COVID-19-associated hospitalizations among vaccinated, unvaccinated adults

JAMA Internal Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

JAMA NETWORK

About The Study: When Omicron was the dominant variant during the early months of 2022 from January to April, COVID-19-associated hospitalization rates were 10.5 times higher in unvaccinated adults and 2.5 times higher in vaccinated adults with no booster dose compared with those who had received a booster dose. Results of the study suggest that clinicians and public health practitioners should continue to promote vaccination with all recommended doses for eligible persons.

Authors: Fiona Havers, M.D., M.H.S., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2022.4299)

Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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JOURNAL

JAMA Internal Medicine

New study provides insights into each US state’s COVID-19 vaccination rate

Many people unvaccinated for COVID-19 remain unconvinced of its necessity, and the social and demographic factors underlying this decision vary substantially from region to region, investigators report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

 

IMAGE: GEOFACET MAP SHOWING WEIGHTED PROPORTION OF RESPONDENTS REPORTING THEY ARE VACCINATED, DEFINITELY WILL GET VACCINATED, PROBABLY WILL GET VACCINATED OR ARE UNSURE, OR PROBABLY/DEFINITELY WILL NOT GET VACCINATED FROM MAY–DECEMBER 2021. view more 

CREDIT: AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PREVENTIVE MEDICINE

Ann Arbor, September 8, 2022 – In the first year of its availability, 84.2% of US adults received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine. Progress in COVID-19 vaccination slowed after April 2021, and millions of Americans remain unvaccinated. New research in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, finds wide geographic variance in vaccine uptake and identifies the underlying behavioral and social drivers that factor into the decision to remain unvaccinated. The findings suggest that improving COVID-19 vaccine confidence may not be solved by a “one-size-fits-all solution.”

“Many studies have explored vaccine coverage and vaccine confidence at a national level, but these are likely to vary widely by geography and sociodemographics,” said lead investigator Nina B. Masters, PhD, Epidemic Intelligence Service, and Division of Viral Diseases, National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, GA, USA. “We decided to explore state and regional trends in COVID-19 vaccine confidence and the underlying reasons for non-vaccination.”

The study used data from the National Immunization Survey-Adult COVID Module. This is a nationally representative household cellphone survey of US adults aged 18 or older. Of the 531,798 participants surveyed (April 22 to December 31, 2021), respondents who had not received a COVID-19 vaccine were then asked how likely they were (definitely, probably, probably not, definitely will not, not sure) to get vaccinated. Additional questions were asked about the individual’s concerns about COVID-19 and confidence in vaccine safety and importance.

To understand social norms, the participants were asked how many friends and family members had received a COVID-19 vaccination, and if a healthcare provider had recommended that they receive the vaccine. For practical factors, the survey asked whether one’s work or school required COVID-19 vaccination and whether they experienced any actual or perceived difficulty in accessing a vaccination. Demographic data were also collected. The analysis examined these variables nationally and for each state for each month in the survey period, to support trends over time.

In general, rural residents were less likely to be vaccinated than urban residents, but in the Southeast and Midwest, differences in vaccination coverage by urbanicity were smaller. In most states, Black and Hispanic adults were less likely to be vaccinated than White and non-Hispanic adults. However, in the South and the Southeast, where vaccination rates were low compared to the rest of the US, vaccination coverage was similar across race and ethnicity. The Southeast and Midwest had the largest proportion of unvaccinated people who indicated that they would probably get a COVID-19 vaccine or were unsure. These regions saw similar trends in concern about COVID-19 and confidence in the importance of getting vaccinated.

Overall, individuals with low confidence in the importance of the vaccine were five times more likely to remain unvaccinated. This suggests that focused messaging about the benefits of vaccination, compared to the risk of the disease, remains a priority. Adults in rural areas – as well as those with less than a college degree, without insurance, making less than $75,000/year and under 65 – had higher prevalence of non-vaccination across all regions, while associations between vaccination and race/ethnicity varied by region.

“Our analysis supports the idea that reasons for non-vaccination are personal and individual, and there are nuances and differences in this reasoning, for example, between an unvaccinated, young individual living in a rural community in the Southeast and an unvaccinated, older individual living in the Northeast who has mostly vaccinated friends and family. It’s important to meet people where they are to build confidence in vaccines,” said Dr. Masters. “The CDC has made national, regional, and state data available on the Behavioral and Social Drivers of COVID-19 vaccination through national surveys of adults and parents. State and local health departments may be able to strengthen their ongoing efforts locally by accessing these data at the CDC COVID Data Tracker: Vaccine Confidence.”

