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Stream ecosystem functioning is often impaired by warming and salinization, but the joint effect of both environmental stressors on key processes such as leaf litter decomposition is virtually unknown, particularly in the tropics. We experimentally explored how increased water temperature (26, 29 and 32°C) and salinity (no salt addition, 0.1, 1.0 and 10 g l−1 NaCl added) affected the rates of total, microbial and detritivore-mediated decomposition, in stream microcosms containing leaf litter of Ficus insipida and larvae of Chironomus sp. collected from tropical streams. Effects of temperature were strong and consistent with previous findings: it promoted microbial decomposition and reduced decomposition mediated by detritivores, which showed greater feeding activity at 26°C. Salinity was negatively correlated with microbial decomposition at 32°C; it also had a negative influence on detritivore-mediated decomposition, which was nevertheless non-significant due to the high detritivore mortality at higher salinities. Notably, total decomposition was reduced with the joint presence of both factors (32°C and salt addition treatments, compared to 26°C and no salt addition), indicating the existence of additive effects and highlighting the relevance of multiple-stressor contexts when assessing the consequences of global change on stream ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the shifts in urban ecology and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to address contemporary urban issues. The field of urban ecology has expanded to include perspectives from various disciplines such as urban studies, sociology, geography, and urban planning. This expansion has allowed for the exploration of complex dynamics in urban ecosystems and the consideration of issues such as justice, accessibility, and equality. The article presents several guiding research questions to deepen the understanding of these shifts and improve the contribution of urban ecology to society. The objective of the article is to identify and explore the key shifts in urban ecology and promote a more just and transformative knowledge paradigm for urban systems in the Anthropocene. [Extracted from the article]

While ethnobiology is a discipline that focuses on the local, it has an outstanding, but not yet fully realized potential to address global issues. Part of this unrealized potential is that universalistic approaches often do not fully recognize culturally grounded perspectives and there are multiple challenges with scaling up place-based research. However, scalability is paramount to ensure that the intimate and context-specific diversity of human–environmental relationships and understandings are recognized in global-scale planning and policy development. Here, we identify four pathways to enable the scalability of place-based ethnobiological research from the ground up: local-to-global dialogues, aggregation of published data, multi-sited studies, and geospatial analyses. We also discuss some major challenges and consideration to encourage continuous reflexivity in these endeavours and to ensure that scalability does not contribute to unnecessarily decontextualizing, co-opting, or overwriting the epistemologies of Indigenous Peoples and local communities. As ethnobiology navigates multiple scales of time and space and seeks to increase its breadth, this study shows that the use of deliberately global approaches, when carefully nested within rich field-based and ecological and ethnographically grounded data, can contribute to: (1) upscaling case-specific insights to unveil global patterns and dynamics in the biocultural contexts of Indigenous Peoples and local communities; (2) bringing ethnobiological knowledge into resolutions that can influence global environmental research and policy agendas; and (3) enriching ethnobiology's field-based ethos with a deliberate global analytical focus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Accurately predicting the phase behavior and physical properties of carbon dioxide (CO2) in pure water/NaCl mixtures is crucial for the design and implementation of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology. However, the prediction task is complicated by CO2 liquefaction, CO2 hydrate formation, multicomponent and multiphase coexistence, etc. In this study, an improved method that combines Benedict–Webb–Rubin–Starling equation of state (BWRS EOS) + hydrate thermodynamic theories was proposed to predict CO2 solubility and phase equilibrium conditions for a mixed system across various temperature and pressure conditions. By modifying the interaction coefficients in BWRS EOS and the Van der Waals–Platteeuw model, this new method is applicable to complex systems containing two liquid phases and a CO2 hydrate phase, and its high prediction accuracy was verified through a comparative evaluation with a large number of reported experimental data. Furthermore, based on the calculation results, the characteristics of CO2 solubility and the variation of phase equilibrium conditions of the mixture system were discussed. These findings highlight the influence of hydrates and NaCl on CO2 solubility characteristics and clearly demonstrate the hindrance of NaCl to the formation of CO2 hydrates. This study provides valuable insights and fundamental data for designing and implementing CCUS technology that contribute to addressing global climate change and environmental challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity conservation is a top priority in the face of global environmental change, and the practical restoration of biodiversity has emerged as a key objective. Nevertheless, the question of how to effectively contribute to biodiversity restoration and identify suitable systems for such efforts continues to present major challenges. By using genome-wide SNP data, our study revealed that populations from different mountain ranges of the Formosan Long-Arm Scarab beetle, a flagship species that receives strict protection, exhibited a single genetic cluster with no subdivision. Additionally, our result implied an association between the demographic history and historical fluctuations in climate and environmental conditions. Furthermore, we showed that, despite a stable and moderately sized effective population over recent history, all the individuals we studied exhibited signs of genetic inbreeding. We argued that the current practice of protecting the species as one evolutionarily significant unit remains the best conservation plan and that recent habitat change may have led to the pattern of significant inbreeding. We closed by emphasizing the importance of conservation genetic studies in guiding policy decisions and highlighting the potential of genomic data for identifying ideal empirical systems for genetic rescue, or assisted gene flow studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The functioning of Mediterranean coastal waters is deeply affected not only by global environmental changes (e.g., global warming, climate change) but also by improvements in sewage treatment as required by the European Water Framework Directive. These changes affect nutrient concentrations and cycling, and primary production. The present paper presents the time series analysis (2005–2020) of stable isotope ratios (hereafter δ13C and δ15N), elemental (C and N), and biochemical compositions (proteins, lipids, carbohydrates) within the 300–500 µm zooplankton size fraction from bimonthly monitoring samples (0–55 m) collected in the Bay of Marseille (NW-Mediterranean Sea). The zooplankton seasonality was mostly related with the dynamic of proxies of phytoplankton biomass and nutrients in the system. In spring, protein content and energy increased and δ15N of zooplankton decreased; in late spring, lipid and carbohydrate content peaked; and in late summer, δ13C increased. At the interannual scale, major changes in the zooplankton biochemical and isotopic composition have occurred since 2009. Lipid content decreased while protein and stable isotope ratios increased. These shifts were concomitant with changes in the nutrient concentrations, nutrient stoichiometry, and particulate organic matter concentrations. The changes in biochemical composition led to an increase of energy content from 2011, but the total quantity of energy available to higher trophic positions remained stable because of a reduction in biomass. The variations of the zooplankton stable isotopes and biochemical compositions can be indicative of changes in individual biochemistry (energy allocation) and/or in the zooplankton community (changes in relative abundance of lipid-rich vs protein-rich species). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the governance of climate change under the Paris Agreement, specifically focusing on the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) as a governance instrument. The author argues that the adoption of the Paris Agreement did not resolve many of the differences between states, and further research is needed to accurately interpret its results. The article outlines five aspects for future research on NDCs, including the need to consider both countries' positions during negotiations and the adopted decisions, as well as the interlinkages between NDCs and other parts of the Paris Agreement. The author also highlights the importance of avoiding oversimplification and considering the political struggles that surround climate governance. [Extracted from the article]

