scholarly journals Effects of environmental change on wildlife health

2009 ◽  
Vol 364 (1534) ◽  
pp. 3429-3438 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse ◽  
Amanda L. J. Duffus
Keyword(s):  
Immune System ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Reproductive Parameters ◽  
Wildlife Health ◽  
Changing Environment ◽  
Health Maintenance ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Impact

Environmental change has negatively affected most biological systems on our planet and is becoming of increasing concern for the well-being and survival of many species. At an organism level, effects encompass not only endocrine disruptions, sex-ratio changes and decreased reproductive parameters, but also include teratogenic and genotoxic effects, immunosuppression and other immune-system impairments that can lead directly to disease or increase the risk of acquiring disease. Living organisms will strive to maintain health by recognizing and resolving abnormal situations, such as the presence of invading microorganisms or harmful peptides, abnormal cell replication and deleterious mutations. However, fast-paced environmental changes may pose additional pressure on immunocompetence and health maintenance, which may seriously impact population viability and persistence. Here, we outline the importance of a functional immune system for survival and examine the effects that exposure to a rapidly changing environment might exert on immunocompetence. We then address the various levels at which anthropogenic environmental change might affect wildlife health and identify potential deficits in reproductive parameters that might arise owing to new immune challenges in the context of a rapidly changing environment. Throughout the paper, a series of examples and case studies are used to illustrate the impact of environmental change on wildlife health.

scholarly journals Effects of environmental change on agriculture, nutrition and health: A framework with a focus on fruits and vegetables

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna L. Tuomisto ◽  
Pauline F.D. Scheelbeek ◽  
Zaid Chalabi ◽  
Rosemary Green ◽  
Richard D. Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Food System ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Nutrition And Health ◽  
Crop Quality ◽  
Critical Pathways ◽  
The Impact

Environmental changes are likely to affect agricultural production over the next  decades. The interactions between environmental change, agricultural yields and crop quality, and the critical pathways to future diets and health outcomes are largely undefined. There are currently no quantitative models to test the impact of multiple environmental changes on nutrition and health outcomes. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we developed a framework to link the multiple interactions between environmental change, agricultural productivity and crop quality, population-level food availability, dietary intake and health outcomes, with a specific focus on fruits and vegetables. The main components of the framework consist of: i) socio-economic and societal factors, ii) environmental change stressors, iii) interventions and policies, iv) food system activities, v) food and nutrition security, and vi) health and well-being outcomes. The framework, based on currently available evidence, provides an overview of the multidimensional and complex interactions with feedback between environmental change, production of fruits and vegetables, diets and health, and forms the analytical basis for future modelling and scenario testing.

scholarly journals Effects of environmental change on population nutrition and health: A comprehensive framework with a focus on fruits and vegetables

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hanna L. Tuomisto ◽  
Pauline F.D. Scheelbeek ◽  
Zaid Chalabi ◽  
Rosemary Green ◽  
Richard D. Smith ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Health Outcomes ◽  
Food Availability ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Fruits And Vegetables ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Nutrition And Health ◽  
Crop Quality ◽  
The Impact

Environmental changes are likely to affect agricultural production over the next 20–30 years. The interactions between environmental change, agricultural yields and crop quality, and the critical pathways to future diets and health outcomes remain largely undefined. There are currently no quantitative models to test the impact of multiple environmental changes on nutrition and health outcomes. Using an interdisciplinary approach, we developed a framework to link the multiple interactions between environmental change, agricultural productivity and crop quality, population-level food availability, dietary intake and health outcomes, with a specific focus on fruits and vegetables. The main components of the framework consist of: i) socio-economic and societal factors, ii) environmental change stressors, iii) interventions and policies, iv) food system activities, v) food and nutrition security, and vi) health and well-being outcomes. The framework, based on currently available evidence, provides an overview of the multidimensional and complex interactions between environmental change, diets and health, and forms the analytical baseline for future modelling and scenario testing. The framework identifies the inter-sectoral datasets and models that need to be defined and populated to assess the impacts of environmental change on agricultural production, food availability, nutrition and population health.