 

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2022.06.016 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Geographic Heterogeneity in Behavioral and Social Drivers of COVID-19 Vaccination

Patients may have and transmit COVID-19 viruses with diverse genetic sequences simultaneously, with possible implications for evolution of new variants

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: RESEARCHERS FIND PATIENTS MAY HAVE AND TRANSMIT COVID-19 VIRUSES WITH DIVERSE GENETIC SEQUENCES SIMULTANEOUSLY. view more 

CREDIT: MONSTERA, PEXELS (CC0, HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

Patients may have and transmit COVID-19 viruses with diverse genetic sequences simultaneously, with possible implications for evolution of new variants

Article URL: http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pgen.1010200

Article Title: COVID-19 infection and transmission includes complex sequence diversity

Author Countries: United States

Funding: This work was supported by a Merit Review grant (CX001848) from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to CJD and by a grant from the US Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Research and Development as part of funding for VASeqCURE (grant number N/A) which in turn received funding from the American Rescue Plan Act funds. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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JOURNAL

PLoS Genetics

DOI

10.1371/journal.pgen.1010200 

COI STATEMENT

Competing interests: I have read the journal’s policy and the authors of this manuscript have the following competing interests: CJD has received research grants from Clorox, Pfizer, and PDI. All other authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to this article.

Researchers at Case Western Reserve University show that all COVID-19 infections include a wide mix of SARS-CoV-2 virus variants

More detailed tracking of virus genetic variations can provide early warning to public health efforts

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: WHOLE GENOME SEQUENCING OF 140 COVID SAMPLES FROM INFECTED INDIVIDUALS BETWEEN APRIL 2020 AND AUGUST 2021 SHOW INFECTION SIGNATURES CONSISTENT WITH THE MAJOR STRAIN AT THE TIME REPRESENTED IN DIFFERENT COLOR PARTITIONS.   EACH HORIZONTAL LINE ILLUSTRATES A SEQUENCED SAMPLE, AND LINEAGE SPECIFIC POSITIONS ARE SHOWN VERTICALLY. GRAY SHADED BOXES REPRESENT MIXED ALLELE FREQUENCIES OBSERVED IN OUR SAMPLES. INTERESTINGLY, WE OBSERVE SAMPLES THAT REPRESENT MIXED ALLELE FREQUENCIES DURING THE TRANSITION BETWEEN B.1.1.7 AND B.1.617.2 (PURPLE PARTITION).   FROM THE PAPER: COVID-19 INFECTION AND TRANSMISSION INCLUDES COMPLEX SEQUENCE DIVERSITY, PLOS GENETICS, SEPTEMBER 8, 2022 view more 

CREDIT: ERNEST (RICKY) CHAN

CLEVELAND—Researchers at Case Western Reserve University found wide genetic variation in SARS-CoV-2 viruses among 360 patients whose viral infections were genetically sequenced, showing that all individual infections include multiple variants of the virus.

The researchers noted that reporting about the virus usually highlights a single dominant strain, which leads to under-reporting virus genetic variation and can have serious consequences in public-health planning and response.

“Our work brings attention to the complexity of infectious diseases that is often over-simplified when considering only the most abundant virus in an infection, and we demonstrate the importance of examining the variations that are historically considered noise,” said Ernest (Ricky) Chan, director of the bioinformatics core with the Cleveland Institute for Computational Biology at the Case Western Reserve School of Medicine. “We see that genetic variants observed in low frequency in SARS-CoV-2 infections can be early indicators of new strains responsible for later transmission surges.”

The paper, “COVID-19 Infection and Transmission Includes Complex Sequence Diversity,” will be published on September 8, 2022 in PLOS Genetics. {Embargoed for 9.8 at 2pm ET.) 

The CWRU team performed full genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 viruses from 250 patients in Northeast Ohio and used similar data from another 110 patients with full genetic sequences of infecting viruses provided through international research collaborators.

These data were developed in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic when the Alpha variant and then the Delta variant were of major concern. This work showed that mutations found in Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 were already present as relatively minor variations at least a year before Omicron and its many iterations became “variants of concern.” Omicron and its own variants were central to a major COVID-19 resurgence last winter. 

“Concentration on a majority consensus of virus variants within the global research community diverts attention from genetic variation that may contribute significantly to the continuing evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Peter Zimmerman, a professor in the Department of Pathology at the School of Medicine. {EMBED LINK TO BIO} “Focus on majority variants is a critical first step in development of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines, however the research community needs to quantify and report out variation, so that the public health community and the general public are better prepared and nimble in response to the ever-evolving virus.”   

Much continues to be made to define and track the emergence of virus lineages across the ongoing evolution of SARS-CoV-2 around the world. In the interest of time, global researchers have been relying on tracking and reporting on relatively dominant variations. But the CWRU researchers noted that, given the multiple variations within single infections, it is important to report a more complete representation of the viral genetic sequences to understand how these genetic changes can spread and potentially interact with different categories of patient conditions, including evasion from eradication efforts. 

