Find research datasets worth reusing

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2021View details →

Dataset: Recruitment of pioneer trees with physically dormant seeds under climate change conditions: the case of Vachellia pennatula (Fabaceae) in semiarid environments of Mexico

This repository contains the files associated with the following article: Sandoval-Martínez J, JA Flores-Cano and EI Badano. Recruitment of pioneer trees with physically dormant seeds under climate change conditions: the case of Vachellia pennatula (Fabaceae) in semiarid environments of Mexico. Journal of Plant Research, 135, pp. 453-463. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-022-01383-y">https://doi.org/10.1007/s10265-022-01383-y</a> The first Microsoft Excel file contains six sheets with the microclimatic data (photosynthetic photon flux density, air temperature, relative humidity, soil temperature, rainfall and soil moisture) measured at controls under the current climate and climate change simulation plots located at each experimental site (Rio Bagres and Cañada Grande). The second Microsoft Excel file contains a single sheet with the data used to estimate the seedling emergence and survival rates from scarified and unscarified seeds of Vachellia pennatula in controls and climate change simulation plots at each experimental site (Rio Bagres and Cañada Grande).

opencc-zeroSep 2021View details →

Data from: Current distributions and future climate‐driven changes in diatoms, insects and fish in U.S. streams

Aim Biodiversity on Earth is threatened by climate change. Despite the vulnerability of freshwater habitats to human impacts, most climate change projections have focused on terrestrial systems. Here, we examined how the current distributions and biodiversity of stream taxa might change under mitigated, stabilizing and increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Location Conterminous USA. Time period Present day to 2070. Major taxa studied Stream diatoms, insects and fish. Methods We developed species distribution models for 336 freshwater taxa from 1,227 distinct stream localities using water chemistry, watershed and climatic variables. Models based only on climate were used to project changes in the distributions and biodiversity of cold‐ versus warm‐water taxa under representative concentration pathways (RCPs) ranging from 2.6 to 8.5 W/m2. Results In all three organismal groups, climate emerged as the strongest predictor of species distributions, providing comparable explanatory power to water chemistry and watershed variables combined. The RCP‐based projections suggested a widespread expansion of warm‐water taxa, outpacing the decline of cold‐water taxa. Consequently, overall species richness would increase, but beta diversity would decrease drastically with the severity of climate change. A closer look at individual taxa and functional guilds revealed that vulnerable cold‐water taxa included: (a) diatom guilds forming the base and bulk of the biofilm; (b) environmentally sensitive insects, characteristic of unimpacted streams; and (c) ecologically and recreationally important salmonids, which were forecast to diminish dramatically in source habitats. Warm‐water fish projected to increase their distributions include bait bucket release minnows and dominant predators. Main conclusions Our results suggest potentially devastating impacts of climate change on stream ecosystems, with the restructuring of diatom, insect and fish communities, diminished distributions of functionally important taxa and widespread expansion of warm‐water taxa, giving rise to biotic homogenization. Given that the magnitude of these biotic shifts depends on the severity of climate change, appropriate current policy decisions are necessary to preserve freshwater ecosystems.

opencc-zeroSep 2021View details →

Data and R scripts from: Assemblage reorganisation of South African dragonflies due to climate change

Aim: Climate change is expected to cause large shifts in species assemblages such as dragonflies and damselflies (Insecta: Odonata). Here we assess the influence of environmental drivers of turnover on Odonata assemblages. Secondly, we map the predicted spatial variation in species composition, first as a gradient of assemblage similarity, and then as discrete bioregions delineating major areas of odonate endemism. Finally, we map the magnitude of expected change in species turnover in response to climate change under two emission scenarios. Location: South Africa Methods: We used a spatial database comprising of 164 species of odonates and 20 covariates, to explore changes in compositional turnover using generalised dissimilarity models. Bioregions were compiled through various clustering techniques. Results: Present-day odonate bioregions correspond to climatic zones and are clearly separated by transitional zones with rapid spatial turnover. Present odonate bioregions are projected to undergo extensive reorganisation by 2050 and 2070. Temporal turnover in species composition is expected to reach up to 80% in the large arid interior and 64% along the coast. Half of all South Africa's protected areas are likely to experience climate-induced changes to dragonfly bioregions in the near future. Main conclusions: Species assemblages are rapidly changing. This work highlights future shifts in climate will result in complex and non-linear responses in Odonata communities. With ongoing climate change, current odonate bioregions are predicted to expand while others will contract considerably in size within the next thirty years. The current demarcated protected areas may be inadequate to protect dragonflies as climates change. Odonata can be used to track forefronts of climate change, which will likely affect a larger array of taxa as well.

