scholarly journals Size matters: plasticity in metabolic scaling shows body-size may modulate responses to climate change

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 20140408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Carey ◽  
Julia D. Sigwart
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Metabolic Scaling ◽  
Seawater Ph ◽  
Abiotic Control ◽  
Specific Factors ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Increasing Temperature

Variability in metabolic scaling in animals, the relationship between metabolic rate ( R ) and body mass ( M ), has been a source of debate and controversy for decades. R is proportional to M b , the precise value of b much debated, but historically considered equal in all organisms. Recent metabolic theory, however, predicts b to vary among species with ecology and metabolic level, and may also vary within species under different abiotic conditions. Under climate change, most species will experience increased temperatures, and marine organisms will experience the additional stressor of decreased seawater pH (‘ocean acidification’). Responses to these environmental changes are modulated by myriad species-specific factors. Body-size is a fundamental biological parameter, but its modulating role is relatively unexplored. Here, we show that changes to metabolic scaling reveal asymmetric responses to stressors across body-size ranges; b is systematically decreased under increasing temperature in three grazing molluscs, indicating smaller individuals were more responsive to warming. Larger individuals were, however, more responsive to reduced seawater pH in low temperatures. These alterations to the allometry of metabolism highlight abiotic control of metabolic scaling, and indicate that responses to climate warming and ocean acidification may be modulated by body-size.

scholarly journals ‘To fish or not to fish?’: fishing communities of Arctic Yakutia in the face of environmental change and political transformations

Polar Record ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (3) ◽  
pp. 289-303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stanislav Ksenofontov ◽  
Norman Backhaus ◽  
Gabriela Schaepman-Strub
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Fishing Communities ◽  
Political Transformations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Face ◽  
Increasing Temperature ◽  
Traditional Fishing ◽  
Fishing Regulations

ABSTRACTThis paper assesses the vulnerability of Arctic fishing communities. We hypothesise that climate change related trends, such as increasing temperature and altered seasonality, and shocks, such as the breakdown of the Soviet Union or new fishing regulations, increase vulnerability of local Arctic peoples and compromise the sustainability of their livelihoods. Research shows that over recent decades local people have observed environmental changes and a significant decrease in the number of fish caught. Fishing regulations introduced after the collapse of the Soviet Union burdened fishers with quotas and temporal limitations that have hindered their fishing activities. While the adaptability of traditional fishing techniques to seasonally changing conditions might indicate the potential to adapt to future conditions under climate change, fishing regulations appear to limit this potential to adapt.

scholarly journals Eco-evolutionary dynamics may show an irreversible regime shift, illustrated by salmonids facing climate change

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Junnosuke Horita ◽  
Yoh Iwasa ◽  
Yuuya Tachiki
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Life History ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Evolutionary Dynamics ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Threshold Value ◽  
Masu Salmon ◽  
Assessment Model ◽  
Oncorhynchus Masou Masou ◽  
One Year

AbstractThe enhanced or reduced growth of juvenile masu salmon (Oncorhynchus masou masou) may result from climate changes to their environment and thus impact on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of their life-history choices. Male juveniles with status, i.e., if their body size is larger than a threshold, stay in the stream and become resident males reproducing for multiple years, while those with smaller status, i.e., their body size is below the threshold, migrate to the ocean and return to the stream one year later to reproduce only once. Since juvenile growth is suppressed by the density of resident males, the fraction of resident males may stay in equilibrium or fluctuate wildly over a 2-year period. When the threshold value evolves, the convergence stable strategy may generate either an equilibrium or large fluctuations of male residents. If environmental changes occur faster than the rate of evolutionary adaptation, the eco-evolutionary dynamics exhibit a qualitative shift in the population dynamics. We also investigated the relative assessment models, in which individual life-history choices are made based on the individual’s relative status within the juvenile population. The eco-evolutionary dynamics are very different from the absolute assessment model, demonstrating the importance of understanding the mechanisms of life history choices when predicting the impacts of climate change.

scholarly journals Various responses of pine marten morphology and demography to temporal climate changes and primary productivity

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Wereszczuk ◽  
Anastasia Fedotova ◽  
Adrian Marciszak ◽  
Marcin Popiołek ◽  
Arsenia Zharova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Sex Ratio ◽  
Primary Production ◽  
Primary Productivity ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Time Lag ◽  
Time Lags ◽  
Pine Marten ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Climate and environmental changes affect species’ morphology and ecology; however, the response of a species to changes in abiotic and biotic factors is not always consistent. Here, we tested how the structural body size of the pine marten and its population sex ratio changed over time and alongside climate change. We analysed temporal changes in morphological traits using 11 measurements of pine marten skulls collected between 1903 to 2020, linking them with climatic and primary production variations. We assessed demographic changes by calculating temporal sex ratio changes over 61 years. Skull size, as a proxy of body size, increased in response to warmer and less snowy winters, with a three-year time-lag. However, changes in primary productivity rapidly shaped postorbital constriction regardless of body size changes and without time-lags, potentially demonstrating increased diet diversity in pine marten. According to climate change, the population sex ratio has skewed towards males over time. Our results suggest that climate conditions and primary production affect skull structural size, highlighting the potential various responses of pine marten morphology and ecology in relation to climate change. Recently changing population demographics, as a consequence of these processes, may constitute a threat to marten populations.