Extreme global warming and environmental changes associated with the Toarcian (Lower Jurassic) Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE, ~183 Mya) profoundly impacted marine organisms and terrestrial plants. Despite the exceptionally elevated abundances of fossil insects from strata of this age, only assemblages from Germany and Luxembourg have been studied in detail. Here, we focus on the insect assemblage found in strata recording the T-OAE at Alderton Hill, Gloucestershire, UK, where <15% of specimens have previously been described. We located all known fossil insects (n = 370) from Alderton Hill, and used these to create the first comprehensive taxonomic and taphonomic analysis of the entire assemblage. We show that a diverse palaeoentomofaunal assemblage is preserved, comprising 12 orders, 21 families, 23 genera and 21 species. Fossil disarticulation is consistent with insect decay studies. The number of orders is comparable with present-day assemblages from similar latitudes (30°–40°N), including the Azores, and suggests that the palaeoentomofauna reflects a life assemblage. At Alderton, Hemiptera, Coleoptera and Orthoptera are the commonest (56.1%) orders. The high abundance of Hemiptera (22.1%) and Orthoptera (13.4%) indicates well-vegetated islands, while floral changes related to the T-OAE may be responsible for hemipteran diversification. Predatory insects are relatively abundant (~10% of the total assemblage) and we hypothesise that the co-occurrence of fish and insects within the T-OAE represents a jubilee-like event. The marginally higher proportion of sclerotised taxa compared to present-day insect assemblages possibly indicates adaptation to environmental conditions or taphonomic bias. The coeval palaeoentomofauna from Strawberry Bank, Somerset is less diverse (9 orders, 12 families, 6 genera, 3 species) and is taphonomically biased. The Alderton Hill palaeoentomofauna is interpreted to be the best-preserved and most representative insect assemblage from Toarcian strata in the UK. This study provides an essential first step towards understanding the likely influence of the T-OAE on insects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-term, reliable datasets of satellite-based vegetation condition are essential for understanding terrestrial ecosystem responses to global environmental change, particularly in Australia which is characterised by diverse ecosystems and strong interannual climate variability. We comprehensively evaluate several existing global AVHRR NDVI products for their suitability for long-term vegetation monitoring in Australia. Comparisons with MODIS NDVI highlight significant deficiencies, particularly over densely vegetated regions. Moreover, all the assessed products failed to adequately reproduce inter-annual variability in the pre-MODIS era as indicated by Landsat NDVI anomalies. To address these limitations, we propose a new approach to calibrating and harmonising NOAA's Climate Data Record AVHRR NDVI to MODIS MCD43A4 NDVI for Australia using a gradient-boosting decision tree ensemble method. Two versions of the datasets are developed, one incorporating climate data in the predictors ('AusENDVI-clim': Aus tralian E mpirical NDVI-clim ate) and another independent of climate data ('AusENDVI-noclim'). These datasets, spanning 1982–2013 at a spatial resolution of 0.05°, exhibit strong correlation and low relative errors compared to MODIS NDVI, accurately reproducing seasonal cycles over densely vegetated regions. Furthermore, they closely replicate the interannual variability in vegetation condition in the pre-MODIS era. A reliable method for gap-filling the AusENDVI record is also developed that leverages climate, atmospheric CO2 concentration, and woody cover fraction predictors. The resulting synthetic NDVI dataset shows excellent agreement with observations. Finally, we provide a complete 41-year dataset where gap filled AusENDVI from January 1982 to February 2000 is seamlessly joined with MODIS NDVI from March 2000 to December 2022. Analysing 40-year per-pixel trends in Australia's annual maximum NDVI revealed increasing values across most of the continent. Moreover, shifts in the timing of annual peak NDVI are identified, underscoring the dataset's potential to address crucial questions regarding changing vegetation phenology and its drivers. The AusENDVI dataset can be used for studying Australia's changing vegetation dynamics and downstream impacts on terrestrial carbon and water cycles, and provides a reliable foundation for further research into the drivers of vegetation change. AusENDVI is open access and available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10802704 (Burton, 2024). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improved understanding of bacterial community responses to multiple environmental filters over long time periods is a fundamental step to develop mechanistic explanations of plant–bacterial interactions as environmental change progresses.This is the first study to examine responses of grassland root‐associated bacterial communities to 15 years of experimental manipulations of plant species richness, functional group and factorial enrichment of atmospheric CO2 (eCO2) and soil nitrogen (+N).Across the experiment, plant species richness was the strongest predictor of rhizobacterial community composition, followed by +N, with no observed effect of eCO2. Monocultures of C3 and C4 grasses and legumes all exhibited dissimilar rhizobacterial communities within and among those groups. Functional responses were also dependent on plant functional group, where N2‐fixation genes, NO3−‐reducing genes and P‐solubilizing predicted gene abundances increased under resource‐enriched conditions for grasses, but generally declined for legumes. In diverse plots with 16 plant species, the interaction of eCO2+N altered rhizobacterial composition, while +N increased the predicted abundance of nitrogenase‐encoding genes, and eCO2+N increased the predicted abundance of bacterial P‐solubilizing genes.Synthesis: Our findings suggest that rhizobacterial community structure and function will be affected by important global environmental change factors such as eCO2, but these responses are primarily contingent on plant species richness and the selective influence of different plant functional groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding mechanisms allowing plants to thrive in challenging conditions is critical for predicting their responses to global environmental change. An often overlooked ecological adaptation is marcescence, where leaves and stems are retained beyond their typical shedding time, with implications for nutrient recycling and carbon sequestration. Marcescence can be expected in plants with conservative resource‐use strategies, especially in environments with limited resources and marked seasonality, such as deserts and alpine regions. However, the extent to which marcescence occurs in different taxa across different habitats and its relationship to seasonality and plant functioning as reflected in ecophysiological traits remains understudied.We studied 600 individuals across 40 Himalayan herb species found in desert, steppe, alpine and subnival habitats, spanning 3000–5400 m elevation. Marcescence was observed in 37 of the 40 species evaluated, with 57% of the sampled individuals displaying dead phytomass, indicating the widespread nature of this phenomenon in Himalayan ecosystems.Environment and plant traits emerged as significant factors influencing the amount of dead‐standing biomass. These findings remained robust after accounting for intraspecific variation and phylogenetic inertia. Desert and steppe species exhibited greater marcescent biomass, characterized by 10‐fold more dead stem biomass than alpine and subnival plants. In contrast, the proportion of dead phytomass increased with elevation due to increased dead leaf fraction.Taller desert species with heavily lignified stems and limited nitrogen and phosphorus content had high levels of stem marcescence, which not only may aid litter photodegradation and nutrient recycling but also deter herbivory and promote seed dispersal (tumbleweed). Conversely, slow‐growing alpine and subnival plants with higher water‐use efficiency, foliar C:N ratios and parenchymatic storage tissue rich in mobile carbohydrates had a high proportion of marcescent leaves, which may aid survival in these resource‐limited environments by providing delayed nutrients through moisture‐conserving mulch that also provides insulation and protection from frost.This study provides new insights into the complex interplay of habitat, seasonality and plant traits in dead phytomass retention in Himalayan plants. Marcescence is prevalent in resource‐conservative species in highly seasonal, resource‐limited habitats and may significantly shape the functioning and biodiversity of Himalayan ecosystems. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recruiting the public to participate in the scientific process can be invaluable in furthering our understanding of global environmental change. Several long‐term citizen science projects have been active for over a decade, with most involving the public in the data collection phase of the scientific process. Our team has recently inherited a long‐term citizen science project called the Community Lake Ice Collaboration (CLIC). We have benefited from engaging with a community of experienced participants who have collected reliable data for hundreds of lakes across the USA for over 30 yr. Collecting data at this scale would have been logistically and financially challenging without participants volunteering their time and effort. Here, we aim to provide an overview of the lessons we have learned from CLIC and other citizen science projects and develop nine guidelines for establishing and sustaining a long‐term citizen science project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What does it mean to teach, live, and imagine one's futures amidst a global pandemic? How to respond to the reality of unequal and overlapping crises, COVID-19 being one of them? Can alternative understandings of time help us create a more just post-pandemic university? Drawing on environmental humanities, disaster and critical time studies, in conversation with qualitative data, this article theorizes a 'pedagogy of scale': a practical and conceptual centering on multiple temporalities and diverse interpretative frames. The analysis argues for the need to attend to overlapping, non-linear, and changeable scales of time, reference, and meaning that students draw on in order to make sense of crises: every crisis, even as unprecedented as COVID-19, is embedded in environmental processes, long-term vulnerabilities and injustices. These overlooked and overlapping scales interweave