scholarly journals Social Evaluation of Public Open Space Services and Their Impact on Well-Being: A Micro-Scale Assessment from a Coastal University

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 4372
Author(s):  
Abdullah Addas ◽  
Ahmad Maghrabi
Keyword(s):  
Open Space ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Evaluation ◽  
Open Spaces ◽  
Rapid Urbanization ◽  
Public Open Space ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Public Open Spaces

Public open spaces services have been shown to be profoundly affected by rapid urbanization and environmental changes, and in turn, they have influenced socio-cultural relationships and human well-being. However, the impact of these changes on public open space services (POSS) remains unexplored, particularly in the Saudi Arabian context. This study examines the socio-cultural influence of POSS on the King Abdulaziz University campus, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and the impact of these services on well-being. A field survey and questionnaire were used to collect data. Non-parametric tests (Kruskal–Wallis and Mann–Whitney tests) were used to find significant differences in the importance of POSS as perceived by stakeholders based on socio-demographic attributes. Factor analysis was performed for 14 POSS to identify those that are most important. The study showed that (i) university stakeholders are closely linked to services provided by public open spaces (POS) and dependent on POSS, (ii) there were significant differences in the perceived importance of POSS according to gender, age, and social groups, and (iii) 70 to 90% of stakeholders reported POSS as having a positive impact on well-being. Thus, the findings will help design and plan POSS to meet the needs of society and promote well-being.

scholarly journals The Impact of Social Support and Pregnancy on Subjective Well-Being: A Systematic Review

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Buyantungalag Battulga ◽  
Marc Reginald Benjamin ◽  
Hong Chen ◽  
Enkhmandakh Bat-Enkh
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Systematic Review ◽  
Life Satisfaction ◽  
Pregnant Women ◽  
Positive Association ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Protective Role ◽  
Subjective Well Being ◽  
Health Maintenance ◽  
The Impact

Background: Subjective well-being (SWB) has a protective role in mental health maintenance and is prone to change during short stressful moments, such as pregnancy. Longstanding research suggests that social support (SS) from the partner and family members of pregnant women directly or indirectly acts as a buffer against negative mental outcomes. For happier pregnancies, it is important to understand how SS and pregnancy affect the SWB.Objective: This review aims to examine the extended association of being pregnant and SS on the SWB of pregnant women.Methods: A systematic review was conducted in PubMed, ScienceDirect, and Google Scholar. Articles published in peer-reviewed journals were included regardless of the year and if they had assessed the impact of at least one SWB or SS outcome among healthy pregnant women. The tools of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute were used for quality assessment.Results: Thirty-four studies that assessed the domains of SWB measurements, such as happiness, quality of life (QoL), life satisfaction, positive and negative effects, and well-being, were included and its association with either pregnancy or SS was summarized. Variable results, such as life satisfaction, happiness, and mental component of QoL, were found to be high during pregnancy, but positive emotion and physical components of QoL had decreased. Almost universally, SS during pregnancy was found to have a positive association with all measurements of SWB.Conclusion: This study had found that, despite some arising trends, pregnancy itself does not necessarily have similar impacts on SWB across healthy pregnant women. However, SS had a significant effect on SWB.

scholarly journals The impact of environmental change on host–parasite coevolutionary dynamics

2010 ◽  
Vol 278 (1716) ◽  
pp. 2283-2292 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rafal Mostowy ◽  
Jan Engelstädter
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Selective Pressure ◽  
Time Windows ◽  
Gene Interactions ◽  
Genotype By Environment ◽  
Host Parasite ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Antagonistic Interactions ◽  
Gene For Gene

