German Federal President Steinmeier participates in Korean-German climate roundtable discussion in Busan

Meeting Announcement

INSTITUTE FOR BASIC SCIENCE

 

IMAGE: BUSAN CLIMATE ROUNDTABLE WITH GERMAN FEDERAL PRESIDENT FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER (LEFT), DIRECTOR AXEL TIMMERMANN AND SCIENTISTS FROM THE IBS CENTER FOR CLIMATE PHYSICS (BACK), AND MEMBERS OF GREEN ENVIRONMENT YOUTH KOREA (FRONT RIGHT) AT THE NAKDONG ESTUARY ECO CENTER (PHOTO, COURTESY OF REGINA BODE). view more 

CREDIT: INSTITUTE FOR BASIC SCIENCE

November 6th, 2022

 

Overlooking the breathtaking scenery of the Nakdong Estuary near Busan, a group of Korean climate activists from Green Environment Youth Korea (GEYK), scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University, South Korea and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany met with the German Federal President Frank-Walter STEINMEIER to discuss the climate crisis. Busan was the last stop in Frank-Walter STEINMEIER’s official visit to South Korea.

 

In his introductory remarks the German president expressed his concerns, that the expensive confrontations between countries may slow down efforts to reach carbon neutrality in time. “This is the same money we need to fight climate change,” he said.

 

Dr. KWON Eun-Young (ICCP), a member of the roundtable panel, summarized what scientists have learned in the last years about ocean acidification, which sometimes is also referred to as the second carbon problem. As humans emit more CO2, about 30% percent of it is taken up by the world’s oceans where it causes a chemical reaction, that can disrupt marine life for calcifying organisms. Even though the anticipated impacts on marine ecosystems could become disastrous, this subject has so far received little attention from the general public.

 

The group then discussed the issue of the record-breaking rainfall and flooding events that took place in Germany in 2021 and in South Korea on August 8th, 2022. The latest supercomputer model simulations from the ICCP clearly show that - unless CO2 is drastically reduced - extreme flooding in Germany and Korea will occur 2-4 times more often over the next 70 years. When asked, what Germany had learned from the flooding in 2021, President Steinmeier responded that in the aftermath of this tragic event cooperation and solidarity among people were most important.

 

The panel then moved on to discuss so-called compound events, which refer to the simultaneous manifestation of environmental stressors, such as global sea level rise, storm surges, high tides, and extreme rainfall which can all occur during super-typhoons. Compound events can have catastrophic consequences for ecosystems, humans, and infrastructures.

 

The discussion led the way into the issue of global sea-level rise, climate injustice, and climate refugees. Prof. Anders LEVERMANN (PIK) described that even after successfully capping global mean temperatures in near future, sea level will very likely continue to rise for many more centuries, due to the processes occurring in the West-Antarctic ice sheet. Climate change not only has a global, but also a multi-generational legacy.

 

The panel, therefore, agreed that the young generation needs to be involved in the political decision-making process. Climate youth activists CHO Hyewon and PARK Hayoung (GEYK) proposed a cooperation program between Korean and German youth to find ways to better mitigate and respond to the climate crisis. “We must further raise awareness and create a social consensus. Holding film festivals, engaging artists and musicians, such as K-Pop stars, and interacting with climate scientists will help in empowering our generation”, said PARK Hayoung.

 

CHO Hyewon (GEYK) stated that civil society organizations in South Korea can learn a lot from their German counterparts in terms of communicating the urgency of the climate issue to the public and stakeholders. “I am looking forward to collaborating with German youth organizations and NPOs on climate governance. Humanity needs to accelerate its efforts to reach zero emissions and climate stability as soon as possible," said Ms. Cho.

 

German Federal President Frank-Walter STEINMEIER further asked the panel about the effect of global warming and ice-sheet melting on the Atlantic Ocean circulation and the climate in adjacent Europe. Prof. Timmermann, an expert in Atlantic circulation dynamics, explained that most climate models today predict a substantial weakening of the circulation over the next 100 years if CO2 emissions are not reduced to zero soon. Even though a weaker circulation may partly moderate the effect of global warming over Europe, it can have further negative ripple effects, such as an accelerated sea-level rise along the US east coast, reduction of the oceanic uptake of CO2, or the collapse of coastal upwelling off the coast of Namibia, which nowadays hosts one of the most biologically productive regions in the world ocean.

 

The roundtable panel agreed on the urgent need for climate action and the fundamental importance of the upcoming COP27 meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh in Egypt. Members from both GEYK and ICCP will attend the COP27 meeting and participate in activities in the Korean pavilion there.

