scholarly journals Untangling interactions: do temperature and habitat fragmentation gradients simultaneously impact biotic relationships?

2014 ◽  
Vol 281 (1787) ◽  
pp. 20140687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Poppy Lakeman-Fraser ◽  
Robert M. Ewers
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Fragmentation ◽  
Plant Density ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Trophic Levels ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Abundance And Diversity ◽  
Plant Herbivore ◽  
The Impact

Gaining insight into the impact of anthropogenic change on ecosystems requires investigation into interdependencies between multiple drivers of ecological change and multiple biotic responses. Global environmental change drivers can act simultaneously to impact the abundance and diversity of biota, but few studies have also measured the impact across trophic levels. We firstly investigated whether climate (using temperature differences across a latitudinal gradient as a surrogate) interacts with habitat fragmentation (measured according to fragment area and distance to habitat edges) to impact a New Zealand tri-trophic food chain (plant, herbivore and natural enemy). Secondly, we examined how these interactions might differentially impact both the density and biotic processes of species at each of the three trophic levels. We found evidence to suggest that these drivers act non-additively across trophic levels. The nature of these interactions however varied: location synergistically interacted with fragmentation measures to exacerbate the detrimental effects on consumer density; and antagonistically interacted to ameliorate the impact on plant density and on the interactions between trophic levels (herbivory and parasitoid attack rate). Our findings indicate that the ecological consequences of multiple global change drivers are strongly interactive and vary according to the trophic level studied and whether density or ecological processes are investigated.

Droughts: The impact of semantics and perceptions

Water Policy ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-143 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir U. Smakhtin ◽  
E. Lisa F. Schipper
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Understanding ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Preventive Action ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Land Degradation And Desertification ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Source Duration

Global environmental change coupled with increased demand for food and competition for diminishing water places the issue of disaster risk management high on the global political agenda. Drought is one of the most complex natural hazards, affecting natural resources and human development recurrently. Drought affects agricultural production globally, triggering significant food and health insecurity and habitat loss through land degradation and desertification. While the consequences of droughts can usually be predicted, preventive action is frequently absent or insufficient to prevent serious impacts in many regions of the world. We believe that lack of a common understanding of what drought is stands in the way of cohesive anti-drought action. This paper examines drought definitions emerging from influential scholarship, practitioners' discourse and multilateral policy processes that emphasise diverging aspects of the phenomena of dry periods, including the source, duration, spatial extent, impact and affected stakeholders. This paper begins by examining the concepts of hazard and disaster. It then explores the various perceptions associated with drought and the problems posed by inconsistency in definitions. It concludes that a common conceptual understanding of drought is essential for effective action to address the growing need for reliable food supply, poverty alleviation and increased agricultural productivity globally.

scholarly journals Impact of Environmental Issues on Consumer Senses Leading to Ecofriendly Buying Decisions

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4S3) ◽  
pp. 93-98
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Sustainable Consumption ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Issues ◽  
Consumer Perception ◽  
Sensory Marketing ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Buying Decisions

Inducing Sustainable consumption in individuals is one of the important challenges in the path to Sustainability. Buying decision can be influenced by Consumer Perception. Sensory Marketing practices are effective tools for influencing Consumer Perception. This paper introduces sensory marketing as a new replica in the field of Sustainable Consumption. Senses stimulate cognitive thinking which is the need of the hour for global environmental change. Sensory marketing may be a new tool in the field of solving Environmental issues, as it influence buying decisions of consumer and also encourage consumer to pay more through perception. This study tries to analyse the impact of environmental Issues on consumer senses which influences to Eco friendly buying decisions..

scholarly journals Statistical ecology comes of age

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 20140698 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivier Gimenez ◽  
Stephen T. Buckland ◽  
Byron J. T. Morgan ◽  
Nicolas Bez ◽  
Sophie Bertrand ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Model Fitting ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Science Data ◽  
Ecological Processes ◽  
Research Perspectives ◽  
Current Trends ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Rigorous Framework ◽  
Statistical Ecology

The desire to predict the consequences of global environmental change has been the driver towards more realistic models embracing the variability and uncertainties inherent in ecology. Statistical ecology has gelled over the past decade as a discipline that moves away from describing patterns towards modelling the ecological processes that generate these patterns. Following the fourth International Statistical Ecology Conference (1–4 July 2014) in Montpellier, France, we analyse current trends in statistical ecology. Important advances in the analysis of individual movement, and in the modelling of population dynamics and species distributions, are made possible by the increasing use of hierarchical and hidden process models. Exciting research perspectives include the development of methods to interpret citizen science data and of efficient, flexible computational algorithms for model fitting. Statistical ecology has come of age: it now provides a general and mathematically rigorous framework linking ecological theory and empirical data.

