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opencc-zeroJun 2022View details →

Response of northern populations of black spruce and jack pine to southward seed transfers: Implications for climate change

A variety of responses to climate change have been reported for northern tree populations, primarily from tree-ring and satellite-based studies. Here we employ provenance data to examine growth and survival responses of northern populations (defined here as those occurring north of 52oN) of black spruce (Picea mariana) and Jack pine (Pinus banksiana) to southward seed transfers – a space for time substitution that affords insights into potential climate change responses by these important northern tree species. Based on previous work, we anticipated relatively flat response curves that peak at much warmer temperatures than those found at seed source origin. These expectations were generally met for growth-related responses, with peak growth associated with seed transfers to environments 2.2oC and 3.6oC warmer than seed source origin for black spruce and jack pine, respectively. These findings imply that northern tree populations harbor a significant amount of resilience to climate warming. However, survival responses told a different story, with both species exhibiting reduced survival rates when moved to warmer and drier environments. Together with the growth-based results, these findings suggest that the warmer and drier conditions expected across much of northern Canada under climate change may reduce survival, but surviving trees may grow at a faster rate up until a certain magnitude of climate warming has been reached. We note that all relationships had high levels of unexplained variation, underlining the many factors that may influence provenance study outcomes and the challenges in predicting tree responses to climate change. Despite certain limitations, we feel that the provenance data employed here provide valuable insights into potential climate change outcomes for northern tree populations.

Supplemental data for "Circular utilization of urban tree waste contributes to the mitigation of climate change and eutrophication"

Supplemental data for "Circular utilization of urban tree waste contributes to the mitigation of climate change and eutrophication"

Dataset related to the study "Black carbon and dust alter the response of mountain snow cover under climate change"

This dataset contains the data of the manuscript "Black carbon and dust alter the response of mountain snow cover under climate change" under publication in Nature Communication. It is made of a dataset and information to reproduce the simulations presented in the study.

opencc-zeroDec 2013View details →

Data from: Is adaptation to climate change really constrained in niche specialists?

Species with restricted distributions make up the vast majority of biodiversity. Recent evidence suggests that Drosophila species with restricted tropical distributions lack genetic variation in the key trait of desiccation resistance. It has therefore been predicted that tropically restricted species will be limited in their evolutionary response to future climatic changes and will face higher risks of extinction. However, these assessments have been made using extreme levels of desiccation stress (less than 10% relative humidity (RH)) that extend well beyond the changes projected for the wet tropics under climate change scenarios over the next 30 years. Here, we show that significant evolutionary responses to less extreme (35% RH) but more ecologically realistic levels of climatic change and desiccation stress are in fact possible in two species of rainforest restricted Drosophila. Evolution may indeed be an important means by which sensitive rainforest-restricted species are able to mitigate the effects of climate change.

Orbitrap analysed non-volatile compound data from blue swimmer crab (Portunus armatus) flesh for manuscript: "Climate-driven changes to taste and aroma determining metabolites in an economically valuable portunid (Portunus armatus) have implications for future harvesting"

Accurate mass measurements of non-volatile metabolites conducted on a Q-Exactive Orbitrap LC-MS (Thermo Scientific, Scoresby, VIC, Australia) equipped with a heated electrospray ionization (H-ESI) source. Source conditions were as follows: spray voltage (positive ion 3.9 kV), sheath gas 60 (arbitrary units), auxiliary gas 10 (arbitrary units) and sweep gas 1 (arbitrary units), capillary temperature of 350 °C and auxiliary gas heating temperature of 400 °C.

Landslide Sensitivity and Response to Precipitation Changes in Wet and Dry Climates

This dataset contains shapefile polygons for the landslide inventories constructed by Handwerger et al. (2022). The file named "Handwerger_ARIA_based_landslide_inventory.zip" contains the shapefile polygons for the full landslide inventory. For more details see Figure 1c and Table S3 in Handwerger et al. (2022). The file named "Handwerger_landslides_selected4timeseries.zip" contains shapefile polygons for the  38 landslides selected for time series analyses. For more details see Figure 2, Figure 3, and Table S4 in Handwerger et al. (2022). These landslide inventories are fully described in Handwerger, A. L., Fielding, E. J., Sangha, S. S., & Bekaert, D. P. S. (2022). Landslide sensitivity and response to precipitation changes in wet and dry climates. Geophysical Research Letters, 49, e2022GL099499. https://doi.org/10.1029/2022GL099499.

