Digital Commons Network^™

Challenges For Research On Global Change In Mainland Ecuador, Veerle Vanacker, Armando Molina, Rossana Torres, Edison Calderon, Laura Cadilhac

Neotropical Biodiversity

No abstract provided.

A Dualist Approach To Offshore Renewable Energy Governance: A Case For The Third World, Adebayo Majekolagbe

Research Papers, Working Papers, Conference Papers

The need for an environmentally sustainable alternative to fossilsourced energy has led to a global increase in offshore renewable energy ORE ventures in the past decade With fastadvancing technologies these ventures are moving into deeper waters putting the likelihood of ORE installations in the High Seas in sight Concerns about potential conflict with other traditional uses of the marine space marine pollution inefficient and inequitable deployments have been raised However asides from few Statebased regulatory frameworks there is no international legal framework to regulate this burgeoning ORE industry Adopting a sociolegal approach this paper mainstreams Arvid Pardo's argument for the …

Tourism And Recreation In A Warmer Indiana: A Report From The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Jonathon Day, Melissa Widhalm, Natalie Chin, Leslie Dorworth, Kalim Shah, Sandra Sydnor, Jeffrey Dukes

Tourism Reports

Indiana’s climate and geography make it an attractive place for outdoor tourism and recreation. Many months of each year are ideal for boating, fishing, swimming, hiking, camping, and taking in outdoor sporting events or festivals.

But the world’s climate is changing, and Indiana’s is no exception. Temperature increases already seen over the last hundred years will accelerate, potentially through the end of this century, and precipitation patterns will change. Those changes will affect the many facets of tourism and recreation throughout the state, including the types of tourism the state can offer, the timing of events, and the quality of …

Compositional Response Of Amazon Forests To Climate Change, Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, Timothy R. Baker, Kyle G. Dexter, Simon L. Lewis, Roel J.W. Brienen, Ted R. Feldpausch, Jhon Del Aguila-Pasquel, Et. Al.

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate-induced biodiversity changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional composition of intact lowland Amazonian forests have been changing by evaluating records from 106 long-term inventory plots spanning 30 years. We analyse three traits that have been hypothesized to respond to different environmental drivers (increase in moisture stress and atmospheric CO 2 concentrations): maximum tree size, biogeographic water-deficit affiliation and wood density. Tree communities have …

Compositional Response Of Amazon Forests To Climate Change., Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert, Timothy R. Baker, Kyle G. Dexter, Simon L. Lewis, Roel J.W. Brienen, Ted R. Feldpausch, Jon Lloyd, Abel Monteagudo-Mendoza, Luzmila Arroyo, Esteban Álvarez-Dávila, Niro Higuchi, Beatriz S. Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Marcos Silveira, Emilio Vilanova, Emanuel Gloor, Yadvinder Malhi, Jerôme Chave, Jos Barlow, Damien Bonal, Cardozo N Davila, Terry Erwin, Sophie Fauset, Bruno Hérault, S Laurance, Lourens Poorter, Lan Qie, Clement Stahl, Martin J.P. Sullivan, Steege H Ter, Vincent Antoine Vos, Pieter A. Zuidema, Everton Almeida, Everton Almeida, Ana Andrade, Sa Vieira, Luiz Aragão, Alejandro Araujo-Murakami, Eric Arets, C Ga Aymard, Pb Camargo, Jorcely G. Barroso, Frans Bongers, Rene Boot, Jl Camargo, Wendeson Castro, Moscoso V Chama, James Comiskey, Valverde F Cornejo, Da Costa Ac Lola, Aguila Pasquel J Del, Fiore T Di, Duque L Fernanda, Fernando Elias, Julien Engel, Llampazo G Flores, David Galbraith, Fernández R Herrera, Coronado E Honorio, Wannes Hubau, Eliana Jimenez-Rojas, Adriano José Nogueira Lima, Ricardo Keichi Umetsu, W Laurance, Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez, Thomas Lovejoy, Melo Cruz O Aurelio, Paulo S. Morandi, David Neill, Vargas P Núñez, Nc Pallqui, Gutierrez A Parada, Guido Pardo, Julie Peacock, Marielos Peña-Claros, Maria Cristina Peñuela-Mora, N/A Pe