 

“I hope that our gathering today was just a launch pad for an annually recurring carbon-neutrality climate roundtable with youth representatives, scientists, and politicians from both countries,” said Axel TIMMERMANN, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics in Busan, and moderator of the discussion. “I believe that we can all learn from each other in terms of implementing our zero-emission targets.”

 

The one-hour-long conversation in the impressive Nakdong Estuary Eco Center (photo) sent a message of optimism that fruitful international cooperation between politicians, scientists, climate activists, and the industry can pave the way for a more sustainable, carbon-free future.

 

(Axel TIMMERMANN, Director, IBS Center for Climate Physics, Distinguished Professor Pusan National University; axel@ibsclimate.org)

Lianas more likely to infest smaller trees in Southeast Asian forests, transforming knowledge in understudied area

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

 

IMAGE: IMAGE TAKEN ABOVE TREE TOPS SHOWING SUNSET IN DANUM VALLEY IN MALAYSIA DURING STUDY view more 

CREDIT: DR CATHERINE WAITE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

Woody climbing plants, known as lianas, are more likely to infest smaller trees in Malaysian forests and therefore stop them growing to their full potential, which may have implications for climate change.

This is according to new research by experts at the University of Nottingham carried out in Danum Valley in Malaysia, published today in the Journal of Ecology.

The study’s findings contrast with previous liana studies in Neotropical forests (Central America, the Caribbean, and South America), which alters our understanding of tropical forests and their role in the global carbon cycle.

Lianas are commonly found in tropical rainforests, where they compete intensely with trees for light, nutrients and water. Previous research has found that this can slow tree growth, and even kill trees. As a result, lianas can dramatically reduce carbon uptake and storage in tropical forests.

Because we depend on tropical forests to take up some of our carbon dioxide emissions, this has wide-reaching implications for global warming. To better understand the problem posed by lianas, and how much of a threat they pose to the global carbon cycle, experts need to uncover where lianas are growing, and why.

The research is the first of its kind to be carried out in a Palaeotropical forest canopy (tropical areas of Africa and Asia). The team used a drone and a laser scanner which creates a 3D model of an area, as well as conducting ground surveys, to assess the coverage of lianas.

Dr Catherine Waite led the study while at the University of Nottingham, before moving to the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.           
Dr Waite, a Research Fellow on the ‘Forest Restoration and Climate Experiment’, said: “Tropical forests are an incredibly important – and natural – system for carbon capture and storage, helping to mitigate climate change. Lianas clearly threaten forests’ abilities to do this and so it’s key that we understand the spread and characteristics of lianas to determine what may drive their increase in the future.”

To date, the forests of the Palaeotropics, and especially those of Southeast Asia, have received very little attention. Southeast Asian liana studies are particularly important, however, as these forests tend to be home to much larger trees, with significantly higher aboveground biomass than Neotropical forests.  

For example, Southeast Asian forests produce approximately 50 per cent more wood than in Amazonia. This means that Palaeotropical trees store more carbon and draw down more carbon from the atmosphere, and so may play a bigger role in the global carbon balance, and therefore, in mitigating climate change.

Dr Waite adds: “In this study, we found taller trees were less often and less heavily infested by lianas than shorter trees, which is opposite to well-established Neotropical findings. This suggests a fundamental difference between Neotropical and Southeast Asian forests. Considering that most liana studies have focused on the Neotropics, this highlights the need for additional studies in other Palaeotropical regions to clarify potential differences and enable us to better understand liana impacts on tropical forest ecology, carbon capture and storage, and ultimately, on climate change.”

Dr Geertje van der Heijden, an Associate Professor from the University of Nottingham and a co-author on the study, said. “Neotropical studies have shown that presence of lianas in tropical forests has broad and important ramifications for the global carbon cycle and therefore for the ability of tropical forests to mitigate climate change. Knowing more about which trees they infest therefore helps making better predictions on their impact on tropical forests globally.”

This study enhances knowledge of which areas of the forest are being impacted by lianas the most, why, and how this may alter in the future. This information is vital to understand potential impacts of lianas on the global carbon cycle and future climate change.

The study’s results come on the second day of COP27, demonstrating that climate change is of utmost global importance. The current UN Decade for Ecosystem Restoration 2021-2030 also highlights the need for additional knowledge to help us restore natural environments. The study contributes to this by providing knowledge of where lianas grow, and where their impacts are greatest. This will assist in targeted, effective forest management to enable for better tropical forest carbon storage in the future.