scholarly journals Climate change and tropical marine ecosystems: A review with an emphasis on coral reefs

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. S24-S35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joan A. Kleypas A. Kleypas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Coral Reefs ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Direct Consequence ◽  
Co2 Concentration ◽  
Marine Species ◽  
Marine Ecosystems ◽  
Weather Extremes ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Seawater Ph

Climate change is usually associated with warming and weather extremes that impact the human environment and terrestrial systems, but it also has profound effects on the ocean, which is probably the most unique, life-supporting feature of planet Earth. The most direct consequence of rising CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is “ocean acidification,” a term that refers to the lowering of seawater pH, but encompasses a suite of chemical changes that affect marine organisms from shell formation, to reproduction, physiology, and behavior. The oceans are also warming in pace with the atmosphere, and in fact store the vast majority of the additional heat generated by rising CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. This warming is causing the more mobile marine species to redistribute poleward and deeper, and is causing high mortality in more sessile species such as those that build and habituate coral reefs. But warming is also leading to a decrease in dissolved oxygen in the oceans. For tropical marine ecosystems, the combination of ocean acidification, warming, and deoxygenation will continue to impact marine ecosystems in the future. The extent of these impacts depends on which energy pathway society follows, and our abilities to reduce other stressors and assist the rate at which species can adapt and migrate to more suitable environments.

scholarly journals Divergent morphological responses to millennia of climate change in two species of bats from Hall’s Cave, Texas, USA

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e10856
Author(s):  
Molly Moroz ◽  
Illiam S.C. Jackson ◽  
Daniel Ramirez ◽  
Melissa E. Kemp
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Fossil Record ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Dental Morphology ◽  
Centroid Size ◽  
Shape Variation ◽  
Temperature And Precipitation ◽  
Central Texas

How species will respond to ongoing and future climate change is one of the most important questions facing biodiversity scientists today. The fossil record provides unparalleled insight into past ecological and evolutionary responses to climate change, but the resource remains virtually untapped for many organisms. We use geometric morphometrics and a 25,000 year fossil record to quantify changes in body size and mandible shape through time and across climate regimes for two bat species present in Quaternary paleontological deposits of central Texas: Myotis velifer, a bat distributed throughout the Southwestern US and Mexico that is still found in central Texas today, and Eptesicus fuscus, a bat widely distributed throughout North America that has been extirpated in central Texas. Because of ecogeographic rules like Bergmann’s rule, which posits that endotherms are larger in colder environments, we hypothesized that both species were larger during cooler time intervals. Additionally, we hypothesized that both species would show variation in dental morphology across the studied sequence as a response to climate change. While we found a decrease in centroid size–a proxy for ­­body size–through time for both species, we could not establish a clear relationship between centroid size and temperature alone. However, we did find that specimens from drier environments were significantly larger than those from wetter ones. Furthermore, we found significant dental shape variation between environments reflecting different temperature levels for both species. Yet only M. velifer exhibited significant variation between environments of varying precipitation levels. This result was surprising because present-day populations of E. fuscus are highly variable across both temperature and precipitation gradients. We determined that the morphological change experienced by M. velifer through time, and between warmer and cooler temperatures, was associated with the coronoid process, condylar process, and the mandibular symphysis. These parts play a pivotal role in bite force, so changes in these features might relate to changes in diet. We show that long-term datasets derived from fossil material provide invaluable insight not only into the validity of ecogeographic rules, but also into the adaptive capacities of extant taxa when faced with environmental changes. Our results highlight diverging responses to a variety of climate factors that are relevant to consider in biodiversity research given ongoing global change.

scholarly journals The vulnerability of species to range expansions by predators can be predicted using historical species associations and body size

2015 ◽  
Vol 282 (1812) ◽  
pp. 20151211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen M. Alofs ◽  
Donald A. Jackson
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Body Size ◽  
Body Length ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Total Body Length ◽  
Relative Impact ◽  
Total Body ◽  
Historical Range

Climate change threatens species directly through environmental changes and indirectly through its effects on species interactions. We need tools to predict which species are most vulnerable to these threats. Pairwise species associations and body size are simple but promising predictors of the relative impact of species introduced outside of their historical ranges. We examined the vulnerability of 30 fish species to the impacts of three centrarchid predators that are being introduced to lakes north of their historical range boundaries. Species that were negatively associated with each centrarchid in their historical range were more likely to be lost from lakes with centrarchid introductions. Total body length was most important in predicting impact for the most gape-limited predator. At the regional scale, our method identifies those species most vulnerable to introductions facilitated by climate change and can easily be applied to a range of taxa undergoing range expansions.