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

Most of the planet's diversity is concentrated in the tropics, which includes many regions undergoing rapid climate change. Yet, while climate-induced biodiversity changes are widely documented elsewhere, few studies have addressed this issue for lowland tropical ecosystems. Here we investigate whether the floristic and functional composition of intact lowland Amazonian forests have been changing by evaluating records from 106 long-term inventory plots spanning 30 years. We analyse three traits that have been hypothesized to respond to different environmental drivers (increase in moisture stress and atmospheric CO2 concentrations): maximum tree size, biogeographic water-deficit affiliation and wood density. Tree communities have become …

Climate Change Implications For Irrigation And Groundwater In The Republican River Basin, Usa, Gengxin Ou, Francisco Munoz-Arriola, Daniel R. Uden, Derrel Martin, Craig R. Allen, Nancy Shank

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

This study investigates the influence of climate change on groundwater availability, and thereby, irrigation across political boundaries within the US High Plains aquifer. A regression model is developed to predict changes in irrigation according to predicted changes in precipitation and temperature from a downscaled dataset of 32 general circulation models (GCMs). Precipitation recharge changes are calculated with precipitation recharge curves developed for prognostic representations of precipitation across the Nebraska-Colorado-Kansas area and within the Republican River Basin focal landscape. Irrigation-recharge changes are scaled with changes in irrigation. The groundwater responses to climate forcings are then simulated under new pumping and recharge …

No. 16: Cheap Industrial Food And The Urban Margins, Tony Weis, Marylynn Steckley, Bruce Frayne

Hungry Cities Partnership

From the middle of the 20th century onwards, the productivity gains associated with high-input, high-yield monocultures and livestock operations have become increasingly central to global food security and to dynamics of urbanization across the global south. On one hand, competition has deflated prices and helped undermine the viability of small farm livelihoods in many places. On the other hand, rising flows of cheap food have effectively subsidized urban migration in impoverished urban and peri-urban settings. But this cheapness is highly deceptive, as it hinges on the failure to account for an array of biological and physical costs – which can …

A 3,000‐Year Lag Between The Geological And Ecological Shutdown Of Florida's Coral Reefs, Lauren T. Toth, Isla B. Kuffner, Anastasios Stathakopoulos, Eugene Shinn

Marine Science Faculty Publications

The global‐scale degradation of coral reefs has reached a critical threshold wherein further declines threaten both ecological functionality and the persistence of reef structure. Geological records can provide valuable insights into the long‐term controls on reef development that may be key to solving the modern coral‐reef crisis. Our analyses of new and existing coral‐reef cores from throughout the Florida Keys reef tract (FKRT) revealed significant spatial and temporal variability in reef development during the Holocene. Whereas maximum Holocene reef thickness in the Dry Tortugas was comparable to elsewhere in the western Atlantic, most of Florida's reefs had relatively thin accumulations …

Profitability, Engaging Delivery, And Trust: How Extension Professionals Can Optimize Farmer Adoption Of Climate-Related Adaptation Strategies, David C. Diehl, Nicole L. Sloan, Elder P. Garcia, Daniel R. Dourte, Sebastian Galindo-Gonzalez, Clyde W. Fraisse

Journal of Human Sciences and Extension

This study examined Extension professionals’ perspectives on how to optimize the chances that farmers will adopt climate adaptation strategies designed to minimize risks associated with climate variability and climate change. In-depth interviews were conducted with Extension professionals in four southeastern states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina). Responses were coded and analyzed, resulting in three recommendations. First, focus on profitability and issues of immediate concern to farmers. Second, use engaging delivery methods, especially field trials conducted under realistic conditions. Third, build trust with farmers, primarily by focusing on research-based information. This study has practical implications for how Extension professionals should …

