Transgenerational effects of temperature on egg and larval development in Cyprinodon variegatus

Transgenerational plasticity (TGP), a type of maternal effect, occurs when the environment experienced by one or both the parents prior to fertilization directly translates, without changing DNA sequences, into changes in offspring reaction norms. Evidence of such effects has been found in several traits throughout many phyla, and, although of great potential importance - especially in a time of rapid climate change - TGP in thermal growth physiology had never been demonstrated for vertebrates until the first experiment on thermal TGP in sheepshead minnows, who, given sufficient time, adaptively program their offspring for maximal egg viability and growth at the temperature experienced before fertilization. This study on sheepshead minnows from South Carolina and Connecticut investigates how population, parent temperature, and offspring temperature affect egg production, size, viability, larval survival and growth rates, whether these effects provide evidence of TGP, and whether and how they vary with length of exposure time (5, 12, 19, 26, 33 and 43 days) of the parents to the new experimental temperatures of either 26°C or 32°C. Several results are consistent with those obtained in the previous TGP study, which outline a sequence of events consisting of an initial adjustment period to the new temperatures, in which egg production decreases and no signs of TGP are present, followed by a shift to TGP (towards 26-33 days of exposure) in which parents start to produce more eggs which are better adapted to the new thermal environment. Other results present new information, such as signs of TGP in the parent temperature effect on egg sizes already around 20 days of exposure. The innovative idea of populations being able to adapt to rapidly shifting environments through non-genetic mechanisms such as TGP opens new possibilities of survival of species and will have important implications on ecology, physiology, and contemporary evolution.

In hot water: zooplankton and climate change

An overview is provided of the observed and potential future responses of zooplankton communities to global warming. I begin by describing the importance of zooplankton in ocean ecosystems and the attributes that make them sensitive beacons of climate change. Global warming may have even greater repercussions for marine ecosystems than for terrestrial ecosystems, because temperature influences water column stability, nutrient enrichment, and the degree of new production, and thus the abundance, size composition, diversity, and trophic efficiency of zooplankton. Pertinent descriptions of physical changes in the ocean in response to climate change are given as a prelude to a detailed discussion of observed impacts of global warming on zooplankton. These manifest as changes in the distribution of individual species and assemblages, in the timing of important life-cycle events, and in abundance and community structure. The most illustrative case studies, where climate has had an obvious, tangible impact on zooplankton and substantial ecosystem consequences, are presented. Changes in the distribution and phenology of zooplankton are faster and greater than those observed for terrestrial groups. Relevant projected changes in ocean conditions are then presented, followed by an exploration of potential future changes in zooplankton communities from the perspective of different modelling approaches. Researchers have used a range of modelling approaches on individual species and functional groups forced by output from climate models under future greenhouse gas emission scenarios. I conclude by suggesting some potential future directions in climate change research for zooplankton, viz. the use of richer zooplankton functional groups in ecosystem models; greater research effort in tropical systems; investigating climate change in conjunction with other human impacts; and a global zooplankton observing system.

Assessing adaptation – Climate change and indigenous livelihood in the Andes of Bolivia

Based on a case study of Charazani – Bolivia, this article outlines the understanding of adaptive strategies to cope with climate change and its impact on environmental and socioeconomic conditions that are affecting rural livelihoods. Mainly qualitative methods were used to collect and analyze data following the framework for vulnerability assessments of a socio-ecological system. Climate data reveals an increase of precipitation and temperature during the last decades. Furthermore the occurrence of extreme weather events, particularly drought, frost, hailstorms and consequently landslides and fire are increasing. Local testimonies highlight these events as the principle reasons for agricultural losses. This climatic variability and simultaneous social changes were identified as the drivers of vulnerability. Yet, several adaptive measures were identified at household, community and external levels in order to cope with such vulnerability; e.g. traditional techniques in agriculture and risk management. Gradually, farmers complement these activities with contemporary practices in agriculture, like intensification of land use, diversification of irrigation system and use of artificial fertilizers. As part of a recent trend community members are forced to search for new off-farm alternatives beyond agriculture for subsistence. Despite there is a correspondingly large array of possible adaptation measures that families are implementing, local testimonies point out, that farmers often do not have the capacity and neither the economical resources to mitigate the risk in agricultural production. Although several actions are already considered to promote further adaptive capacity, the current target is to improve existing livelihood strategies by reducing vulnerability to hazards induced by climate change.

