Search results for " Climate"

Impact of sewage pollution on two species of sea urchins in the Mediterranean Sea (Cortiou, France): radial asymmetry as a bioindicator of stress.

2015

9 pages; International audience; BackgroundThe surroundings of the Cortiou sewage are among the most polluted environments of the French Mediterranean Sea (Marseilles, France). So far, no studies have precisely quantified the impact of pollution on the development of organisms in this area.MethodsWe used a fluctuating asymmetry (FA) measure of developmental instability (DI) to assess environmental stress in two species of radially symmetric sea urchins (Arbacia lixula and Paracentrotus lividus). For six sampling sites (Cortiou, Riou, Maire, East Maire, Mejean, and Niolon), levels of FA were calculated from continuous and discrete skeletal measures of ambulacral length, number of pore pairs …

Spatio‐temporal patterns of tree growth as related to carbon isotope fractionation in European forests under changing climate

2019

Aim The aim was to decipher Europe‐wide spatio‐temporal patterns of forest growth dynamics and their associations with carbon isotope fractionation processes inferred from tree rings as modulated by climate warming. Location Europe and North Africa (30‒70° N, 10° W‒35° E). Time period 1901‒2003. Major taxa studied Temperate and Euro‐Siberian trees. Methods We characterize changes in the relationship between tree growth and carbon isotope fractionation over the 20th century using a European network consisting of 20 site chronologies. Using indexed tree‐ring widths (TRWi), we assess shifts in the temporal coherence of radial growth across sites (synchrony) for five forest ecosystems (Atlantic…

2018

Abstract Understanding the response of biodiversity to management, land use and climate change is a major challenge in farmland to halt the decline of biodiversity. Farmlands shelter a wide variety of taxa, which vary in their life cycle and habitat niches. Consequently, monitoring biodiversity from sessile annual plants to migratory birds requires dedicated protocols. In this article, we describe the protocols applied in a long-term research platform, the LTSER Zone Atelier “Plaine & Val de Sevre” (for a full description see Bretagnolle et al. (2018) [1] ). We present the data in the form of the description of monitoring protocols, which has evolved through time for arable weeds, grassland…

The relation between circadian asynchrony, functional redundancy, and trophic performance in tropical ant communities

2016

The diversity-stability relationship has been under intense scrutiny for the past decades, and temporal asynchrony is recognized as an important aspect of ecosystem stability. In contrast to relatively well-studied interannual and seasonal asynchrony, few studies investigate the role of circadian cycles for ecosystem stability. Here, we studied multifunctional redundancy of diurnal and nocturnal ant communities in four tropical rain forest sites. We analyzed how it was influenced by species richness, functional performance, and circadian asynchrony. In two neotropical sites, species richness and functional redundancy were lower at night. In contrast, these parameters did not differ in the t…

Ecological insights from three decades of animal movement tracking across a changing Arctic

2020

Ecological “big data” Human activities are rapidly altering the natural world. Nowhere is this more evident, perhaps, than in the Arctic, yet this region remains one of the most remote and difficult to study. Researchers have increasingly relied on animal tracking data in these regions to understand individual species' responses, but if we want to understand larger-scale change, we need to integrate our understanding across species. Davidson et al. introduce an open-source data archive that currently hosts more than 15 million location data points across 96 species and use it to show distinct climate change responses across species. Such ecological “big data” can lead to a wider understandi…

Ecological correlates of distribution change and range shift in butterflies

2011

1. In order to be effective custodians of biodiversity, one must understand what ecological characteristics predispose species to population decline, range contraction, and, eventually, to extinction. 2. The present paper analyses distribution change (area of occupancy) and range shift (extent and direction) of the threatened and non-threatened butterfly species in Finland, and identifies species-specific ecological characteristics promoting changes in distribution and range. 3. Overall, the range of butterflies has shifted along the climatic isotherms, suggesting that climate change has influenced species’ ranges. Interestingly, though, threatened species have moved very little and not to …

Climate change and the ecology and evolution of Arctic vertebrates

2012

Climate change is taking place more rapidly and severely in the Arctic than anywhere on the globe, exposing Arctic vertebrates to a host of impacts. Changes in the cryosphere dominate the physical changes that already affect these animals, but increasing air temperatures, changes in precipitation, and ocean acidification will also affect Arctic ecosystems in the future. Adaptation via natural selection is problematic in such a rapidly changing environment. Adjustment via phenotypic plasticity is therefore likely to dominate Arctic vertebrate responses in the short term, and many such adjustments have already been documented. Changes in phenology and range will occur for most species but wil…

2021

Funding: This research was funded through the 2017–2018 Belmont Forum and BiodivERsA joint call for research proposals, under the BiodivScen ERA-Net COFUND program, with the following funding organizations: the Academy of Finland (Univ. Turku: 326327, Univ. Helsinki: 326338), the Swedish Research Council (Swedish Univ. Agric. Sci:2018–02440, Lund Univ.: 2018–02441), the Research Council of Norway (Norwegian Instit. for Nature Res.,295767), and the National Science Foundation (Cornell Univ., ICER-1927646), and we also acknowledge the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency.

Comparing stressor-specific indices and general measures of taxonomic composition for assessing the status of boreal lacustrine macrophyte communities

2013

Abstract Biotic communities are increasingly used to assess and monitor aquatic ecosystems with two fundamentally contrasting approaches: (i) responses sensitive to, and indicative of specific stressors; and (ii) general measures of community change. For assessment of lacustrine macrophyte communities, we compared three trophy-related and one water level fluctuation-related stressor-specific indices (SSIs) with three general measures of taxonomic composition (MTC), using data from 48 reference, 33 eutrophicated and 24 water level regulated boreal lakes. Our hypothesis was that MTCs would yield robust ecological quality estimates across these differing stress-gradients, while the SSIs would …

Possible effects of global environmental changes on Antarctic benthos: a synthesis across five major taxa

2012

Because of the unique conditions that exist around the Antarctic continent, Southern Ocean (SO) ecosystems are very susceptible to the growing impact of global climate change and other anthropogenic influences. Consequently, there is an urgent need to understand how SO marine life will cope with expected future changes in the environment. Studies of Antarctic organisms have shown that individual species and higher taxa display different degrees of sensitivity to environmental shifts, making it difficult to predict overall community or ecosystem responses. This emphasizes the need for an improved understanding of the Antarctic benthic ecosystem response to global climate change using a multi…