Responses of Surface Evaporative Fluxes in Montane Cloud Forests to the Climate Change Scenario

CL_surfobs_raw.mat and LHC_nodew_new_raw.mat are the analyzed CLM simulation output with atmospheric observations in Chi-Lan and Lien-Hua-Chih as input forcings. CLatm_LHC_prec*.mat are the analyzed CLM simulation output in sensitivity tests for the rainfall pattern. CL_*_transform_raw.mat are the analyzed CLM simulation output in CTL simulation and climate change sensitivity tests.  Fig_*.m are matlab code files to reproduce figures in the article. Fig_11_ttest.m and Fig_11_LE_p_value.mat are the t-test for the decrease of latent heat flux in the diurnal cycle under climate change scenario and the resulting p-value. Fig_quantile.m and Fig_4_6_7_8_9_10_11_quantile.mat are to obtain first and third quantile of the changes of canopy water and surface heat fluxes in the diurnal cycle under climate change scenarios.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Life history consequences of climate change in hibernating mammals: A review

Climatic shifts to warmer and often drier conditions are challenging terrestrial species worldwide. These shifts are occurring more rapidly at higher elevations and latitudes, likely causing disproportionate effects to mammalian hibernators there. While there is some information about how these species' ranges are responding to climatic shifts, we lack an understanding of how climate components are affecting species' life history variation, which is key to individual success and population-level resilience. We reviewed the literature to identify the direction of life history responses to climate change in mammalian hibernators along three axes: latitudinal, elevational, and temporal. We found 39 studies involving 27 species that reported climate effects on our four target life history traits – phenology, body mass/condition and growth, reproduction, and survival. We found warmer temperatures are advancing hibernator phenology and increasing reproductive success. By contrast, warming and drying trends are having uncertain effects on body condition, and complex effects on survival - depending on season, age class, latitude, and elevation. We found no pattern of significant climate-trait outcomes by duration or decade of study. More research on drought conditions - particularly in relation to resource availability - would help inform hibernator susceptibility to increased drying trends expected to intensify globally. Notably, our results are highly biased towards small mammal hibernators in Northern hemisphere alpine/mountain ecosystems, with few long-term studies conducted on Southern hemisphere hibernators.This review highlights that phenological shifts constitute one of the most obvious consequences of climate change, yet, the timing of life history events (e.g. timing of migration, reproduction, hibernation) remains poorly understood. Further integration of insights from physiologists, evolutionary biologists, and population ecologists working on wild populations will improve our collective understanding of the effects of seasonal climatic shifts on mammalian hibernator life history traits, key drivers of their population-level persistence.

opencc-zeroJul 2022View details →

Demographic responses to climate change in a threatened Arctic species

The Arctic is undergoing rapid and accelerating change in response to global warming, altering biodiversity patterns and ecosystem function across the region. For Arctic endemic species, our understanding of the consequences of such change remains limited. Spectacled eiders (Somateria fischeri), a large Arctic sea duck, use remote regions in the Bering Sea, Arctic Russia, and Alaska throughout the annual cycle making it difficult to conduct comprehensive surveys or demographic studies. Listed as Threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, understanding the species response to climate change is critical for effective conservation policy and planning. Here, we developed an integrated population model to describe spectacled eider population dynamics using capture-mark-recapture, breeding population survey, nest survey, and environmental data collected between 1992 and 2014. Our intent was to estimate abundance, population growth, and demographic rates, and quantify how changes in the environment influenced population dynamics. Abundance of spectacled eiders breeding in western Alaska has increased since listing in 1993 and responded more strongly to annual variation in first year survival than adult survival or productivity. We found both adult survival and nest success were highest in years following intermediate sea ice conditions during the wintering period, and both demographic rates declined when sea ice conditions were above or below average. In recent years sea ice extent has reached new record lows and has remained below average throughout the winter for multiple years in a row. Sea ice persistence is expected to further decline in the Bering Sea. Our results indicate spectacled eiders may be vulnerable to climate change and the increasingly variable sea ice conditions throughout their wintering range with potentially deleterious effects on population dynamics. Importantly, we identified that different demographic rates responded similarly to changes in sea ice conditions, emphasizing the need for integrated analyses to understand population dynamics.