Flood risk and climate change: global and regional perspectives

A holistic perspective on changing rainfall-driven flood risk is provided for the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Economic losses from floods have greatly increased, principally driven by the expanding exposure of assets at risk. It has not been possible to attribute rain-generated peak streamflow trends to anthropogenic climate change over the past several decades. Projected increases in the frequency and intensity of heavy rainfall, based on climate models, should contribute to increases in precipitation-generated local flooding (e.g. flash flooding and urban flooding). This article assesses the literature included in the IPCC SREX report and new literature published since, and includes an assessment of changes in flood risk in seven of the regions considered in the recent IPCC SREX report—Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Europe, North America, Oceania and Polar regions. Also considering newer publications, this article is consistent with the recent IPCC SREX assessment finding that the impacts of climate change on flood characteristics are highly sensitive to the detailed nature of those changes and that presently we have only low confidence1 in numerical projections of changes in flood magnitude or frequency resulting from climate change.

Climate change impacts : challenges for aquaculture

In spite of all the debates and controversies, a global consensus has been reached that climate change is a reality and that it will impact, in diverse manifestations that may include increased global temperature, sea level rise, more frequent occurrence of extreme weather events, change in weather patterns, etc., on food production systems, global biodiversity and overall human well being. Aquaculture is no exception. The sector is characterized by the fact that the organisms cultured, the most diverse of all farming systems and in the number of taxa farmed, are all poikilotherms. It occurs in fresh, brackish and marine waters, and in all climatic regimes from temperate to tropical. Consequently, there are bound to be many direct impacts on aquatic farming systems brought about by climate change. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that certain aquaculture systems are dependent, to varying degrees, on products such as fishmeal and fish oil, which are derived from wild-caught resources that are subjected to reduction processes. All of the above factors will impact on aquaculture in the decades to come and accordingly, the aquatic farming systems will begin to encounter new challenges to maintain sustainability and continue to contribute to the human food basket. The challenges will vary significantly between climatic regimes. In the tropics, the main challenges will be to those farming activities that occur in deltaic regions, which also happen to be hubs of aquaculture activity, such as in the Mekong and Red River deltas in Viet Nam and the Ganges-Brahamaputra Delta in Bangladesh. Aquaculture in tropical deltaic areas will be mostly impacted by sea level rise, and hence increased saline water intrusion and reduced water flows, among others. Elsewhere in the tropics, inland cage culture and other aquaculture activities could be impacted by extreme weather conditions, increased upwelling of deoxygenated waters in reservoirs, etc., requiring greater vigilance and monitoring, and even perhaps readiness to move operations to more conducive areas in a waterbody. Indirect impacts of climate change on tropical aquaculture could be manifold but are perhaps largely unknown. The reproductive cycles of a great majority of tropical species are dependent on monsoonal rain patterns, which are predicted to change. Consequently, irrespective of whether cultured species are artificially propagated or not, changes in reproductive cycles will impact on seed production and thereby the whole grow-out cycle and modus operandi of farm activities. Equally, such impacts will be felt on the culture of those species that are based on natural spat collection, such as that of many cultured molluscs. In the temperate region, global warming could raise temperatures to the upper tolerance limits of some cultured species, thereby making such culture systems vulnerable to high temperatures. New or hitherto non-pathogenic organisms may become virulent with increases in water temperature, confronting the sector with new, hitherto unmanifested and/or little known diseases. One of the most important indirect effects of climate change will be driven by impacts on production of those fish species that are used for reduction, and which in turn form the basis for aquaculture feeds, particularly for carnivorous species. These indirect effects are likely to have a major impact on some key aquaculture practices in all climatic regimes. Limitations of supplies of fishmeal and fish oil and resulting exorbitant price hikes of these commodities will lead to more innovative and pragmatic solutions on ingredient substitution for aquatic feeds, which perhaps will be a positive result arising from a dire need to sustain a major sector. Aquaculture has to be proactive and start addressing the need for adaptive and mitigative measures. Such measures will entail both technological and socio-economic approaches. The latter will be more applicable to small-scale farmers, who happen to be the great bulk of producers in developing countries, which in turn constitute the “backbone’ of global aquaculture. The sociological approaches will entail the challenge of addressing the potential climate change impacts on small farming communities in the most vulnerable areas, such as in deltaic regions, weighing the most feasible adaptive options and bringing about the policy changes required to implement these adaptive measures economically and effectively. Global food habits have changed over the years. We are currently in an era where food safety and quality, backed up by ecolabelling, are paramount; it was not so 20 years ago. In the foreseeable future, we will move into an era where consumer consciousness will demand that farmed foods of every form will have to include in their labeled products the green house gas (GHG) emissions per unit of produce. Clearly, aquaculture offers an opportunity to meet these aspirations. Considering that about 70 percent of all finfish and almost 100 percent of all molluscs and seaweeds are minimally GHG emitting, it is possible to drive aquaculture as the most GHG-friendly food source. The sector could conform to such demands and continue to meet the need for an increasing global food fish supply. However, to achieve this, a paradigm shift in our seafood consumption preferences will be needed.

