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Recent research has indicated high economic and environmental costs of human paper usage. Technologies have been developed to reduce consumers' paper use behavior, including mechanical dispensers that institute a delay between opportunities to obtain each consecutive unit. However, there is no empirical evidence that these dispensers or delays reduce paper use. In Experiment 1, implementing a delay between paper-unit deliveries using mechanical dispensers in a university café resulted in a significant decrease in units per person, material per person, and cost per person, compared to free-access dispensers. In Experiment 2, a relatively long delay was more effective than a short delay in reducing paper consumption in a laboratory experiment using mechanical dispensers. These results indicate that delays could be used to decrease paper use in many contexts on a larger scale. More research is necessary to determine the underlying behavioral mechanisms responsible for the observed reduction and the cost–benefit relationship under different circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change represents one of the most pressing societal and scientific challenges of our time. While much of the current research on climate change focuses on future prediction, some of the strongest signals of warming can already be seen in Arctic and alpine areas, where temperatures are rising faster than the global average, and in the oceans, where the combination of rising temperatures and acidification due to increased CO2 concentrations has had catastrophic consequences for sensitive marine organisms inhabiting coral reefs. The scientific papers highlighted as part of this anniversary issue represent some of the most impactful advances in our understanding of the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Here, we reflect on the legacy of these papers from the biotic perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increase in the global mean sea level is predicted during the twenty-first century, as a consequence of global average rising temperature projections. In addition, changes in the strength of atmospheric cyclonic storms may alter the development of storm surges, exacerbating the risks to coastal communities. Based on the fact that the interest and range of papers on this topic are growing, this study aims to present the status of the global scientific production on studies that have correlated climate change and the impact of storm surges on the coastal zone leading to erosion and flooding (inundation) via a bibliometric analysis. We analyzed 429 papers published in journals between January 1991 and February 2021 from the Scopus database. Through the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix R package, we describe the most relevant countries, affiliations, journals, authors, and keywords. Our results demonstrate that there has been an exponential growth in the research topic and that authors from the USA and the United Kingdom are the most prolific. Among the 1454 authors found, ten researchers published at least five papers on the topic and obtained at least 453 citations in the period. The most represented journals were the Journal of Coastal Research, Climatic Change, and Natural Hazards. We also found and discuss the lack of standardization in the choice of keywords, of which climate change, storm surge, and sea-level rise are the most frequent. Finally, we have written a guide to facilitate the authors' bibliographic review. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of climate change on the Earth's environments has been widely discussed, although there is still little consensus on the degree of influence, and to what extent the effects are positive, negative or neutral. Predicting the impacts of climate change on organisms and their response to this process has been a growing challenge for ecologists in recent years. In this review, we surveyed the published research on the relationship between lizards and global climate change. We surveyed the keywords "climate change" and "warming", combined with "lizard*" (there is, all words with this prefix), in three reference databases. We identified 401 relevant papers, and analyzed in further detail the group of studies (59 papers, 14.7% of the total) that developed thermoregulatory models to predict the persistence of lizards in a scenario of global warming. These 59 papers focused on species of 13 lizard families found on five continents. Overall, 62.5% of the papers that predicted the impacts of climate change on lizards indicated negative effects, while 21.9% reported positive effects, and 15.6%, a neutral scenario. The lizards identified as the most vulnerable to warming were tropical, viviparous, and thermoconformers, whereas species adapted to cooler climates would be the most likely to benefit from warming. On a broader scale, however, this scenario would lead to competition between lowland and highland lizards, for example, for thermally favorable areas. We conclude that it will be important to develop more detailed models that contemplate the specific features of each group for the development of more reliable predictions, in addition to the need for social conservation projects and the systematic identification of priority areas for conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

V.M. Fedorov has published comments regarding my paper on the new astronomical theory of climate change developed by us and the appendix to it. In this paper, I disagree with his objections and briefly substantiate my disagreement. The new theory is based on solving problems of the evolution of orbital and rotational motions of the Earth under the influence of the Sun, planets, and the Moon. All components of the theory have been published, and the methods, programs, and calculation data are freely available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tick-borne diseases are a public health issue. To predict vector tick abundance and activity, it is necessary to understand the driving factors for these variables. In this study, the activity of Ixodes ricinus was investigated in forest and meadow habitats in Germany with a focus on abiotic factors. Ixodes ricinus adults, nymphs and larvae were caught by flagging over a period of 2 years. Microclimatic and weather conditions were recorded at the collection sites. Statistical models were applied to describe correlations between abiotic factors and tick activity in univariable and multivariable analyses. Tick activity was observed in a broad range of air temperature between 3 and 28 °C, and air humidity varied between 35 and 95%. In general, tick activity of nymphs and larvae was higher in forest habitats than that in meadows. With the exception of a single specimen of Dermacentor reticulatus, all ticks were Ixodes ricinus, most of them nymphs (63.2% in 2009 and 75.2% in 2010). For the latter, a negative binomial mixed-effects model fitted best to the observed parameters. The modelling results showed an activity optimum between 20 and 23 °C for air temperature and between 13 and 15 °C for ground temperature. In univariable analyses, the collection site, month, season, ground and air temperature were significant factors for the number of ticks caught and for all life stages. In the multivariable analysis, temperature, season and habitat turned out to be key drivers. Ixodes ricinus positive for RNA of tick-borne encephalitis virus was only found at a single sampling site. The results of this study can be used in risk assessments and to parameterise predictive models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Dasgupta Review" of the economics of biodiversity (Dasgupta 2021) identifies many factors that threaten the ecological sustainability of our economies. This article examines how two policy failures - the underpricing and underfunding of nature – influence global land use change and terrestrial biodiversity loss. If natural areas are priced too cheaply, then converting them to agriculture, forestry and other land uses is less costly than protecting or preserving habitats. Underfunding nature further reduces the incentives for conservation and restoration. The current global funding gap for biodiversity is just under $900 billion annually, and especially impacts developing countries. Ending the underpricing of natural landscape requires removing environmentally harmful subsidies and adopting policies that place an additional cost on the use of land and natural resources or on pollution. Overcoming the funding gap means expanding public and private sources of financing nature, particularly for poorer countries, such as biodiversity offsets, payments for ecosystem services, debt-for-nature swaps, green bonds, sustainable supply chains and international environmental agreements. Using the example of peatlands, the article shows how such a comprehensive global strategy can be built. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]