personal, planetary, and theological notions of time—from ecological deep time to the divine time—meaning, and self. In its focus on asynchronicity, overlap and multiplicity, the analysis extends current theorizations of temporality and crisis in higher education, challenges paradigms of mastery, advocates for epistemic plurality, and embraces decolonial notions of human subjectivity, providing a much-needed critical model for the post-pandemic university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compensatory growth represents the ability of plants to counteract the negative consequences of herbivore damage, contributing to the sustainable development of agriculture. Minor changes in compensatory growth due to environmental changes may significantly impact the structure and functionality of ecosystems, especially for agriculture in a semiarid region. However, there is a lack of systematic quantitative summaries and reviews on compensatory growth mechanisms, especially regarding how they might respond to global environmental changes (e.g. climate warming, drought, nutrient variation, and elevated CO2). This paper summarizes the types of physio-ecological responses of plant compensatory growth to defoliation and their characteristics through a systematic review of existing literature. The review shows that damaged plants that undergo variations in morphological and physiological traits, such as enhanced photosynthesis, increased branching, and altered biomass allocation, may mitigate injury or produce overcompensatory growth. Moderate disturbance and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus infection rates are beneficial for overcompensation. I further discuss how plant compensatory growth is affected by global change factors, concluding that adequate nutrients and water supply are crucial factors influencing overcompensation. This summary can advance our understanding of the response patterns and mechanisms underlying plant compensatory growth, which is vital for gaining insight into the regenerative capacity of plants and promoting sustainable agricultural development under global environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evolution of oxygen cycles on Earth's surface has been regulated by the balance between molecular oxygen production and consumption. The Neoproterozoic-Paleozoic transition likely marks the second rise in atmospheric and oceanic oxygen levels, widely attributed to enhanced burial of organic carbon. However, it remains disputed how marine organic carbon production and burial respond to global environmental changes and whether these feedbacks trigger global oxygenation during this interval. Here, we report a large lithium isotopic and elemental dataset from marine mudstones spanning the upper Neoproterozoic to middle Cambrian [~660 million years ago (Ma) to 500 Ma]. These data indicate a dramatic increase in continental clay formation after ~525 Ma, likely linked to secular changes in global climate and compositions of the continental crust. Using a global biogeochemical model, we suggest that intensified continental weathering and clay delivery to the oceans could have notably increased the burial efficiency of organic carbon and facilitated greater oxygen accumulation in the earliest Paleozoic oceans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The microbial community structure in forest soils is expected to change in response to global environmental change, such as climate warming and nitrogen deposition. Community responses to these environmental changes may further interact with the site's land-use history and understory light availability. Uncovering the relative importance of these global change drivers is crucial to understand and predict soil microbial communities' changes. Methods: A full-factorial in situ mesocosm experiment was conducted and the soil microbiota were analyzed by phospholipid fatty acid and neutral lipid fatty acid. The soils in the mesocosms were sampled from forests with different land-use history, and mesocosms contained typical forest understory plants. The mesocosms were exposed to experimental treatments of warming, nitrogen addition and subcanopy illumination. Results: Among the treatments, past land-use had the strongest effect shaping the microbial community structure. We found a significantly higher abundance of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and Actinobacteria in ancient forests. The soil microbial and plant communities were co-structured in ancient forests, but not in past-agricultural forests. Warming and nitrogen fertilization did not affect the soil microbial community composition, yet illumination resulted in slight changes in soil microbial composition. Conclusions: Our results underpin the role of land-use legacies in shaping soil microbial communities. The stronger plant-microbe linkages in ancient forest soils compared to post-agricultural secondary forest soils may contribute to a higher resilience against environmental changes. Our results advocate for more multifactor global change experiments that investigate the mechanisms underlying the potential effects of land-use legacies on plant-microbe relationships in forest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Presence-Absence gene Variations (PAVs) impacted tick genomes. • Mobile genetic elements were preferentially impacted by PAV. • We reconstructed 5.3–7 Mb of tick pangenomes. • Overall, we traced 550–3,346 dispensable genes per species. Tick species are vectors of harmful human and animal diseases, and their expansion is raising concerns under the global environmental changes' scenario. Ticks host and transmit bacteria, protozoa and viruses, making the understanding of host-pathogen molecular pathways critical to development of effective disease control strategies. Despite the considerable sizes and repeat contents of tick genomes, individual tick genomics is perhaps the most effective approach to reveal genotypic traits of interest. Presence-Absence gene Variations (PAVs) can contribute to individual differences within species, with dispensable genes carried by subsets of individuals possibly underpinning functional significance at individual or population-levels. We exploited 350 resequencing datasets of Dermacentor silvarum, Haemaphysalis longicornis, Ixodes persulcatus, Rhipicephalus microplus and Rhipicephalus sanguineus hard tick specimens to reveal the extension of PAV and the conservation of dispensable genes among individuals and, comparatively, between species. Overall, we traced 550–3,346 dispensable genes per species and were able to reconstruct 5.3–7 Mb of genomic regions not included in the respective reference genomes, as part of the tick pangenomes. Both dispensable genes and de novo predicted genes indicated that PAVs preferentially impacted mobile genetic elements in these tick species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant invasions driven by global environmental changes (e.g. nutrient enrichment) increasingly threaten natural ecosystems. It is unclear whether reducing nitrogen (N) inputs helps to mitigate plant invasions in natural ecosystems.Using ongoing, landscape‐scale N reductions in the Yangtze River, we combined spatiotemporal surveys before and after reducing N inputs and manipulative experiments to explore how N reductions contributed to native community recovery in estuarine marshes degraded by plant invasions.We found that native Phragmites australis patches gradually recovered in Spartina alterniflora‐invaded marshes after reducing N inputs. The competitive advantage of S. alterniflora over P. australis decreased with N reduction, shifting the competitive outcomes away from P. australis exclusion to their coexistence.Synthesis and applications. Our findings reveal that the reversal of nitrogen enrichment may shift ecosystems from being more susceptible to invasion toward successional recovery, offering a promising approach for facilitating native community recovery in the invaded ecosystems. These findings have important implications for restoring invaded ecosystems, especially as global environmental change escalates the extent and impact of invaders by exacerbating current invasions and facilitating new ones. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aquatic ecosystems are often impacted by several human‐derived pressures simultaneously. A key challenge for ecologists is to develop mechanistic understanding of the cumulative effects of multiple stressors on freshwater biodiversity.We established an outdoor mesocosm experiment to examine the individual and combined effects of two key stressors on lake ecosystems globally—nutrient enrichment and amplified water‐level fluctuations—on benthic algal and macroinvertebrate assemblages along a gradient in littoral water depth.We found that nutrient enrichment and water‐level fluctuations not only altered the structure of littoral communities when acting individually, but also interacted to dynamically alter biomass and community structure in different ways at different depths. As expected, enrichment increased benthic algal biomass significantly in very shallow waters. Yet, when enrichment co‐occurred with water‐level fluctuations, this pattern was reversed, with algal biomass increasing significantly in deeper waters, but not in the shallows that were exposed to fluctuating water levels. This pattern occurred across all algal groups that we examined except for green algae. Green algae biomass increased with nutrient enrichment, was greatest in the shallows, and remained unaffected by fluctuating water levels.Water‐level fluctuations modified the functional feeding group structure of benthic macroinvertebrate communities, reducing relative densities of collector‐gatherers and increasing those of predators. However, these changes occurred only in the shallow‐most regions exposed directly to fluctuating water levels.Our results reveal how two globally important stressors of standing water systems can interact in different ways in different ecological contexts and show how stressors can combine to have unanticipated impacts that vary in space. Our findings underscore the potentially highly multifaceted and complex nature of stressor combinations that present a major and growing challenge to ecosystem management, particularly in light of accelerating global environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The video titled "The Green Anaesthesia Manifesto" by S. White and H. Montgomery discusses the concept of green anesthesia, which focuses on reducing the environmental impact of anesthesia practices. It emphasizes the importance of minimizing waste, using energy-efficient equipment, and promoting sustainable practices in the healthcare industry. The video provides an overview of the green anesthesia movement and its potential benefits for both patients and the environment. [Extracted from the article]