Aerial photo of forest in Danum Valley in Malaysia taken by a drone used in the study

CREDIT

Dr Catherine Waite, University of Nottingham

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JOURNAL

Journal of Ecology

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Observational study

ARTICLE TITLE

Landscape-scale drivers of liana load across a Southeast Asian forest canopy differ to the Neotropics

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

New one-stop guideline for cardiovascular health in Canada

83 recommendations from 11 guideline groups make it easier for primary care

Peer-Reviewed Publication

CANADIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION JOURNAL

A new one-stop guideline takes a 360-degree approach to managing heart disease in Canadian patients, with 83 recommendations in one easy-to-use reference. The guideline is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.220138.

"Clinicians are rightly concerned that there are too many guidelines with too many individual recommendations to be practical and useful for daily use, particularly in primary care. Typical patients with multiple illnesses require the access to many guidelines at the same time, and some recommendations are not harmonized and often seem contradictory," says Dr. Peter Liu, chief scientific officer at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, and a senior author of the latest C-CHANGE guideline. "We hope this fourth update to the very popular C-CHANGE guideline will further meet the needs of health professionals and patients, to prevent and treat cardiovascular conditions and associated brain health with a simple harmonized approach."

An update to a 2018 publication, the Canadian Cardiovascular Harmonized National Guideline Endeavour (C-CHANGE) resource includes 48 new or revised recommendations out of the 83, from 11 cardiovascular-focused guideline groups across the country.

Aimed at primary care and other health care providers, the C-CHANGE guideline contains actionable recommendations for Canadian adults with or at risk of cardiovascular disease, including

• people with obesity, diabetes or hypertension;
• people with dyslipidemia, atherosclerotic vascular disease or heart failure; and
• people with atrial fibrillation, stroke or dementia.

It also includes health behaviour recommendations for all Canadians to address risk factors for these conditions, such as dietary, smoking and physical activity considerations.

"C-CHANGE is all about singing from the same song sheet," says Dr. Sheldon Tobe, co-chair of C-CHANGE and nephrologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "Our goal is to help health care providers understand the evidence for best practices, and if they can follow the guidelines, the health of the Canadian population could substantially improve."

What's different from before?

More than 50% of the guideline contains new or revised recommendations from the previous 2018 version. This guideline is also more comprehensive and holistic in caring for patients with multimorbidity.

Partnership has expanded to include Health Canada's Dietary Guideline, the Canadian Consensus Conference on Diagnosis and Treatment of Dementia, and the Canadian Cardiovascular Society/Canadian Heart Rhythm Society guideline for the management of atrial fibrillation. It also includes a subsection on depression given its frequent co-existence and impact on cardiovascular disease.

"In the past 4 years, many of the national guideline organizations have launched new, evidence-based recommendations — from changes in medication management to new thresholds for lipid levels in secondary prevention," says Dr. Rahul Jain, co-chair of C-CHANGE and family physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. "We hope this resource helps primary care clinicians stay up to date with many constantly evolving cardiovascular guidelines, so their patients can get the best care possible."

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JOURNAL

Canadian Medical Association Journal

DOI

10.1503/cmaj.220138 

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Canadian Cardiovascular Harmonized National Guideline Endeavour (C-CHANGE) guideline for the prevention and management of cardiovascular disease in primary care: 2022 update

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

Ultraprocessed foods linked to premature deaths

Consumption of ultraprocessed foods containing little or no whole foods in their ingredients contributed to 57,000 premature deaths in Brazil in 2019, investigators report in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ELSEVIER

Ann Arbor, November 7, 2022 – Ultraprocessed foods (UPFs), ready-to-eat-or-heat industrial formulations made with ingredients extracted from foods or synthesized in laboratories, have gradually been replacing traditional foods and meals made from fresh and minimally processed ingredients in many countries. A new study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, has found that increased consumption of these foods was associated with more than 10% of all-cause premature, preventable deaths in Brazil in 2019, although Brazilians consume far less of these products than countries with high incomes.

“Previous modelling studies have estimated the health and economic burden of critical ingredients, such as sodium, sugar and trans fats, and specific foods or drinks, such as sugar sweetened beverages,” explained lead investigator Eduardo A.F. Nilson, ScD, Center for Epidemiological Research in Nutrition and Health, University of São Paulo, and Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, Brazil. “To our knowledge, no study to date has estimated the potential impact of UPFs on premature deaths. Knowing the deaths attributable to the consumption of these foods and modeling how changes in dietary patterns can support more effective food policies might prevent disease and premature deaths.”

