scholarly journals Predicting ecosystem shifts requires new approaches that integrate the effects of climate change across entire systems

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 164-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bayden D. Russell ◽  
Christopher D. G. Harley ◽  
Thomas Wernberg ◽  
Nova Mieszkowska ◽  
Stephen Widdicombe ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Ecosystem Change ◽  
Energy Budgets ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Interacting Species ◽  
Climatic Impacts

Most studies that forecast the ecological consequences of climate change target a single species and a single life stage. Depending on climatic impacts on other life stages and on interacting species, however, the results from simple experiments may not translate into accurate predictions of future ecological change. Research needs to move beyond simple experimental studies and environmental envelope projections for single species towards identifying where ecosystem change is likely to occur and the drivers for this change. For this to happen, we advocate research directions that (i) identify the critical species within the target ecosystem, and the life stage(s) most susceptible to changing conditions and (ii) the key interactions between these species and components of their broader ecosystem. A combined approach using macroecology, experimentally derived data and modelling that incorporates energy budgets in life cycle models may identify critical abiotic conditions that disproportionately alter important ecological processes under forecasted climates.

scholarly journals Phenotypic plasticity is aligned with phenological adaptation on micro- and macroevolutionary timescales

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephen P. De Lisle ◽  
Maarit I. Mäenpää ◽  
Erik I. Svensson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Adaptive Response ◽  
Field Data ◽  
Developmental Plasticity ◽  
Life Stage ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Life Cycles ◽  
Complex Life Cycles

AbstractPhenology is a key determinant of fitness, particularly in organisms with complex life cycles with dramatic transitions from an aquatic to a terrestrial life stage. Because optimum phenology is influenced by local environmental conditions, particularly temperature, phenotypic plasticity could play an important role in adaptation to seasonally variable environments. Here, we used a 18-generation longitudinal field dataset from a wild insect (the damselfly Ischnura elegans) and show that phenology has strongly advanced, coinciding with increasing temperatures in northern Europe. Using individual fitness data, we show this advancement is most likely an adaptive response towards a thermally-dependent moving fitness optimum. These field data were complemented with a laboratory experiment, revealing that developmental plasticity to temperature quantitatively matches the environmental dependence of selection and can explain the observed phenological advance. We expand the analysis to the macroevolutionary level, using a public database of over 1 million occurrence records on the phenology of Swedish damselfly and dragonfly species. Combining spatiotemporally matched temperature data and phylogenetic information, we estimated the phenological reaction norms towards temperature for 49 Swedish species. We show that thermal plasticity in phenology is more closely aligned with local adaptation for odonate species that have recently colonized northern latitudes, whereas there is more mismatch at lower latitudes. Our results show that phenological plasticity plays a key role in microevolutionary adaptation within in a single species, and also suggest that such plasticity may have facilitated post-Pleistocene range expansion at the macroevolutionary scale in this insect clade.Impact StatementOrganisms with complex life cycles must time their life-history transitions to match environmental conditions favorable to survival and reproduction. The timing of these transitions – phenology – is therefore of critical importance, and phenology a key trait in adaptive responses to climate change. Here, we use field data from a single species and phylogenetic comparative from over 1 million individual damselfly and dragonfly records to show that plasticity in phenology underlies adaptation at both the microevolutionary scale (across generations in a single species) and the macroevolutionary scale (across deep time in a clade). Our results indicates that phenotypic plasticity has the potential to explain variation in phenology and adaptive response to climate change across disparate evolutionary time scales.

scholarly journals Evolutionary Ecology of Natural Comammox Nitrospira Populations

mSystems ◽  
2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alejandro Palomo ◽  
Arnaud Dechesne ◽  
Otto X. Cordero ◽  
Barth F. Smets
Keyword(s):  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Evolutionary Ecology ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Evolutionary Processes ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Interacting Species ◽  
Microbial Species ◽  
Experimental Systems ◽  
Over Time

Microbial species interact with each other and their environment (ecological processes) and undergo changes in their genomic repertoire over time (evolutionary processes). How these two classes of processes interact is largely unknown, especially for complex communities, as most studies of microbial evolutionary dynamics consider single species in isolation or a few interacting species in simplified experimental systems.

scholarly journals COVID-19 and future pandemics: a global systems approach and relevance to SDGs

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tharanga Thoradeniya ◽  
Saroj Jayasinghe
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Governance ◽  
Systems Approach ◽  
Rna Virus ◽  
Modern Human ◽  
Systems Science ◽  
World Population ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Physical Environments ◽  
Corporate Interests

