Climate Change Ecology最新文献

Global climate change and anthropogenic nutrient inputs are responsible for increased frequency of cyanobacterial blooms that potentially contain 55 classes of bioactive metabolites. This study investigated the effects of CO₂ availability and concomittant pH levels on two cyanobacteria that produce microcystins: a marine cf. Synechocystis sp. and a freshwater Microcystis aeruginosa. Cyanobacterial strains were semi-continuously cultured in mesotrophic growth media at pH 7.5, 7.8, 8.2, and 8.5 via a combination of CO₂ addition and control of alkalinity. The cell concentration between treatments was not significantly different and nutrient availability was not limited. Concentration of most known cyanobacterial bioactive metabolites in both cyanobacterial strains increased as CO₂ increased. At pH 7.8, bioactive metabolite intracellular concentration in M. aeruginosa and Synechocystis was 1.5 and 1.2 times greater than the other three treatments, respectively. Intracellular concentration of microginin in M. aeruginosa at pH 7.5 was reduced by 90% compared to the other three treatments. Intracellular concentration of microcyclamide-bistratamide B was lower in M. aeruginosa and higher in Synechocystis at elevated CO₂ concentration. M. aeruginosa products were more diverse metabolites than Synechocystis. The diversity of accumulated metabolites in M. aeruginosa increased as CO₂ increased, whereas the metabolite diversity in Synechocystis decreased as pH decreased. Overall, intracellular concentration of bioactive metabolites was higher at greater CO₂ concentrations; marine and freshwater cyanobacteria had different allocation products when exposed to differing CO₂ environments.

Increased aridity, associated with climate change, is predicted worldwide in the coming decades. Species persistence in the face of climate change is thought to be influenced by plasticity, potential for adaptation, and dependence on non-climatic factors, but their relative importance has rarely been quantified. We investigated 13 populations of Eschscholzia californica (California poppy) distributed across a fourfold gradient in annual precipitation. In a greenhouse, plants received precipitation treatments approximating the wettest and driest sites, crossed with the presence and absence of soil inoculum from their collection location. We documented clinal variation across populations; plants from southern populations (arid sites) emerged later, flowered earlier, had shorter growing seasons, higher mean fitness, higher reproductive effort, and were more drought tolerant than plants from northern populations (mesic sites). A second experiment demonstrated clinal variation in biomass allocation, with higher root allocation in northern populations. We found no evidence of adaptive phenological plasticity to drought; instead, the drought treatment decreased fitness and growing season length (maladaptive phenological plasticity) more for plants from mesic than arid sites. Individuals grown with home soil inoculation produced 10% more biomass than when grown in common garden soil; however, the influence of soil was small relative to the 13-fold variation across populations in fitness responses to drought. Our results suggest that restoration efforts involving California poppy may benefit from assisted gene flow; sourcing seeds from arid parts of the species range may improve individual fitness and population persistence of this iconic species in the face of future climate change.

Climate change is affecting species composition and diversity across the globe. Phenological changes provide a sensitive indicator of biological responses to changes in climate. Recent studies using herbarium records in Europe and North America have shown changes in flowering time and other phenological events in response to changing climate conditions, such as warming temperatures and chilling winters, but few studies have been carried out in the southern hemisphere. We examined changes in flowering time from 1901–2009 in South Africa in the widespread, diverse genus Pelargonium. We combined records from more than 6,200 herbarium specimens of 129 species with historical weather data on temperature to examine the impact of climate change on flowering phenology. Data from over 464 weather stations in South Africa was used to estimate historical climate conditions for each of the 4,600 geographic sites included in our sample. During this time period there was a 2.9 ± 0.53 °C increase in mean annual temperature across South Africa. Flowering date advanced by nearly two weeks (11.6 days), with nearly all of the advance associated with the increase in temperature during this time. Thus, Pelargonium species are showing similar phenological responses when compared to species in the northern hemisphere. This study adds more evidence to the limited number of studies of climate change responses within Mediterranean climate regions that assess large-scale climate and phenological patterns. It also illustrates that herbarium records provide an effective method for detecting effects of climate change on flowering phenology across large geographic scales.