Contact:  Paula Darte: paula.darte@case.edu or 216-870-6323

About Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is one of the country's leading private research institutions. Located in Cleveland, we offer a unique combination of forward-thinking educational opportunities in an inspiring cultural setting. Our leading-edge faculty engage in teaching and research in a collaborative, hands-on environment. Our nationally recognized programs include arts and sciences, dental medicine, engineering, law, management, medicine, nursing, and social work. About 5,100 undergraduate and 6,700 graduate students comprise our student body. Visit case.edu to see how Case Western Reserve thinks beyond the possible.

About the Cleveland Institute for Computational Biology

The Institute, housed at Case Western Reserve University, convenes a wide range of researchers and professionals for intellectual exchange, to support one another’s work, and to serve as consultants on a variety of inquiries.

The institute leads and/or supports regional, national, and international collaborations that seek to improve individual, public, and population health drawing on related disciplines: genetic and population epidemiology, genomic variation, translational clinical research.  Visit http://www.icompbio.net/overview/ to learn more. 

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JOURNAL

PLoS Genetics

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

COVID-19 infection and transmission includes complex sequence diversity

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Sep-2022

Risk of multiple climate tipping points escalates above 1.5°C global warming

Peer-Reviewed Publication

STOCKHOLM UNIVERSIT

 

IMAGE: THE LOCATION OF CLIMATE TIPPING ELEMENTS IN THE CRYOSPHERE (BLUE), BIOSPHERE (GREEN) AND OCEAN/ATMOSPHERE (ORANGE), AND GLOBAL WARMING LEVELS THEIR TIPPING POINTS WILL LIKELY BE TRIGGERED AT. PINS ARE COLORED ACCORDING TO OUR CENTRAL GLOBAL WARMING THRESHOLD ESTIMATE BEING BELOW 2°C, I.E. WITHIN THE PARIS AGREEMENT RANGE (RED, CIRCLES); BETWEEN 2 AND 4°C, I.E. ACCESSIBLE WITH CURRENT POLICIES (PINK, DIAMONDS); AND 4°C AND ABOVE (PURPLE, TRIANGLES). view more 

CREDIT: DESIGNED BY GLOBAIA FOR THE EARTH COMMISSION, PIK, SRC AND EXETER UNIVERSITY

Multiple climate tipping points could be triggered if global temperature rises beyond 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, according to a major new analysis published in the journal Science. Even at current levels of global heating the world is already at risk of passing five dangerous climate tipping points, and risks increase with each tenth of a degree of further warming. 

An international research team synthesised evidence for tipping points, their temperature thresholds, timescales, and impacts from a comprehensive review of over 200 papers published since 2008, when climate tipping points were first rigorously defined. They have increased the list of potential tipping points from nine to sixteen. 

The research, published in advance of a major conference “Tipping Points: from climate crisis to positive transformation” at the University of Exeter (12-14th September), concludes human emissions have already pushed Earth into the tipping points danger zone. Five of the sixteen may be triggered at today’s temperatures: the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, widespread abrupt permafrost thaw, collapse of convection in the Labrador Sea, and massive die-off of tropical coral reefs. Four of these move from possible events to likely at 1.5°C global warming, with five more becoming possible around this level of heating.

Lead author David Armstrong McKay from Stockholm Resilience Centre, University of Exeter, and the Earth Commission says, “We can see signs of destabilisation already in parts of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, in permafrost regions, the Amazon rainforest, and potentially the Atlantic overturning circulation as well.”
 
“The world is already at risk of some tipping points. As global temperatures rise further, more tipping points become possible.” he adds.
 
“The chance of crossing tipping points can be reduced by rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions, starting immediately. 

The Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), stated that risks of triggering climate tipping points become high by around 2°C above preindustrial temperatures and very high by 2.5-4°C.  

This new analysis indicates that  Earth may have already left a ‘safe’ climate state when temperatures exceeded approximately 1°C warming. A conclusion of the research is therefore that even the United Nations’ Paris Agreement goal to limit warming to well-below 2°C and preferably 1.5°C is not enough to fully avoid dangerous climate change. According to the assessment, tipping point likelihood increases markedly in the ‘Paris range’ of 1.5-2°C warming, with even higher risks beyond 2°C. 

The study provides strong scientific support for the Paris Agreement and associated efforts to limit global warming to 1.5°C, because it shows that the risk of tipping points escalates beyond this level. To have a 50% chance of achieving 1.5°C and thus limiting tipping point risks, global greenhouse gas emissions must be cut by half by 2030, reaching net-zero by 2050. 

Co-author Johan Rockström, co-chair of the Earth Commission and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says, “The world is heading towards 2-3°C of global warming. This sets Earth on course to cross multiple dangerous tipping points that will be disastrous for people across the world. To maintain liveable conditions on Earth, protect people from rising extremes, and enable stable societies, we must do everything possible to prevent crossing tipping points. Every tenth of a degree counts.”

Figure 1: Maps showing the global ‘core’ (a) and regional ‘impact’ (b) climate tipping elements identified in this study. Blue areas represent cryosphere elements, green biosphere, and orange ocean-atmosphere.

