scholarly journals Past, present, and future distribution of Afromontane rodents (Muridae: Otomys) reflect climate-change predicted biome changes

Mammalia ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John Taylor ◽  
Aluwani Nengovhela ◽  
Jabulani Linden ◽  
Roderick M. Baxter
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Central Plateau ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
Montane Biodiversity ◽  
Similar Range ◽  
Low Altitude ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Few Data ◽  
Great Escarpment

AbstractClimate change constitutes a potential threat to montane biodiversity, particularly in low-altitude, tropical mountains; however, few data exist for the Afromontane taxa. In South Africa, the temperate grassland and fynbos biomes are mostly associated with the Great Escarpment and the high-lying central plateau. Varying contractions of the grassland and fynbos biomes are predicted under different climate scenarios by 2050. Animal taxa adapted to these biomes should suffer similar range declines and can be used to independently test the vegetation models. We constructed MaxEnt models from 271 unique locality records for three species of montane and submontane vlei rats that are closely associated with grassland (

scholarly journals Mountain colonisation, miniaturisation and ecological evolution in a radiation of direct-developing New Guinea Frogs (Choerophryne, Microhylidae)

PeerJ ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. e3077 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M. Oliver ◽  
Amy Iannella ◽  
Stephen J. Richards ◽  
Michael S.Y. Lee
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Ancestral State ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
Climatic Oscillations ◽  
Evolutionary Trajectories ◽  
Montane Biodiversity ◽  
Male Calling

AimsMountain ranges in the tropics are characterised by high levels of localised endemism, often-aberrant evolutionary trajectories, and some of the world’s most diverse regional biotas. Here we investigate the evolution of montane endemism, ecology and body size in a clade of direct-developing frogs (Choerophryne,Microhylidae) from New Guinea.MethodsPhylogenetic relationships were estimated from a mitochondrial molecular dataset using Bayesian and maximum likelihood approaches. Ancestral state reconstruction was used to infer the evolution of elevational distribution, ecology (indexed by male calling height), and body size, and phylogenetically corrected regression was employed to examine the relationships between these three traits.ResultsWe obtained strong support for a monophyletic lineage comprising the majority of taxa sampled. Within this clade we identified one subclade that appears to have diversified primarily in montane habitats of the Central Cordillera (>1,000 m a.s.l.), with subsequent dispersal to isolated North Papuan Mountains. A second subclade (characterised by moderately to very elongated snouts) appears to have diversified primarily in hill forests (<1,000 m a.s.l.), with inferred independent upwards colonisations of isolated montane habitats, especially in isolated North Papuan Mountains. We found no clear relationship between extremely small body size (adult SVL less than 15 mm) and elevation, but a stronger relationship with ecology—smaller species tend to be more terrestrial.ConclusionsOrogeny and climatic oscillations have interacted to generate high montane biodiversity in New Guinea via both localised diversification within montane habitats (centric endemism) and periodic dispersal across lowland regions (eccentric endemism). The correlation between extreme miniaturisation and terrestrial habits reflects a general trend in frogs, suggesting that ecological or physiological constraints limit niche usage by miniaturised frogs, even in extremely wet environments such as tropical mountains.

scholarly journals Mountain colonisation, miniaturisation and ecological evolution in a radiation of direct developing New Guinea Frogs (Choerophryne, Microhylidae)

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul M Oliver ◽  
Amy Iannella ◽  
Stephen J Richards ◽  
Michael S.Y Lee
Keyword(s):  
Body Size ◽  
Small Body ◽  
Strong Support ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
Ancestral State ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
Climatic Oscillations ◽  
Evolutionary Trajectories ◽  
Montane Biodiversity ◽  
Male Calling

Aims. Mountain ranges in the tropics are characterised by high levels of localised endemism, often-aberrant evolutionary trajectories, and some of the world’s most diverse regional biotas. Here we investigate the evolution of montane endemism, ecology and body size in a clade of direct-developing frogs (Choerophryne, Microhylidae) from New Guinea. Methods. Phylogenetic relationships were estimated from a mitochondrial molecular dataset using Bayesian and maximum likelihood approaches. Ancestral state reconstruction was used to infer the evolution of elevational distribution, ecology (indexed by male calling height), and body size, and phylogenetically corrected regression was employed to examine the relationships between these three traits. Results. We obtained strong support for a monophyletic lineage comprising the majority of taxa sampled. Within this clade we identified one subclade that appears to have diversified primarily in montane habitats of the Central Cordillera (> 1000 m. a.s.l), with subsequent dispersal to isolated North Papuan Mountains. A second subclade (characterised by moderately to very elongated snouts) appears to have diversified primarily in hill forests (< 1000 m a.s.l.), with inferred independent upwards colonisations of isolated montane habitats, especially in isolated North Papuan Mountains. We found no clear relationship between extremely small body size (adult SVL less than 15mm) and elevation, but a stronger relationship with ecology – smaller species tend to be more terrestrial. Conclusions. Orogeny and climatic oscillations have interacted to generate high montane biodiversity in New Guinea via both localised diversification within montane habitats (centric endemism) and periodic dispersal across lowland regions (eccentric endemism). The correlation between extreme miniaturisation and terrestrial habits reflects a general trend in frogs, suggesting that ecological or physiological constraints limit niche usage by miniaturised frogs, even in extremely wet environments such as tropical mountains.