Climatic changes have had significant impacts on marine ecosystems, including apex predators such as cetaceans. A more complete understanding of the potential impacts of climate change on cetaceans is necessary to ensure their conservation. Here we present a review of the literature on the impacts of climate change on cetacean distribution, habitat and migrations and highlight research gaps. Our results indicate that due to rising sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and/or reducing sea ice extent, a variety of impacts on the distribution, habitat and migration of cetaceans have been observed to date and several more are predicted to occur over the next century. Many species have demonstrated a poleward shift, following their preferred SSTs to higher latitudes, and some have altered the timing of their migrations, while others appear not to be affected. These changes may benefit certain species, while others will be placed under extreme pressure and may face increased risk of extinction. Broader implications may include increased inter-specific competition, genetic alterations, ecosystem-level changes and conservation challenges. Existing research on the topic is both extremely limited and unevenly distributed (geographically and phylogenetically). Further research is necessary to determine which species and populations are most vulnerable and require the earliest conservation action.

Climate change affects species and their interactions, resulting in novel communities and modified ecosystem processes. Through shifts in phenology and distribution, climatic change can disrupt interactions, including those between mutualists. Mutualisms influence the structure and stability of communities and can link species to a common fate. However, research on climate change has focused on pairwise mutualisms, neglecting the higher-order interactions that can arise when species interact with multiple mutualists. We explore the effects of climate change on tripartite interactions involving belowground mutualists, namely soil bacteria and fungi, flowering plants, and pollinators. We outline how climate change is predicted to affect the phenology and distribution of these belowground mutualists, emphasizing the consequent effects on host plant floral traits, plant-pollinator interactions, and bee behavior. We find evidence that warming, advanced snowmelt, and drought are likely to cause phenological and distributional shifts in soil microbes, leading to diminished mutualistic interactions with plants and symbiont switching. Consequently, shifts in flowering phenology, smaller floral displays, and lower quality floral rewards are expected, increasing foraging time and energy demands for bees and altering their floral preferences. Such costs could translate into reduced fitness and novel selection pressures for bees and flowering plants in the short term. We highlight knowledge gaps and ways forward, urging studies on microbe dispersal and phenological cues, experiments that manipulate soil microbe-host plant interactions under simulated climate change conditions, and large-scale field studies across environmental gradients, all with the goal of understanding how climate change will affect soil microbe-plant-pollinator mutualisms.

Climate change-induced bush encroachment into grasslands has profound impacts on herbivores in African grasslands through changing their food and water supplies and influencing their perception of predation risk, and thus modulating the trade-off between resource acquisition and predator avoidance. For plains zebras (Equus quagga), bush is usually viewed as risky because it provides cover to predators to ambush prey. Projected climate change and increase in bush coverage may elevate perceived predation risk for zebras and influence their behaviors. However, direct evidence of bush coverage impacts on herbivores’ behavioral trade-off remains scarce. We conducted field observations and counts of plains zebra behavioral investments in vigilance, grazing and other routine activities across a variety of bush densities in Kenya's Laikipia Plateau. Results suggest that increasing bush density reduces the distance at which zebras detect the approach of a potential predator. After controlling for group size, zebras are more vigilant in dense versus open habitats. Increase in bush coverage has little impact on grazing time allocation, however it does reduce bite rate. Zebras spend less time on activities other than vigilance or grazing in bushier habitats. Our finding implies that increases in bush encroachment will increase the perception of predation risk by zebras, and reduce efficiency on food uptake and other essential behaviors. Maintaining sufficient area of open grasslands, in part by protecting elephants as ecological engineers, will help sustain populations of zebras and other large herbivores wherever climate change and land use change increases bush density.

Climate change impacts animal abundances, distributions, and behaviors, frequently at the detriment to individuals. However, for many animals, including butterflies, current research focuses primarily on estimating abundance and distribution without observing behavior. Because behaviors often respond to climate change before other metrics, understanding behavioral change is critical for future climate change research and projections. Therefore, we investigated weather related changes in adult butterfly behavior using snapshot behavioral observations taken as part of a four year study of butterfly abundance throughout North Dakota, USA. Across 1,107 site-visits, we categorized adult butterfly behavior using 146,610 observations while also recording local weather variables with each site visit. We found patterns in butterfly behavior within years, including more flying and less resting at sites that were warmer during that site visit. We also observed differences across years, including more flying overall and a weaker behavioral response to temperature in a year that was particularly cool and wet. Further incorporating such behavioral observations into abundance surveys can help lead to better insights about weather-related variation in behavioral patterns and their consequences for animals facing climate change.