opencc-zeroSep 2021View details →

Morphological consequences of climate change for resident birds in intact Amazonian rainforest

First, this dataset contains morphological measurements (body mass, wing length) of birds from the Biological Dynamics of Forest Fragments Project (BDFFP), located in central Amazonia. Birds were captured using mist-nets between 1979 and 2019 in the understory of primary forest spanning ~40 km. Second, we have included climate data (precipitation, temperature) associated with this study area derived from the global EU Copernicus ERA5 climate reanalysis (<a href="https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/">https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu</a>).

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Climate change impacts on ecosystems and adaptation options in nine countries in southern Africa: What do we know?

Dataset used in the systematic review of scientific articles published during the period 2000-2020, which (i) addressed observed and projected impacts of climate change on different species, populations and ecosystems in nine southern African countries, and (ii) formulated management and policy responses aiming to mitigate these impacts.

opencc-by-4.0Oct 2021View details →

Data for "Development of a joint probabilistic rainfall-runoff model for high-to-extreme flow simulation and projection in a changing climate"

Data for "Development of a joint probabilistic rainfall-runoff model for high-to-extreme flow simulation and projection in a changing climate"

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2018View details →

Overtopping events in breakwaters under climate change scenarios [Dataset]. Zenodo

Reliable prediction of wave run-up/overtopping and structure damage is a key task in the design and safety assessment of coastal and harbor structures. Run-up/overtopping and damage must be below acceptable limits, both in extreme and in normal operating conditions, to guarantee the stability of the structure and the safety of people and assets on and behind the structure. The mean-sea-level rise caused by climate change and its effects on wave climate may increase the number and intensity of run-up/overtopping events and make the existing coastal/harbor structures more vulnerable to damage. Accurate estimates, through physical modelling, of the statistics of overtopping waves for a set of climate change conditions, are needed. The research project HYDRALAB+ (H2020-INFRAIA-2014-2015) gathers an advanced network of environmental hydraulic institutes in Europe, which provides access to a suite of environmental hydraulic facilities. They play a vital role in the development of climate change adaptation strategies, by allowing the direct testing of adaptation measures and by providing data for numerical model calibration and validation. The use of physical (scale) models allows the simulation of extreme events as they are now, and as they are projected to be under different climate change scenarios. The enclosed dataset refers to the experimental work developed at LNEC within HYDRALAB+ and considers 2D damage and overtopping tests for a rock armor slope, with four different approaches to represent storms. Data of free surface elevation, overtopping and damage is presented.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Climate change threatens the future of rainforest ringtail possums by 2050

Aim The increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather escalate the pressure of global warming on biodiversity. Globally, synergistic effects of multiple components of climate change have driven local extinctions and community collapses, raising concern about the irreversible deterioration of ecosystems. Here, we disentangle the pressure of different climatic components on the population dynamics of a tropical community of marsupials in a World Heritage Area. Location The Australian Wet Tropics. Method We analyse the potential influence of climate change in different dimensions, quantifying the effect of spatial differences in temperature exposure and observed increases in temperature and frequency of extreme heatwaves. Results We find a strong negative effect of climate change on population dynamics, particularly extreme heatwaves, resulting in a rapid and severe decline in ringtails' population size in the last three decades. Main conclusions Forecasted increases in temperature and heatwaves threaten the collapse of the community by 2050, with ringtail possums falling below population viability thresholds within two decades.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Magnitude-duration relationships of physiological sensitivity and environmental exposure improve climate change vulnerability assessments