CREDIT

Earth Commission, PIK, SRC and Exeter University

Figure 2: Our global warming threshold estimates for global ‘core’ and regional ‘impact’ climate tipping elements (a) relative to IPCC SSP projections and likely future scenarios given current policies and targets (b) and how many thresholds may be crossed per SSP projection (c). Bars in (a) show the minimum (base, yellow), central (line, red), and maximum (top, dark red) threshold estimates for each element (bold font, global core; regular font, regional impact), with a palaeorecord of Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) over the past ~25ky (95) and projections of future climate change (green, SSP1-1.9; yellow, SSP1-2.6; orange, SSP2-4.5; red, SSP3-7.0; purple, SSP5-8.5) from IPCC AR6 (23) shown for context. Future projections are shown in more detail in (b), along with estimated 21st century warming trajectories for current and net-zero policies (grey bars, extending into (a); horizontal lines show central estimates, bar height the uncertainty ranges) as of November 2021 (96) versus the Paris Agreement range of 1.5-<2°C (green bar). The number of thresholds potentially passed in the coming decades depending on SSP trajectory in (c) is shown per decade (bars) and cumulatively (lines).

CREDIT

Earth Commission, PIK, SRC and Exeter University

USAGE RESTRICTIONS

 
Co-author Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter and a member of the Earth Commission says, “Since I first assessed climate tipping points in 2008 the list has grown and our assessment of the risk they pose has increased dramatically.”

“Our new work provides compelling evidence that the world must radically accelerate decarbonising the economy to limit the risk of crossing climate tipping points.” 
 
“To achieve that we now need to trigger positive social tipping points that accelerate the transformation to a clean energy future.”
 
“We may also have to adapt to cope with climate tipping points that we fail to avoid, and support those who could suffer uninsurable losses and damages” Lenton adds. 

Scouring paleoclimate data, current observations, and the outputs from climate models, the international team concluded that 16 major biophysical systems involved in regulating Earth’s climate (so-called ‘tipping elements’) have the potential to cross tipping points where change becomes self-sustaining. That means even if temperature stops rising, once the ice sheet, ocean or rainforest has passed a tipping point it will carry on changing to a new state. How long the transition takes varies from decades to thousands of years depending on the system. For example, ecosystems and atmospheric circulation patterns can change quickly, whilst ice sheet collapse is slower but leads to unavoidable sea level rise of several metres.
 
The researchers categorised the tipping elements into nine systems that affect the entire Earth system, such as Antarctica and the Amazon rainforest, and a further seven systems that if tipped would have profound regional consequences. The latter include the West African monsoon and the death of most coral reefs around the equator. Several new tipping elements such as Labrador Sea convection and East Antarctic subglacial basins have been added compared to the 2008 assessment, while Arctic summer sea ice and the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) have been removed for lack of evidence of tipping dynamics.

Co-author Ricarda Winkelmann, a researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and a member of the Earth Commission says, “Importantly, many tipping elements in the Earth system are interlinked, making cascading tipping points a serious additional concern. In fact, interactions can lower the critical temperature thresholds beyond which individual tipping elements begin destabilising in the long-run.”

Armstrong McKay says, “We have made a first step towards updating the world on tipping point risks. There is an urgent need for a deeper international analysis, especially on tipping element interactions, towards which the Earth Commission is starting a Tipping Points Model Intercomparison Project (“TIPMIP”).”

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abn7950 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Exceeding 1.5°C global warming could trigger multiple climate tipping points

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Sep-2022

El Nino frequency drives tipping point in coastal ecological communities

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

When strong El Niño events become more frequent – occurring 5 or more times per century – eastern Pacific coastal ecosystems undergo dramatic faunal turnover, according to a new study. The findings, which were gleaned from a 12,000-year record of bird and fish remains excavated from the Escorpiones bone deposit site in northwest Baja California, provide new insights into how the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) shapes coastal ecological communities and reveals a critical tipping point that could have important implications for understanding changes to the region’s future ecosystems. ENSO is a major source of global climate variability. Its El Niño phase – characterized by a warming of eastern Pacific sea surface temperatures and intense winter storm activity and heavy precipitation along the America’s Pacific coast – is known to have profound effects on ecosystem dynamics. Warm water during these events prevents the usual upwelling of nutrient-rich cooler water along the coast, causing declines in phytoplankton and zooplankton, which has tremendous downstream effects on the population and distribution of many fish, seabird and marine mammal species. However, due to a general lack of long-term records, little is known about how ENSO variation influences coastal faunal community composition over centennial or millennial timescales. Since El Niño events are expected to become more frequent under climate change, understanding this relationship is crucial to forecasting long-term ecological changes in the future. Using a 12,000-year-long record of animal bones and artifacts recovered from the Escorpiones site and a high-resolution geological record of ENSO variability from Lake Pallacocha in Ecuador, Jack Broughton and colleagues evaluated the impact of El Niño variability on coastal biotic communities. Broughton et al. found that when El Niño was infrequent, particularly as it was from 5,000 to 7,000 years ago, coastal fauna (fish and birds) was highly variable and ancient human activity was high. However, when El Niño events became more frequent, specifically more than 5 per century, fish diversity decreased while bird diversity increased and human activity declined, indicating an ecological tipping point between communities. “El Niño is sometimes called ‘the naughty child’ because of the climate-driven disasters it often brings,” write Daniel Sandweiss and Kirk Maasch in a related Perspective. “If the past is the key to the future, studies such as that of Broughton et al. offer tools for better predicting what this naughty child may do in the coming centuries.”