Dr. Nilson and his colleagues modeled data from nationally representative dietary surveys to estimate baseline intakes of UPFs by sex- and age-group. Statistical analyses were used to estimate the proportion of total deaths that were attributable to the consumption of UPFs and the impact of reducing intake of UPFs by 10%, 20%, and 50% within those age groups, using data from 2019. 

Across all age groups and sex strata, consumption of UPFs ranged from 13% to 21% of total food intake in Brazil during the period studied. A total of 541,260 adults aged 30 to 69 died prematurely in 2019, of whom 261,061 were from preventable, noncommunicable diseases. The model found that approximately 57,000 deaths that year could be attributed to the consumption of UPFs, which corresponded to 10.5% of all premature deaths and 21.8% of all deaths from preventable noncommunicable diseases in adults aged 30 to 69. The investigators suggested that in high income countries such as the United States, Canada, the UK, and Australia, where UPFs account for more than half of total caloric intake, the estimated impact would be even higher.

Dr. Nilson noted that UPFs have steadily replaced the consumption of traditional whole foods, such as rice and beans, over time in Brazil. Reducing the consumption of UPFs and promoting healthier food choices may require multiple interventions and public health measures, such as fiscal and regulatory policies, changing food environments, strengthening the implementation of food-based dietary guidelines, and improving consumer knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. 

Reducing consumption of UPFs by 10% to 50% could potentially prevent approximately 5,900 to 29,300 premature deaths in Brazil each year.

“Consumption of UPFs is associated with many disease outcomes, such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, some cancers, and other diseases, and it represents a significant cause of preventable and premature deaths among Brazilian adults,” said Dr. Nilson. “Even reducing consumption of UPFs to the levels of just a decade ago would reduce associated premature deaths by 21%. Policies that disincentivize the consumption of UPFs are urgently needed.”

Having a tool to estimate the deaths attributable to consumption of UPFs can help countries estimate the burden of dietary changes related to the industrial processing of food and design more effective food policy options to promote healthier food environments.

Examples of UPFs are prepackaged soups, sauces, frozen pizza, ready-to-eat meals, hot dogs, sausages, sodas, ice cream, and store-bought cookies, cakes, candies, and doughnuts.

 

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JOURNAL

American Journal of Preventive Medicine

DOI

10.1016/j.amepre.2022.08.013 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Premature Deaths Attributable to the Consumption of Ultraprocessed Foods in Brazil

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Nov-2022

The Paris Agreement – better measurement methods needed

Critical method needs in measuring greenhouse gas fluxes

Peer-Reviewed Publication

LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: DAVID BASTVIKEN, PROFESSOR OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES AT LINKÖPING UNIVERSITY. view more 

CREDIT: CHARLOTTE PERHAMMAR

The Paris Agreement says that we should reduce the emission of greenhouse gases to limit the rise in global temperature to 2 degrees Celsius. But do we have the measurement methods needed to achieve this? This is the question posed by researchers at Linköping University in a study published in Environmental Research Letters. Their answer is disheartening.

Global warming is a reality, and the rate of increase seems to be increasing. This changes the environmental conditions in many places, forcing large parts of the Earth’s population to flee from their homes as a consequence of extreme drought, raised sea levels, or recurrent flooding. Furthermore, it is expected that the situation will only become more serious in the coming years.

“When a health crisis occurs, society can unite to develop new diagnosis tools rapidly and in this way start the correct treatment. This became apparent not least during the COVID-19 pandemic. What we need now is a rapid development of better diagnosis methods to meet the huge crisis that climate change brings. We must be able to measure in several ways, if we are to know whether we are taking the best possible actions,” says David Bastviken, professor of environmental sciences at Linköping University.

Working with colleagues at the Department of Thematic Studies – Environmental Change, he has led a study that examined 13,500 scientific articles. They surveyed the methods used to measure the emissions of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. The results have been published in Environmental Research Letters and reveal urgent and serious challenges.

They study has shown that the measurement methods used today work well for research purposes, but are not suitable when designing and evaluating actions to reduce emissions. The researchers believe that this must change if we are to meet the goal of the Paris Agreement. Measurement methods are not available to monitor the way in which emissions change with time, nor to determine whether the actions taken have had the intended effect. Further, methods to resolve important medium-range landscape effects are also lacking. These are required in addition to small-scale point measurements and measurements of large-scale average values for areas that range from hectares to square kilometres. This leaves gaps in our knowledge of local variations, and how emissions can be regulated. It is also impossible to determine the best ways to reduce emissions.

