The promotion of stress tolerant Symbiodiniaceae dominance in juveniles of two coral species due to simulated future conditions of ocean warming and acidification

The symbiotic relationship between coral and its endosymbiotic algae, Symbiodiniaceae, greatly influences the hosts potential to withstand environmental stress. To date, the effects of climate change on this relationship has primarily focused on adult corals. Uncovering the effects of environmental stress on the establishment and development of this symbiosis in early life stages is critical for predicting how corals may respond to climate change. To determine the impacts of future climate projections on the establishment of symbionts in juvenile corals, ITS2 amplicon sequencing of single coral juveniles was applied to Goniastrea retiformis and Acropora millepora before and after exposure to three climate conditions of varying temperature and pCO2 levels (current and RCP8.5 in 2050 and 2100). Compared to ambient conditions, juvenile corals experienced shuffling in the relative abundance of Cladocopium (C1m, reduction) to Durusdinium (D1 and D1a, increase) over time. We calculated a novel risk metric incorporating functional redundancy and likelihood of impact on host physiology to identify the loss of D1a as a low risk to the coral compared to the loss of higher risk taxa like D1 and C1m. Although the increase in stress tolerant Durusdinium under future warming was encouraging for A. millepora, by 2100, G. retiformis communities displayed signs of symbiosis de-regulation, suggesting this acclimatory mechanism may have species-specific thresholds. These results emphasize the need for understanding of long-term effects of climate change induced stress on coral juveniles and their potential for increased acclimation to heat tolerance through changes in symbiosis.

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

Microbiome ◽

10.1186/s40168-021-01106-w ◽

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.

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Structural safety and design under climate change

IABSE Congress, New York, New York 2019: The Evolving Metropolis ◽

10.2749/newyork.2019.1129 ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Pietro Croce ◽

Paolo Formichi ◽

Filippo Landi

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Greenhouse Gas ◽

Structural Reliability ◽

Greenhouse Gas Emission ◽

Extreme Value ◽

Structural Safety ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Impact Of Climate Change ◽

The Impact

The impact of climate change on climatic actions could significantly affect, in the mid-term future, the design of new structures as well as the reliability of existing ones designed in accordance to the provisions of present and past codes. Indeed, current climatic loads are defined under the assumption of stationary climate conditions but climate is not stationary and the current accelerated rate of changes imposes to consider its effects.Increase of greenhouse gas emissions generally induces a global increase of the average temperature, but at local scale, the consequences of this phenomenon could be much more complex and even apparently not coherent with the global trend of main climatic parameters, like for example, temperature, rainfalls, snowfalls and wind velocity.In the paper, a general methodology is presented, aiming to evaluate the impact of climate change on structural design, as the result of variations of characteristic values of the most relevant climatic actions over time. The proposed procedure is based on the analysis of an ensemble of climate projections provided according a medium and a high greenhouse gas emission scenario. Factor of change for extreme value distribution’s parameters and return values are thus estimated in subsequent time windows providing guidance for adaptation of the current definition of structural loads.The methodology is illustrated together with the outcomes obtained for snow, wind and thermal actions in Italy. Finally, starting from the estimated changes in extreme value parameters, the influence on the long-term structural reliability can be investigated comparing the resulting time dependent reliability with the reference reliability levels adopted in modern Structural codes.

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Species-specific flowering phenology responses to experimental warming and drought alter herbaceous plant species overlap in a temperate–boreal forest community

Annals of Botany ◽

10.1093/aob/mcaa156 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Karen E Rice ◽

Rebecca A Montgomery ◽

Artur Stefanski ◽

Roy L Rich ◽

Peter B Reich

Keyword(s):

Species Interactions ◽

Summer Rainfall ◽

Flowering Phenology ◽

Forest Community ◽

Herbaceous Plant ◽

Experimental Warming ◽

Ambient Conditions ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Herbaceous Perennials ◽

Species Specific

Abstract Background and Aims Warmer temperatures and altered precipitation patterns are expected to continue to occur as the climate changes. How these changes will impact the flowering phenology of herbaceous perennials in northern forests is poorly understood but could have consequences for forest functioning and species interactions. Here, we examine the flowering phenology responses of five herbaceous perennials to experimental warming and reduced summer rainfall over 3 years. Methods This study is part of the B4WarmED experiment located at two sites in northern Minnesota, USA. Three levels of warming (ambient, +1.6 °C and +3.1 °C) were crossed with two rainfall manipulations (ambient and 27 % reduced growing season rainfall). Key Results We observed species-specific responses to the experimental treatments. Warming alone advanced flowering for four species. Most notably, the two autumn blooming species showed the strongest advance of flowering to warming. Reduced rainfall alone advanced flowering for one autumn blooming species and delayed flowering for the other, with no significant impact on the three early blooming species. Only one species, Solidago spp., showed an interactive response to warming and rainfall manipulation by advancing in +1.6 °C warming (regardless of rainfall manipulation) but not advancing in the warmest, driest treatment. Species-specific responses led to changes in temporal overlap between species. Most notably, the two autumn blooming species diverged significantly in their flowering timing. In ambient conditions, these two species flowered within the same week. In the warmest, driest treatment, flowering occurred over a month apart. Conclusions Herbaceous species may differ in how they respond to future climate conditions. Changes to phenology may lead to fewer resources for insects or a mismatch between plants and pollinators.