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abm1033 

ARTICLE TITLE

El Niño frequency threshold controls coastal biotic communities

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Sep-2022

Ecological tipping point: 5+ El Niño events per century controls coastal biotic communities

Frequency threshold causes dramatic changes in marine and terrestrial eastern Pacific ecosystems, and offers a look into our future.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF UTAH

 

IMAGE: CHENDYTES BONE FRAGMENTS WITH BURNING AND STONE TOOL CUT MARKS. view more 

CREDIT: ISAAC HART AND JACK BROUGHTON

The El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a global climate phenomenon most famous for the El Niño phase characterized by warm sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific Ocean, intense winter storms and high precipitation. El Niño impacts plants, animals and people around the world by devastating Pacific fisheries, sparking droughts in some parts of the world and causing massive flooding in others.

Many models predict that climate change will fuel stronger and more frequent El Niño events. However, our knowledge of ENSO and its influence on ecosystems from historic or instrumental records only extends back about 200 years, making it difficult to understand what the long-term future will hold for an El Niño-dominant world.

A team of researchers led by the University of Utah created a fine-grained analysis of El Niño’s impact on animal communities spanning the past 12,000 years. The study was published online in the journal Science on Sept. 8, 2022.

In the new study, the authors leveraged a coastal rockshelter site called Abrigo de los Escorpiones (Escorpiones), one of the largest and best-dated collections of vertebrate bones deposited by humans and raptors on the Pacific coast of North America. The site was excavated by Ruth Gruhn and Alan Bryan of the University of Alberta between 2000-2004. For this study, the authors focused on the fish and bird fauna, identifying species from small fragmentary pieces of bone. They then compared the faunal assemblages to the sediment layers of Ecuador’s Lake Pallcacocha, one of the most widely applied, continuous records of prehistoric El Niño events.

Their analysis revealed a striking pattern—when five or more major El Niño events occurred per century, the marine and terrestrial ecosystems restructured dramatically to a phase of low marine productivity and high terrestrial productivity. The five-per-century tipping point first occurred about 7,000 years ago and continued for several millennia, driving a period of stable but low marine productivity.

If strong El Niño events increase in the future, as many climate models now project, this ecological threshold suggests that ENSO will play an increasingly important role in controlling the structure of future eastern Pacific terrestrial and marine ecosystems, and the Earth’s biosphere more broadly. 

“Our limited window of experience with El Niño leads us to think that more El Niño equals more variability, more change, more shifts. But our perceptions are based solely on a very narrow window of time in the modern era that on the big scheme of things, is a period when El Niño is very uncommon,” said Jack Broughton, professor of anthropology at the University of Utah and senior author of the study. “We’ve shown that in the big picture, lots of El Niño equals lots of stability. For eastern Pacific coastal communities, this means a stable stretch of unproductive marine ecosystems. And that has huge implications for so many different aspects of life on Earth.”

In non-El Niño years, the eastern Pacific coast teems with life due to cold, nutrient-rich water that upwells to the surface and sustains the plankton communities upon which marine life is based. During El Niño, the sea surface becomes much warmer, causing plankton densities to plummet. This ripples through the upper trophic levels—the small fishes that eat the plankton, the bigger fishes that eat the small fishes, the birds that eat the fishes, the marine mammals that eat the birds and the fishes. In contrast, El Niño causes heavy rains in the region’s terrestrial ecosystems, producing a boon of productivity for land-based resources. This agrees with a 2015 study where Broughton and collaborators found that rabbit populations were controlled strongly by El Niño variation, based on data from Escorpiones and Lake Pallcacocha.

Along with implications for the future, the findings illuminate important moments in our past, including human migration into the Americas, the variable human use of coastal and interior habitats and the extinction of the flightless duck Chendytes.

A team of researchers at the mouth of Abrigo de los Escorpiones that contains a 26-feet-(8-meter-)-deep deposit of discarded shells, animal bones and archaeological artifacts, with 97 radiocarbon dates that reveal a 12,000-year chronological history of human and raptor deposition.

CREDIT

Isaac Hart

A rockshelter and a lakebed: extraordinary archives

Rain and water from the surrounding highlands have flowed into Lake Pallcacocha for the last 12,000 years. During big rainstorms that are signatures of El Niño events, a huge volume of material pours into the lake and settles onto the bottom in a thick, light-colored layer. In the years with fewer El Niño events, the sediment settles into much thinner, darker layers. Earlier work radiocarbon-dated each layer and divided them into hundred-year increments. The thick bands correlated precisely with instrumental and historic records of strong El Niño events over the past ~200 years.