Early-life stages play a key role in the dynamics of bipartite life cycle marine fish populations. Difficult to monitor, observations of these stages are often scattered in space and time. While Mediterranean coastlines have been highly surveyed, no effort was made to assemble historical observations. Here we build an exhaustive compilation of dispersal traits for coastal fish species, considering in-situ observations and growth models. Our database contains over 5 110 000 entries collected from 1993 to 2021 in various subregions. All observations are harmonized to inform on dates and geolocations of both spawning and settlement, along with pelagic larval durations. When applicable, missing dates and associated confidence intervals are reconstructed from Dynamic Energy Budget theory. Statistical analyses allow revisiting traits' variability and revealing sampling biases across taxa, space and time, hence providing recommendations for future studies and sampling. Comparison of observed and modelled entries gives hints to improve the feed of observations into models. Overall, this long-term database is a crucial step to investigate how marine fish populations respond to global changes across environmental gradients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improving our understanding of the controls on Antarctic precipitation is critical for gaining insights into past and future polar and global environmental changes. Here we develop innovative water tracing diagnostics in the atmospheric general circulation model ECHAM6. These tracers provide new detailed information on moisture source locations and properties of Antarctic precipitation. In the preindustrial simulation, annual mean Antarctic precipitation originating from the open ocean has a source latitude range of 49–35 ∘ S, a source sea surface temperature range of 9.8–16.3 ∘ C, a source 2 m relative humidity range of 75.6 % –83.3 % , and a source 10 m wind velocity (vel10) range of 10.1 to 11.3 ms-1. These results are consistent with estimates from existing literature. Central Antarctic precipitation is sourced from more equatorward (distant) sources via elevated transport pathways compared to coastal Antarctic precipitation. This has been attributed to a moist isentropic framework; i.e. poleward vapour transport tends to follow constant equivalent potential temperature. However, we find notable deviations from this tendency especially in the lower troposphere, likely due to radiative cooling. Heavy precipitation is sourced by longer-range moisture transport: it comes from 2.9 ∘ (300 km , averaged over Antarctica) more equatorward (distant) sources compared to the rest of precipitation. Precipitation during negative phases of the Southern Annular Mode (SAM) also comes from more equatorward moisture sources (by 2.4 ∘ , averaged over Antarctica) compared to precipitation during positive SAM phases, likely due to amplified planetary waves during negative SAM phases. Moreover, source vel10 of annual mean precipitation is on average 2.1 ms-1 higher than annual mean vel10 at moisture source locations from which the precipitation originates. This shows that the evaporation of moisture driving Antarctic precipitation occurs under windier conditions than average. We quantified this dynamic control of Southern Ocean surface wind on moisture availability for Antarctic precipitation. Overall, the innovative water tracing diagnostics enhance our understanding of the controlling factors of Antarctic precipitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the last decades, the emergence of zoonotic diseases and the frequency of disease outbreaks have increased substantially, fuelled by habitat encroachment and vectors overlapping with more hosts due to global change. The virulence of pathogens is one key trait for successful invasion. In order to understand how global change drivers such as habitat homogenization and climate change drive pathogen virulence evolution, we adapted an established individual‐based model of host–pathogen dynamics. Our model simulates a population of social hosts affected by a directly transmitted evolving pathogen in a dynamic landscape. Pathogen virulence evolution results in multiple strains in the model that differ in their transmission capability and lethality. We represent the effects of global change by simulating environmental changes both in time (resource asynchrony) and space (homogenization). We found an increase in pathogenic virulence and a shift in strain dominance with increasing landscape homogenization. Our model further indicated that lower virulence is dominant in fragmented landscapes, although pulses of highly virulent strains emerged under resource asynchrony. While all landscape scenarios favoured co‐occurrence of low‐ and high‐virulent strains, the high‐virulence strains capitalized on the possibility for transmission when host density increased and were likely to become dominant. With asynchrony likely to occur more often due to global change, our model showed that a subsequent evolution towards lower virulence could lead to some diseases becoming endemic in their host populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The scope of this article is to make a synthesis of the theory of geopolitics with new trends and characteristics of the new global environment. Traditional geopolitical theories are established on the basis of sovereign states. The starting point of many theories is for sovereign states to compete for world hegemony, or to gain an advantage in competition with their opponents. Geopolitical research also mostly starts from the interests of the country. However, as global environmental changes, transnational crimes, terrorism, information security, and other non-traditional security threats have become common threats to human society, their impact also crosses borders and has global characteristics, which also means solving geopolitical issues. Thinking needs to change from a national perspective to a global perspective. On the other hand, as the international community pays more and more attention to human rights, the challenge of human rights to sovereignty has become an unavoidable reality in current international politics. With the progress of the times, the protection and respect of civil rights has become the basic consensus of the international community. Nowadays, the issue of virtual rights such as carbon emission rights have also been included in the geopolitics theory, creating a strong shift of paradigm towards a renewed theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid environmental changes—in climate, land use, and biotic interactions—are accelerating species extinctions and extirpations globally. Identifying drivers that threaten populations is essential for conservation yet can be difficult given the variable nature of the response of an organism to biotic and abiotic stressors. We analyzed a long-term monitoring data set to explore demographic responses of fishers (Pekania pennanti) to rapid environmental change in the southern Sierra Nevada, California, United States. Fisher survival was sensitive to both biotic and abiotic factors, although the strength and direction of these effects were ultimately mediated by age and sex. Specifically, male survival was lower among young individuals and decreased with increasing temperatures and fungi consumption. Female survival was resilient to age effects and diet but increased with greater forest heterogeneity and decreased with increasing temperatures and snow depth. Our findings suggest that continued climate change will likely have consequences for fishers through both incremental stressors and extreme weather events, but increasing forest heterogeneity may help to buffer against the impacts of such change. Further, we illustrate the importance of disentangling the effects of intrinsic and extrinsic factors on survival, especially among species with distinct sexual or ontogenetic differences. As global drivers of environmental change intensify in strength and frequency, understanding these complex relationships will allow practitioners to best manage for population persistence and habitat resilience concurrently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental changes drive biodiversity loss and community compositional change. Yet whether and how both factors simultaneously impact biomass dynamics in natural ecosystems remains elusive, especially considering their multidimensional effects (e.g., taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic) over spatial scales. To fill this knowledge gap, we generated an experimental spatial gradient using circular quadrats that vary in radius (2–30 m) in a subtropical forest on Dinghushan Mountain, China. Within each quadrat over 10 years, we calculated the changes in aboveground biomass (i.e., net Δbiomass), biodiversity (i.e., Δbiodiversity for richness, Shannon diversity, functional, phylogenetic), and community composition (i.e., β-diversity for taxonomic, functional, phylogenetic). Based on multi-model inference, we determined the most parsimonious relationships of Δbiomass as a function of Δbiodiversity and β-diversity and then quantified their standardized coefficients in response to the spatial gradient. Our results showed that Δbiomass, Δbiodiversity, and β-diversity decreased with quadrat size; the former at an accelerating rate and the latter at decelerating rates. While Δbiomass as a function of Δbiodiversity