Abstract Background The COVID-19 pandemic is adversely impacting modern human civilization. A global view using a systems science approach is necessary to recognize the close interactions between health of animals, humans and the environment. Discussion A model is developed initially by describing five sequential or parallel steps on how a RNA virus emerged from animals and became a pandemic: 1. Origins in the animal kingdom; 2. Transmission to domesticated animals; 3. Inter-species transmission to humans; 4. Local epidemics; 5. Global spread towards a pandemic. The next stage identifies global level determinants from the physical environments, the biosphere and social environment that influence these steps to derive a generic conceptual model. It identifies that future pandemics are likely to emerge from ecological processes (climate change, loss of biodiversity), anthropogenic social processes (i.e. corporate interests, culture and globalization) and world population growth. Intervention would therefore require modifications or dampening these generators and prevent future periodic pandemics that would reverse human development. Addressing issues such as poorly planned urbanization, climate change and deforestation coincide with SDGs such as sustainable cities and communities (Goal 11), climate action (Goal 13) and preserving forests and other ecosystems (Goal 15). This will be an added justification to address them as global priorities. Some determinants in the model are poorly addressed by SDGs such as the case of population pressures, cultural factors, corporate interests and globalization. The overarching process of globalization will require modifications to the structures, processes and mechanisms of global governance. The defects in global governance are arguably due to historical reasons and the neo-liberal capitalist order. This became evident especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 when the vaccination roll-out led to violations of universal values of equity and right to life by some of the powerful and affluent nations. Summary A systems approach leads us to a model that shows the need to tackle several factors, some of which are not adequately addressed by SDGs and require restructuring of global governance and political economy.

scholarly journals Warming Arctic summers unlikely to increase productivity of shorebirds through renesting

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah T. Saalfeld ◽  
Brooke L. Hill ◽  
Christine M. Hunter ◽  
Charles J. Frost ◽  
Richard B. Lanctot
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Survival Rates ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Adult Survival ◽  
Chick Survival ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Bird Populations ◽  
Phenological Mismatch ◽  
Daily Survival ◽  
Adequate Food

AbstractClimate change in the Arctic is leading to earlier summers, creating a phenological mismatch between the hatching of insectivorous birds and the availability of their invertebrate prey. While phenological mismatch would presumably lower the survival of chicks, climate change is also leading to longer, warmer summers that may increase the annual productivity of birds by allowing adults to lay nests over a longer period of time, replace more nests that fail, and provide physiological relief to chicks (i.e., warmer temperatures that reduce thermoregulatory costs). However, there is little information on how these competing ecological processes will ultimately impact the demography of bird populations. In 2008 and 2009, we investigated the survival of chicks from initial and experimentally-induced replacement nests of arcticola Dunlin (Calidris alpina) breeding near Utqiaġvik, Alaska. We monitored survival of 66 broods from 41 initial and 25 replacement nests. Based on the average hatch date of each group, chick survival (up to age 15 days) from replacement nests (Ŝi = 0.10; 95% CI = 0.02–0.22) was substantially lower than initial nests (Ŝi = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.48–0.81). Daily survival rates were greater for older chicks, chicks from earlier-laid clutches, and during periods of greater invertebrate availability. As temperature was less important to daily survival rates of shorebird chicks than invertebrate availability, our results indicate that any physiological relief experienced by chicks will likely be overshadowed by the need for adequate food. Furthermore, the processes creating a phenological mismatch between hatching of shorebird young and invertebrate emergence ensures that warmer, longer breeding seasons will not translate into abundant food throughout the longer summers. Thus, despite having a greater opportunity to nest later (and potentially replace nests), young from these late-hatching broods will likely not have sufficient food to survive. Collectively, these results indicate that warmer, longer summers in the Arctic are unlikely to increase annual recruitment rates, and thus unable to compensate for low adult survival, which is typically limited by factors away from the Arctic-breeding grounds.

scholarly journals Revisiting the Functional Zoning Concept under Climate Change to Expand the Portfolio of Adaptation Options

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 273
Author(s):  
Samuel Royer-Tardif ◽  
Jürgen Bauhus ◽  
Frédérik Doyon ◽  
Philippe Nolet ◽  
Nelson Thiffault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Multiple Use ◽  
Management Options ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Adaptation Measures ◽  
Good Communication ◽  
Management Objectives ◽  
Functional Zoning ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Adaptation Options