Environmental factors are known to affect the strength and the specificity of interactions between hosts and parasites. However, how this shapes patterns of coevolutionary dynamics is not clear. Here, we construct a simple mathematical model to study the effect of environmental change on host–parasite coevolutionary outcome when interactions are of the matching-alleles or the gene-for-gene type. Environmental changes may effectively alter the selective pressure and the level of specialism in the population. Our results suggest that environmental change altering the specificity of selection in antagonistic interactions can produce alternating time windows of cyclical allele-frequency dynamics and cessation thereof. This type of environmental impact can also explain the maintenance of polymorphism in gene-for-gene interactions without costs. Overall, our study points to the potential consequences of environmental variation in coevolution, and thus the importance of characterizing genotype-by-genotype-by-environment interactions in natural host–parasite systems, especially those that change the direction of selection acting between the two species.

scholarly journals Towards a Global Perspective of Environmental Health: Defining the Research Grounds of an Institute of Environmental Health

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (21) ◽  
pp. 8963
Author(s):  
Ana Virgolino ◽  
Francisco Antunes ◽  
Osvaldo Santos ◽  
Andreia Costa ◽  
Margarida Gaspar de Matos ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Health ◽  
Human Health ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Human Biomonitoring ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Global Perspective ◽  
Environmentally Sustainable ◽  
Sustainable Environment ◽  
Health Gains ◽  
The Impact

Environmental health is at the intersection between health and the environment. However, it still has a recent (and narrow) history as a scientific area, mainly addressing human biomonitoring and toxicological issues. Only recently additional environmental ‘layers’, other than the traditional chemical, biological and physical environmental determinants, have been considered. This broader perspective of environmental health also encompasses digital, psychosocial, political, socioeconomic and cultural determinants, all of them relevant when considering human health from a planetary health paradigm. This reflects the progressive adoption of a systemic perspective regarding the impact of gains for human health and well-being towards a sustainable environment. It also implies a multi-method and participatory approach to understand the intertwined relationship between environmental changes and human health. In this paper, the broader approach to environmental health is discussed in order to ‘set the stage’ for introducing the Institute of Environmental Health (ISAMB) of the Lisbon School of Medicine, Portugal. Each of the research groups and labs that compose ISAMB are presented, as well as their main lines of research. Present and planned contributions of ISAMB to advance knowledge on environmental health and for promoting human health gains in an environmentally sustainable way are also discussed.

scholarly journals Response of Biodiversity, Ecosystems, and Ecosystem Services to Climate Change in China: A Review

Ecologies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 313-331
Author(s):  
Haijiang Yang ◽  
Xiaohua Gou ◽  
Dingcai Yin
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Ecosystem Services ◽  
Resource Management ◽  
Natural Resource Management ◽  
Natural Resource ◽  
Species Interactions ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Climate Change Impacts ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Impact

Climate change is having a significant impact on the global ecosystem and is likely to become increasingly important as this phenomenon intensifies. Numerous studies in climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystems, and ecosystem services in China have been published in recent decades. However, a comprehensive review of the topic is needed to provide an improved understanding of the history and driving mechanisms of environmental changes within the region. Here we review the evidence for changes in climate and the peer-reviewed literature that assesses climate change impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem, and ecosystem services at a China scale. Our main conclusions are as follows. (1) Most of the evidence shows that climate change (the increasing extreme events) is affecting the change of productivity, species interactions, and biological invasions, especially in the agro-pastoral transition zone and fragile ecological area in Northern China. (2) The individuals and populations respond to climate change through changes in behavior, functions, and geographic scope. (3) The impact of climate change on most types of services (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural) in China is mainly negative and brings threats and challenges to human well-being and natural resource management, therefore, requiring costly societal adjustments. In general, although great progress has been made, the management strategies still need to be further improved. Integrating climate change into ecosystem services assessment and natural resource management is still a major challenge. Moving forward, it is necessary to evaluate and research the effectiveness of typical demonstration cases, which will contribute to better scientific management of natural resources in China and the world.

scholarly journals Environmental enrichment for laboratory animals in practice

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
N. KOSTOMITSOPOULOS (Ν. ΚΩΣΤΟΜΗΤΣΟΠΟΥΛΟΣ)
Keyword(s):  
Physical Environment ◽  
Environmental Enrichment ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Close Contact ◽  
Group Formation ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Laboratory Animals ◽  
The Social ◽  
Species Specific ◽  
The Impact