Synergistic Effects Of Temperature And Salinity On The Gene Expression And Physiology Of Crassostrea Virginica, Hollis Jones

LSU Master's Theses

Crassostrea virginica, the eastern oyster, forms reefs that provide critical services and benefits to the resiliency of the surrounding ecosystem. Changes in environmental conditions, including salinity and temperature, can dramatically alter the services oysters provide by affecting their population dynamics. Climate warming may further exacerbate the effects of salinity changes as precipitation events increase in frequency, intensity, and duration. Temperature and salinity independently and synergistically influence gene expression and physiology in marine organisms. We used comparative transcriptomics, physiology, and a field assessment experiment to investigate whether Louisianan oyster are changing their phenotypes to cope with increased temperature and salinity …

Big Oil And Climate Change Denial, David Schelhaas

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

"One of the Alliance’s most basic commitments is to free market economic development fueled by coal and oil that will, as they see it, lift the poor out of poverty."

Posting about the philosophy of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation from In All Things - an online journal for critical reflection on faith, culture, art, and every ordinary-yet-graced square inch of God’s creation.

https://inallthings.org/big-oil-and-climate-change-denial/

Public-Private Conservation Agreements And The Greater Sage-Grouse, Justin R. Pidot

Public Land & Resources Law Review

In 2015, the Obama Administration announced its conservation plans for the greater sage-grouse, an iconic bird of the intermountain west.Political leadership at the time described those plans as the “largest landscape-level conservation effort in U.S. history,”and they served as the foundation for a decision by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) that a listing of the bird was not warranted under the Endangered Species Act (“ESA”). The Trump Administration appears poised to substantially amend the plans, although an array of interested parties have urged that the plans be left intact. Regardless of the outcome of this debate, conservation of …

Streamlining The Production Of Clean Energy: Proposals To Reform The Hydroelectricity Licensing Process, Travis Kavulla, Laura Farkas

Public Land & Resources Law Review

Hydroelectric power is an efficient and clean source of power. In an era when air emissions dominate public concern about the environmental effects of the energy sector, it is a paradox that among the most highly regulated energy projects are hydroelectric dams, which do not combust fuel. This is partly due to a failure of successive statutory enactments,which have transformed hydroelectric licensing from a regulatory “one-stop shop” with a single regulator, to a process chained to a bewilderingnumber of often conflicting regulatory agencies, often riven with delay. Hydroelectric licensing has also failed because its capacious standard of review encourages special-interest …

Center For Biological Diversity V. Zinke, Ryan Hickey

Public Land & Resources Law Review

The oft-cited “arbitrary and capricious” standard revived the Center for Biological Diversity’s most recent legal challenge in its decades-long quest to see arctic grayling listed under the Endangered Species Act. While this Ninth Circuit decision did not grant grayling ESA protections, it did require the United States Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider its 2014 finding that listing grayling as threatened or endangered was unwarranted. In doing so, the court found “range,” as used in the ESA, vague while endorsing the FWS’s 2014 clarification of that term. Finally, this holding identified specific shortcomings of the challenged FWS finding, highlighting how …

An Overview Of Factors Affecting Distribution Of The Atlantic Surfclam (Spisula Solidissima), A Continental Shelf Biomass Dominant, During A Period Of Climate Change, Eileen E. Hoffman, Eric N. Powell, John M. Klink, Daphne M. Munroe, Roger Mann, Dale B. Haidvogel, Diego A. Narváez, Xinzhong Zhang, Kelsey M. Kuykendall

Faculty Publications

The Atlantic surfclam (Spisula solidissima) is a dominant member of the biological community of the Middle Atlantic Bight continental shelf and a commercially harvested species. Climate warming is affecting the biology and distribution of this species, which provides an opportunity to investigate the processes and conditions that are restructuring this fishery and the implications for ecological and socioeconomic systems. A Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) developed for the surfclam fishery provides a mechanistic description of the surfclam's response to climate change and understanding of the cascade of effects initiated by changes in oceanographic conditions that ultimately appear as social and economic …