On a global level, we have clear data for how the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have changed over time, and reliable information about emissions from fossil-derived sources. In other words, the fundamental causes of climate change have been identified and are beyond discussion. But the climate crisis means that we must know about all types of emission – not just the familiar fossil-derived emissions – and we must also deal with all types. Many types of emission contribute, and we have no simple methods to map when and where they occur, so it’s difficult to take decisions about local initiatives that will in the long run affect the global climate.

“We need cheap and easy-to-use methods such that we can follow all types of greenhouse gas emission at a local level. Only then will we obtain a comprehensive picture. If we are to reduce emissions, we must also be able to verify that the actions taken work as intended. Methods development takes time, but there is an urgent need for new types of measurement method that can better support societal work to reduce emissions,” says David Bastviken.

The study has been financed by Formas, the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Energy Agency and the European Research Council.

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JOURNAL

Environmental Research Letters

DOI

10.1088/1748-9326/ac8fa9 

ARTICLE TITLE

Critical method needs in measuring greenhouse gas fluxes

Summer camps promote altruism in children

A UNIGE team shows that participating in camps helps develop valuable socio-emotional skills

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITÉ DE GENÈVE

Be able to control oneself, cooperate or help others: having socio-emotional abilities is essential for those who wish to interact positively with their peers. These skills are largely acquired during childhood and can be trained in different contexts, such as school, family or leisure. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has shown that holiday camps favour their development. They found an increase in altruism among children returning from camps, unlike those who did not participate in this type of stay during their holidays. These results can be found in the journal PLOS ONE.

Knowing how to recognise and manage our own emotions, as well as those of others, and adapting our behaviour accordingly: socio-emotional abilities play a key role in our daily lives. They enable us to make decisions that are beneficial to our own well-being and that of our peers, and to establish quality relationships with them. Fostering their development in children, from an early age, is therefore essential.

These skills can be acquired and trained directly or indirectly. They can also be learned in a variety of contexts, such as school, family or leisure. By stimulating prosocial acts such as altruistic behaviour, they are a prime target for the prevention of antisocial behaviour, i.e. behaviour that is confrontational towards others and society. A team from the UNIGE has studied the development of these abilities in a specific context: holiday camps.

‘‘These overnight camps are spaces of socialisation and experimentation, outside the family, which take place over a more or less long period of time and integrate all daily life. They involve permanent interactions with adults and other children, rich in informal learning. We wanted to show that such a context is favourable to the development of socio-emotional skills’’, explains Edouard Gentaz, full professor at the UNIGE’s Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences and at the Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences.

Altruism Peak

More specifically, the UNIGE team wanted to find out to what extent participation in these camps could increase children’s altruism and self-esteem. The researchers also wanted to identify whether specific elements - such as going with friends - could make participation more or less beneficial. To find out, they used a sample of 256 children aged 6 to 16 - both camp and non-camp participants - who were asked to complete a standardised questionnaire.

‘‘Among the questions asked were, for example, ‘to what extent would you help a stranger find his way?’ or ‘to what extent would you help a friend with his homework?’. The possible answers ranged from ‘never’ to ‘very often’ on a five-point scale’’, explains Yves Gerber, Research and Teaching Assistant and PhD Student at the Section of Educational Sciences of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of the UNIGE, and first author of the study. The children had to answer these questions on two occasions: at the beginning and end of the camp period.

‘‘The answers of the 145 children who took part in the camps were compared with those of the 111 children in the ‘control’ group who did not participate in this type of activity. These revealed an increase in the level of altruism in the former and a decrease in the latter’’, says Jennifer Malsert, Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Associate at the Psychology Section of the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences at the UNIGE, Lecturer in the Teaching and Research Unit Special Education at the University of Teacher Education, State of Vaud, and co-author of the study.

Stable self-esteem

These answers also seem to show that having had a positive camp experience in the past, or participating in this type of activity with friends, favours the development of altruism in this context. ‘‘As for the level of self-esteem, we observe that it remained stable in both groups of children. It is possible that this element is more stable than altruism and that its modulations are therefore less apparent. The response scale we used may not be specific enough to assess this’’, explains Yves Gerber.