The future of European floodplain wetlands under a changing climate

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 106-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christof Schneider ◽  
Martina Flörke ◽  
Gertjan Geerling ◽  
Harm Duel ◽  
Mateusz Grygoruk ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Future Climate Change ◽  
Anthropogenic Factors ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Floodplain Wetlands ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Climate Change Projections ◽  
The Future ◽  
Floodplain Inundation

In the future, climate change may severely alter flood patterns over large regional scales. Consequently, besides other anthropogenic factors, climate change represents a potential threat to river ecosystems. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of climate change on floodplain inundation for important floodplain wetlands in Europe and to place these results in an ecological context. This work is performed within the Water Scenarios for Europe and Neighbouring States (SCENES) project considering three different climate change projections for the 2050s. The global scale hydrological model WaterGAP is applied to simulate current and future river discharges that are then used to: (i) estimate bankfull flow conditions, (ii) determine three different inundation parameters, and (iii) evaluate the hydrological consequences and their relation to ecology. Results of this study indicate that in snow-affected catchments (e.g. in Central and Eastern Europe) inundation may appear earlier in the year. Duration and volume of inundation are expected to decrease. This will lead to a reduction in habitat for fish, vertebrates, water birds and floodplain-specific vegetation causing a loss in biodiversity, floodplain productivity and fish production. Contradictory results occur in Spain, France, Southern England and the Benelux countries. This reflects the uncertainties of current climate modelling for specific seasons.

scholarly journals Evaluation of a Global Vegetation Model using time series of satellite vegetation indices

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 1103-1114 ◽  
Author(s):  
F. Maignan ◽  
F.-M. Bréon ◽  
F. Chevallier ◽  
N. Viovy ◽  
P. Ciais ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Time Series ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Vegetation Indices ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Vegetation Dynamic ◽  
Rate Of Increase ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
Global Vegetation ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Atmospheric CO2 drives most of the greenhouse effect increase. One major uncertainty on the future rate of increase of CO2 in the atmosphere is the impact of the anticipated climate change on the vegetation. Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVM) are used to address this question. ORCHIDEE is such a DGVM that has proven useful for climate change studies. However, there is no objective and methodological way to accurately assess each new available version on the global scale. In this paper, we submit a methodological evaluation of ORCHIDEE by correlating satellite-derived Vegetation Index time series against those of the modeled Fraction of absorbed Photosynthetically Active Radiation (FPAR). A perfect correlation between the two is not expected, however an improvement of the model should lead to an increase of the overall performance. We detail two case studies in which model improvements are demonstrated, using our methodology. In the first one, a new phenology version in ORCHIDEE is shown to bring a significant impact on the simulated annual cycles, in particular for C3 Grasses and C3 Crops. In the second case study, we compare the simulations when using two different weather fields to drive ORCHIDEE. The ERA-Interim forcing leads to a better description of the FPAR interannual anomalies than the simulation forced by a mixed CRU-NCEP dataset. This work shows that long time series of satellite observations, despite their uncertainties, can identify weaknesses in global vegetation models, a necessary first step to improving them.

scholarly journals Leveraging plant hydraulics to yield predictive and dynamic plant leaf allocation in vegetation models with climate change

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (12) ◽  
pp. 4008-4021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna T. Trugman ◽  
Leander D. L. Anderegg ◽  
John S. Sperry ◽  
Yujie Wang ◽  
Martin Venturas ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Plant Leaf ◽  
Plant Hydraulics ◽  
Dynamic Plant ◽  
Vegetation Models

scholarly journals Phenotypic plasticity mediates climate change responses among invasive and indigenous arthropods

2007 ◽  
Vol 274 (1625) ◽  
pp. 2531-2537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven L Chown ◽  
Sarette Slabber ◽  
Melodie A McGeoch ◽  
Charlene Janion ◽  
Hans Petter Leinaas
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Invasive Species ◽  
Phenotypic Plasticity ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Terrestrial Ecosystems ◽  
Indigenous Species ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
Human Welfare ◽  
Change Type ◽  
Climate Change Responses