and β-diversity had low occurrences across the gradient, Δbiomass was strongly related to the change in functional dispersion (i.e., ΔFDis) and taxonomic β-diversity at larger spatial scales. Our results suggest scale-dependent influences of biodiversity loss and community compositional change on biomass dynamics in natural ecosystems. Further, our results highlight that multiple dimensions of biodiversity should be considered when predicting biomass dynamics at large spatial scales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urbanization is a persistent and widespread driver of global environmental change, potentially shaping evolutionary processes due to genetic drift and reduced gene flow in cities induced by habitat fragmentation and small population sizes. We tested this prediction for the eastern grey squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis), a common and conspicuous forest‐dwelling rodent, by obtaining 44K SNPs using reduced representation sequencing (ddRAD) for 403 individuals sampled across the species' native range in eastern North America. We observed moderate levels of genetic diversity, low levels of inbreeding, and only a modest signal of isolation‐by‐distance. Clustering and migration analyses show that estimated levels of migration and genetic connectivity were higher than expected across cities and forested areas, specifically within the eastern portion of the species' range dominated by urbanization, and genetic connectivity was less than expected within the western range where the landscape is fragmented by agriculture. Landscape genetic methods revealed greater gene flow among individual squirrels in forested regions, which likely provide abundant food and shelter for squirrels. Although gene flow appears to be higher in areas with more tree cover, only slight discontinuities in gene flow suggest eastern grey squirrels have maintained connected populations across urban areas in all but the most heavily fragmented agricultural landscapes. Our results suggest urbanization shapes biological evolution in wildlife species depending strongly on the composition and habitability of the landscape matrix surrounding urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many migratory species are declining due to global environmental change. Yet, their complex annual cycles make unravelling the impacts of potential drivers such as climate and land‐use change on migrations a major challenge. Identifying where, when and how threatening processes impact species' migratory journeys and population dynamics is crucial for identifying effective conservation actions. Here, we describe how a new migration modelling framework – Spatially explicit Adaptive Migration Models (SAMMs) – can simulate the optimal behavioural decisions required to migrate across open land‐ or seascapes varying in character over space and time, without requiring predefined behavioural rules. Models of adaptive behaviour have been used widely in theoretical ecology but have great untapped potential in real‐world contexts. Applying adaptive behaviour models across open environments will allow users to explore how migratory species may adapt their routes and usage of intermediate sites in response to environmental change. We outline how SAMMs can be used to model migratory journeys through aerial, terrestrial and aquatic environments, demonstrating their potential using a case study on the common cuckoo (Cuculus canorus) and comparing modelled to observed behaviours. SAMMs offer a tool to identify the key threats faced by migratory species, how they could adapt to future migratory journeys in response to changing environmental conditions and the consequences of not being able to adapt to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this article is to introduce English School (ES) theory to the study of global environmental politics (GEP). The ES is an established theoretical tradition in the discipline of international relations (IR) but is not widely known, let alone used, in GEP. My aim is to overcome this state of neglect and suggest ways in which ES theory can enrich the study of international environmental affairs. I argue that ES theory makes at least two major contributions to the study of global environmental politics: first, it helps counterbalance the presentist focus in GEP scholarship, shifting our attention toward long-term historical patterns of normative change, and second, by distinguishing between different levels of international change, it opens up an analytical focus on environmentalism as a part of the international normative structure. In doing so, ES theory directs our attention to the interaction and mutual shaping between environmentalism and other fundamental norms of international society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, trophic ecology research on aquatic ecosystems has focused more on the quantity of dietary energy flow within food webs rather than food quality and its effects on organisms at various trophic levels. Recent studies emphasize that food quality is central to consumer growth and reproduction, and the importance of food quality for aquatic ecosystems has become increasingly well recognized. It is timely to synthesise these findings and identify potential future research directions. We conducted a systematic review of omega‐3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (ω3‐PUFAs) as a crucial component of high‐quality food sources in freshwater ecosystems to evaluate their impact on a variety of consumers, and explore the effects of global change on these high‐quality food sources and their transfer to higher trophic consumers within and across ecosystems. In freshwater ecosystems, algae rich in ω3 long‐chain PUFAs, such as diatoms, dinoflagellates and cryptophytes, represent important high‐quality food sources for consumers, whereas cyanobacteria, green algae, terrestrial vascular plants and macrophytes low in ω3 long‐chain PUFAs are low‐quality food sources. High‐quality ω3‐PUFA‐containing food sources usually lead to increased growth and reproduction of aquatic consumers, e.g. benthic invertebrates, zooplankton and fish, and also provide ω3 long‐chain PUFAs to riparian terrestrial consumers via emergent aquatic insects. Consumers feeding on high‐quality ω3‐PUFA‐containing foods in turn represent high‐quality food for their own predators. However, the ω3‐PUFA content of food sources is sensitive to global environmental changes. Warming, eutrophication, increased light intensity (e.g. from loss of riparian shading), and pollutants potentially inhibit the synthesis of algal ω3‐PUFAs while at the same time promoting the growth of lower‐quality foods, such as cyanobacteria and green algae. These factors combined could lead to a significant reduction in the availability of ω3‐PUFAs for consumers and constrain their overall fitness. Although the effect of individual environmental factors on high‐quality ω3‐PUFA‐containing food sources has been investigated, multiple environmental factors (e.g. climate change, human activities, pollution) will act in combination and any synergistic effects on aquatic food webs remain unclear. Identifying the sources and fate of ω3‐PUFAs within and across ecosystems could represent an important approach to understand the impact of multiple environmental factors on trophic relationships and the implications for populations of freshwater and riparian consumers. Maintaining the availability of high‐quality ω3‐PUFA‐containing food sources may also be key to mitigating freshwater biodiversity loss due to global change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current state of dark coniferous forests on Earth is a bio-indicator of global environmental change, in particular, the process of gradual degradation of tree species of the genera Pine, Spruce and Fir, due to the negative impact of anthropogenic activities, abiotic and biotic factors. The purpose of the study is to establish the symptoms, prevalence and harmfulness of the causative agent of ulcerative tumour-like disease on the shoots and trunks of white fir. The research was conducted on the territory of the forest fund of the Pokuttia Carpathians, in particular, within the branch Kutske forestry of the State Specialised Economic Enterprise "Forests of Ukraine" in the Kosivske forest enterprise. The study uses classical phytopathological and mycological methods, which are used to investigate the aetiology of the disease, analyse typical symptoms (starting from the early stages), and perform microscopy of the affected parts of fir. The symptoms, aetiology, and pathogenesis of white fir ulcer-like disease, which tends to spread, were investigated. A new name for the disease is substantiated, in particular, it is proposed to use the name "ulcerative tumour-like disease" of fir instead of the current name "cancer". It is shown that a typical sign of infection is the development of tumours, which eventually transform into ulcers. It was found that the tumour-like type of lesion prevails on the undergrowth of fir, and on plants of the upper tiers - ulcerative. It is noted that a typical sign of ulcerative tumour-like disease of white fir is also the presence of pathologies such as "witches' broom". It is proposed to remove affected trees with typical signs of infection with ulcerative tumour-like disease to reduce the infectious background, especially during lighting and cleaning, since affected trees are not released from infection. Therefore, assessing the risk of infection of white fir trees with ulcerative tumour-like disease at the level of specific stands and ensuring an appropriate response to potential infection risks is an important part of sustainable forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 21st century the environmental change has turned into a significant issue for organizations as well as investors. Thus, to lessen fossil fuel byproduct, monetary establishments offer green funding to organizations to manage the issue of environmental change. But the real question is how much the risk of financial institutions, especially banks, is impacted by the availability of green financing. Examining how green finance