Data from: Finding common ground: Toward comparable indicators of adaptive capacity of tree species to a changing climate

Adaptive capacity, one of the three determinants of vulnerability to climate change, is defined as the capacity of species to persist in their current location by coping with novel environmental conditions through acclimation and/or evolution. Although studies have identified indicators of adaptive capacity, few have assessed this capacity in a quantitative way that is comparable across tree species. Yet, such multi-species assessments are needed by forest management and conservation programs to refine vulnerability assessments and to guide the choice of adaptation measures. In this paper, we propose a framework to quantitatively evaluate five key components of tree adaptive capacity to climate change: individual adaptation through phenotypic plasticity, population phenotypic diversity as influenced by genetic diversity, genetic exchange within populations, genetic exchange between populations and genetic exchange between species. For each component, we define the main mechanisms that underlie adaptive capacity and present associated metrics that can be used as indices. To illustrate the use of this framework, we evaluate the relative adaptive capacity of 26 northeastern North American tree species using values reported in the literature. Our results show adaptive capacity to be highly variable among species and between components of adaptive capacity, such that no one species ranks consistently across all components. On average, the conifer Picea glauca and the broadleaf Betula papyrifera show the greatest adaptive capacity among the 26 species we documented, whereas the conifers Picea rubens and Thuja occidentalis, and the broadleaf Ostrya virginiana possess the lowest. We discuss limitations that arise when comparing adaptive capacity among species, including poor data availability and comparability issues in metrics derived from different methods or studies. The breadth of data required for such an assessment exemplifies the multidisciplinary nature of adaptive capacity and the necessity of continued cross-collaboration to better anticipate the impacts of a changing climate.

Implications of climate change for environmental niche overlap between five Cuscuta pest species and their two main host crop species

Some parasitic plants are major pests in agriculture, but how this might be affected by climate change remains largely unknown. In this study, we assessed this for five generalist holoparasitic Cuscuta species (Cuscuta approximata, C. australis, C. chinensis, C. europaea, C. japonica) and two of their main Leguminosae host crop species (Glycine max and Medicago sativa). For each of the five Cuscuta species and the two crop species, we ran MaxEnt models, using climatic and soil variables to predict their potential current distributions and potential future distributions for 2070. We ran species distribution models for all seven species for multiple climate-change scenarios, and tested for changes in the overlap of suitable ranges of each crop with the five parasites. We found that annual mean temperature and isothermality are the main bioclimatic factors determining the suitable habitats of the Cuscuta species and their hosts. For both host species, the marginally to optimally suitable area will increase by 2070 for all four RCP scenarios. For most of the Cuscuta species, the marginally to optimally suitable area will also increase. As the suitable area for both the hosts and the parasites will overall increase, Schoener's D, indicating the relative overlap in suitable area, will change only marginally. However, the absolute area of potential niche overlap may increase up to six-fold by 2070. Overall, our results indicate that larger parts of the globe will become suitable for both host species, but that they could also suffer from Cuscuta parasitism in larger parts of their suitable ranges.

Data from: Predicting range shifts of Davidia involucrata Ball. under future climate change

Understanding and predicting how species will respond to climate change is crucial for biodiversity conservation. Here, we assessed future climate change impacts on the distribution of a rare and endangered plant species, Davidia involucrate in China, using the most recent global circulation models developed in the sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC6). We assessed the potential range shifts in this species by using an ensemble of species distribution models (SDMs). The ensemble SDMs exhibited high predictive ability and suggested that the temperature annual range, annual mean temperature, and precipitation of the driest month are the most influential predictors in shaping distribution patterns of this species. The projections of the ensemble SDMs also suggested that D. involucrate is very vulnerable to future climate change, with at least one-third of its suitable range expected to be lost in all future climate change scenarios and will shift to the northward of high-latitude regions. Similarly, at least one-fifthof the overlap area of the current nature reserve networks and projected suitable habitat is also expected to be lost. These findings suggest that it is of great importance to ensure that adaptive conservation management strategies are in place to mitigate the impacts of climate change on D. involucrate.

