Search results for "environmental change"

Modelling the European Farmland Bird Indicator in response to forecast land-use change in Europe

2011

International audience; The European Farmland Bird Indicator (EFBI) has been adopted as a Structural and Sustainable Development Indicator by the European Union. It is an aggregated index integrating the population trends of 33 common bird species associated with farmland habitats across 21 countries. We describe a modelling method for predicting this indicator from land-use characteristics. Using yearly historical land-use data of crop areas derived from the FAO databases (1990–2007) and published population data of farmland birds at the national level for the same period, we developed a series of multiple regression models to predict the trend of the EU state specific indicator, and the E…

Temperature as a modulator of sexual selection

2018

A central question in ecology and evolution is to understand why sexual selection varies so much in strength across taxa; it has long been known that ecological factors are crucial to this. Temperature is a particularly salient abiotic ecological factor that modulates a wide range of physiological, morphological and behavioural traits, impacting individuals and populations at a global taxonomic scale. Furthermore, temperature exhibits substantial temporal variation (e.g. daily, seasonally and inter-seasonally), and hence for most species in the wild sexual selection will regularly unfold in a dynamic thermal environment. Unfortunately, studies have so far almost completely neglected the rol…

2016

By altering or eliminating delicate ecological relationships, non-indigenous species are con- sidered a major threat to biodiversity, as well as a driver of environmental change. Global cli- mate change affects ecosystems and ecological communities, leading to changes in the phenology, geographic ranges, or population abundance of several species. Thus, predicting the impacts of global climate change on the current and future distribution of invasive species is an important subject in macroecological studies. The African clawed frog (Xenopus laevis), native to South Africa, possesses a strong invasion potential and populations have become established in numerous countries across four contin…

Plant functional trait response to environmental drivers across European temperate forest understorey communities

2020

Functional traits respond to environmental drivers, hence evaluating trait-environment relationships across spatial environmental gradients can help to understand how multiple drivers influence plant communities. Global-change drivers such as changes in atmospheric nitrogen deposition occur worldwide, but affect community trait distributions at the local scale, where resources (e.g. light availability) and conditions (e.g. soil pH) also influence plant communities. We investigate how multiple environmental drivers affect community trait responses related to resource acquisition (plant height, specific leaf area (SLA), woodiness, and mycorrhizal status) and regeneration (seed mass, lateral s…

Can vegetation provide indications of ancient lake shorelines after more than one hundred years? A case study of Iskander-kul Lake, Tajikistan

2017

Abstract Bioindication is a common approach to assess and evaluate environmental changes over both short or long periods of time. Here we attempt to highlight that vegetation can provide indications of the palaeoshoreline of Lake Iskander-kul, even after at least 150 years. It is an example of a dammed lake that was created by a huge mass rockfall as a result of a strong earthquake during the late Pleistocene. Applying the two way indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN) we found that the shrubby vegetation is the particular one that can still effectively thrive along the palaeoshoreline despite the lake downlift. Using the phi coefficient as a fidelity measure for certain vegetation type, we …

Late-Holocene variability in chironomid functional assemblages and carbon utilization in a tundra lake food web

2020

AbstractHigh latitude freshwater systems are facing changes in catchment-mediated allochthonous input, as well as physical and chemical controls triggered by on-going climate change, which may alter their carbon processing and ecological characteristics. To explore changes in chironomid functional responses and carbon utilization in relation to long-term environmental change, we studied a sediment core covering ca. 2000 years from a tundra lake in northern Finland, which was analysed for sediment geochemistry, isotopic composition of chironomid remains and their functional assemblages. We aimed to relate changes in chironomid functional feeding assemblages and resource utilization, based on…

Resource use of wood-inhabiting fungi in different boreal forest types

2017

Generalist species are usually widespread and abundant, and thrive in heterogeneous environments. Specialists, in turn, are generally more restricted in their range, and benefit from more stable conditions. Therefore, increasing human-induced disturbance can have more negative effects on specialist than generalist species. We assessed the specialization of 77 wood-inhabiting fungal species across seven boreal forest types and different substratum qualities. A significantly higher number of specialist species was associated with herb-rich forests and afforested fields than with managed coniferous forests and wood pastures, the number of specialists associated with natural coniferous forests …

Modelling landscape constraints on farmland bird species range shifts under climate change

2018

Several studies estimating the effects of global environmental change on biodiversity are focused on climate change. Yet, non-climatic factors such as changes in land cover can also be of paramount importance. This may be particularly important for habitat specialists associated with human-dominated landscapes, where land cover and climate changes may be largely decoupled. Here, we tested this idea by modelling the influence of climate, landscape composition and pattern, on the predicted future (2021–2050) distributions of 21 farmland bird species in the Iberian Peninsula, using boosted regression trees and 10-km resolution presence/absence data. We also evaluated whether habitat specialist…

Developing common protocols to measure tundra herbivory across spatial scales

2021

Understanding and predicting large-scale ecological responses to global environmental change requires comparative studies across geographic scales with coordinated efforts and standardized methodologies. We designed, applied and assessed standardized protocols to measure tundra herbivory at three spatial scales: plot, site (habitat), and study area (landscape). The plot and site-level protocols were tested in the field during summers 2014-2015 at eleven sites, nine of them comprising warming experimental plots included in the International Tundra Experiment (ITEX). The study area protocols were assessed during 2014-2018 at 24 study areas across the Arctic. Our protocols provide comparable a…

Consequences of single-locus and tightly linked genomic architectures for evolutionary responses to environmental change

2020

AbstractGenetic and genomic architectures of traits under selection are key factors influencing evolutionary responses. Yet, knowledge of their impacts has been limited by a widespread assumption that most traits are controlled by unlinked polygenic architectures. Recent advances in genome sequencing and eco-evolutionary modelling are unlocking the potential for integrating genomic information into predictions of population responses to environmental change. Using eco-evolutionary simulations, we demonstrate that hypothetical single-locus control of a life history trait produces highly variable and unpredictable harvesting-induced evolution relative to the classically applied multi-locus mo…