Visualizing Extreme Precipitation For Climate Storytelling, Rachel Phinney

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Precipitation can have adverse effects in the climate ecosystem. Too much can impose concerns such as flooding and landslides, resulting in damaged property, agricultural losses, and loss of life. Too little, and drought becomes an issue, inducing wildfires, poor air quality, agricultural losses, and health degradation. The contiguous United States has experienced an increase in precipitation since 1900, and much of this has occurred in the most recent decades. By the end of the 21st Century, it is expected that more winter and spring precipitation will occur over the northern portion of the U.S., and less in the southwest. While …

Tamm Review: Reforestation For Resilience In Dry Western U.S. Forests, Malcolm P. North, Jens T. Stevens, David F. Greene, Michelle Coppoletta, Eric E. Knapp, Andrew M. Latimer, Christina M. Restaino, Ryan E. Tompkins, Kevin R. Welch, Rob A. York, Derek J.N. Young, Jodi N. Axelson, Tom N. Buckley, Becky L. Estes, Rachel N. Hager, Jonathan W. Long, Marc D. Meyer, Steven M. Ostoja, Hugh D. Safford, Kristen L. Shive, Carmen L. Tubbesing, Dana Walsh, Chhaya M. Werner, Peter Wyrsch, Heather Vice

United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service / University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Faculty Publications

The increasing frequency and severity of fire and drought events have negatively impacted the capacity and success of reforestation efforts in many dry, western U.S. forests. Challenges to reforestation include the cost and safety concerns of replanting large areas of standing dead trees, and high seedling and sapling mortality rates due to water stress, competing vegetation, and repeat fires that burn young plantations. Standard reforestation practices have emphasized establishing dense conifer cover with gridded planting, sometimes called 'pines in lines', followed by shrub control and pre-commercial thinning. Resources for such intensive management are increasingly limited, reducing the capacity for young …

Aquatic Ecosystems In A Shifting Indiana Climate: A Report From The Indiana Climate Change Impacts Assessment, Tomas Höök, Carolyn Foley, Paris Collingsworth, Leslie Dorworth, Brant Fisher, Jason Hoverman Dr., Elizabeth Larue, Mark Pyron, Jennifer Tank, Melissa Widhalm, Jeffrey Dukes

Aquatic Ecosystems Reports

Indiana is home to many types of aquatic ecosystems, including lakes, rivers, streams, wetlands and temporary (ephemeral) pools, which provide habitats for a wide range of plants and animals. These ecosystems will experience changes in water quantity, water temperature, ice cover, water clarity and oxygen content as the state’s temperature and rainfall patterns shift. The plants and animals living in these aquatic ecosystems will undergo changes that will vary based on the species and the specific places they inhabit.

It is challenging to know precisely how organisms will respond to changes in climate. Effects on one species create a difficult-to-predict …

Does Environment Filtering Or Seed Limitation Determine Post-Fire Forest Recovery Patterns In Boreal Larch Forests?, Wen H. Cai, Zhihua Liu, Yuan Z. Yang, Jian Yang

Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Wildfire is a primary natural disturbance in boreal forests, and post-fire vegetation recovery rate influences carbon, water, and energy exchange between the land and atmosphere in the region. Seed availability and environmental filtering are two important determinants in regulating post-fire vegetation recovery in boreal forests. Quantifying how these determinants change over time is helpful for understanding post-fire forest successional trajectory. Time series of remote sensing data offer considerable potential in monitoring the trajectory of post-fire vegetation recovery dynamics beyond current field surveys about structural attributes, which generally lack a temporal perspective across large burned areas. We used a time series …

Waterfall Formation At A Desert River-Reservoir Delta Isolates Endangered Fishes, Charles N. Cathcart, Casey A. Pennock, Christopher A. Cheek, Mark C. Mckinstry, Peter D. Mackinnon, Mary M. Conner, Keith B. Gido