The Escorpiones rockshelter, located on the northwest coast of Baja California, Mexico, contains a 26-feet-(8-meter-)-deep deposit of discarded shells, animal bones and archaeological artifacts, with 97 radiocarbon dates that reveal a 12,000-year chronological history of human and raptor deposition. This study identified 18,623 marine fish and marine and terrestrial bird specimens that represented 132 species, painstaking work that was carried out over the past 14 years. The researchers organized the specimens into 100-year increments to align with the paleo-ENSO record.

Pallcacocha revealed a near absence of ENSO between 11,000 and 7,000 years ago with El Niño frequency increasing dramatically between 7,000 to 5,000 years ago. In the Escorpiones record, bird and fish species were extremely variable before ENSO emerged. When El Niño entered the high frequency phase, the animal communities restructured dramatically, then remained relatively stable. Marine birds, such as common murres and shearwaters, and fish species associated with cold waters, such as rockfish and kelp bass, were in high abundance when El Niño events were rare but declined dramatically after the high frequency phase began. Additionally, terrestrial bird species exploded during the strong El Niño years. 

“This magic number is five strong El Niño events per century—we didn’t just eyeball it. It’s based on statistical tests that show us that entire faunas are changing in this way, not just a few isolated species,” Broughton said.

Human migration, land use and flightless duck extinction

This ecological tipping point has wide ranging implications, including for our understanding of human colonization of the Americas. The findings support the “Kelp Highway Hypothesis” that claims early settlers would have followed healthy kelp forests from northeast Asia, across the Bering Strait and into the Americas. According to the Escorpiones record, the eastern Pacific coast had El Niño-free, nutrient-rich kelp forests around 12,000 years ago when humans are proposed to have made the journey. 

The study also shows that past peoples were sensitive to these changes, spending far more time at the coast—at Escorpiones—during those periods when El Niño was infrequent and the marine environment was highly productive. They moved away from the site, presumably into the interior, during El Niño years when terrestrial habitats flourished. 

“This record provides a glimpse of how past populations adapted to specific challenges caused by climate change, in this case by migrating to more productive environments when coastal ecosystems declined,” said Brian Codding, professor of anthropology at the U and co-author on the study. The record of human site use frequency was based on trends in the frequencies of artifacts recovered per century.

The findings also suggest El Niño played a role in the extinction of Chendytes, a goose-sized flightless duck that was presumed to have been overhunted by humans. Escorpiones has provided the most detailed account of the duck’s history and suggests that while people had been eating it for at least 6,000 years, it only disappeared right around the period when El Niño frequencies are increasing dramatically, and when there were lots of other changes in the marine ecology, including depressions of other sea birds.

“The detailed record from Escorpiones illustrates the importance of environmental change in driving the extinction of Chendytes, which endured millennia of human predation only to disappear after El Niño events became more frequent,” said Tyler Faith, associate professor of anthropology at the U, curator at the Natural History Museum of Utah and co-author on the study. 

Next steps

There are some limitations to the study. The lake only records moderate or strong El Niño events, so the authors could not evaluate whether weak El Niño events impacted the faunas. Further work evaluating patterns between weak and strong El Niño events may clarify this issue. To further understand these patterns, the researchers are currently analyzing how mammals such as seals, sea otters and sea lions were impacted by El Niño and whether additional El Niño threshold effects at the millennial scale may be present.

There are many other factors influencing the marine and terrestrial ecosystems in the study area, including other climatic systems and processes. The authors emphasize this—but it does appear that El Niño controls the marine/terrestrial ecosystems when it happens a lot. During phases when ENSO is quiet, other oceanographic or climate systems (such as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, North American Monsoon) have important effects.

“El Niño events have the most controlling effect on these ecosystems when they occur beyond the critical threshold of five times per century,” said Broughton. “If strong El Niño events increase in the future, our analysis suggests that terrestrial productivity will increase, but eastern Pacific marine ecosystems will be forced back to a more stable but less productive state.”