The results of this exploratory study demonstrate the usefulness of summer camps as a tool for developing socio-emotional abilities. They indicate that the context of these camps, even over stays of 10 to 15 days, influences these skills by increasing altruistic intentions. ‘‘The next step will be to study the duration of the benefits obtained. It will also be a question of evaluating whether there is a correlation between the duration of the stay and the level of these benefits,’’ concludes Edouard Gentaz.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0276665 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

The effects of Swiss summer camp on the development of socio-emotional abilities in children

Climate change to impact mountains on a global scale

Research shows climate change will negatively impact mountain landscapes and human activity – including increasing risks such as avalanches, river floods, landslides, debris flows and lake outburst floods.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND

 

IMAGE: PICTURE CAPTION: RESEARCH SHOWS CLIMATE CHANGE WILL NEGATIVELY IMPACT MOUNTAIN LANDSCAPES AND HUMAN ACTIVITY – INCLUDING INCREASING RISKS SUCH AS AVALANCHES, RIVER FLOODS, LANDSLIDES, DEBRIS FLOWS AND LAKE OUTBURST FLOODS. view more 

CREDIT: CREDIT: WITS UNIVERSITY.

Under the threat of climate change, mountain landscapes all over the world have the risk of becoming more hazardous to communities surrounding them, while their accelerated evolution may bring further environmental risks to surrounding areas.

This is according to a scientist from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, who, on the eve of the COP27 climate meeting, highlights the sensitivity of mountains to global climate change in a new study. Professor Jasper Knight, from the School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies at Wits University shows how complex mountain systems respond in very different and sometimes unexpected ways to climate change, and how these responses can affect mountain landscapes and communities. 

“Worldwide, mountain glaciers are in retreat because of global warming and this is causing impacts on mountain landforms, ecosystems and people. However, these impacts are highly variable. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) treats all mountains as equally sensitive and responding in the same way to climate change. However, this approach is not correct,” says Knight. 

“Mountains with snow and ice work completely differently to low-latitude mountains where snow and ice are generally absent. This determines how they respond to climate and what future patterns of mountain landscape evolution we can expect.” 

Mountain snow and ice globally provide water for hundreds of millions of people, but this water supply is under threat because of changing weather patterns and as mountain glaciers get smaller and smaller. In future, the water crisis in dry continental areas of Asia, North America, South America and Europe will only get worse.

The research also shows how climate change will negatively impact on mountain landscapes and human activity. This includes an increasing risk of hazards such as avalanches, river floods, landslides, debris flows and lake outburst floods. These are made worse because of glacier retreat and permafrost warming. Alpine ecosystems and endemic species are already threatened with local extinction and mountain slopes are becoming greener as lowland forests spread to higher altitudes. 

“As snow and ice shrink, mountain land surfaces are getting darker and this dramatically changes their heat balance, meaning they are warming up faster than the areas around them. Therefore, climate change impacts are bigger on mountains than they are anywhere else. This is a real problem, not just for mountains but also for the areas around them,” says Knight. 

Mountain communities and cultures are also affected by climate change. Transhumance – moving livestock from one grazing ground to another in a seasonal cycle – and traditional agriculture are dying out as grazing areas shrink and as water becomes scarcer. Tourism, mining, urbanisation and commercial forestry are also pushing out these traditional practices. Mountain heritage landscapes and indigenous cultures and knowledge are not adequately studied or valued. 

The new research shows that mountains should be considered and protected as integrated biophysical and socioecological systems, where people as well as physical landscapes are important. This may help safeguard these environments against future change.

“Despite not having significant snow or ice, African mountains are also vulnerable. Our work on climate and landscape change and human adaptations in the Maloti–Drakensberg shows how mountains and people are connected together, and these are also threatened. Understanding these connections can help us better protect them against the worst impacts of climate change,” says Knight.  

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JOURNAL

PeerJ

ARTICLE TITLE

Scientists’ warning of the impacts of climate change on mountains

Study reveals vaccine confidence declined considerably during COVID-19 pandemic

Researchers comparing pre and post-pandemic surveys have found confidence in vaccinations is considerably lower post pandemic amongst all demographic groups

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTh

A new study suggests that, despite the success of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, vaccine confidence has declined significantly since the start of the pandemic.

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth carried out two anonymous surveys in the winters of 2019 and 2022 to investigate people’s attitudes towards vaccinations and the factors that might underpin hesitancy and refusal.

By comparing the responses of more than 1,000 adults overall, they found the post-pandemic group was considerably less confident in vaccines than in the pre-pandemic one.

The paper, published in the medical journal Vaccine, revealed nearly one in four participants reported a fall in confidence since 2020, and this was observed regardless of participants’ age, gender, religious belief, education and ethnicity.

Dr Alessandro Siani, Associate Head (Students) of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, said: “While vaccine hesitancy is not a new phenomenon, COVID-19 vaccines have been met with particular hostility despite the overwhelming scientific evidence of their safety and effectiveness. 