Integrating thermal physiology with environmental temperature is essential to understanding distributions of species and vulnerability to climate change. Warming tolerance—the difference between an organism's maximum thermal tolerance (Tmax) and maximum habitat temperature (Thab)—is frequently used to integrate organismal sensitivity and environmental exposure. Traditionally, applications of warming tolerance define Tmax and Thab as invariable magnitudes, yet tolerance magnitude depends on exposure duration and diel temperature cycles expose organisms to a range of temperature magnitudes and durations. How traditional (i.e., acute) estimates of warming tolerance compare to estimates from prolonged exposures remains poorly understood. In this study, magnitude-duration curves for tolerances of one cold-water, two cool-water, and one warm-water species of freshwater fish were compiled from the literature and compared to magnitude-duration exposures from 66 streams across the eastern United States. Warming tolerances were estimated for exposure durations spanning 0.01 to 24 hours. Current acute (0.01 hours) warming tolerances ranged from median 6.30°C for the cold-water species to 9.68°C for the warm-water species. The lowest warming tolerances corresponded to prolonged exposures lasting median 3.85 to 5.30 hours among species and were 2.51 to 4.38°C lower than acute estimates. Although acute estimates remained positive in historically occupied and unoccupied streams (6.30°C versus 2.33°C), estimates based on prolonged exposure were positive at occupied streams of the cold-water species but transitioned to negative in unoccupied streams (2.19°C versus -1.12°C). Acute warming tolerances for the cold-water species also remained positive under future climate (6.29 to 4.23°C) but approached zero at prolonged durations (2.19 to 0.09°C) and transitioned to negative for 47.2% of streams. Results demonstrate that acute measures of Tmax and Thab overestimate warming tolerances and therefore underestimate climate change vulnerability. Integrating magnitude-duration relationships into warming tolerance estimates can elucidate physiological mechanisms underlying species distributions and can improve accuracy of climate change vulnerability assessments.

opencc-zeroOct 2022View details →

Data from: Simulating climate change in situ in a tropical rainforest understorey using active air warming and CO2 addition

Background: Future climate-change effects on plant growth are most effectively studied using microclimate-manipulation experiments, the design of which has seen much advance in recent years. For tropical forests, however, such experiments are particularly hard to install and have hence not been widely used. We present a system of active heating and CO2 fertilisation for use in tropical forest understoreys, where passive heating is not possible. The system was run for two years to study climate-change effects on epiphytic bryophytes, but is also deemed suitable to study other understorey plants. Methods: Warm-air and CO2 addition were applied in 1.6-m tall, 1.2-m diameter hexagonal open-top chambers and the microclimate in the chambers compared to outside air. Warming was regulated with a feedback system while CO2 addition was fixed. Results: The setup successfully heated the air by 2.8K and increased CO2 by 250 ppm, on average, with +3K and +300 ppm as the targets. Variation was high, especially due to technical break-downs, but not biased to times of the day or year. In the warming treatment, absolute humidity slightly increased but relative humidity dropped by between 6 to 15% (and the vapour-pressure deficit increased) compared to ambient, depending on the level of warming achieved in each chamber. Conclusions: Compared to other heating systems, the chambers provide a realistic warming and CO2 treatment, but moistening the incoming air would be needed to avoid drying as a confounding factor. The method is preferable over infrared heating in the radiation-poor forest understory, particularly when combined with CO2 fertilisation. It is suitable for plant-level studies, but ecosystem-level studies in forests may require chamber-less approaches like infrared heating and free-air CO2 enrichment. By presenting the advantages and limitations of our approach we aim to facilitate further climate-change experiments in tropical forests, which are urgently needed to understand the processes determining future element fluxes and biodiversity changes in these ecosystems.

opencc-by-4.0Nov 2022View details →

Data for the paper: Equilibrium climate sensitivity increases with aerosol concentration due to changes in precipitation efficiency

This data-set contains the data requires for the paper "Equilibrium climate sensitivity increases with aerosol concentration due to changes in precipitation efficiency" by Guy Dagan The indexes (20/200/2000) in the variable name represent the aerosol concentration in the relevel simulation. The other index (1/2/4) represent the CO2 concentration (1 time, 2 times and 4 times the pre-industrial conditions). Other than that, the variables names are as they appear in the manuscript.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Data from: Heat tolerance variation reveals vulnerability of tropical herbivore-parasitoid interactions to climate change

Assessing the heat tolerance (CTmax) of organisms is central to understand the impact of climate change on biodiversity. While both environment and evolutionary history affect CTmax, it is unclear how these factors and their interplay influence ecological interactions, communities, and ecosystems under climate change. We collected and reared caterpillars and parasitoids from canopy and ground layers in different seasons in a tropical rainforest. We tested the CTmax and Thermal Safety Margins (TSM) of these food webs with implications for how species interactions could shift under climate change. We identified strong influence of phylogeny in herbivore-parasitoid community heat tolerance. The TSM of all insects were narrower in the canopy and parasitoids had lower heat tolerance compared to their hosts. Our CTmax-based simulation showed higher herbivore-parasitoid food web instability under climate change than previously assumed, highlighting the vulnerability of parasitoids and related herbivore control in tropical rainforests, particularly in the forest canopy.