Other co-authors of the study are Joan Coltrain and Isaac Hart of the University of Utah, Kathryn Mohlenhoff of Paleowest, and Ruth Gruhn of the University of Alberta.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abm1033 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

El Niño frequency threshold controls coastal biotic communities

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

8-Sep-2022

Donkey domestication occurred more than 7,000 years ago in Africa, genomic study finds

Peer-Reviewed Publication

AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE (AAAS)

A comprehensive genomic analysis of modern and ancient donkeys reveals the origins, expansion and management practices underlying the important pack animal’s domestication over thousands of years. Understanding the donkey’s largely overlooked genetic history is not only important in assessing their contribution to human history but could also improve their local management in the future. Domestic donkeys (Equus asinus) have been important to humans for thousands of years, providing a source of animal labor and long-distance transport for many cultures. However, despite their importance to ancient pastoral societies across Africa, Europe and Asia, little is known about their long history with humans, particularly regarding their origin, domestication and the impact of human management on their genomes. Although these creatures remain essential for developing low- and middle-income communities, particularly those in semi-arid and upland environments, they remain notably understudied, likely due to their currently undervalued status and loss of utility in modern industrialized societies, according to the authors. To address this gap, Evelyn Todd and colleagues evaluated 238 modern and ancient donkey genomes, discovering new insights into their domestication history. Todd et al. found strong phylogeographic evidence supporting a single domestication event in eastern Africa more than 7000 years ago (~5000 BCE). This was followed by a series of expansions throughout Africa and into Eurasia where subpopulations eventually became isolated and differentiated, perhaps due to the aridification of the Sahara. Eventually, genetic streams from Europe and the Near East found their way back into western African donkey populations. The analysis also uncovered a new genetic lineage from the Levant region that existed roughly 2200 years ago and contributed increasing gene flow toward Asian donkey populations. Todd et al. also revealed insights into donkey management, including breeding and husbandry, including evidence for selection for large size and significant inbreeding in ancient donkey populations.

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abo3503 

ARTICLE TITLE

The genomic history and global expansion of domestic donkeys

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Sep-2022

Agriculture drives more than 90% of tropical deforestation

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

 

IMAGE: MECHANICAL CLEARANCE OF BURNT FOREST IN THE EASTERN BRAZILIAN AMAZON view more 

CREDIT: ALEXANDER C LEES

Halting deforestation will require a step-change in approach, and to be effective measures must address underlying and indirect roles of agriculture, says study. 

A new study published today in leading journal, Science, finds that between 90 and 99 percent of all deforestation in the tropics is driven directly or indirectly by agriculture. Yet only half to two-thirds of this results in the expansion of active agricultural production on the deforested land.

The study is a collaboration between many of the world’s leading deforestation experts and provides a new synthesis of the complex connections between deforestation and agriculture, and what this means for current efforts to drive down forest loss.

Following a review of the best available data, the new study shows that the amount of tropical deforestation driven by agriculture is higher than 80 percent, the most commonly cited number for the past decade.

This comes at a crucial time following the Glasgow Declaration on Forests at COP26 and ahead of the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) later this year and can help ensure that urgent efforts to tackle deforestation are guided and evaluated by an evidence base fit for purpose.

“Our review makes clear that between 90 and 99 percent of all deforestation in the tropics is driven directly or indirectly by agriculture. But what surprised us was that a comparatively smaller share of the deforestation – between 45 and 65 percent –​​ results in the expansion of actual agricultural production on the deforested land. This finding is of profound importance for designing effective measures to reduce deforestation and promote sustainable rural development”, says Florence Pendrill, lead author of the study at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

The fact that agriculture is the main driver of tropical deforestation is not new. However, previous estimates of how much forest has been converted to agricultural land across the tropics varied widely – from 4.3 to 9.6 million hectares per year between 2011 and 2015. The study’s findings narrow down this range to 6.4 to 8.8 million hectares per year and helps explain the uncertainty in the numbers.

“A big piece of the puzzle is just how much deforestation is ‘for nothing’” observed Prof. Patrick Meyfroidt from UCLouvain and F.R.S.-FNRS in Belgium. “While agriculture is the ultimate driver, forests and other ecosystems are often cleared for land speculation that never materialised, projects that were abandoned or ill-conceived, land that proved unsuitable for cultivation, as well as due to fires that spread into forests neighboring cleared areas”.

Understanding the significance of these drivers is key for policy makers – whether in consumer markets such as the European Union’s recently proposed due diligence legislation for “deforestation free products”, private sector initiatives for specific commodities, or for rural development policy in producer countries.

The study makes clear that a handful of commodities are responsible for the majority of deforestation linked to actively producing agricultural land – well over half of which is linked to pasture, soy and palm oil alone. But it also calls out the shortcomings of sector-specific initiatives that are limited in their ability to deal with indirect impacts.

“Sector specific initiatives to combat deforestation can be invaluable, and new measures to prohibit imports of commodities linked to deforestation in consumer markets, such as those under negotiation in the EU, UK and USA represent a major step forward from largely voluntary efforts to combat deforestation to date,'' said Dr. Toby Gardner of the Stockholm Environment Institute and Director of the supply chain transparency initiative, Trase.

“But as our study shows, strengthening forest and land-use governance in producer countries has to be the ultimate goal of any policy response. Supply chain and demand-side measures must be designed in a way that also tackles the underlying and indirect ways in which agriculture is linked to deforestation. They need to drive improvements in sustainable rural development, otherwise we can expect to see deforestation rates remaining stubbornly high in many places,” Dr. Gardner added.