affects Pakistani banks' credit risk is the goal of this study. The study has employed a panel dataset that encompasses green finance data from 2014 to 2020. The findings showed that the credit risk of the banks is significantly impacted by green finance proxies overall. The study's conclusions could have a realworld impact on bank managers, regulators, and lawmakers who want to create green finance laws that will help banks lower their exposure to credit risk. This study fills a gap in the literature on green financing, especially for poor nations, and adds empirical evidence to support its findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Pineland Site Complex, 8LL1902, is a large archaeological complex of middens, mounds, and other topographic features located in coastal, southwestern Florida. It was occupied from approximately AD 50 and was a major Calusa town at European contact. We combine extant research from this well-preserved site complex with new chronological and zooarchaeological analyses to provide new insight into the relationship between fisher-gatherer-hunter subsistence economies and small-scale but impactful climatic change. We identify and record the localized environmental changes co-occurrent with the global climatic episode known as the Little Ice Age (AD 1200–1850). By combining Bayesian statistical analyses of radiocarbon dates with zooarchaeological analyses of a waterlogged, shoreline midden we generate a high-resolution, localized view of socioecological interactions at the Pineland Site ca. AD 1200–1500. Such micro-scale temporal perspectives are necessary to achieve high resolution, localized histories of human-climate dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: The Raunkiær's system classifies vascular plants into life forms based on the position of renewal buds during periods unfavourable for plant growth. Despite the importance of Raunkiær's system for ecological research, a study exploring the diversity and distribution of life forms on a continental scale is missing. We aim to (i) map the diversity and distribution of life forms in European vegetation and (ii) test for effects of bioclimatic variables while controlling for habitat‐specific responses. Location: Europe. Methods: We used data on life forms of 8883 species recorded in 546,501 vegetation plots of different habitats (forest, grassland, scrub and wetland). For each plot, we calculated: (i) the proportion of species of each life form and (ii) the richness and evenness of life forms. We mapped these plot‐level metrics averaged across 50 km × 50 km grid cells and modelled their response to bioclimatic variables. Results: Hemicryptophytes were the most widespread life form, especially in the temperate zone of Central Europe. Conversely, therophyte and chamaephyte species were more common in the Mediterranean as well as in the dry temperate regions. Moreover, chamaephytes were also more common in the boreal and arctic zones. Higher proportions of phanerophytes were found in the Mediterranean. Overall, a higher richness of life forms was found at lower latitudes while evenness showed more spatially heterogeneous patterns. Habitat type was the main discriminator for most of the responses analysed, but several moisture‐related predictors still showed a marked effect on the diversity of therophytes and chamaephytes. Conclusions: Our maps can be used as a tool for future biogeographic and macro‐ecological research at a continental scale. Habitat type and bioclimatic conditions are key for regulating the diversity and distribution of plant life forms, with concomitant consequences for the response of functional diversity in European vegetation to global environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Global environmental change drives diversity loss and shifts in community structure. A key challenge is to better understand the impacts on ecosystem function and to connect species and trait diversity of assemblages with ecosystem properties that are in turn linked to ecosystem functioning. Here we quantify shifts in species composition and trait diversity associated with ocean acidification (OA) by using field measurements at marine CO2 vent systems spanning four reef habitats across different depths in a temperate coastal ecosystem. We find that both species and trait diversity decreased, and that ecosystem properties (understood as the interplay between species, traits, and ecosystem function) shifted with acidification. Furthermore, shifts in trait categories such as autotrophs, filter feeders, herbivores, and habitat‐forming species were habitat‐specific, indicating that OA may produce divergent responses across habitats and depths. Combined, these findings reveal the importance of connecting species and trait diversity of marine benthic habitats with key ecosystem properties to anticipate the impacts of global environmental change. Our results also generate new insights on the predicted general and habitat‐specific ecological consequences of OA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changes in water and nitrogen availability, as important elements of global environmental change, are known to affect the temporal stability of aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP). However, evidences for their effects on the temporal stability of belowground net primary productivity (BNPP), and whether such effects are consistent between belowground and aboveground, are rather scarce. Here, we investigated the responses of temporal stability of both ANPP and BNPP to water and nitrogen addition based on a 9‐year manipulative experiment in a temperate grassland in northern China. The results showed that the temporal stability of ANPP increased with water addition but decreased with nitrogen addition. By contrast, the temporal stability of BNPP decreased with water addition but increased with nitrogen enrichment. The temporal stability of ANPP was mainly determined by the soil moisture and inorganic nitrogen, which modulated species asynchrony, as well as by the stability of dominant species. On the other hand, the temporal stability of BNPP was mainly driven by the soil moisture and inorganic nitrogen that modulated ANPP of grasses, and by the direct effect of soil water availability. Our study provides the first evidence on the opposite responses of aboveground and belowground grassland temporal stability to increased water and nitrogen availability, highlighting the importance of considering both aboveground and belowground components of ecosystems for a more comprehensive understanding of their dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding the drivers and consequences of global environmental change is crucial to inform predictions of effects on ecosystems. We used the mammal community of Białowieża Forest, the last lowland near‐primeval forest in temperate Europe, as a sentinel of global change. We analyzed changes in stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values of hair in 687 specimens from 50 mammal species across seven decades (1946–2011). We classified mammals into four taxonomic‐dietary groups (herbivores, carnivores, insectivores, and bats). We found a significant negative trend in hair δ15N for the mammal community, particularly strong for herbivores. This trend is consistent with temporal patterns in nitrogen deposition from (15N depleted) industrial fertilizers and fossil fuel emissions. It is also in line with global‐scale declines in δ15N reported in forests and other unfertilized, non‐urban terrestrial ecosystems and with local decreases in N foliar concentrations. The global depletion of 13C content in atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuel burning (Suess effect) was detected in all groups. After correcting for this effect, the hair δ13C trend became non‐significant for both community and groups, except for bats, which showed a strong decline in δ13C. This could be related to an increase in the relative abundance of freshwater insects taken by bats or increased use of methane‐derived carbon in food webs used by bats. This work is the first broad‐scale and long‐term mammal isotope ecology study in a near‐primeval forest in temperate Europe. Mammal communities from natural forests represent a unique benchmark in global change research; investigating their isotopic temporal variation can help identify patterns and early detections of ecosystem changes and provide more comprehensive and integrative assessments than single species approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Paraná-Etendeka Large Igneous Province (PELIP) is renowned for its massive and rapidly emplaced flood basalts that dominated the centre of the Gondwana supercontinent during the Early Cretaceous. However, little is currently understood about mafic explosive eruptions, which often occur simultaneously with effusive activity, as observed in young basaltic volcanism. Here, we describe the first well-preserved layer of basaltic tuff interbedded within the high-Ti basaltic lava sequence in the central part of the PELIP, Brazil. The Tapalam Tuff consists of basaltic juvenile glassy components, scoriaceous lapilli and coarse ash, with a cement containing clays, zeolites, carbonates, and iron oxides. The glassy sideromelane fragments range from well-rounded achneliths with smooth, curved surfaces to highly angular, cuspate-shaped or platy shards. Achnelith morphologies include broken droplets (Pele's tears), thread fragments (Pele's hair), dumbbells, needles, spheres, ovoids and reticulite. Elongated pyroclasts exhibit a flat orientation, and subtle bedding is defined by granulometric alternation. Our findings suggest the deposits were laid down proximal to the volcanic vent and likely indicate a fallout deposit associated with a fluid-dominated, high (hundreds of meters or more than 1 km) fountain similar to a Hawaiian-type eruption, fed by low-viscosity basaltic magma. Volcanic activity was therefore not exclusively effusive but also involved explosive eruptions, which may have significant implications for understanding PELIP's volcanic history and its relation to local and global environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The