scholarly journals Context-Dependency of Enemy Impact on Plant Communities in a Changing World

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Kempel ◽  
Harald Auge ◽  
Eric Allan
Keyword(s):  
Global Change ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Fungal Pathogens ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Biotic Interactions ◽  
Plant Productivity ◽  
Context Dependency ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
The Impact

Global environmental change is strongly altering biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Antagonistic biotic interactions affect the diversity and functioning of plant communities but are notoriously context dependent and are therefore likely to be altered by global change drivers. Global change can directly affect biotic interactions and can also indirectly alter the abundance, diversity and composition of plant enemy communities, via changes to plant productivity, diversity and functional composition. Changes in the enemy community feedback to alter the plant community. However, we lack predictions for how different global change drivers may alter enemy communities and their impact on plant communities. In this review we summarize current knowledge on the impact of invertebrate herbivores and fungal pathogens on plant productivity, diversity and community composition, and outline theory and expectations on how important global change drivers – nitrogen enrichment, warming and elevated CO2, as well as the loss of plant and insect diversity, may affect the impact of plant-enemies on plant communities.

scholarly journals Social and general intelligence improves collective action in a common pool resource system

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (14) ◽  
pp. 7712-7718
Author(s):  
Jacob Freeman ◽  
Jacopo A. Baggio ◽  
Thomas R. Coyle
Keyword(s):  
Collective Action ◽  
Natural Resources ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Ecological Change ◽  
Common Pool Resource ◽  
Common Pool ◽  
Global Environmental

On a planet experiencing global environmental change, the governance of natural resources depends on sustained collective action by diverse populations. Engaging in such collective action can only build upon the foundation of human cognition in social–ecological settings. To help understand this foundation, we assess the effect of cognitive abilities on the management of a common pool resource. We present evidence that two functionally distinct cognitive abilities, general and social intelligence, improve the ability of groups to manage a common pool resource. Groups high in both forms of intelligence engage in more effective collective action that is also more consistent, despite social or ecological change. This result provides a foundation for integrating the effects of cognitive abilities with other dimensions of cognitive diversity to explain when groups will and will not sustainably govern natural resources.

scholarly journals The implications of the recently recognized mid-20th century shift in the Earth system

2021 ◽  
pp. 205301962199552
Author(s):  
Chris Turney ◽  
Chris Fogwill
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Global Environmental Change ◽  
Earth System ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Future Warming ◽  
Atmospheric Interactions ◽  
Great Acceleration ◽  
The Impact

Satellite observations offering detailed records of global environmental change are only available from 1979. Emerging studies combining high-quality instrumental and natural observations highlight that the Earth system experienced a substantial shift across the mid-20th century, one that appears to have taken place before the Great Acceleration of human activities from the 1950s. These new results have far-reaching implications for understanding ice-ocean-atmospheric interactions in the Anthropocene and highlight the urgent need for drastic cuts in carbon emissions to limit the impact of future warming.

Performance and response to defoliation of Sanguisorba officinalis (Rosaceae) seedlings from mown and successional habitats

Botany ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 88 (7) ◽  
pp. 691-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Musche ◽  
Josef Settele ◽  
Walter Durka
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Fragmentation ◽  
Plant Density ◽  
Genetic Erosion ◽  
Species Selection ◽  
Perennial Herb ◽  
Common Environment ◽  
Sanguisorba Officinalis ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Fragmentation Processes

In agricultural habitats, selection may favour plants that show a pronounced ability to tolerate stress induced by specific management methods. However, genetic erosion associated with habitat fragmentation may diminish this ability. To assess the role of mowing as a selection pressure and the impact of fragmentation processes on the ability to tolerate foliage loss, we grew 215 plants of the perennial herb Sanguisorba officinalis  L. originating from 16 differently sized populations, located in mown meadows and successional fallows, in a common environment, and measured their performance and response to defoliation. Plants from meadows and fallows neither differed in performance characters nor in their ability to compensate for foliage loss. However, independently from the habitat of origin, populations slightly differed in performance. This variation was not due to differences in population size, plant density, or level of genetic variation, indicating its independence from genetic erosion, which may go along with habitat fragmentation. Rather, these differences between populations appear to be the outcome of unknown selection pressures or random genetic drift. Plants from successional fallows retain their potential to cope with mowing, presumably due to the low generation turnover of the perennial species. Selection by mowing may act over time scales larger than those reflected by the developmental stage of the current habitats.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document