethren.

Author(s):  
Julien Ruffault ◽  
Thomas Curt ◽  
Nicolas K. Martin St-Paul ◽  
Vincent Moron ◽  
Ricardo M. Trigo

Abstract. Increasing drought conditions under global warming are expected to alter the frequency and distribution of large, high intensity wildfires. Yet, little is known regarding how it will affect fire weather and translate into wildfire behaviour. Here, we analysed the climatology of extreme wildfires that occurred during the exceptionally dry summers of 2003 and 2016 in Mediterranean France. We identified two distinct shifts in fire climatology towards fire weather spaces that had not been explored before, and which result from specific interactions between the types of drought and the types of fire. In 2016, a long-lasting press drought intensified wind-driven fires. In 2003, a hot drought combining a heatwave with a press drought intensified heat-driven fires. Our findings highlight that increasing drought conditions projected by climate change scenarios might affect the dryness of fuel compartments and create several new generations of wildfire overwhelming fire suppression capacities.


Author(s):  
Jens Kramshøj Flinker

        The purpose of this article is twofold: Existentialism as a philosophical discipline and ethical reference point seems to be a rare guest in ecocriticism. Based on an analysis of Lyra Koli's climate fiction Allting Växer (2018) this article argues that existentialism has something to offer to the ecocritical field. I make use of an econarratological approach, drawing on James Phelan's narrative ethics. Thus, I emphasize the article's second purpose, as narrative ethics is about reconstructing narratives own ethical standards rather than the reader bringing a prefabricated ethical system to the narrative. This reading practice can help to question the idea that some ethical and philosophical standards are better than others within ecocriticism—by encouraging scholars in ecocriticism to relate to what existentialism has to do with climate change in this specific case. In continuation of my analysis, I argue that Allting Växer is pointing at a positive side of existentialist concepts such as anxiety or anguish, that is, that there is a reflecting and changing potential in these moods or experiences. This existentialist framework contrasts with the interpretation of "Anthropocene disorder" (Timothy Clark) as the only outcome when confronting the complexity of the Anthropocene.


2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 929-938
Author(s):  
Ying-Bo Yang ◽  
Gang Liu ◽  
Xiong Shi ◽  
Wen-Gang Zhang ◽  
Xin-Wen Cai ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanni Pugliese ◽  
Johannes Ingrisch ◽  
Thomas Klüpfel ◽  
Kathiravan Meeran ◽  
Gemma Purser ◽  
...  

<p>Volatile organic compounds (VOC) play an important role in determining atmospheric processes that control air quality and climate. Although atmospheric VOC concentrations are mostly affected by plants, soils are significant contributors as they are simultaneously a source, a sink and a storage of atmospheric VOCs. The aim of the present study was to assess the effects of a prolonged drought condition on VOC soil fluxes in the tropical rainforest mesocosm of Biosphere 2 (B2; Tucson, Arizona, USA). The absence of atmospheric chemistry due to UV light filtering by the glass and the possibility to control and manipulate the conditions of the ecosystem make the B2 an ideal set-up to study the rainforest VOC dynamics.</p><p>The experiments were conducted over the 4 months B2WALD campaign during which the rainforest was subjected to a controlled drought period of about 10 weeks followed by a rewetting period. Soil VOCs fluxes were measured continuously by means of a proton-transfer-reaction time-of-flight mass spectrometer (PTR-ToF-MS) that was connected to 12 automated soil chambers (LI 8100-104 Long-Term Chambers, Licor Inc.) placed in 4 different locations within the B2 rainforest.</p><p>The B2 rainforest soil acted as a strong sink for all isoprenoid species. The isoprene sink steadily weakened during drought period, but increased sharply back to the pre-drought levels after the rain rewet. In contrast, the monoterpene soil sink became slightly stronger during the mild drought period (up to 5 weeks after the last rainfall) but weakened during the severe drought period (up to 10 weeks after rainfall). A huge increase in monoterpene uptake was observed after the rain rewet. The oxidation products of isoprene (methacrolein, methyl vinyl ketone and isoprene peroxides) showed a similar trend to the monoterpenes, even in absence of atmospheric chemistry. The species with molecular formula C5H8O was taken up by the soil during predrought, which was reduced during mild drought period but increased again during the severe drought period.Sulfur-containing compounds including DMS and methanethiol all showed a significant emission peak immediately after the rain rewet.Oxygenated VOCs such as methanol and acetone were taken up by the soil in wet conditions. The uptake of both compounds strongly decreased with the drought and in severe drought conditions they were even emitted by the soil.</p><p>In summary, soil VOC fluxes changed markedly with the onset and development drought stages (pre, mild and severe drought) of the B2 rainforest, mirroring atmospheric VOC concentrations and soil microbial activity changes related to overall ecosystem response to drought and recovery.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 223-259
Author(s):  
Clive Gamble