Climate change is threatening our ability to manage forest ecosystems sustainably. Despite strong consensus on the need for a broad portfolio of options to face this challenge, diversified management options have yet to be widely implemented. Inspired by functional zoning, a concept aimed at optimizing biodiversity conservation and wood production in multiple-use forest landscapes, we present a portfolio of management options that intersects management objectives with forest vulnerability to better address the wide range of goals inherent to forest management under climate change. Using this approach, we illustrate how different adaptation options could be implemented when faced with impacts related to climate change and its uncertainty. These options range from establishing ecological reserves in climatic refuges, where self-organizing ecological processes can result in resilient forests, to intensive plantation silviculture that could ensure a stable wood supply in an uncertain future. While adaptation measures in forests that are less vulnerable correspond to the traditional functional zoning management objectives, forests with higher vulnerability might be candidates for transformative measures as they may be more susceptible to abrupt changes in structure and composition. To illustrate how this portfolio of management options could be applied, we present a theoretical case study for the eastern boreal forest of Canada. Even if these options are supported by solid evidence, their implementation across the landscape may present some challenges and will require good communication among stakeholders and with the public.

scholarly journals Simulating the Effects of Intensifying Silviculture on Desired Species Yields across a Broad Environmental Gradient

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 755
Author(s):  
Eric B. Searle ◽  
F. Wayne Bell ◽  
Guy R. Larocque ◽  
Mathieu Fortin ◽  
Jennifer Dacosta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
Mechanistic Model ◽  
Natural Disturbance ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Mechanistic Models ◽  
Paradigm Shifts ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Forest Modelling

In the past two decades, forest management has undergone major paradigm shifts that are challenging the current forest modelling architecture. New silvicultural systems, guidelines for natural disturbance emulation, a desire to enhance structural complexity, major advances in successional theory, and climate change have all highlighted the limitations of current empirical models in covering this range of conditions. Mechanistic models, which focus on modelling underlying ecological processes rather than specific forest conditions, have the potential to meet these new paradigm shifts in a consistent framework, thereby streamlining the planning process. Here we use the NEBIE (a silvicultural intervention scale that classifies management intensities as natural, extensive, basic, intensive, and elite) plot network, from across Ontario, Canada, to examine the applicability of a mechanistic model, ZELIG-CFS (a version of the ZELIG tree growth model developed by the Canadian Forest Service), to simulate yields and species compositions. As silvicultural intensity increased, overall yield generally increased. Species compositions met the desired outcomes when specific silvicultural treatments were implemented and otherwise generally moved from more shade-intolerant to more shade-tolerant species through time. Our results indicated that a mechanistic model can simulate complex stands across a range of forest types and silvicultural systems while accounting for climate change. Finally, we highlight the need to improve the modelling of regeneration processes in ZELIG-CFS to better represent regeneration dynamics in plantations. While fine-tuning is needed, mechanistic models present an option to incorporate adaptive complexity into modelling forest management outcomes.

scholarly journals Glacier ice archives nearly 15,000-year-old microbes and phages

Microbiome ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhi-Ping Zhong ◽  
Funing Tian ◽  
Simon Roux ◽  
M. Consuelo Gazitúa ◽  
Natalie E. Solonenko ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ice Core ◽  
Ice Cores ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Amplicon Sequencing ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Glacier Ice ◽  
Sampling Procedures ◽  
Functional Genome