The study’s findings point to the need for supply chain interventions to go beyond a focus on specific commodities and risk management, to help drive genuine partnerships between producer and consumer markets and governments. This needs to include strong incentive-based measures that make sustainable agriculture economically attractive, while disincentivising further conversion of native vegetation and supporting the most vulnerable smallholder farmers. The authors say this should include a stronger focus on domestic markets, often the biggest drivers of demand for many commodities, including beef, and a strengthening of partnerships between companies, governments and civil society in producer jurisdictions.

Finally, the study highlights three critical gaps where a stronger evidence base is needed to better target efforts to reduce deforestation; “The first is that without a globally and temporally consistent data product on deforestation we cannot be confident about overall trends in conversion. The second is that except for oil palm and soy, we lack data on the coverage and expansion of specific commodities to know which are more important, with our understanding of global pasture and grazing lands being especially dire. The third is that we know comparatively very little indeed about tropical dry forests, and forests in Africa”, said Professor Martin Persson of Chalmers University of Technology. 

“What is most worrying, given the urgency of the crisis”, added Prof. Persson, “is that each of these evidence gaps pose significant barriers to our ability to drive down deforestation in the most effective way – by knowing where the problems are concentrated, and understanding the success of efforts to date”.

Despite these knowledge gaps and remaining uncertainties, the study stresses that a step-change in efforts is urgently needed to effectively tackle and curb deforestation and conversion of other ecosystems and to foster sustainable rural development. The Glasgow Declaration on Forests recognised the importance of jointly addressing the crises of climate and biodiversity loss and set a new level of ambition for tackling deforestation and promoting sustainable agriculture. The authors of this new study say it is paramount that we begin to see individual countries and policymakers prioritise the realisation of this ambition.

Deforestation frontier in Sao Felix do Xingu

CREDIT

Toby Gardner

Recently deforested cattle pasture in Eastern Brazilian Amazon.

CREDIT

Toby Gardner

Pasture in Paragominas

CREDIT

Alexander C Lees

Pasture in Santarem with juvenile turkey vulture

CREDIT

Alexander C Lees

Notes to editors: 

1. Disentangling the numbers behind agriculture-driven tropical deforestation will be published in Science 377, 9 September 2022. It will be available online at this link (https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abm9267) from 14:00 EST on 8 September. The study is authored by: Florence Pendrill, Toby A. Gardner, Patrick Meyfroidt, U. Martin Persson, Justin Adams, Tasso Azevedo, Mairon G. Bastos Lima, Matthias Baumann, Philip G. Curtis, Veronique De Sy, Rachael Garrett, Javier Godar, Elizabeth Dow Goldman, Matthew C. Hansen, Robert Heilmayr, Martin Herold, Tobias Kuemmerle, Michael J. Lathuillière, Vivian Ribeiro, Alexandra Tyukavina, Mikaela J. Weisse, Chris West
    
2. Collaborating research organizations and initiatives include: 
   
   Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, conducts research and education in technology and natural sciences at a high international level. With scientific excellence as a basis, Chalmers promotes knowledge and technical solutions for a sustainable world. Through global commitment and entrepreneurship, we foster an innovative spirit, in close collaboration with wider society. 
   
   Stockholm Environment Institute is an international non-profit research and policy organization that tackles environment and development challenges. We connect science and decision-making to develop solutions for a sustainable future for all. Across our eight centres in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, we engage with policy processes, development action and business practice throughout the world. www.sei.org
   
   UCLouvain (the Université catholique de Louvain) is a leading research university in Belgium. 
   
   The Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (F.R.S.-FNRS) is a major non-profit organization funding fundamental and oriented research in French-speaking Belgium. 
   
   Trase is a partnership between the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and Global Canopy. The initiative uses publicly available data to map the links between consumer countries via trading companies to the places of production in unprecedented detail. Trase provides data at scale, free-of-charge, comprehensively mapping supply chains for key commodities from entire countries and regions. To date, Trase has mapped over 60% of global trade in forest risk commodities, making it the world's most comprehensive open-access database on this trade. More info: trase.earth    
   
   Additional collaborating organizations and institutes: Tropical Forest Alliance hosted by World Economic Forum; MapBiomas; Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; Juniata Analytics LLC; Wageningen University and Research; ETH Zürich; Cambridge University; Global Forest Watch at World Resources Institute; University of Maryland, College Park; University of California, Santa Barbara; Helmholz GFZ Research Centre for Geosciences; and Integrated Research Institute for Transformations in Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys).
    
3. More information, including a copy of the paper, can be found online at the Science press package at https://www.eurekalert.org/press/scipak/.
    
4. Images for media outreach, please ensure photos are properly credited as per captions in file names: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/flufntw46wbggje/AABB0lwmPdvJOGzfc082AzA8a?dl=0 
    

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JOURNAL

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.abm9267 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Literature review

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Disentangling the numbers behind agriculture-driven tropical deforestation

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

9-Sep-2022