“This isn’t just among conspiracy theorists though, but also those who don’t consider themselves ‘anti-vaxxers’ and had supported other vaccination campaigns in the past.”

Participants were asked how much they agreed with statements including: 

• Vaccines are safe
• I think vaccines should be a compulsory practice
• I believe if I get vaccinated it would benefit the wellbeing of others
• Vaccines are a necessity for our health and wellbeing

In both surveys participants who held religious beliefs were significantly more vaccine-hesitant than atheist and agnostic ones, and individuals from Black and Asian backgrounds were more hesitant than those belonging to White ethnicities. However, gender showed no association with vaccine confidence.

While these overall trends remained largely similar between the two surveys, some noteworthy changes were observed in the post-pandemic survey. For example, the analysis revealed that while in 2019 middle-aged participants were considerably more apprehensive about getting vaccinated than younger groups , this was not the case in the 2022 survey. 

“This could be because  COVID-19 infections notoriously lead to more severe outcomes in older patients”, added Dr Siani.

“Young people who are infected rarely experience severe symptoms that lead to hospitalisation and death, so it’s possible that many have become complacent and don’t feel the need to get vaccinated. On the other hand, older people may have been more wary of the consequences of the infection, and more appreciative of the protection offered by the vaccine.”

While providing precious insight into how the pandemic affected the public perspectives on vaccinations, the study is not without limitations. The original survey was designed as a standalone piece of research, so a different group of people had to be sampled in 2022. This resulted in a cross-sectional study as opposed to a longitudinal one.

Dr Siani explained: “We didn’t expect a worldwide pandemic to break out only a few months after carrying out the 2019 survey. Because our findings don’t reflect the changing opinions of the same group of people over time, but rather a comparison of responses provided by two different cohorts, they should be interpreted with a grain of salt.

“However, the study is consistent with other observations suggesting that vaccine confidence may be yet another victim of the COVID-19 pandemic."

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JOURNAL

Vaccine

DOI

10.1016/j.vaccine.2022.10.061 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Is vaccine confidence an unexpected victim of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Our brains “time-stamp” sounds to process the words we hear

New research shows why we hear “lemon” and not “melon”

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NEW YORK UNIVERSITY

Our brains “time-stamp” the order of incoming sounds, allowing us to correctly process the words that we hear, shows a new study by a team of psychology and linguistics researchers. Its findings, which appear in the journal Nature Communications, offer new insights into the intricacies of neurological function. 

“To understand speech, your brain needs to accurately interpret both the speech sounds’ identity and the order that they were uttered to correctly recognize the words being said,” explains Laura Gwilliams, the paper’s lead author, an NYU doctoral student at the time of the research and now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco. “We show how the brain achieves this feat: Different sounds are responded to with different neural populations. And, each sound is time-stamped with how much time has gone by since it entered the ear. This allows the listener to know both the order and the identity of the sounds that someone is saying to correctly figure out what words the person is saying.”

While the brain’s role in processing individual sounds has been well-researched, there is much we don’t know about how we manage the fast auditory sequences that constitute speech. Additional understanding of the brain’s dynamics can potentially lead to addressing neurological afflictions that diminish our ability to understand the spoken word.

In the Nature Communications study, the scientists aimed to understand how the brain processes the identity and order of speech sounds, given that they unfold so quickly. This is significant because your brain needs to accurately interpret both the speech sounds’ identity (e.g., l-e-m-o-n) and the order that they were uttered (e.g., 1-2-3-4-5) to correctly recognize the words being said (e.g. “lemon” and not “melon”). 

To do so, they recorded the brain activity of more than 20 human subjects—all native English speakers—while these subjects listened to two hours of an audiobook. Specifically, the researchers correlated the subjects’ brain activity in relation to the properties of the speech sounds that distinguish one sound from another (e.g. “m” vs “n”).

The researchers found that the brain processes speech using a buffer, thereby maintaining a running representation—i.e., time-stamping—of the past three speech sounds. The results also showed that the brain processes multiple sounds at the same time without mixing up the identity of each sound by passing information between neurons in the auditory cortex.

“We found that each speech sound initiates a cascade of neurons firing in different places in the auditory cortex,” explains Gwilliams, who will return to NYU’s Department of Psychology as an assistant professor in 2023. “This means that the information about each individual sound in the phonetic word ‘k-a-t’ gets passed between different neural populations in a predictable way, which serves to time-stamp each sound with its relative order.”