During the last decades there has been an increased scientific interest in the improvement of housing conditions for laboratory animals by providing them with opportunities to perform more species - specific behavioural repertoires through enriching their environment. Environmental enrichment is, by definition, any modification in the environment of the captive animals that seeks to enhance their physical and physiological wellbeing by providing stimuli that meet the animals' species-specific needs. An enrichment scheme can be focused on the social and the physical environment. The social environment of animals can be enriched by housing them together with conspecifics in pairs or in groups. Procedures to achieve group formation need careful introduction of individuals which are compatible, a factor which is strongly dependent upon age, sex and hierarchical rank. Social housing will be beneficial only if the pairs or groups are harmonious and stable. The close contact with humans could be also considered as social improvement. Strategies to improve physical environment of laboratory animals should include provision of stimuli (materials or devices) that are biologically meaningful to them, with which they can choose to interact or not and which are not harmful to them. In practice, any enrichment scheme should be well designed before its implementation. In depth knowledge of the behavioural needs of the animals is prerequisite. Close collaboration between the scientific and the technical personnel is also necessary. Environmental changes need to be carefully evaluated in order to establish whether the improvement of animal welfare has been really achieved and to determine the impact on the obtained experimental results. The assessment of improved well-being as a result of environmental changes is based on a complex of behavioural and physiological parameters.

scholarly journals Students’ Environmental Attitudes in the Context of Education for Sustainable Development

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Environmental Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Environmental Behavior ◽  
Environmental Problems ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Education For Sustainable Development ◽  
Ecological Education ◽  
The Impact

The results of two empirical studies of environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behavior of students studying in different fields (samples of 230 and 132 students) are considered. The features of ecological representations of students of ecological specialties at the beginning and at the end of vocational training are determined. Comparison of the effectiveness of professional ecological education and biological education as education for sustainable development indicates a more pronounced impact of ecological education on the formation of pro-environmental attitudes and readiness for pro-environmental behavior. The dynamics of the attitude to global environmental changes among students of the Faculty of Ecology is determined: from consumer attitude to nature, which is combined with a relatively strong belief that money is the key to solving environmental problems, environmental students come to believe in the priority of the world environmental problems. Changes in worldviews are accompanied by an intensification of pro-ecological behavior in everyday life. The impact of ecological education as the education for sustainable development on personality attitudes manifests itself in two ways - in attitudes to the problem of environmental change and in attitudes toward the natural world. The awareness of the importance of anthropogenic environmental change is accompanied by the clarifying of ideas about money as a universal means of solving environmental problems and the awareness of the importance of environmental change not only for humans but also for other species. An important result of these changes is the increased pro-environmental orientation of everyday behavior.

scholarly journals Environmental Change and Human Mobility: Trends, Law and Policy

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan F. Martin
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Change ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Evidence Base ◽  
Population Movements ◽  
Law And Policy ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

Enhancing the protection of persons displaced by natural disasters and the impacts of climate change will require sustained attention. This article identifies practical solutions, many of which are currently under consideration by governments and international organizations, to improve the lives of millions of people affected by environmental crises. It begins with a brief overview of why people move, the nature of those movements, and the relationship between human mobility and adaptation to environmental change by highlighting three types of mobility – migration, displacement and planned relocation. Next, the international and regional level will be discussed, with particular focus on legislative and policy frameworks for addressing human mobility in the context of environmental change. The article identifies gaps in existing frameworks as well as recent efforts to address them, particularly through mini-multilateral initiatives aimed at identifying principles and practices that should guide governmental action. The article concludes that efforts to improve responses require a better evidence base than currently exists on issues such as the environmental determinants of migration, displacement and planned relocation; the multi-faceted ways in which environmental factors relate to the many other causes of population movements in the cases of human mobility; and the impact of such movements on the well-being of migrants, communities of origin, and communities of destination.

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