The importance of considering the duration of extreme temperatures when investigating responses to climate change

The frequency and duration of heatwaves are increasing because of human activities. To cope with the changes, species with longer generation times may have to rely on plastic responses. The probability that their responses are adaptive is higher if the species have experienced temperature fluctuations also in their evolutionary past. However, experimental studies investigating responses to heatwaves often use exposure times that are significantly shorter than recent heatwaves. We show that this can lead to faulty conclusions and that the duration of higher temperature has to be considered in experimental designs. We recorded the response of threespine stickleback to prolonged duration of higher temperature during the breeding season, using a population that has experienced large fluctuations in temperature in its past and, hence, is expected to endure temperature changes well. We found males to adaptively adjust their reproductive behaviours to short periods of higher temperature, but not to longer periods that extended across two breeding cycles. Males initially increased their reproductive activities - nest building, courtship and parental care - which ensured high reproductive success during the first breeding cycle, but decreased their reproductive activities during the second breeding cycle when exposed to sustained high temperature. This reduced their courtship success and resulted in fewer offspring. Thus, a species expected to cope well with higher temperature suffers fitness reductions when the duration of high temperature is prolonged. The results stress the importance of considering the duration of extreme environmental conditions when investigating the impact that human activities have on species. Responses to short-term exposures cannot be extrapolated to assess responses to longer periods of extreme conditions.

Agriculture is adapting to phenological shifts caused by climate change, but grassland songbirds are not

Migratory birds time their migration based on cues that signal resource availability for reproduction. However, with climate change, the timing of seasonal events may shift, potentially inhibiting the ability of some species to use them as accurate cues for migration. We studied the relationship between phenological shifts and reproduction by long- and short-distance migratory songbirds—Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) and Savannah Sparrows (Passerculus sandwichensis). Our study population breeds in hayfields and pastures in Vermont, USA, where farmers are also changing management activities in response to climate change. From 2002-2019 we monitored nest initiation dates to quantify correlations with environmental factors and the timing of nest initiation. We collected historical and projected precipitation and temperature data for the breeding grounds, and their respective wintering and stopover sites, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). We predicted that winter conditions experienced by the short-distance migrant, the Savannah Sparrow, but not the long-distance migrant, the Bobolink, would explain the timing and success of nesting, however that this timing would be misaligned with changes in agricultural practices by hay farmers. Nest initiation dates did not show significant directional change for either species, but did vary among years. Interannual variation in Savannah Sparrow nest initiation dates was best explained by the interaction between precipitation on the breeding grounds and average wintering site (Wilmington, North Carolina). For Bobolinks, interannual variation in nest initiation dates was best explained by the interaction between breeding ground precipitation and average temperature in their fall stopover site (Barquisimieto, Venezuela). However, first haying dates in Vermont advanced by ~10 days over 18 years. These results suggest that the conflict between the timing of hay harvests and grassland songbird reproduction will increase, further threatening population processes for these species, as early harvests notably decrease annual productivity.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2022View details →

Climate change may outpace current wheat breeding yield improvements in North America

The raw data in Climate change may outpace current wheat breeding yield improvements in North America

Local anthropogenic stress does not exacerbate coral bleaching under global climate change

Aim. Rising ocean temperatures are widely recognised as the dominant driver behind the rapid degradation of coral reefs via the process of coral bleaching (the expulsion of photosynthetic endosymbionts which reveals the coral skeleton). However, bleaching of hard corals is often assumed to be further aggravated by the effect of local-scale stressors from anthropogenic activity, accelerating coral reef decline where these stressors are stronger. Despite the importance of this hypothesis, the interaction between climate change and local stressors for driving coral bleaching has only been investigated in a handful of studies, with no large-scale (regional or global) test conducted thus far. We investigate the impact of human population density (HPD) – a proxy for local stressors - in both protected and non-protected marine regions, and their interaction under heat stress as drivers of coral bleaching. Location. Global. Time period. 2002-2018. Major Taxa Studied. Scleractinia corals. Methods. Using 9,170 coral reef surveys worldwide, we performed Bayesian modeling to assess the probability of coral bleaching in response to local-scale stressors in interaction with global warming. Results. Local HPD does not exacerbate coral bleaching, either independently or under thermal stress from climate change. Rather, the relationship between HPD and temperature stress appears weakly antagonistic for coral bleaching, contradicting the expectation that HPD increases the sensitivity of corals to bleaching under thermal stress. Main conclusions. Local HPD does not interact with global warming by degrading coral reefs. However, regional variation in bleaching patterns exists. Consequently, bleaching will continue to occur on most coral reefs globally regardless of local HPD. Thus, it is likely that even isolated, well-protected, coral reefs will continue to decline because of climate warming-induced bleaching. Therefore, tackling the source of global warming remains the most effective way of mitigating coral reef decline via coral bleaching.