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A comparison between direct and indirect frameworks to evaluate impacts of climate change on streamflows: case study of Karkheh River basin in Iran

Journal of Water and Climate Change ◽

10.2166/wcc.2017.043 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 652-674 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Mohsen Nasseri ◽

Banafsheh Zahraie ◽

Leila Forouhar

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

River Basin ◽

Hydrological Modeling ◽

Future Climate ◽

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines ◽

Group Method ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Karkheh River Basin ◽

Impacts Of Climate Change

Abstract In this paper, two approaches to assess the impacts of climate change on streamflows have been used. In the first approach (direct), a statistical downscaling technique was utilized to predict future streamflows based on large-scale data of general circulation models (GCMs). In the second approach (indirect), GCM outputs were downscaled to produce local climate conditions which were then used as inputs to a hydrological simulation model. In this article, some data-mining methods such as model-tree, multivariate adaptive regression splines and group method of data handling were utilized for direct downscaling of streamflows. Projections of HadCM3 model for A2 and B2 SRES scenarios were also used to simulate future climate conditions. These evaluations were done over three sub-basins of Karkheh River basin in southwest Iran. To achieve a comprehensive assessment, a global uncertainty assessment method was used to evaluate the results of the models. The results indicated that despite simplifications included in the direct downscaling, this approach is accurate enough to be used for assessing climate change impacts on streamflows without computational efforts of hydrological modeling. Furthermore, comparing future climate projections, the uncertainty associated with elimination of hydrological modeling is estimated to be high.

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Future change in renewable energy availability in West Africa: a time of emergence approach

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-20842 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Marco Gaetani ◽

Benjamin Sultan ◽

Serge Janicot Serge Janicot ◽

Mathieu Vrac ◽

Robert Vautard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Renewable Energy ◽

Solar Radiation ◽

West Africa ◽

Energy Production ◽

Renewable Energy Sources ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Projected Change ◽

Wind Potential

Independence in energy production is a key aspect of development in West African countries, which are facing fast population growth and climate change. Sustainable development is based on the availability of renewable energy sources, which are tightly tied to climate variability and change. In the context of current and projected climate change, development plans need reliable assessment of future availability of renewable resources.In this study, the change in the availability of photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy in West Africa in the next decades is assessed. Specifically, the time of emergence (TOE) of climate change in PV and wind potential is estimated in 29 CMIP5 climate projections.The ensemble robustly simulates a shift into a warmer climate in West Africa, which already occurred, and projects a decrease in solar radiation at the surface to occur by the 70s. The reduction in solar radiation is associated with a projected increase in the monsoonal precipitation in the 21st century. It results a likely change into climate conditions less favourable for PV energy production by the 40s. On the other hand, the projected change in the monsoonal dynamics will drive the increase in low level winds over the coast, which in turn will result in a robustly simulated shift into climate conditions favourable to wind power production by mid-century. Results show that climate model projections are skilful at providing usable information for adaptation measures to be taken in the energy sector.

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Controlled drainage in future climate scenarios

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-14381 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Aleksi Salla ◽

Heidi Salo ◽

Harri Koivusalo

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Historical Period ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Controlled Drainage ◽

Agricultural Field ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Groundwater Levels ◽