What happened to the surviving time revolutionaries and their legacy? Knighthoods, high office, a peerage, and bespoke mansions all followed. France preserved Boucher de Perthes’s legacy better than England that of its time revolutionaries, whom it forgot. War, however, destroyed Abbeville in 1940 and with it Boucher de Perthes’s collections and public statue. Lubbock was the last to die in 1913, having seen the Piltdown forgery. Then follows an excursion into the development of the modern synthesis of human origins with scientific dates, a detailed deep-sea record of climate change and the ages of the sites they found on the Somme and at Hoxne. Changing views of our remote ancestors are shown in artists’ imaginings and through bestselling authors. The reticence of Prestwich and Evans to speculate was forgotten as deep history was fleshed out to resonate with the present. The chapter ends by placing the time revolution at the start of an interest in universal and deep history. The time revolutionaries changed our relationship with time and set in motion a dialogue with the past that continues to challenge and enthral.


Author(s):  
Philip Jenkins

My own interest in the topics of this book dates back a good many years. In fact, it predates the emergence of the modern field of climate history, or the identification of global warming as an incipient menace. In saying that, I am claiming no status as a prodigy, still less a prophet. Rather, in my teenage years, I read a great deal of speculative fiction, science fiction, in which themes of climate change and cataclysm have long percolated, at least since the latter years of the nineteenth century. We can debate how accurate the scientific analyses or predictions were in many of these works—in many cases, the level of accurate knowledge was minimal—but those works had the inordinate advantage of thinking through the human and cultural consequences of catastrophe, commonly speculating about religious dimensions. Obviously, some works succeeded better than others in that regard, but the essential project was critically important. If we are foretelling that the world will be assailed by lethal menaces, then we cannot fail to go on to imagine what the political or cultural consequences would or should be....


2020 ◽  
Vol 71 (12) ◽  
pp. 3603-3612 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natanella Illouz-Eliaz ◽  
Idan Nissan ◽  
Ido Nir ◽  
Uria Ramon ◽  
Hagai Shohat ◽  
...  

Abstract Low gibberellin (GA) activity in tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) inhibits leaf expansion and reduces stomatal conductance. This leads to lower transpiration and improved water status under transient drought conditions. Tomato has three GIBBERELLIN-INSENSITIVE DWARF1 (GID1) GA receptors with overlapping activities and high redundancy. We tested whether mutation in a single GID1 reduces transpiration without affecting growth and productivity. CRISPR-Cas9 gid1 mutants were able to maintain higher leaf water content under water-deficit conditions. Moreover, while gid1a exhibited normal growth, it showed reduced whole-plant transpiration and better recovery from dehydration. Mutation in GID1a inhibited xylem vessel proliferation, which led to lower hydraulic conductance. In stronger GA mutants, we also found reduced xylem vessel expansion. These results suggest that low GA activity affects transpiration by multiple mechanisms: it reduces leaf area, promotes stomatal closure, and reduces xylem proliferation and expansion, and as a result, xylem hydraulic conductance. We further examined if gid1a performs better than the control M82 in the field. Under these conditions, the high redundancy of GID1s was lost and gid1a plants were semi-dwarf, but their productivity was not affected. Although gid1a did not perform better under drought conditions in the field, it exhibited a higher harvest index.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron R Ramirez ◽  
Mark E De Guzman ◽  
Todd E Dawson ◽  
David D Ackerly

Abstract Relatively mesic environments within arid regions may be important conservation targets as ‘climate change refugia’ for species persistence in the face of worsening drought conditions. Semi-arid southern California and the relatively mesic environments of California’s Channel Islands provide a model system for examining drought responses of plants in potential climate change refugia. Most methods for detecting refugia are focused on ‘exposure’ of organisms to certain abiotic conditions, which fail to assess how local adaptation or acclimation of plant traits (i.e. ‘sensitivity’) contribute to or offset the benefits of reduced exposure. Here, we use a comparative plant hydraulics approach to characterize the vulnerability of plants to drought, providing a framework for identifying the locations and trait patterns that underlie functioning climate change refugia. Seasonal water relations, xylem hydraulic traits and remotely sensed vegetation indices of matched island and mainland field sites were used to compare the response of native plants from contrasting island and mainland sites to hotter droughts in the early 21st century. Island plants experienced more favorable water relations and resilience to recent drought. However, island plants displayed low plasticity/adaptation of hydraulic traits to local conditions, which indicates that relatively conserved traits of island plants underlie greater hydraulic safety and localized buffering from regional drought conditions. Our results provide an explanation for how California’s Channel Islands function as a regional climate refugia during past and current climate change and demonstrate a physiology-based approach for detecting potential climate change refugia in other systems.


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