Synergies between global change and biological invasion have been identified as a major potential threat to global biodiversity and human welfare. The global change-type drought characteristic of many temperate terrestrial ecosystems is especially significant because it will apparently favour invasive over indigenous species, adding to the burden of conservation and compromising ecosystem service delivery. However, the nature of and mechanisms underlying this synergy remain poorly explored. Here we show that in a temperate terrestrial ecosystem, invasive and indigenous springtail species differ in the form of their phenotypic plasticity such that warmer conditions promote survival of desiccation in the invasive species and reduce it in the indigenous ones. These differences are consistent with significant declines in the densities of indigenous species and little change in those of invasive species in a manipulative field experiment that mimicked climate change trends. We suggest that it is not so much the extent of phenotypic plasticity that distinguishes climate change responses among these invasive and indigenous species, as the form that this plasticity takes. Nonetheless, this differential physiological response provides support for the idea that in temperate terrestrial systems experiencing global change-type drought, invasive species may well be at an advantage relative to their indigenous counterparts.

scholarly journals Forest carbon allocation modelling under climate change

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (12) ◽  
pp. 1937-1960 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katarína Merganičová ◽  
Ján Merganič ◽  
Aleksi Lehtonen ◽  
Giorgio Vacchiano ◽  
Maša Zorana Ostrogović Sever ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Conditions ◽  
Carbon Allocation ◽  
Hybrid Approach ◽  
Ecosystem Dynamics ◽  
Nonstructural Carbohydrates ◽  
The Past ◽  
Process Understanding ◽  
Vegetation Models ◽  
The Impact

Abstract Carbon allocation plays a key role in ecosystem dynamics and plant adaptation to changing environmental conditions. Hence, proper description of this process in vegetation models is crucial for the simulations of the impact of climate change on carbon cycling in forests. Here we review how carbon allocation modelling is currently implemented in 31 contrasting models to identify the main gaps compared with our theoretical and empirical understanding of carbon allocation. A hybrid approach based on combining several principles and/or types of carbon allocation modelling prevailed in the examined models, while physiologically more sophisticated approaches were used less often than empirical ones. The analysis revealed that, although the number of carbon allocation studies over the past 10 years has substantially increased, some background processes are still insufficiently understood and some issues in models are frequently poorly represented, oversimplified or even omitted. Hence, current challenges for carbon allocation modelling in forest ecosystems are (i) to overcome remaining limits in process understanding, particularly regarding the impact of disturbances on carbon allocation, accumulation and utilization of nonstructural carbohydrates, and carbon use by symbionts, and (ii) to implement existing knowledge of carbon allocation into defence, regeneration and improved resource uptake in order to better account for changing environmental conditions.

Climate change and food production in North West India

2015 ◽  
Vol 49 (6) ◽  
Author(s):  
Savita Ahlawat ◽  
Dhian Kaur
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Food Security ◽  
Food Production ◽  
Crop Production ◽  
Climatic Factors ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Potential Threat ◽  
North West ◽  
Significant Change ◽  
Northwest Region

At present, climate change is one of the most challenging environmental issues as it poses potential threat to different sectors of economy at global level. Agriculture being an open activity is primarily dependent on climatic factors and change in climatic conditions affects the production, quality and quantity of crop production in an area. This paper attempts to study effects of only two parameters of climate i.e. temperature and rainfall on agricultural production in northwest region of India. Northwest region comprising of Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu Kashmir states is the greatest food bowl of India contributing to its food security. The analysis of mean monthly rainfall and maximum and minimum temperatures (1901-2006) shows no significant change in temperature and rainfall conditions from 1901 to 1960; but afterward the change is more pronounced. On the whole any significant change in climatic conditions will not only challenge the food production of the region but also challenge the country’s food security situation.

scholarly journals Agricultural intensification and climate change are rapidly decreasing insect biodiversity

2021 ◽  
Vol 118 (2) ◽  
pp. e2002548117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Raven ◽  
David L. Wagner
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Land Surface ◽  
Wildlife Habitat ◽  
Tropical Mountains ◽  
Insect Biodiversity ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Sixth Mass Extinction ◽  
Mass Extinction Event ◽  
The Tropics

Major declines in insect biomass and diversity, reviewed here, have become obvious and well documented since the end of World War II. Here, we conclude that the spread and intensification of agriculture during the past half century is directly related to these losses. In addition, many areas, including tropical mountains, are suffering serious losses because of climate change as well. Crops currently occupy about 11% of the world’s land surface, with active grazing taking place over an additional 30%. The industrialization of agriculture during the second half of the 20th century involved farming on greatly expanded scales, monoculturing, the application of increasing amounts of pesticides and fertilizers, and the elimination of interspersed hedgerows and other wildlife habitat fragments, all practices that are destructive to insect and other biodiversity in and near the fields. Some of the insects that we are destroying, including pollinators and predators of crop pests, are directly beneficial to the crops. In the tropics generally, natural vegetation is being destroyed rapidly and often replaced with export crops such as oil palm and soybeans. To mitigate the effects of the Sixth Mass Extinction event that we have caused and are experiencing now, the following will be necessary: a stable (and almost certainly lower) human population, sustainable levels of consumption, and social justice that empowers the less wealthy people and nations of the world, where the vast majority of us live, will be necessary.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document