Search results for "GLOBAL CHANGE"
showing 10 items of 639 documents
Limited behavioural effects of ocean acidification on a Mediterranean anemone goby (Gobius incognitus) chronically exposed to elevated CO2 levels
2022
An in situ reciprocal transplant experiment was carried around a volcanic CO2 vent to evaluate the anti-predator responses of an anemone goby species exposed to ambient (∼380 μatm) and high (∼850 μatm) CO2 sites. Overall, the anemone gobies displayed largely unaffected behaviors under high-CO2 conditions suggesting an adaptive potential of Gobius incognitus to ocean acidification (OA) conditions. This is also supported by its 3-fold higher density recorded in the field under high CO2. However, while fish exposed to ambient conditions showed an expected reduction in the swimming activity in the proximity of the predator between the pre- and post-exposure period, no such changes were detected…
The Bossons glacier protects Europe's summit from erosion
2013
13 pages; International audience; The contrasting efficiency of erosion beneath cold glacier ice, beneath temperate glacier ice, and on ice-free mountain slopes is one of the key parameters in the development of relief during glacial periods. Detrital geochronology has been applied to the subglacial streams of the north face of the Mont-Blanc massif in order to estimate the efficiency of erosional processes there. Lithologically this area is composed of granite intruded at ~303 Ma within an older polymetamorphic complex. We use macroscopic features (on ~10,000 clasts) and U-Pb dating of zircon (~500 grains) to establish the provenance of the sediment transported by the glacier and its subgl…
Impact of climate change on migratory birds: community reassembly versus adaptation
2007
Aim Species can respond to global climate change by range shifts or by phenotypic adaptation. At the community level, range shifts lead to a turnover of species, i.e. community reassembly. In contrast, phenotypic adaptation allows species to persist in situ , conserving community composition. So far, community reassembly and adaptation have mostly been studied separately. In nature, however, both processes take place simultaneously. In migratory birds, climate change has been shown to result in both exchange of species and adaptation of migratory behaviour. The aim of our study is to predict the impact of global climate change on migratory bird communities and to assess the extent to which …
Changes in land use and physiological transitions of a Juniperus thurifera forest: from decline to recovery
2015
All Rights Reserved. Forest decline is frequently associated with infection; however, infections habitually affect trees that have been previously debilitated by environmental stress. Nevertheless, the causes and physiology of noninfectious forest decline are not well known. Some Juniperus thurifera L. forests presented severe (noninfectious) declines, with defoliations over 50%. The goal of this study was to determine the causes and characterize the physiology of this noninfectious decline, and we hypothesized that it could be related to environmental stress from increasing interspecific competition resulting from land abandonment. We randomly assigned60 trees to either a control group or …
Arctica islandica (Bivalvia): A unique paleoenvironmental archive of the northern North Atlantic Ocean
2013
Abstract High-resolution environmental proxy data from the extratropical North Atlantic prior to the instrumental era are of critical importance to decipher processes and mechanisms of global change. In this regard, shells of the extremely long-lived bivalve mollusc, Arctica islandica ( Linnaeus, 1767 ), have gained particular attention during the last decade because they serve as reliable, subseasonally resolved multi-proxy archives of environmental variability in that very region. With a lifespan of more than 500 years, A. islandica is the longest-lived solitary animal. Its shell grows periodically throughout life and contains distinct annual and daily growth increments. These growth patt…
Comment on "Lethally hot temperatures during the Early Triassic greenhouse".
2013
Sun et al . (Reports, 19 October 2012, p. 366) reconstructed Permian to Middle Triassic equatorial seawater temperatures. After correct temporal positioning of their data points, their presumed trends of temperature changes, and hence their assumption of a one-to-one relationship between putative "lethally hot" seawater temperatures and a disputable equatorial "eclipse" of some organisms, are no longer supported by their data.
Quantifying the contribution of nitrification and denitrification to the nitrous oxide flux using 15N tracers.
2006
8 pages; International audience; Microbial transformations of nitrification and denitrification are the main sources of nitrous oxide (N2O) from soils. Relative contributions of both processes to N2O emissions were estimated on an agricultural soil using 15N isotope tracers (15NH4+ or 15NO3-), for a 10-day batch experiment. Under unsaturated and saturated conditions, both processes were significantly involved in N2O production. Under unsaturated conditions, 60% of N-N2O came from nitrification, while denitrification contributed around 85-90% under saturated conditions. Estimated nitrification rates were not significantly different whatever the soil moisture content, whereas the proportion o…
Climate change and cyclic predator-prey population dynamics in the high Arctic.
2009
The high Arctic has the world's simplest terrestrial vertebrate predator–prey community, with the collared lemming being the single main prey of four predators, the snowy owl, the Arctic fox, the long-tailed skua, and the stoat. Using a 20-year-long time series of population densities for the five species and a dynamic model that has been previously parameterized for northeast Greenland, we analyzed the population and community level consequences of the ongoing and predicted climate change. Species' responses to climate change are complex, because in addition to the direct effects of climate change, which vary depending on species' life histories, species are also affected indirectly due to…
Monitoring soil volume wetness in heterogeneous soils by electrical resistivity. A field-based pedotransfer function.: A field-based pedotransfer fun…
2014
11 pages; International audience; Modern irrigation techniques require accurate, rapid, cost-effective, spatial measurement of soil moisture. Electrical Resistivity Tomography (ERT) meets most of these requirements, but needs to be calibrated for each use because it is very sensitive to differences in soil characteristics. In this study, a pedotransfer function approach is used to remove the need for site-specific calibration, allowing ERT to be used directly to measure soil moisture. The study site was a hillslope vineyard, where eight calcaric-cambisol soil profiles were identified. From 2012 to 2013, 23 000 soil volume wetness measurements were acquired by Time Domain Reflectometry, and …
Isolation and characterisation of Nocardioides sp. SP12, an atrazine-degrading bacterial strain possessing the gene trzN from bulk- and maize rhizosp…
2003
International audience; We report the characterisation of Nocardioides sp. SP12, an atrazine-degrading bacteria isolated from atrazine-treated bulk- and maize rhizosphere soil. Based on 16S rDNA alignment, strain SP12 showed close phylogenic relationships with Nocardioides sp. C157 and Nocardioides simplex. Internal transcribed spacer (ITS) sequences of strain SP12 were longer than those of other Nocardioides sp. and present Ala- and Ile-tRNA unlike Actinomycetales. Nocardioides sp. SP12 presents a novel atrazine catabolic pathway combining trzN with atzB and atzC. Atrazine biodegradation ends in a metabolite that co-eluted in HPLC with cyanuric acid. This metabolite shows an absorption spe…