The Future ◽

Wet And Dry Cycles ◽

Drainage Effect

Climate change is projected to result in higher temperatures, higher annual precipitation and more uneven distribution of precipitation in the northern regions. This requires adaptation in agriculture where both excessively wet and dry cycles pose challenges to cropping. Until now, water management in northern agricultural fields has been resting primarily on efficient drainage, but interest towards more flexible measures has increased.This study focuses on the hydrological effects of climate change and controlled drainage operated with subsurface drains and an open collector ditch in an agricultural field. The objective was to computationally estimate how groundwater levels and water balance respond to controlled drainage and open ditch scenarios in climate conditions projected to take place in Finland during this century. A hydrological model FLUSH was used to simulate the hydrology of an experimental field in Sievi, Northern Ostrobothnia, Finland during years 1970&#8211;2100. Down-scaled climate projections from EURO-CORDEX (RCP 8.5 and RCP 2.6) were used as meteorological input. The temporal development of the field hydrology and the effects of controlled drainage were examined by dividing the time series into four subsequent time intervals (historical period and three future periods).Two different control scenarios were studied. Drainage intensity was reduced during growing seasons in summers (Jun.&#8211;Aug.) and either in autumn (Oct.&#8211;Nov.) or from autumn to spring (Oct.&#8211;Mar.). During these periods, groundwater table was on average 17&#8211;29 cm, 28&#8211;30 cm and 36&#8211;40 cm higher, respectively, in the control scenarios when compared to conventional subsurface drainage in different study intervals and emission scenarios. The implementation of controlled drainage reduced annual drain discharge by 21&#8211;46 mm. The projected temporal evolution of the effects of controlled drainage on groundwater levels and annual drain discharges were not monotonous, but the projected effects were larger during the future periods when compared to the historical period. Controlled drainage effect on groundwater levels was seen during both dry and wet years. Controlled drainage was assessed to be an effective method to control field water processes currently and in the future decades. The open collector ditch lowered groundwater levels within a distance of 115 m from the ditch.

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Machine Learning for Conservation Planning in a Changing Climate

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su12187657 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 12 (18) ◽

pp. 7657

Author(s):

Ana Cristina Mosebo Fernandes ◽

Rebeca Quintero Gonzalez ◽

Marie Ann Lenihan-Clarke ◽

Ezra Francis Leslie Trotter ◽

Jamal Jokar Arsanjani

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Machine Learning ◽

Machine Learning Algorithms ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Sage Grouse ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Fragmented Habitat ◽

Related Data ◽

Temperature And Precipitation ◽

Methodical Approach

Wildlife species’ habitats throughout North America are subject to direct and indirect consequences of climate change. Vulnerability assessments for the Intermountain West regard wildlife and vegetation and their disturbance as two key resource areas in terms of ecosystems when considering climate change issues. Despite the adaptability potential of certain wildlife, increased temperature estimates of 1.67–2 °C by 2050 increase the likelihood and severity of droughts, floods, heatwaves and wildfires in Utah. As a consequence, resilient flora and fauna could be displaced. The aim of this study was to locate areas of habitat for an exemplary species, i.e., sage-grouse, based on current climate conditions and pinpoint areas of future habitat based on climate projections. The locations of wildlife were collected from Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) observations in addition to normal temperature and precipitation, vegetation cover and other ecosystem-related data. Four machine learning algorithms were then used to locate the current sites of wildlife habitats and predict suitable future sites where wildlife would likely relocate to, dependent on the effects of climate change and based on a timeframe of scientifically backed temperature-increase estimates. Our findings show that Random Forest outperforms other competing models, with an accuracy of 0.897, and a sensitivity and specificity of 0.917 and 0.885, respectively, and has great potential in Species Distribution Modeling (SDM), which can provide useful insights into habitat predictions. Based on this model, our predictions show that sage-grouse habitats in Utah will continue to decrease over the coming years due to climate change, producing a highly fragmented habitat and causing a loss of close to 70% of their current habitat. Priority Areas of Conservation (PACs) and protected areas might be deemed insufficient to halt this habitat loss, and more effort should be put into maintaining connectivity between patches to ensure the movement and genetic diversity within the sage-grouse population. The underlying data-driven methodical approach of this study could be useful for environmentalists, researchers, decision-makers, and policymakers, among others.

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Landscape-Scale Forest Reorganization Following Insect Invasion and Harvest Under Future Climate Change Scenarios

Ecosystems ◽

10.1007/s10021-021-00616-w ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Stacey K. Olson ◽

Erica A. H. Smithwick ◽

Melissa S. Lucash ◽

Robert M. Scheller ◽

Robert E. Nicholas ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Forest Disturbance ◽

Emerald Ash Borer ◽

Agrilus Planipennis ◽

Forest Composition ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Scenarios ◽

Long Term Effects ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Species Dominance

AbstractEmerald ash borer (EAB; Agrilus planipennis Farimaire) has been found in 35 US states and five Canadian provinces. This invasive beetle is causing widespread mortality to ash trees (Fraxinus spp.), which are an important timber product and ornamental tree, as well as a cultural resource for some Tribes. The damage will likely continue despite efforts to impede its spread. Further, widespread and rapid ash mortality as a result of EAB is expected to alter forest composition and structure, especially when coupled with the regional effects of climate change in post-ash forests. Thus, we forecasted the long-term effects of EAB-induced ash mortality and preemptive ash harvest (a forest management mitigation strategy) on forested land across a 2-million-hectare region in northern Wisconsin. We used a spatially explicit and spatially interactive forest simulation model, LANDIS-II, to estimate future species dominance and biodiversity assuming continued widespread ash mortality. We ran forest disturbance and succession simulations under historic climate conditions and three downscaled CMIP5 climate change projections representing the upper bound of expected changes in precipitation and temperature. Our results suggest that although ash loss from EAB or harvest resulted in altered biodiversity patterns in some stands, climate change will be the major driver of changes in biodiversity by the end of century, causing increases in the dominance of southern species and homogenization of species composition across the landscape.

