scholarly journals Reconstructing the “push” and “pull” of climate and its impacts on subsistence cultures using paleolimnology

FACETS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
pp. 2042-2056
Author(s):  
Allison Elizabeth Covert ◽  
Andrew Scott Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Monitoring ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Systematic Map ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
And Migration ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Paleolimnological Methods

Climate variability has influenced settlement and cultural activities of human populations for millennia, and our knowledge of the context of environmental drivers of migration can be inferred using paleolimnological techniques. We present a systematic map of literature to understand the breadth of paleolimnological research that exists on environmental change and its impact on subsistence cultures. We aim to illustrate how the “push” and “pull” of climate influenced human society over the late-Holocene. A systematic search found 68 unique relevant studies that discussed topics of human settlement and migration, stressors on the environment, and (or) ecological monitoring with respect to changes in climate using paleolimnological methods. We identified three primary themes: where people live, how people live, and how people will continue to live. Most studies took place in North America, within the last decade, and had a focus on diatoms, sediment characteristics, and climate. Topics ranged from reconstructions of changes in climate, human presence, human influence on the environment, subsistence strategies, and the importance of monitoring. We demonstrate the value of paleolimnological methods in understanding the timing of events, revealing long-term ecological trends, and providing baseline conditions for effective remediation and management purposes.

scholarly journals The value of paleolimnology in reconstructing and managing ecosystem vulnerability: a systematic map

FACETS ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 517-536
Author(s):  
Victoria Theresa Watson ◽  
Andrew Scott Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Ecological Integrity ◽  
Systematic Map ◽  
Ecosystem Vulnerability ◽  
Long Term Monitoring ◽  
Conservation Plans ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Management And Conservation ◽  
Paleolimnological Methods ◽  
Term Monitoring

Vulnerability can measure an ecosystem’s susceptibility to change as a result of pressure or disturbance, but can be difficult to quantify. Reconstructions of past climate using paleolimnological methods can create a baseline to calibrate future projections of vulnerability, which can improve ecosystem management and conservation plans. Here, we conduct a systematic map to analyze the range and extent that paleolimnological published studies incorporated the concept of vulnerability. Additional themes of monitoring, management, conservation, restoration, or ecological integrity were also included. A total of 52 relevant unique articles were found, a majority of which were conducted in Europe or North America since 2011. Common themes identified included management and adaptation, with the latter heavily focussed on climate change or disturbance. From this, we can infer that the use of paleolimnology to discuss the concept of vulnerability is an emerging field. We argue that paleolimnology plays a valid role in the reconstruction of ecosystem vulnerability due to its capacity to broaden the scope of long-term monitoring, as well as its potential to help establish management and restoration plans. The use of paleolimnology in vulnerability analysis will provide a clearer lens of changes over time; therefore, it should be frequently implemented as a tool for vulnerability assessment.

scholarly journals A first empirical analysis of population stability in North America using radiocarbon records

The Holocene ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (9) ◽  
pp. 1345-1359
Author(s):  
Darcy Bird ◽  
Jacob Freeman ◽  
Erick Robinson ◽  
Gideon Maughan ◽  
Judson Byrd Finley ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Coarse Grained ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Population Stability ◽  
Subsistence Strategies ◽  
Continental Scale ◽  
Climate Stability ◽  
The Stability

Questions regarding population stability among animals and plants are fundamental to population ecology, yet this has not been a topic studied by archeologists focusing on prehistoric human populations. This is an important knowledge gap. The fluctuation of human populations over decades to centuries – population instability – may constrain the expansion of human economies. A first step toward describing basic patterns of population stability would be to identify sizes of fluctuations through time, since smaller fluctuations are more stable than larger fluctuations. We conduct a biogeographic analysis of the long-term stability of human societies in North America using a continental scale radiocarbon dataset. Our analysis compares the stability of summed calibrated radiocarbon date probability distributions (SPDs) with subsistence strategies and modeled climate stability between 6000 and 300 BP. This coarse-grained analysis reveals general trends regarding the stability of human systems in North America that future studies may build upon. Our results demonstrate that agricultural sequences have more stable SPDs than hunter-gatherer sequences in general, but agricultural sequences also experience rare, extreme increases and decreases in SPDs not seen among hunter-gatherers. We propose that the adoption of agriculture has the unintended consequence of increasing population density and stability over most time scales, but also increases the vulnerability of populations to large, rare changes. Conversely, hunter-gatherer systems remain flexible and less vulnerable to large population changes. Climate stability may have an indirect effect on long-term population stability, and climate shocks may be buffered by other aspects of subsistence strategies prior to affecting human demography.

scholarly journals Climate Mobility and Development Cooperation

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Stojanov ◽  
Sarah Rosengaertner ◽  
Alex de Sherbinin ◽  
Raphael Nawrotzki
Keyword(s):  
Climate Adaptation ◽  
Human Mobility ◽  
Climate Impacts ◽  
Development Cooperation ◽  
Climate Variability And Change ◽  
Policy Frameworks ◽  
And Migration ◽  
And Function ◽  
Role And Function

AbstractDevelopment cooperation actors have been addressing climate change as a cross-cutting issue and investing in climate adaptation projects since the early 2000s. More recently, as concern has risen about the potential impacts of climate variability and change on human mobility, development cooperation actors have begun to design projects that intentionally address the drivers of migration, including climate impacts on livelihoods. However, to date, we know little about the development cooperation’s role and function in responding to climate related mobility and migration. As such, the main aim of this paper is to outline the policy frameworks and approaches shaping development cooperation actors’ engagement and to identify areas for further exploration and investment. First, we frame the concept of climate mobility and migration and discuss some applicable policy frameworks that govern the issue from various perspectives; secondly, we review the toolbox of approaches that development cooperation actors bring to climate mobility; and third, we discuss the implications of the current Covid-19 pandemic and identify avenues for the way forward. We conclude that ensuring safe and orderly mobility and the decent reception and long-term inclusion of migrants and displaced persons under conditions of more severe climate hazards, and in the context of rising nationalism and xenophobia, poses significant challenges. Integrated approaches across multiple policy sectors and levels of governance are needed. In addition to resources, development cooperation actors can bring data to help empower the most affected communities and regions and leverage their convening power to foster more coordinated approaches within and across countries.