challenges to which plants are exposed in urban environments represent, in miniature, the challenges plants face as a result of global environmental change. Hence, urban habitats provide a unique opportunity to assess whether processes of local adaptation are taking place despite the short temporal and geographical scales that characterize the Anthropocene.We quantified the ecological diversity of urban habitats hosting Arabidopsis thaliana populations. Using plant community indicators, we show that these patches differ in their levels of soil nutrient content and disturbance. Accordingly, plants in each patch displayed a range of flowering time, size and fitness.Using a deep sampling approach coupled with reduced genome sequencing, we demonstrate that most individuals can be assigned to a limited set of clonal lineages; the genetic diversity of these lineages is a sample of the diversity observed in western European populations of the species, indicating that established urban populations originate from a broad regional pool of lineages.We assessed the genetic and phenotypic diversity of these lineages in a set of common garden experiments. We report marked genetic differences in life‐history traits, including time of primary and secondary dormancy as well as of flowering. These genetic differences in life‐history traits are not randomly distributed but sorted out by ecological differences among sites of origin.Synthesis. Our study shows that the genetically diverse phenology of a regional Arabidopsis thaliana gene pool is not randomly distributed but filtered by heterogeneity in the urban environment. To our knowledge, this report is the first to show a pattern indicative of environmental filtering enhancing local genetic adaptation within urban environments. We conclude that environmental filtering helps maintain functional diversity within species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As humans accelerate global environmental change, extreme climatic events are increasing in frequency, duration, and intensity. In marine environments, extreme events of particular concern are marine heatwaves (MHWs). Previous reviews synthesising subsets of field-based research examining the ecological effects of these short-term warming events have found they could drive important changes to ecosystems. Here, we reviewed the traits of published literature that has used field, laboratory, and modelling approaches to examine the biotic effects of MHWs, and highlight some of the key findings. Since its first use in this context in 2013, the term "marine heatwave" has generally been used in field-based literature primarily documenting changes in abundance, biodiversity, species distributions, and mortality, primarily in fish and molluscs. Research is increasingly also conducted in laboratory settings, with these investigations focussing on changes in mechanistic processes such as growth and biochemical responses, often in smaller or less motile organisms including seagrasses, algae, molluscs, and crustaceans. Given their different applications, these complementary approaches will provide a more complete understanding when used to consider the same taxonomic groups. Moreover, those manipulating MHWs in laboratory experiments could benefit from the consideration of a range of MHW traits (intensity, duration, and their combination), for species in both isolation and combination, and in the presence of additional abiotic stressors. As such, where future research into MHWs use varied approaches and treatment settings, they will contribute to a more holistic understanding of the biological and ecological effects of future short-term warming events in our ocean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the exponential expansion of human activities, humanity has become the driving force of global environmental change. The consequent global sustainability crisis has been described as a result of a uniquely human form of adaptability and niche construction. In this paper, we introduce the concept of social-ecological niche construction focusing on biophysical interactions and outcomes. We use it to address destructive processes and to discuss potential regenerative ones as ways to overcome them. From a niche construction point of view, the increasing disconnections between human activities and environmental feedbacks appear as a success story in the history of human–nature coevolution because they enable humans to expand activities virtually without being limited by environmental constraints. However, it is still poorly understood how suppressed environmental feedbacks affect future generations and other species, or which lock-ins and self-destructive dynamics may unfold in the long-term. This is crucial as the observed escape from natural selection requires growing energy input and represents a temporal deferral rather than an actual liberation from material limitations. Relying on our proposal, we conclude that, instead of further taming nature, there is need to explore the potential of how to tame socio-metabolic growth and impact in niche construction processes. This article is part of the theme issue 'Evolution and sustainability: gathering the strands for an Anthropocene synthesis'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The combined and separate effects of an increase in water temperature (27°C) and a hypomagnetic field on freshwater crustaceans Daphnia magna were studied. The crustaceans that developed under a hypomagnetic field had increased body length compared to the control. Increased water temperature led to a reduction in the size of newborns, a decrease in the number of newborns in the first brood, an accelerated release of the first brood, a decrease in the period between broods, and an increased number of broods within 30 days. A hypomagnetic field could be viewed as an additional stress factor, leading to a decrease in the average number of offspring produced at the optimal temperature of 22°C, as well as a reduction in the number of females that produced the maximum number of broods at both optimal and elevated temperatures during the experiment. The results suggest that environmental changes due to global climatic and geophysical processes significantly affect representatives of freshwater ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Salinization of coastal freshwater wetlands is an increasingly common and widespread phenomenon resulting from climate change. The ecosystem consequences of added salinity are poorly constrained and highly variable across prior observational and experimental studies. We added 1.8 metric tons of marine salts to replicated 200 m2 plots within a restored forested wetland in Eastern North Carolina over the course of four years. Based on prior small-scale experiments at this site, we predicted that salinization would lead to slower tree growth and suppressed soil carbon cycling. Results from this large-scale field experiment were subtle and inconsistent over space and time. By the fourth year of the experiment, we observed the predicted suppression of soil respiration and a reduction of water extractable carbon from soils receiving salt treatments. However, we found no cumulative effects of four years of salinization on total soil carbon stocks, tree growth, or root biomass. We observed substantial variation in soil solution chemistry (notably, pH and base saturation) across replicated treatment blocks; the effective salt levels, ionic composition, and pH varied following treatment depending upon pre-existing differences in edaphic factors. Our multi-year monitoring also revealed an underlying trend of wetland acidification across the entire site, a suspected effect of ecosystem recovery following wetland restoration on former agricultural land. The overwhelming resistance to our salt treatments could be attributed to the vigor of a relatively young, healthy wetland ecosystem. The heterogeneous responses to salt that we observed over space and time merits further investigation into the environmental factors that control carbon cycling in wetlands. This work highlights the importance of multi-year, large-scale field experiments for investigating ecosystem responses to global environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Light pollution caused by artificial light at night (ALAN) is increasingly recognized as a major driver of global environmental change. Since emissions are rapidly growing in an urbanizing world and half of the human population lives close to a freshwater shoreline, rivers and lakes are ever more exposed to light pollution worldwide. However, although light conditions are critical to aquatic species, and freshwaters are biodiversity hotspots and vital to human well-being, only a small fraction of studies conducted on ALAN focus on these ecosystems. The effects of light pollution on freshwaters are broad and concern all levels of biodiversity. Experiments have demonstrated diverse behavioural and physiological responses of species, even at low light levels. Prominent examples are skyglow effects on diel vertical migration of zooplankton and the suppression of melatonin production in fish. However, responses vary widely among taxa, suggesting consequences for species distribution patterns, potential to create novel communities across ecosystem boundaries, and cascading effects on ecosystem functioning. Understanding, predicting and alleviating the ecological impacts of light pollution on freshwaters requires a solid consideration of the physical properties of light propagating in water and a multitude of biological responses. This knowledge is urgently needed to develop innovative lighting concepts, mitigation strategies and specifically targeted measures. This article is part of the theme issue 'Light pollution in complex ecological systems'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecology aims to comprehend species distribution and its interaction with environmental factors, from global to local scales. While global environmental changes affect marine biodiversity, understanding the drivers at smaller scales remains crucial. Tidal flats can be found on most of the world's