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Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences
Marine Invertebrates: Communities At Risk, Jennifer A. Mather
Marine Invertebrates: Communities At Risk, Jennifer A. Mather
Jennifer Mather, PhD
Our definition of the word ‘animal’ centers on vertebrates, yet 99% of the animals on the planet are invertebrates, about which we know little. In addition, although the Census of Marine Life (COML.org) has recently conducted an extensive audit of marine ecosystems, we still do not understand much about the animals of the seas. Surveys of the best-known ecosystems, in which invertebrate populations often play a key role, show that the invertebrate populations are affected by human impact. Coral animals are the foundation of coral reef systems, which are estimated to contain 30% of the species in the ocean. Physical …
The Costs Of Photorespiration To Food Production Now And In The Future, Berkley J. Walker, Andy Vanloocke, Carl J. Bernacchi, Donald R. Ort
The Costs Of Photorespiration To Food Production Now And In The Future, Berkley J. Walker, Andy Vanloocke, Carl J. Bernacchi, Donald R. Ort
Andy VanLoocke
Photorespiration is essential for C3 plants but operates at the massive expense of fixed carbon dioxide and energy. Photorespiration is initiated when the initial enzyme of photosynthesis, ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/ oxygenase (Rubisco), reacts with oxygen instead of carbon dioxide and produces a toxic compound that is then recycled by photorespiration. Photorespiration can be modeled at the canopy and regional scales to determine its cost under current and future atmospheres. A regional-scale model reveals that photorespiration currently decreases US soybean and wheat yields by 36% and 20%, respectively, and a 5% decrease in the losses due to photorespiration would be worth approximately …
Mapping Temperate Vegetation Climate Adaptation Variability Using Normalized Land Surface Phenology, Liang Liang, Mark D. Schwartz, Xiaoyang Zhang
Mapping Temperate Vegetation Climate Adaptation Variability Using Normalized Land Surface Phenology, Liang Liang, Mark D. Schwartz, Xiaoyang Zhang
Xiaoyang Zhang
Climate influences geographic differences of vegetation phenology through both contemporary and historical variability. The latter effect is embodied in vegetation heterogeneity underlain by spatially varied genotype and species compositions tied to climatic adaptation. Such long-term climatic effects are difficult to map and therefore often neglected in evaluating spatially explicit phenological responses to climate change. In this study we demonstrate a way to indirectly infer the portion of land surface phenology variation that is potentially contributed by underlying genotypic differences across space. The method undertaken normalized remotely sensed vegetation start-of-season (or greenup onset) with a cloned plants-based phenological model. As the …
The Impacts Of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies On Animal Welfare, Sara Shields, Geoffrey Orme-Evans
The Impacts Of Climate Change Mitigation Strategies On Animal Welfare, Sara Shields, Geoffrey Orme-Evans
Sara Shields, PhD
The objective of this review is to point out that the global dialog on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in animal agriculture has, thus far, not adequately considered animal welfare in proposed climate change mitigation strategies. Many suggested approaches for reducing emissions, most of which could generally be described as calls for the intensification of production, can have substantial effects on the animals. Given the growing world-wide awareness and concern for animal welfare, many of these approaches are not socially sustainable. This review identifies the main emission abatement strategies in the climate change literature that would negatively affect animal welfare and …
Flowering Phenology Change And Climate Warming In Southwestern Ohio, Ryan Mcewan, Robert J. Brecha, Donald R. Geiger, Grace P. John
Flowering Phenology Change And Climate Warming In Southwestern Ohio, Ryan Mcewan, Robert J. Brecha, Donald R. Geiger, Grace P. John
Robert J. Brecha
Global surface temperature has increased markedly over the last 100 years. This increase has a variety of implications for human societies, and for ecological systems. One of the most obvious ways ecosystems are affected by global climate change is through alteration of organisms’ developmental timing (phenology). We used annual botanical surveys that documented the first flowering for an array of species from 1976 to 2003 to examine the potential implications of climate change for plant development. The overall trend for these species was a progressively earlier flowering time. The two earliest flowering taxa (Galanthus and Crocus) also exhibited the strongest …
Recent Advances In The Climate Change Biology Literature: Describing The Whole Elephant, A. Townsend Peterson, Shaily Menon, Xingong Li
Recent Advances In The Climate Change Biology Literature: Describing The Whole Elephant, A. Townsend Peterson, Shaily Menon, Xingong Li
Shaily Menon
Climate change biology is seeing a wave of new contributions, which are reviewed herein. Contributions treat shifts in phenology and distribution, and both document past and forecast future effects. However, many of the current wave of contributions are observational and correlational, and few are experimental in nature, and too often a conceptual framework in which to contextualize the results is lacking. An additional gap is the lack of effective cross-linking among areas of research, for example, connection of sea-level rise and climate change implications for distributions of species, or evolutionary adaptation studies with distributional shift studies. Although numerous important contributions …