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Unforeseen interactions of dams and declining water availability have formed new obstacles to recovering endemic and endangered big-river fishes. During a recent trend of drying climate and declining reservoir water levels in the southwestern United States, a large waterfall has formed on two separate occasions (1989-1995 & 2001-present) in the transition zone between the San Juan River and Lake Powell reservoir because of deposited sediments. Because recovery plans for two large-bodied endangered fish species, razorback sucker (Xyrauchen texanus) and Colorado pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus lucius), include annual stockings in the San Juan River, this waterfall potentially blocks upstream …

The Threats Of Sea Level Rise: An Eco-Geopolitical Visual Analysis, Jorge L. Nowell-Enriquez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This eco-geopolitical research produces information about the sea level rising, and the analyst explains and projects global effects, and further problems and consequences of the phenomena in a five-minute-long video clip.

The focus is coastlines floods as a consequence of the sea level rising produced by glaciers melting. The floods will affect regions where over a billion persons are living, mainly coastal cities. Therefore, the sea level rising will produce or ease gradual destruction and sudden catastrophes. Moreover, these catastrophes will spur mass migration that might change the lives of a billion persons by 2045.

Dermal Mycobacteriosis And Warming Sea Surface Temperatures Are Associated With Elevated Mortality Of Striped Bass In Chesapeake Bay, Maya L. Groner, John M. Hoenig, Roger Pradel, Rémi Choquet, Wolfgang K. Vogelbein, David T. Gauthier, Marjorie A. M. Friedrichs

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Temperature is hypothesized to alter disease dynamics, particularly when species are living at or near their thermal limits. When disease occurs in marine systems, this can go undetected, particularly if the disease is chronic and progresses slowly. As a result, population-level impacts of diseases can be grossly underestimated. Complex migratory patterns, stochasticity in recruitment, and data and knowledge gaps can hinder collection and analysis of data on marine diseases. New tools enabling quantification of disease impacts in marine environments include coupled biogeochemical hydrodynamic models (to hindcast key environmental data), and multievent, multistate mark-recapture (MMSMR) (to quantify the effects of environmental …

Governance For A Changing Climate: Adapting Boston’S Built Environment For Increased Flooding, Stephanie Kruel, Rebecca Herst, David Cash

School for the Environment General Publications

Climate Change is impacting everything in our society and in our world. The changes we are already experiencing are starting to multiply and accelerate. Determining how to respond to this new reality wisely within the governance and governmental structures that we have built is a complex challenge. Some might argue it is humankind’s greatest test. Given the monumental size of this task, it is difficult to simultaneously address all of the related issues both broadly and deeply. This is the third and final in a series of reports from the Sustainable Solutions Lab that were sponsored by the Boston Green …

Thresholds And Drivers Of Coral Calcification Responses To Climate Change, Niklas Kornder, Bernhard Riegl, Joana Figueiredo

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Increased temperature and CO₂ levels are considered key drivers of coral reef degradation. However, individual assessments of ecological responses (calcification) to these stressors are often contradicting. To detect underlying drivers of heterogeneity in coral calcification responses, we developed a procedure for the inclusion of stress–effect relationships in ecological meta‐analyses. We applied this technique to a dataset of 294 empirical observations from 62 peer‐reviewed publications testing individual and combined effects of elevated temperature and pCO₂ on coral calcification. Our results show an additive interaction between warming and acidification, which reduces coral calcification by 20% when pCO₂ levels exceed …

Behavior Plasticity Mitigates The Effect Of Climate Warming In White-Tailed Deer, Carter L. Wolff

Theses and Dissertations

Climate change can alter the ecology of natural systems through various mechanisms, such as direct thermal effects on a consumer. However, consumers may employ behavioral mechanisms in response to warming. Among these may be spatial or temporal shifts in activity, making use of thermal heterogeneity on the landscape. Despite this, few studies consider the role of behavioral plasticity and spatial or temporal heterogeneity in the context of climate change. I conducted experiments to evaluate the importance of behavior in mediating the net effects of warming at the population and the individual level using captive white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). I created …