Abstract Background Glacier ice archives information, including microbiology, that helps reveal paleoclimate histories and predict future climate change. Though glacier-ice microbes are studied using culture or amplicon approaches, more challenging metagenomic approaches, which provide access to functional, genome-resolved information and viruses, are under-utilized, partly due to low biomass and potential contamination. Results We expand existing clean sampling procedures using controlled artificial ice-core experiments and adapted previously established low-biomass metagenomic approaches to study glacier-ice viruses. Controlled sampling experiments drastically reduced mock contaminants including bacteria, viruses, and free DNA to background levels. Amplicon sequencing from eight depths of two Tibetan Plateau ice cores revealed common glacier-ice lineages including Janthinobacterium, Polaromonas, Herminiimonas, Flavobacterium, Sphingomonas, and Methylobacterium as the dominant genera, while microbial communities were significantly different between two ice cores, associating with different climate conditions during deposition. Separately, ~355- and ~14,400-year-old ice were subject to viral enrichment and low-input quantitative sequencing, yielding genomic sequences for 33 vOTUs. These were virtually all unique to this study, representing 28 novel genera and not a single species shared with 225 environmentally diverse viromes. Further, 42.4% of the vOTUs were identifiable temperate, which is significantly higher than that in gut, soil, and marine viromes, and indicates that temperate phages are possibly favored in glacier-ice environments before being frozen. In silico host predictions linked 18 vOTUs to co-occurring abundant bacteria (Methylobacterium, Sphingomonas, and Janthinobacterium), indicating that these phages infected ice-abundant bacterial groups before being archived. Functional genome annotation revealed four virus-encoded auxiliary metabolic genes, particularly two motility genes suggest viruses potentially facilitate nutrient acquisition for their hosts. Finally, given their possible importance to methane cycling in ice, we focused on Methylobacterium viruses by contextualizing our ice-observed viruses against 123 viromes and prophages extracted from 131 Methylobacterium genomes, revealing that the archived viruses might originate from soil or plants. Conclusions Together, these efforts further microbial and viral sampling procedures for glacier ice and provide a first window into viral communities and functions in ancient glacier environments. Such methods and datasets can potentially enable researchers to contextualize new discoveries and begin to incorporate glacier-ice microbes and their viruses relative to past and present climate change in geographically diverse regions globally.

scholarly journals Ocean Acidification Amplifies the Olfactory Response to 2-Phenylethylamine: Altered Cue Reception as a Mechanistic Pathway?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paula Schirrmacher ◽  
Christina C. Roggatz ◽  
David M. Benoit ◽  
Jörg D. Hardege
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Hermit Crabs ◽  
Ecological Interactions ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Mechanistic Pathway ◽  
Sea Lampreys ◽  
Pagurus Bernhardus ◽  
Decreasing Ph ◽  
The Impact

AbstractWith carbon dioxide (CO2) levels rising dramatically, climate change threatens marine environments. Due to increasing CO2 concentrations in the ocean, pH levels are expected to drop by 0.4 units by the end of the century. There is an urgent need to understand the impact of ocean acidification on chemical-ecological processes. To date, the extent and mechanisms by which the decreasing ocean pH influences chemical communication are unclear. Combining behaviour assays with computational chemistry, we explore the function of the predator related cue 2-phenylethylamine (PEA) for hermit crabs (Pagurus bernhardus) in current and end-of-the-century oceanic pH. Living in intertidal environments, hermit crabs face large pH fluctuations in their current habitat in addition to climate-change related ocean acidification. We demonstrate that the dietary predator cue PEA for mammals and sea lampreys is an attractant for hermit crabs, with the potency of the cue increasing with decreasing pH levels. In order to explain this increased potency, we assess changes to PEA’s conformational and charge-related properties as one potential mechanistic pathway. Using quantum chemical calculations validated by NMR spectroscopy, we characterise the different protonation states of PEA in water. We show how protonation of PEA could affect receptor-ligand binding, using a possible model receptor for PEA (human TAAR1). Investigating potential mechanisms of pH-dependent effects on olfactory perception of PEA and the respective behavioural response, our study advances the understanding of how ocean acidification interferes with the sense of smell and thereby might impact essential ecological interactions in marine ecosystems.

scholarly journals Can we predict the future: juvenile finfish and their seagrass nurseries in the Chesapeake Bay

2013 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 681-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cynthia M. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Chesapeake Bay ◽  
Juvenile Fish ◽  
Single Species ◽  
Potential Effect ◽  
Seagrass Habitat ◽  
Important Conclusion ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Landscape Level

Abstract The importance of estuarine seagrass beds as nurseries for juvenile fish has become a universal paradigm, especially for estuaries that are as important as the Chesapeake Bay. Yet, scientific tests of this hypothesis were equivocal depending on species, location, and metrics. Moreover, seagrasses themselves are under threat and one-third of seagrasses have disappeared worldwide with 65% of their losses occurring in estuaries. Although there have been extensive studies of seagrasses in the Chesapeake Bay, surprisingly few studies have quantified the relationship between seagrass as nurseries for finfish in the Bay. Of the few studies that have directly evaluated the use of seagrass nurseries, most have concentrated on single species or were of short duration. Few landscape-level or long-term studies have examined this relationship in the Bay or explored the potential effect of climate change. This review paper summarizes the seagrass habitat value as nurseries and presents recent juvenile fish studies that address the dearth of research at the long term and landscape level with an emphasis on the Chesapeake Bay. An important conclusion upon the review of these studies is that predicting the effects of climate change on fishery production remains uncertain.

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