The study’s other authors were Jean-Remi King of École normale supérieure in Paris, Alec Marantz, a professor in NYU’s Department of Linguistics and NYU Abu Dhabi Institute, and David Poeppel, a professor in NYU’s Department of Psychology and managing director of the Ernst Struengmann Institute for Neuroscience in Frankfurt, Germany.

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JOURNAL

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-022-34326-1 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Neural dynamics of phoneme sequences reveal position-invariant code for content and order

Games of power: Scientists decode behavioral patterns of dominance between the sexes in mammals

LEIBNIZ INSTITUTE FOR ZOO AND WILDLIFE RESEARCH (IZW)



 In female-dominated species such as spotted hyenas, animals of both sexes rely less often on aggression and more often on submissive signals and gestures. view more
Credit: Photo by Oliver Höner/Leibniz-IZW

The stronger and more aggressive sex dominates the weaker sex. This simplistic view of male-female dominance relationships is common but falls short of the complexity of how dominance hierarchies are established in animal societies. A team of scientists with participation of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin (Leibniz-IZW) now compared intersexual dominance hierarchies of nine group-living mammals using a set of standardised methods and behaviours. They found that the species ranged from being strictly male to strictly female dominated, and that hierarchies were robust with respect to the method applied to construct them. They also found that in female-dominated societies, animals mostly relied on submissive signals and gestures to establish and maintain dominance, whereas in male-dominated societies, they mostly used aggressive behaviours. The results were published in the open access journal “Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution”.

Group-living animals commonly form dominance hierarchies to avoid physical contest and injury. These hierarchies can be derived from the outcome of agonistic interactions between group members. In many species, males and females compete over resources and frequently interact with each other, but scientists often create separate hierarchies for each sex and use sex-specific theoretical frameworks to study social dominance. This is because dominance is commonly assumed to be driven by physical strength, and males and females often differ in size and strength.

This traditional approach ignores that dominance can be driven by traits that are unrelated to physical attributes, such as social support, and are independent of the sex. “The binary view of either female or male dominated societies is also too simplistic because we now know that dominance varies along a gradient that includes societies where males and females share power”, says co-lead author Prof Peter Kappeler from the German Primate Center – Leibniz Institute for Primate Research (DPZ). Research on intersexual dominance relationships was further hindered by scientists applying different methods to construct hierarchies. “We urgently need standardised methodological approaches and a broader theoretical framework to study intersexual dominance relationships”, says Prof Kappeler.

In a first step towards this goal, the team of scientists compiled behavioural observations and established the intra- and intersexual dominance hierarchies in nine mammals (spotted hyenas, rock hyraxes, and seven primates: Verreaux’s sifakas, redfronted lemurs, chacma baboons, crested macaques, mandrills, vervet monkeys and bonobos) using a set of commonly applied methods. They calculated the degree of female dominance over males using five different indices. They then studied whether there was a relationship between the degree of female dominance in a species and how dominance was established and maintained, specifically how strongly the animals relied on aggressive acts (e.g., lunging and biting) versus submissive signals (e.g., having the ears flat and the bum low).

The team found that the rank order of individuals in the hierarchy was the same irrespective of the methods used and that all indices of female dominance were well correlated with each other. “This shows that the methods to construct intersexual hierarchies are comparable and that the associated measures of the degree of female dominance are robust”, says co-author Dr Oliver Höner from the Leibniz-IZW. The scientists further confirmed that intersexual dominance varies along a continuum from strict female dominance to strict male dominance and showed that this is independent of the method used.

The study additionally revealed a striking difference in dominance style between male- and female-dominated societies. “The higher the degree of female dominance was in a species, the less frequently the animals used aggression to establish and maintain their dominance relationships”, explains co-lead author Dr Elise Huchard from the Institute of Evolutionary Sciences of Montpellier (ISEM), France. “In strongly female-dominated species, such as spotted hyenas, animals of both sexes more often display submissive signals and gestures and less often use aggressive acts compared to male-dominated species, such as Chacma baboons, where aggression predominates.” These results suggest that in societies where dominance is biased toward females, signals are particularly important for structuring social life and likely limit the use of direct aggression during conflicts.

“The fact that scientists working on different species often use different tools, methods and behaviours to study dominance contributed to limit advances in the field”, according to Dr Höner. “With this work, we show that we have robust methodological tools to study intersexual relationships in group-living species in a standardised way.”

This study provides important foundations for future studies of broader interest that aim to uncover the ecological and evolutionary causes of variation in intersexual dominance within and across animal societies.