opencc-zeroSep 2022View details →

Differential response of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys to climate change and human activities

Aim: Determining the mechanisms by which climate change and human activities affect patterns of ecological specialization in different genetic units of the same species is crucial for developing local or regionally-based conservation solutions. This study uses species distribution models and genetic analysis to 1) identify evidence of intraspecific differences in the population size and distribution of the three extant lineages (Sichuan/Gansu (SG), Qinling (QL), and Shennongjia (SNJ)) of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys; and 2) determine why some lineages have lower population numbers, a smaller geographical distribution, and are more threatened with extinction. Location: China Methods: We used n-dimensional hypervolume modeling and Genotype–Environment Association (GEA) models to compare the climatic niches of three snub-nosed monkey lineages, SDMs to reconstruct the historical, current, and future distributions of each lineage, and SMC++ to calculate their effective population sizes. Results: We found evidence of: 1) climatic niche differentiation among the SG, QL, and SNJ lineages of Sichuan snub-nosed monkeys; 2) geographical isolation combined with a decrease in population size during the LGM resulted in ecological specialization among these three lineages; and 3) a decline in climatic suitability and anthropogenically-driven land conversion, combined with small population size and a narrow distributional range, indicate that the SNJ lineage is at a greater risk of extinction than the SG and QL lineages. Main conclusions: We demonstrate that during the LGM a reduction in habitat suitability driven by climate change, in concert with decreasing population size resulted in the geographical isolation of the three Sichuan snub-nosed monkey subpopulations, leading to lineage differences in ecological specialization. GEA models and hypervolume models demonstrated that the three lineages occupy different ecological niches. Based on lineage-level models, the SNJ and QL lineages should be the immediate focus of conservation efforts due to their small effective population size and expected future reductions in available suitable habitat. The modeling approach used here is robust and can be applied effectively to examine the biogeography, recent evolutionary history, and effective population size of other endangered animal taxa.

opencc-by-4.0Sep 2022View details →

Model simulations for " Potential impacts of LUCC and climate change on evapotranspiration and gross primary productivity in the Haihe River Basin, China"

Experiment_1.rar, Experiment_2.rar, and Experiment_3.rar are the model simulations from experiment 1, experiment 2, and experiment 3, respectively. All the simulations are original from the CLM5 model in netcdf format. More details on these data can be found in the paper "Potential impacts of LUCC and climate change on evapotranspiration and gross primary productivity in the Haihe River Basin, China".

opencc-zeroSep 2022View details →

Forecasting climate change response in an alpine specialist songbird reveals the importance of considering novel climate

Species persistence in the face of climate change depends on both ecological and evolutionary factors. Here, we integrate ecological and whole-genome sequencing data to describe how populations of an alpine specialist, the Brown-capped Rosy-Finch (Leucosticte australis) may be impacted by climate change. We sampled 116 Brown-capped Rosy-Finches from 11 sampling locations across the breeding range. Using 429,442 genetic markers from whole-genome sequencing, we described population genetic structure and identified a subset of 436 genomic variants associated with environmental data. We modelled future climate change impacts on habitat suitability using ecological niche models (ENMs) and impacts on putative local adaptation using gradient forest models (a genetic-environment association analysis; GEA). We used the metric of niche margin index (NMI) to determine regions of forecasting uncertainty due to climate shifts to novel conditions. Population genetic structure was characterized by weak genetic differentiation, indicating potential ongoing gene flow among populations. Precipitation as snow had high importance for both habitat suitability and changes in genetic variation across the landscape. Comparing ENM and gradient forest models with future climate predicted suitable habitat contracting at high elevations and population allele frequencies across the breeding range needing to shift to keep pace with climate change. NMI revealed large portions of the breeding range shifting to novel climate conditions. Our study demonstrates that forecasting climate vulnerability from ecological and evolutionary factors reveals insights into population-level vulnerability to climate change that are obfuscated when either approach is considered independently. For the Brown-capped Rosy-Finch, our results suggest that persistence may depend on rapid adaptation to novel climate conditions in a contracted breeding range. Importantly, we demonstrate the need to characterize novel climate conditions that influence uncertainty in forecasting methods.