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The role of irrigation on potato yields in Northern Germany under climate change

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-9554 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Sabine Egerer ◽

Andrea Fajardo ◽

Michael Peichl ◽

Oldrich Rakovec ◽

Luis Samaniego ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Climate Change Adaptation ◽

Statistical Approach ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Hydrologic Model ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Statistical Regression ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Adaptation Measure ◽

Weather And Climate

The agricultural sector is particularly vulnerable to changing weather and climate conditions. Climate projections for Germany until the end of this century demonstrate higher temperatures and a substantial net water deficit during the summer months when agriculture is in high demand for water. Additionally, the frequency and length of dry periods increase as a consequence of climate change. Irrigation was introduced in the 1960s in Northeast Lower Saxony (Germany) to become more resilient to changing weather and climate conditions and prevent yield losses. The region involves today the largest irrigated area in Germany. However, during the drought in 2018 water extractions for irrigation by far exceeded the institutional limit. Water using conflicts are likely to strengthen in the future as the irrigation demand will increase. In this study, we explore the importance of irrigation as a climate change adaptation measure in the region. First, we employ a statistical regression model to investigate whether regional climate, hydrological, and irrigation data on a monthly and county level scale are adequate to describe potato yield changes between 1978 and 2018. Soil moisture information originates from the mesoscale hydrologic model (mHM). Irrigation is estimated based on the climatic water balance and crop water demand. These estimations are scaled with irrigation data from local authorities to account for realistic monthly water withdrawals. Second, we use the process-based crop model EPIC to estimate potato crop yields and to validate the performance of the statistical approach. We analyze future yield changes based on climate model projections for the 21st century using the two approaches. We investigate different irrigation scenarios as a potential climate change adaptation measure. By comparing the statistical and process-based approaches we explore whether a rather simplistic statistical approach captures the main processes of the climate change impact on yields.

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Copernicus Sectoral Information System for the Biodiversity Sector

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-18377 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Koen De Ridder ◽

Filip Lefebre ◽

Eline Vanuytrecht ◽

Julie Berckmans ◽

Hendrik Wouters

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Information System ◽

High Resolution ◽

Global Climate ◽

Future Climate ◽

Use Cases ◽

Climate Projections ◽

Climate Data ◽

Climate Conditions ◽

Climate Suitability

Biodiversity is increasingly under pressure from climate change, which affects the habitat suitability for species as well as the efficiency of ecosystem services. Management of these issues, for instance through ecosystem restoration or species dispersal measures, is often hindered by a lack of appropriate information about (future) climate conditions.&#160; To address this, an operational Sectoral Information System (SIS) for the Biodiversity sector (SIS Biodiversity) is designed within the Copernicus programme Climate Change Service (C3S). This new SIS provides tailored bio-climatic indicators and applications, and delivers novel evidence regarding impacts of past, present and future climate. As such, it provides support to decision making challenges that are currently facing unmet climate data needs. &#160; The new climate service for SIS Biodiversity will be demonstrated, including the outline, workflow and outcomes of the use cases. The service is built upon the Copernicus Data Store platform (CDS; ), and takes into account (1) the barriers in ongoing bio-climate assessments and (2) the user requirements of diverse stakeholders (e.g. researcher institutes, local NGO&#8217;s, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN),&#8230;). These have been collected during workshops and bilateral meetings in 2019. A common barrier is the lack of reliable and high-resolution information about states and dynamics of the soil, sea, ice and air for the past and the future climate. Therefore, the service provides relevant bio-climatic indicators on the basis of a wealth of available variables from the latest ERA5 reanalysis datasets and the CMIP5 global climate projections available in CDS. In order to provide information at high resolution and minimize inconsistencies between observed and modelled variables, different downscaling and bias-correction techniques are applied. A common requirement is a universal and flexible interface to the bio-climatic indicators in an easy-to-use and coherent platform that is applicable for different fauna and flora species of interest. Therefore, different applications have been developed within CDS for generating bio-climate suitability envelopes from the high-resolution indicators and to evaluate climate suitability and impacts for the species under present and future climate. Finally, the service is currently tested and refined on the basis of specific use cases. Special attention is given to their transferability to other global and topical studies, hence maximizing external user uptake throughout existing research and policy networks.

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