Ecological Construction Experience Analysis on Traditional Houses of Dong Inhabit Villages in Sanjiang, Guangxi

2011 ◽  
Vol 71-78 ◽  
pp. 3586-3590
Author(s):  
Qun Chen ◽  
Yan Bing Ye
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Human Society ◽  
Man And Nature ◽  
Construction Experience ◽  
Ecological Thought ◽  
Ecological Construction

Constructions in Dong inhabit houses respond to the cosmopolitan ecological thought “Man and nature live in harmony” with landscape of simplicity, nature and unity of heaven and humanity. It is not only Chinese nation’s cultural treasure but also a distinguished one in the art of architectural world which forms going through long-term choice and elimination of nature and human society and includes many reasonable ecological construction experience. This paper summarizes its ecological construction experience by researching traditional houses of Dong inhabit villages in Sanjiang, Guangxi to provide guidance for local architectural creation and sustainable development of villages.

α-Oxoaldehyde metabolism and diabetic complications

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (6) ◽  
pp. 1358-1363 ◽  
Author(s):  
P.J. Beisswenger ◽  
S.K. Howell ◽  
R.G. Nelson ◽  
M. Mauer ◽  
B.S. Szwergold
Keyword(s):  
Diabetic Complications ◽  
Complex Mixture ◽  
Therapeutic Interventions ◽  
Diabetic Patients ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Control Mechanisms ◽  
Protective Mechanisms ◽  
Glycation End Products ◽  
End Products

The factors responsible for variable susceptibility to diabetic nephropathy are not clear. According to the non-enzymatic glycation hypothesis, diabetes-related tissue damage occurs due to a complex mixture of toxic products, including α-oxoaldehydes, which are inherently toxic as well as serving as presursors for advanced glycation end-products. Protective mechanisms exist to control this unavoidable glycation, and these are determined by genetic or environmental factors that can regulate the concentrations of the reactive sugars or end-products. In diabetes these protective mechanisms become more important, since glycation stress increases, and less efficient defence systems against this stress could lead to diabetic complications. Some of these enzymatic control mechanisms, including those that regulate α-oxoaldehydes, have been identified. We have observed significant increases in production of the α-oxoaldehydes methylglyoxal and 3-deoxyglucosone in three human populations with biopsy-proven progression of nephropathy. The increase in methylglyoxal could be secondary to defects in downstream glycolytic enzymes (such as glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase) that regulate its production, or in detoxification mechanisms such as glyoxalase. Other mechanisms, however, appear to be responsible for the observed increase in 3-deoxyglucosone levels. We present results of our studies on the mechanisms responsible for variable production of α-oxoaldehydes by measuring the activity and characteristics of these enzymes in cells from complication-prone and -resistant diabetic patients. New therapeutic interventions designed to control these endogenous mechanisms could potentially enhance protection against excessive glycation and prevent or reverse complications of long-term diabetes.

scholarly journals Predictors of invertebrate biomass and rate of advancement of invertebrate phenology across eight sites in the North American Arctic

Polar Biology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 237-257
Author(s):  
Rebecca Shaftel ◽  
Daniel J. Rinella ◽  
Eunbi Kwon ◽  
Stephen C. Brown ◽  
H. River Gates ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prey Availability ◽  
Population Level ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Environmental Drivers ◽  
Chick Survival ◽  
The North ◽  
Phenological Mismatch ◽  
Nesting Sites ◽  
North American Arctic

AbstractAverage annual temperatures in the Arctic increased by 2–3 °C during the second half of the twentieth century. Because shorebirds initiate northward migration to Arctic nesting sites based on cues at distant wintering grounds, climate-driven changes in the phenology of Arctic invertebrates may lead to a mismatch between the nutritional demands of shorebirds and the invertebrate prey essential for egg formation and subsequent chick survival. To explore the environmental drivers affecting invertebrate availability, we modeled the biomass of invertebrates captured in modified Malaise-pitfall traps over three summers at eight Arctic Shorebird Demographics Network sites as a function of accumulated degree-days and other weather variables. To assess climate-driven changes in invertebrate phenology, we used data from the nearest long-term weather stations to hindcast invertebrate availability over 63 summers, 1950–2012. Our results confirmed the importance of both accumulated and daily temperatures as predictors of invertebrate availability while also showing that wind speed negatively affected invertebrate availability at the majority of sites. Additionally, our results suggest that seasonal prey availability for Arctic shorebirds is occurring earlier and that the potential for trophic mismatch is greatest at the northernmost sites, where hindcast invertebrate phenology advanced by approximately 1–2.5 days per decade. Phenological mismatch could have long-term population-level effects on shorebird species that are unable to adjust their breeding schedules to the increasingly earlier invertebrate phenologies.

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