Empirical Models Predicting Ingestion Rates of Black Fly Larvae

1988 ◽  
Vol 45 (10) ◽  
pp. 1711-1719 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Morin ◽  
Christian Back ◽  
Alain Chalifour ◽  
Jacques Boisvert ◽  
Robert H. Peters
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Water Temperature ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Ingestion Rate ◽  
Early Summer ◽  
Black Fly ◽  
Ingestion Rates ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
Increasing Temperature ◽  
Fly Control

Field experiments were performed in a gutter system to examine the effect of body size, water temperature, seston concentration, and particle type on the ingestion rate of Simulium venustum/verecundum larvae. Ingestion rates rose exponentially with increasing temperature between 9 and 19 °C (Q10 = 2.19, 95% CI 2.09–2.29) and rose asymptotically with seston concentration (range 0.7–30 mg∙L−1). Small larvae were more sensitive to variations in seston concentration than older instars. The type of particles offered also influenced the ingestion rate of larvae. Once corrected for body size, water temperature, and seston concentration, the data show that larvae ingested more of the natural seston and of a yeast suspension than of suspensions containing kaolinite. Ingestion rates of other simuliid species generally co-occurring at the outflow of lakes in early summer were of the same magnitude as those of S. venustum/verecundum, although significant differences were detected among species. Specific ingestion rates of simuliids decline with increasing mass, are similar to those measured for benthic detritivores, and tend to be higher than those of marine and freshwater zooplankton of similar size. The models are discussed with respect to black fly control with particulate larvicides.

scholarly journals Effect of environmental history on the habitat-forming kelp Macrocystis pyrifera responses to ocean acidification and warming: a physiological and molecular approach

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela A. Fernández ◽  
Jorge M. Navarro ◽  
Carolina Camus ◽  
Rodrigo Torres ◽  
Alejandro H. Buschmann
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ocean Acidification ◽  
Environmental History ◽  
Coastal Upwelling ◽  
Macrocystis Pyrifera ◽  
Natural Variability ◽  
Kelp Forests ◽  
Species Response ◽  
Enhanced Expression ◽  
Mesocosm Experiments

AbstractThe capacity of marine organisms to adapt and/or acclimate to climate change might differ among distinct populations, depending on their local environmental history and phenotypic plasticity. Kelp forests create some of the most productive habitats in the world, but globally, many populations have been negatively impacted by multiple anthropogenic stressors. Here, we compare the physiological and molecular responses to ocean acidification (OA) and warming (OW) of two populations of the giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera from distinct upwelling conditions (weak vs strong). Using laboratory mesocosm experiments, we found that juvenile Macrocystis sporophyte responses to OW and OA did not differ among populations: elevated temperature reduced growth while OA had no effect on growth and photosynthesis. However, we observed higher growth rates and NO3− assimilation, and enhanced expression of metabolic-genes involved in the NO3− and CO2 assimilation in individuals from the strong upwelling site. Our results suggest that despite no inter-population differences in response to OA and OW, intrinsic differences among populations might be related to their natural variability in CO2, NO3− and seawater temperatures driven by coastal upwelling. Further work including additional populations and fluctuating climate change conditions rather than static values are needed to precisely determine how natural variability in environmental conditions might influence a species’ response to climate change.

scholarly journals It’s Our Fault: A Global Comparison of Different Ways of Explaining Climate Change

Human Ecology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Schnegg ◽  
Coral Iris O’Brian ◽  
Inga Janina Sievert
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Carbon Dioxide ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Indigenous Communities ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Global Comparison ◽  
Local Phenomenon ◽  
World Regions ◽  
Survey Results ◽  
Specific Factors

AbstractInternational surveys suggest people increasingly agree the climate is changing and humans are the cause. One reading of this is that people have adopted the scientific point of view. Based on a sample of 28 ethnographic cases we argue that this conclusion might be premature. Communities merge scientific explanations with local knowledge in hybrid ways. This is possible because both discourses blame humans as the cause of the changes they observe. However, the specific factors or agents blamed differ in each case. Whereas scientists identify carbon dioxide producers in particular world regions, indigenous communities often blame themselves, since, in many lay ontologies, the weather is typically perceived as a local phenomenon, which rewards and punishes people for their actions. Thus, while survey results show approval of the scientific view, this agreement is often understood differently and leads to diverging ways of allocating meaning about humans and the weather.

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