Climate change and sea turtles : a 150-year reconstruction of incubation temperatures at a major marine turtle rookery

Sea turtles show temperature dependent sex determination. Using an empirical relationship between sand and air temperature, we reconstructed the nest temperatures since 1855 at Ascension Island, a major green turtle (Chelonia mydas) rookery. Our results show that inter-beach thermal variations, previously ascribed to the albedo of the sand, which varies hugely from one beach to another, have persisted for the last century. Reconstructed nest temperatures varied by only 0.5 °C on individual beaches over the course of the nesting season, while the temperature difference between two key nesting beaches was always around 3 °C. Hence inter-beach thermal variations are the main factor causing a large range of incubation temperatures at this rookery. There was a general warming trend for nests, with a mean increase in reconstructed nest temperatures for different months of between 0.36 and 0.49 °C for the last 100 years.

Insights to Key Questions about Climate Change

Illinois State Water Survey

The Application of Geographic Information Systems to climate change & land evaluation : a study of the effects of climate change upon crop productivity in a sub-tropical environment

This research investigates the contribution that Geographic Information Systems (GIS) can make to the land suitability process used to determine the effects of a climate change scenario. The research is intended to redress the severe under representation of Developing countries within the literature examining the impacts of climatic change upon crop productivity. The methodology adopts some of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates for regional climate variations, based upon General Circulation Model predictions (GCMs) and applies them to a baseline climate for Bangladesh. Utilising the United Nations Food & Agricultural Organisation's Agro-ecological Zones land suitability methodology and crop yield model, the effects of the scenario upon agricultural productivity on 14 crops are determined. A Geographic Information System (IDRISI) is adopted in order to facilitate the methodology, in conjunction with a specially designed spreadsheet, used to determine the yield and suitability rating for each crop. A simple optimisation routine using the GIS is incorporated to provide an indication of the 'maximum theoretical' yield available to the country, should the most calorifically significant crops be cultivated on each land unit both before and after the climate change scenario. This routine will provide an estimate of the theoretical population supporting capacity of the country, both now and in the future, to assist with planning strategies and research. The research evaluates the utility of this alternative GIS based methodology for the land evaluation process and determines the relative changes in crop yields that may result from changes in temperature, photosynthesis and flooding hazard frequency. In summary, the combination of a GIS and a spreadsheet was successful, the yield prediction model indicates that the application of the climate change scenario will have a deleterious effect upon the yields of the study crops. Any yield reductions will have severe implications for agricultural practices. The optimisation routine suggests that the 'theoretical maximum' population supporting capacity is well in excess of current and future population figures. If this agricultural potential could be realised however, it may provide some amelioration from the effects of climate change.

Global assessment of coral bleaching and required rates of adaptation under climate change

Elevated ocean temperatures can cause coral bleaching, the loss of colour from reef-building corals because of a breakdown of the symbiosis with the dinoflagellate Symbiodinium. Recent studies have warned that global climate change could increase the frequency of coral bleaching and threaten the long-term viability of coral reefs. These assertions are based on projecting the coarse output from atmosphere-ocean general circulation models (GCMs) to the local conditions around representative coral reefs. Here, we conduct the first comprehensive global assessment of coral bleaching under climate change by adapting the NOAA Coral Reef Watch bleaching prediction method to the output of a low- and high-climate sensitivity GCM. First, we develop and test algorithms for predicting mass coral bleaching with GCM-resolution sea surface temperatures for thousands of coral reefs, using a global coral reef map and 1985-2002 bleaching prediction data. We then use the algorithms to determine the frequency of coral bleaching and required thermal adaptation by corals and their endosymbionts under two different emissions scenarios. The results indicate that bleaching could become an annual or biannual event for the vast majority of the world's coral reefs in the next 30-50 years without an increase in thermal tolerance of 0.2-1.0 degrees C per decade. The geographic variability in required thermal adaptation found in each model and emissions scenario suggests that coral reefs in some regions, like Micronesia and western Polynesia, may be particularly vulnerable to climate change. Advances in modelling and monitoring will refine the forecast for individual reefs, but this assessment concludes that the global prognosis is unlikely to change without an accelerated effort to stabilize atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.

International Support of Climate Change Policies in Developing Countries: Strategic, Moral and Fairness Aspects

33 p.