opencc-zeroNov 2022View details →

Using landscape genomics to delineate future adaptive potential for climate change in the Yosemite Toad (Anaxyrus canorus)

An essential goal in conservation biology is delineating population units that maximize the probability of species persisting into the future and adapting to future environmental change. However, future-facing conservation concerns are often addressed using retrospective patterns that could be irrelevant. We recommend a novel landscape genomics framework for delineating future "Geminate Evolutionary Units" (GEUs) in a focal species: (1) identify loci under environmental selection, (2) model and map adaptive conservation units that may spawn future lineages, (3) forecast relative selection pressures on each future lineage, and (4) estimate their fitness and likelihood of persistence using geo-genomic simulations. Using this process, we delineated conservation units for the Yosemite toad (Anaxyrus canorus), a U.S. federally threatened species that is highly vulnerable to climate change. We used a genome-wide dataset, redundancy analysis, and Bayesian association methods to identify 24 candidate loci responding to climatic selection (R2 ranging from 0.09–0.52), after controlling for demographic structure. Candidate loci included genes such as MAP3K5, involved in cellular response to environmental change. We then forecasted future genomic response to climate change using the multivariate machine learning algorithm Gradient Forests. Based on all available evidence, we found three GEUs in Yosemite National Park, reflecting contrasting adaptive optima: YF-North (high winter snowpack with moderate summer rainfall), YF-East (low to moderate snowpack with high summer rainfall), and YF-Low-Elevation (low snowpack and rainfall). Simulations under the RCP 8.5 climate change scenario suggest that the species will decline by 29% over 90 years, but the highly diverse YF-East lineage will be least impacted for two reasons: (1) geographically it will be sheltered from the largest climatic selection pressures, (2) its standing genetic diversity will promote a faster adaptive response. Our approach provides a comprehensive strategy for protecting imperiled non-model species with genomic data alone and has wide applicability to other declining species.

Data from: Genetic divergence along a climate gradient shapes chemical plasticity of a foundation tree species to both changing climate and herbivore damage

Climate change is threatening the persistence of many tree species via independent and interactive effects on abiotic and biotic conditions. In addition, changes in temperature, precipitation, and insect attacks can alter the traits of these trees, disrupting communities and ecosystems. For foundation species such as Populus, phytochemical traits are key mechanisms linking trees with their environment and are likely jointly determined by interactive effects of genetic divergence and variable environments throughout their geographic range. Using reciprocal Fremont cottonwood (Populus fremontii) common gardens along a steep climatic gradient, we explored how environment (garden climate and simulated herbivore damage) and genetics (tree provenance and genotype) affect both foliar chemical traits and the plasticity of these traits. We found that: 1) Constitutive and plastic chemical responses to changes in garden climate and damage varied among defense compounds, structural compounds and nitrogen. 2) For both defense and structural compounds, plastic responses to garden climate depended on the climate in which a population or genotype evolved. Specifically, trees originating from cool provenances showed higher defense plasticity in response to climate changes than trees from hotter provenances. 3) Trees from cool provenances growing in cool conditions expressed the lowest constitutive defense levels but the strongest induced (plastic) defenses. 4) The combination of hot growing conditions and simulated herbivory switched the strategy used by these genotypes, increasing constitutive defenses but erasing the capacity for induction. Because Fremont cottonwood chemistry plays a major role in shaping riparian communities and ecosystems in the southwestern US, the effects of changes in phytochemical traits can be wide-reaching. As the southwestern US is confronted with warming temperatures and insect outbreaks, these results improve our capacity to predict ecosystem consequences of climate change and inform selection of tree genotypes for conservation and restoration purposes.

Data for: Simulating effects of agricultural intensification and climate change: Nitrogen fertilization and drought stress decrease insect herbivore performance

Biodiversity is globally under pressure, and the current decline in insect biomass and diversity is likely caused by human activities. Key drivers of biodiversity loss include agricultural intensification and anthropogenic climate change. Nevertheless, a thorough understanding of potential interactions between both factors and the mechanisms underlying insect declines in general is still lacking. Here, we investigate the combined effects of nitrogen fertilization and drought, as applied to host plants, on the preference and performance of the butterfly Lycaena tityrus. Individuals performed best on plants having received medium nitrogen levels, while performance was reduced by either a lack of or strong fertilization, the former potentially caused by nitrogen limitation and the latter by increased concentrations of toxic allelochemicals. Female oviposition preference though was positively related to nitrogen fertilization, resulting in a mismatch between preference and offspring performance at high nitrogen levels. Plant drought stress additionally reduced herbivore performance, and females appeared to suffer more from low-quality food than males. Our results indicate that increasing nitrogen fertilization, as applied in intensive agriculture, may substantially reduce host-plant quality for insect herbivores, which may be exaggerated in the course of climate change due to the more frequent occurrence of droughts. Our study thus contributes to a better understanding of the mechanisms underlying human-driven insect declines in agricultural landscapes and beyond.