Natural And Managed Watersheds Show Similar Responses To Recent Climate Change, Darren L. Ficklin, John T. Abatzoglou, Scott M. Robeson, Sarah E. Null, Jason H. Knouft

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Changes in climate are driving an intensification of the hydrologic cycle and leading to alterations of natural streamflow regimes. Human disturbances such as dams, land-cover change, and water diversions are thought to obscure climate signals in hydrologic systems. As a result, most studies of changing hydroclimatic conditions are limited to areas with natural streamflow. Here, we compare trends in observed streamflow from natural and human-modified watersheds in the United States and Canada for the 1981–2015 water years to evaluate whether comparable responses to climate change are present in both systems. We find that patterns and magnitudes of trends in median …

Herbarium Records Reveal Earlier Bloom Times In Three Southern Appalachian Plant Species, Melanie Flood, Mark Davis, Ashlee Mccaskill

Georgia Journal of Science

Plant phenology, especially the onset of flowering in angiosperms, is a useful tool for studying the effects of climate change on native flora because it is influenced by temperatures. Numerous studies in different biomes have provided evidence of earlier bloom times in response to increasing temperatures. We examined herbarium specimen data to determine whether three spring-blooming species (Sanguinaria canadensis, Iris cristata, and Trillium rugelii) at the southern terminus of the Appalachians exhibit a similar change in onset of flowering over several decades. All three species exhibited significantly earlier flower onset during the past 120 years, a …

Essential Market Squid (Doryteuthis Opalescens) Embryo Habitat: A Baseline For Anticipated Ocean Climate Change., Navarro, P.E. Parnell, L.A. Levin

Faculty, Staff, and Students

The market squid Doryteuthis opalescens deposits embryo capsules onto the continental shelf from Baja Californiato southern Alaska, yet little is known about the environment of embryo habitat. This study provides a baseline of environmental data and insights on factors underlying site selection for embryo deposition off southern California, and defines current essential embryo habitat using (1) remotely operated vehicle–supported surveys of benthos and environmental variables, (2) SCUBA surveys, and (3) bottom measurements of T, S, pH, and O2. Here, embryo habitat is defined using embryo capsule density, capsule bed area, consistent bed footprint, and association with [O2] and pH (pCO2) …

Coastal Wetland Dynamics Under Sea-Level Rise And Wetland Restoration In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Using Bayesian Multilevel Models And A Web Tool, Tyler Hardy

Master's Theses

There is currently a lack of modeling framework to predict how relative sea-level rise (SLR), combined with restoration activities, affects landscapes of coastal wetlands with uncertainties accounted for at the entire northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). I developed such a modeling framework – Bayesian multi-level models to study the spatial pattern of wetland loss in the NGOM, driven by relative RSLR, vegetation productivity, tidal range, coastal slope, and wave height – all interacting with river-borne sediment availability, indicated by hydrological regimes. These interactions have not been comprehensively investigated before. I further modified this model to assess the efficacy of restoration …

Spatial Distribution And Stock-Recruitment Analysis Of The Atlantic Surfclam, Spisula Solidissima, In The Mid-Atlantic Bight And On Georges Bank, Jeremy Timbs

Master's Theses

Atlantic surfclams, Spisula solidissima, are long-lived bivalve molluscs with dispersive larval stages. Surfclam patchiness throughout the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) has declined from the 1980’s to the present in all assessed regions (Delmarva, New Jersey, Long Island, Southern New England, and Georges Banks). Warming of Mid-Atlantic bottom waters is driving the surfclam stock into new habitat and extirpating the surfclams from nearshore areas. Based on a species distribution function model, the small surfclams appear to inhabit a greater area than the large market-size surfclams across the entire stock. The wider distribution of recent recruits relative to the fishable …