coastlines and are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbances. They are important transient ecosystems between terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and their biodiversity provides important ecosystem services. Owing to this unique, terrestrial–marine transition, strong environmental gradients of elevation, sediment composition and food availability prevail. Here, we investigated which regional and local environmental factors drive the spatio‐temporal dynamics of macrozoobenthos communities on back‐barrier tidal flats in the East Frisian Wadden Sea. On the regional level, we found that species composition changed significantly from west to east on the East Frisian islands and that total abundance and species richness decreased from west to east. On the local abiotic level, we found that macrozoobenthos biomass decreased with higher elevation towards the salt marsh and that the total abundance of organisms in the sediment significantly increased with increasing mud content, while biodiversity and biomass were not changing significantly. In contrast to expectations, increasing Chl a availability as a measure of primary productivity did not result in changes in abundance, biomass or biodiversity, but extremely high total organic carbon (TOC) content was associated with a decrease in biomass and biodiversity. In conclusion, we found regional and local relationships that are similar to those observed in previous studies on macrozoobenthos in the Wadden Sea. Macrozoobenthos biomass, abundance and biodiversity are interrelated in a complex way with the physical, abiotic and biotic processes in and above the sediment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In lakes, the rates of gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (R), and net ecosystem production (NEP) are often controlled by resource availability. Herein, we explore how catchment vs. within lake predictors of metabolism compare using data from 16 lakes spanning 39°N to 64°N, a range of inflowing streams, and trophic status. For each lake, we combined stream loads of dissolved organic carbon (DOC), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) with lake DOC, TN, and TP concentrations and high frequency in situ monitoring of dissolved oxygen. We found that stream load stoichiometry indicated lake stoichiometry for C : N and C : P (r2 = 0.74 and r2 = 0.84, respectively), but not for N : P (r2 = 0.04). As we found a strong positive correlation between TN and TP, we only used TP in our statistical models. For the catchment model, GPP and R were best predicted by DOC load, TP load, and load N : P (R2 = 0.85 and R2 = 0.82, respectively). For the lake model, GPP and R were best predicted by TP concentrations (R2 = 0.86 and R2 = 0.67, respectively). The inclusion of N : P in the catchment model, but not the lake model, suggests that both N and P regulate metabolism and that organisms may be responding more strongly to catchment inputs than lake resources. Our models predicted NEP poorly, though it is unclear why. Overall, our work stresses the importance of characterizing lake catchment loads to predict metabolic rates, a result that may be particularly important in catchments experiencing changing hydrologic regimes related to global environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Addressing contemporary environmental and social crises requires solutions-based, systems-level changes. To achieve these changes, transdisciplinary research approaches are needed to align problem framing with solution deployment at landscape scales. However, practical frameworks to guide this work are lacking. Here we propose a new framework to help bridge this gap: regenerative landscape design (RLD). We define RLD as a process for finding pattern-based solutions, emphasizing cooperative, iterative, and facilitated engagement for the co-production of locally relevant knowledge for desirable landscape stewardship. To do so, we review how key components of RLD (e.g., landscapes, design thinking, and regenerative processes) have been differentially and unevenly applied in disciplines ranging from resilience, landscape ecology, geography, architecture, agriculture, sociology, tourism, and more. We then put forward research considerations of a RLD approach to enhance social and environmental well-being. We use two emerging case studies (i.e., Chesapeake Bay Watershed, Pennsylvania, USA and Narok County, Kenya) to put forward pathways for implementation of the RLD strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) is among one of the most sensitive regions to global environmental change worldwide. Although climate change and engineering construction on the QTP have jointly modified the regional vegetation activity, little is known about how this affects the vegetation variation. Using Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) data from 2000–2021, this study investigated the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation activity and the compound effects of climate change and reconstruction along the Tibetan section of the G318 national highway (TG318) through a novel contribution quantification model and partial correlation analysis, as well as through a structural equation model (SEM). The results showed that the mean growing-season EVI increased significantly at a rate of about 0.0020/year in the western side of the TG318 after reconstruction but fluctuated in the east. Reconstruction generally had a significant effect on the mean growing-season EVI, with contributions of 7.67%, 19.12%, 18.24%, and −4.15% in different sections of the TG318, whereas climate change contributed from −10.14% to 8.84% of the total variation. The mean growing-season EVI negatively correlated with snow cover and minimum temperature in humid and sub-humid regions, whereas it was positively related with vapor pressure in semi-arid regions. Moreover, there existed an obvious lag effect of climate change on the mean growing-season EVI, with lag time generally decreasing from west to east and apparent heterogeneity among different months and regions. These findings will help better understand the environmental impacts along the engineering corridors and provide a scientific basis for ecological conservation in the QTP regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this contribution to the 50th Anniversary Special Issue, the authors consider how global climate change and environmental sustainability have been addressed in the American Journal of Community Psychology (AJCP) over the last five decades. As we are increasingly exceeding critical planetary boundaries (global climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, etc.) with disastrous impacts on human well‐being—especially for peoples already marginalized—it is timely to consider the treatment of environmental issues in the history of the AJCP and in community psychology more broadly. This review of relevant articles is clustered into three topics derived from our critical understanding of the articles themselves: (a) public participation and power; (b) community‐level responses to environmental change, including its disproportionate impacts on marginalized groups; and (c) frameworks and worldviews that integrate the natural world as necessary context for research and action. The commentary on the featured articles is framed in terms of their key contributions, missed opportunities up to this point, and future directions for the field. While looking back at the past 50 years, the authors also have an eye to the years ahead and what work can be done to mitigate the harms of climate change, adapt to the emerging new environmental reality, and promote just and inclusive sustainabilities worldwide. Highlights: Describes key articles on the topic in the 50‐year history of American Journal of Community Psychology.Identifies key contributions, missed opportunities, and future directions on the theme in community psychology (CP).Frames the discussion with considerations of context, equity, and power.Calls CP researchers and partners to link social and environmental sustainability in study and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Biodiversity–stability relationships have frequently been studied in ecology, with the recent integration of traits to explain community stability over time. Classical theory underlying the biodiversity–stability relationship posits that different species' responses to the environment should stabilise community‐level properties (e.g. biomass or abundance) through compensatory dynamics.However, functional response traits, which aim to predict how species respond to environmental change, are still rarely integrated into studies of ecological stability. Such traits should mechanistically drive community stability, both in terms of community abundance (functional variability) and composition (compositional variability). In turn, whether and how functional or compositional stability scales to affect temporal variation in functional effect traits (a proxy for ecosystem functioning) remains largely unknown, but is key to consistent ecosystem functioning under environmental change.Here, we explore the diversity–stability relationship in bird communities using annual survey data across 98 sites in central Romania, in combination with global trait databases and structural equation models. We show that higher response trait diversity promotes compositional variability directly, and functional variability indirectly via species asynchrony. In turn, functional variability impacts the temporal stability of effect trait diversity. Multiple facets of diversity and community stability differ between natural forests and agricultural or human‐dominated survey sites, and the relationship between response diversity and functional variability is mediated by land cover.Further integration of response‐and‐effect trait frameworks into studies of community stability will enhance understanding of the drivers of biodiversity change, allowing targeted conservation decision‐making with a focus on stable ecosystem functioning in the face of global environmental change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]