Priority threat management of invasive animals to protect biodiversity under climate change

Climate change is a major threat to global biodiversity, and its impacts can act synergistically to heighten the severity of other threats. Most research on projecting species range shifts under climate change has not been translated to informing priority management strategies on the ground. We develop a prioritization framework to assess strategies for managing threats to biodiversity under climate change and apply it to the management of invasive animal species across one-sixth of the Australian continent, the Lake Eyre Basin. We collected information from key stakeholders and experts on the impacts of invasive animals on 148 of the region's most threatened species and 11 potential strategies. Assisted by models of current distributions of threatened species and their projected distributions, experts estimated the cost, feasibility, and potential benefits of each strategy for improving the persistence of threatened species with and without climate change. We discover that the relative cost-effectiveness of invasive animal control strategies is robust to climate change, with the management of feral pigs being the highest priority for conserving threatened species overall. Complementary sets of strategies to protect as many threatened species as possible under limited budgets change when climate change is considered, with additional strategies required to avoid impending extinctions from the region. Overall, we find that the ranking of strategies by cost-effectiveness was relatively unaffected by including climate change into decision-making, even though the benefits of the strategies were lower. Future climate conditions and impacts on range shifts become most important to consider when designing comprehensive management plans for the control of invasive animals under limited budgets to maximize the number of threatened species that can be protected.

Climate change adaptation : a decision support framework to encourage environmentally responsible behaviour

Structured Abstract:
Purpose: Very few studies investigate environmentally responsible behaviour (ERB). This paper presents a new 'Awareness Behaviour Intervention Action' (ABIA) Decision Support Framework to sustain ERB.

Design/methodology/approach: Previous ERB programmes have failed to deliver lasting results; they have not appropriately understood and provided systems to address ERB (Costanzo et al., 1986). These programmes were based on assumptions (Moloney et al., 2010), which this paper addresses. The ABIA Framework has been developed through a case study of social housing tenants waiting for low or zero carbon homes.

Findings: The ABIA Framework enables a better understanding of current attitudes to environmental issues and provides support for ERB alongside technological interventions employed to promote and sustain carbon reduction.

Research limitations/implications: The ABIA Framework should be tested on individuals and communities in a variety of socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. This will help unpack how it can impact on the behaviours of individuals and communities including stakeholders.

Practical implications: This type of research and the ABIA Framework developed from it are crucial if the UK pledge to become the first country in the World where all new homes from 2016 are to be zero carbon.

Social implications: The Framework encourages both individual and community discussion and solving of sustainability issues.

Originality/value: There are few, if any, studies that have developed a framework which can be used to support behavioural change for adaptation to sustainable living in low or zero carbon homes.

Power, Contextual Intelligence and Leadership: Research Approaches for Understanding Participatory Community Climate Change Adaptation

Analysis of power in natural resources management is important as multiple stakeholders interact within complex, social-ecological systems. As a sub-set of these interactions, community climate change adaptation is increasingly using participatory processes to address issues of local concern. While some attention has been paid to power relations in this respect, e.g. evaluating international climate regimes or assessing vulnerability as part of integrated impact assessments, little attention has been paid to how a structured assessment of power could facilitate real adaptation and increase the potential for successful participatory processes. This paper surveys how the concept of power is currently being applied in natural resources management and links these ideas to agency and leadership for climate change adaptation. By exploring behavioural research on destructive leadership, a model is developed for informing participatory climate change adaptation. The working paper then concludes with a discussion of developing research questions in two specific areas - examining barriers to adaptation and mapping the evolution of specific participatory processes for climate change adaptation.

The climate change risk management matrix for the grazing industry of northern Australia

The complexity, variability and vastness of the northern Australian rangelands make it difficult to assess the risks associated with climate change. In this paper we present a methodology to help industry and primary producers assess risks associated with climate change and to assess the effectiveness of adaptation options in managing those risks. Our assessment involved three steps. Initially, the impacts and adaptation responses were documented in matrices by ‘experts’ (rangeland and climate scientists). Then, a modified risk management framework was used to develop risk management matrices that identified important impacts, areas of greatest vulnerability (combination of potential impact and adaptive capacity) and priority areas for action at the industry level. The process was easy to implement and useful for arranging and analysing large amounts of information (both complex and interacting). Lastly, regional extension officers (after minimal ‘climate literacy’ training) could build on existing knowledge provided here and implement the risk management process in workshops with rangeland land managers. Their participation is likely to identify relevant and robust adaptive responses that are most likely to be included in regional and property management decisions. The process developed here for the grazing industry could be modified and used in other industries and sectors. By 2030, some areas of northern Australia will experience more droughts and lower summer rainfall. This poses a serious threat to the rangelands. Although the impacts and adaptive responses will vary between ecological and geographic systems, climate change is expected to have noticeable detrimental effects: reduced pasture growth and surface water availability; increased competition from woody vegetation; decreased production per head (beef and wool) and gross margin; and adverse impacts on biodiversity. Further research and development is needed to identify the most vulnerable regions, and to inform policy in time to facilitate transitional change and enable land managers to implement those changes.