Data for: Ecological interactions mediate projected loss of kelp biomass under climate change

This dataset contains the data used to define a stacked species distribution model (SDM) for kelp (Ecklonia radiata) and urchins (Centrostephanus rodgersii) in eastern Australia. The spatial extent of this study encompasses the eastern coast of Australia, between 28.0–37.5°S. Within this region, E. radiata is the only laminarian kelp species, while C. rodgersii is the dominant urchin species, with ecological interactions between these two species creating a patchwork of kelp forests and urchin barrens on shallow reefs.

Future supply of boreal forest ecosystem services is driven by management rather than by climate change

Forests provide a wide variety of ecosystem services (ES) to society. The boreal biome is experiencing the highest rates of warming on the planet and increasing demand for forest products. To foresee how to maximize the adaptation of boreal forests to future warmer conditions and growing demands of forest products, we need a better understanding of the relative importance of forest management and climate change on the supply of ecosystem services. Here, using Finland as a boreal forest case study, we assessed the potential supply of a wide range of ES (timber, bilberry, cowberry, mushrooms, carbon storage, scenic beauty, species habitat availability and deadwood) given seven management regimes and four climate change scenarios. We used the forest simulator SIMO to project forest dynamics for 100 years into the future (2016–2116) and estimate the potential supply of each service using published models. Then, we tested the relative importance of management and climate change as drivers of the future supply of these services using generalized linear mixed models. Our results show that the effects of management on the future supply of these ES were, on average, eleven times higher than the effects of climate change across all services but greatly differed among them (from 0.53 to 24 times higher for timber and cowberry, respectively). Notably, the importance of these drivers substantially differed among biogeographical zones within the boreal biome. The effects of climate change were 1.6 times higher in northern Finland than in southern Finland, whereas the effects of management were the opposite – they were three times higher in the south compared to the north. We conclude that new guidelines for adapting forests to global change should account for regional differences and the variation in the effects of climate change and management on different forest ES.

opencc-zeroJan 2023View details →

Data from: Are Mediterranean marine threatened species at high risk by climate change?

Rapid anthropogenic climate change is driving threatened biodiversity one step closer to extinction. Effects on native biodiversity are determined by an interplay between species' exposure to climate change and their specific ecological and life-history characteristics that render them even more susceptible. Impacts on biodiversity have already been reported; however, a systematic risk evaluation of threatened marine populations is lacking. Here, we employ a trait-based approach to assess the risk of 90 threatened marine Mediterranean species to climate change, combining species' exposure to increased sea temperature and intrinsic vulnerability. One-quarter of the threatened marine biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea is predicted to be under elevated levels of climate risk, with various traits identified as key vulnerability traits. Climate risk, vulnerability and exposure hotspots are distributed along the Western Mediterranean, Alboran, Aegean, and Adriatic Seas. At each Mediterranean marine ecoregion, 21% to 31% of their threatened species have high climate risk. All Mediterranean Marine Protected Areas host threatened species with high risk to climate change, with 90% having a minimum of 4 up to 19 species of high climate risk, making the objective of a climate-smart conservation strategy a crucial task for immediate planning and action. Our findings aspire to offer new insights for systematic, spatially strategic planning and prioritization of vulnerable marine life in the face of accelerating climate change.

opencc-by-4.0Jan 2023View details →

Chytridiomycosis and climate change: exposure to Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and mild winter conditions do not increase mortality in juvenile agile frogs during hibernation

Datasets and analyses for "Chytridiomycosis and climate change: exposure to Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis and mild winter conditions do not increase mortality in juvenile agile frogs during hibernation" by Kásler A., Holly D., Herczeg D., Ujszegi J. and Hettyey A., published online on 22nd January 2023 in Animal Conservation. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12851">https://doi.org/10.1111/acv.12851</a>