Loss of seed-hauling animals spells trouble for plants in warming world

Abstract Rising global temperatures threaten to disrupt population sex ratios, which can in turn cause mate shortages, reduce population growth and adaptive potential, and increase extinction risk, particularly when ratios are male biased. Sex ratio distortion can then have cascading effects across other species and even ecosystems. Our understanding of the problem is limited by how often studies measure temperature effects in both sexes. To address this, the current review surveyed 194 published studies of heat tolerance, finding that the majority did not even mention the sex of the individuals used, with <10% reporting results for males and females separately. Although the data are incomplete, this review assessed phylogenetic patterns of thermally induced sex ratio bias for 3 different mechanisms: sex-biased heat tolerance, temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), and temperature-induced sex reversal. For sex-biased heat tolerance, documented examples span a large taxonomic range including arthropods, chordates, protists, and plants. Here, superior heat tolerance is more common in females than males, but the direction of tolerance appears to be phylogenetically fluid, perhaps due to the large number of contributing factors. For TSD, well-documented examples are limited to reptiles, where high temperature usually favors females, and fishes, where high temperature consistently favors males. For temperature-induced sex reversal, unambiguous cases are again limited to vertebrates, and high temperature usually favors males in fishes and amphibians, with mixed effects in reptiles. There is urgent need for further work on the full taxonomic extent of temperature-induced sex ratio distortion, including joint effects of the multiple contributing mechanisms.

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CHILLING CHALLENGES IN A WARMING WORLD

Acta Horticulturae ◽

10.17660/actahortic.2015.1099.115 ◽

2015 ◽

pp. 901-907 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

E. Luedeling ◽

M. Blanke ◽

J. Gebauer

Keyword(s):

Warming World

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Ocean deoxygenation, the global phosphorus cycle and the possibility of human-caused large-scale ocean anoxia

Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences ◽

10.1098/rsta.2016.0318 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 375 (2102) ◽

pp. 20160318 ◽

Cited By ~ 20

Author(s):

Andrew J. Watson ◽

Timothy M. Lenton ◽

Benjamin J. W. Mills

Keyword(s):

Chemical Weathering ◽

Large Scale ◽

Oxygen Demand ◽

Subsurface Water ◽

Phosphorus Cycle ◽

Low Oxygen ◽

Positive Feedbacks ◽

Future Possibility ◽

Warming World ◽

Ocean Deoxygenation

The major biogeochemical cycles that keep the present-day Earth habitable are linked by a network of feedbacks, which has led to a broadly stable chemical composition of the oceans and atmosphere over hundreds of millions of years. This includes the processes that control both the atmospheric and oceanic concentrations of oxygen. However, one notable exception to the generally well-behaved dynamics of this system is the propensity for episodes of ocean anoxia to occur and to persist for 10 5 –10 6 years, these ocean anoxic events (OAEs) being particularly associated with warm ‘greenhouse’ climates. A powerful mechanism responsible for past OAEs was an increase in phosphorus supply to the oceans, leading to higher ocean productivity and oxygen demand in subsurface water. This can be amplified by positive feedbacks on the nutrient content of the ocean, with low oxygen promoting further release of phosphorus from ocean sediments, leading to a potentially self-sustaining condition of deoxygenation. We use a simple model for phosphorus in the ocean to explore this feedback, and to evaluate the potential for humans to bring on global-scale anoxia by enhancing P supply to the oceans. While this is not an immediate global change concern, it is a future possibility on millennial and longer time scales, when considering both phosphate rock mining and increased chemical weathering due to climate change. Ocean deoxygenation, once begun, may be self-sustaining and eventually could result in long-lasting and unpleasant consequences for the Earth's biosphere. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Ocean ventilation and deoxygenation in a warming world’.

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