Massive biodiversity data collection improves ecosystem predictions

University of Córdoba

 

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Reserarchers Diego Nieto and Daniel Romera

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Credit: University of Cordoba

A team at the University of Córdoba verifies that large biodiversity databases, in which citizens record observations of flora, are capable of calibrating joint species distribution models, even when conducted individually, provided that more than 50% of the species in the area have been recorded

In the current context of climate change, institutions and the scientific community are pondering how new climatic conditions will affect species of wild flora. For example, how will populations of Spanish fir (Abies pinsapo) change? This is an endangered species that the Junta de Andalucía (regional government) is tracking, with protection plans in place.

To predict whether in the future the Spanish fir tree will grow in mountain areas higher than those where they are now found, the weather must be taken into account, but for those predictions to be more accurate the relationships between different species must also be included in the mathematical models used to  forecast these future scenarios. The positive or negative relationships between different species will be decisive to predict their future distribution.

Therefore, the research community is shifting from mathematical models of species distribution that only take into account environmental variables (climate, soil type) to community ones offering maps that take into consideration both climatic variables and also relationships between plants. That is, they are moving from an individualistic aproach to a community one to produce better predictions. However, there is little flora data including the composition of the biological communities with which to build these models, as collection is based on plant-by-plant recording.

Faced with this problem, researchers Diego Nieto and Daniel Romera, with the University of Córdoba's Basic and Applied Plant Biology Group, carried out a first analysis of the use of opportunistic biodiversity databases (unstructured ones containing individual data from citizen observations) in joint species distribution models.

"In principle, these databases shouldn't be used to calibrate community models, because they feature individual observations that do not take into account the relationship between species, but we wondered whether, by having billions of records, they could work, getting the models to give us predictions considering the relationships between species," explained researcher Diego Nieto.

After calibrating the model with this type of individual data with different types of coverage (simulating more or fewer records of the reality of the species in an area) they obtained two results: the model made accurate predictions of the distribution according to climatic variables, despite having little data, and also managed to predict inter-species interactions as long as 50% to 75% of the species were recorded.

How did they verify this?

Taking into account that the real databases used, such as GIBIF, which contains more than three billion units of biodiversity data, recorded through applications such as iNaturalist, are not always well recorded, and it is not known whether part of the reality that is not recorded is being lost, the researchers created an artificial database for the experiment, so that they could then confirm whether the model functioned correctly.

Nieto explained: "we came up with a study area, the distribution of 10 different species, and simulated different levels of coverage of each one's actual distribution. In one scenario, 10% of all the places where the species is found were sampled; in others 25%, 50%, 90% and 100%. That is, with the different options of how well represented the reality would be using the data recorded in these databases."

By working with this generated data, they were able to ascertain very well the model's response, and then use it with the existing individual databases.

The model calculates the interactions between species, provided that it already has at least 50% to 75% of the species' total locations, and can offer accurate predictions of how communities of species will behave in the face of future climate change scenarios. "The results are encouraging, as the model is able to calculate interactions even if you don't have 100% of the recorded data on the species," the researchers concluded.

How do they know whether those databases contain at least 50% of the records of the reality of the species? To do this, they used a method that evaluates the integrity of real data at the pixel level using a case study of forest trees in Europe, comparing the number of observations in a pixel of the database with the total number of species observed in that pixel. When there are many observations for few species, this indicates that it is better sampled. The higher the data level, the better it depicts the reality.

This analysis presents a mechanism to select which information from the databases should be used to calibrate these community models and make better predictions about wild plant species patterns.

Reference

Romera-Romera, Daniel & Nieto Lugilde, Diego. (2024). Should we exploit opportunistic databases with joint species distribution models? Artificial and real data suggest it depends on the sampling completeness. Ecography. 10.1111/ecog.07340  

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Journal

Ecography

DOI

10.1111/ecog.07340 

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Should we exploit opportunistic databases with joint species distribution models? Artificial and real data suggest it depends on the sampling completeness.

Will tropical biodiversity run dry under climate change? Two visions for the future

University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences

 

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Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and George Mason University project major biodiversity loss in bird groups across the Neotropical region under unmitigated climate change. In contrast, strong, immediate climate actions could reverse that outcome.

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Credit: John Whitelaw

Changing precipitation patterns in the Neotropics, one of Earth’s most biodiverse regions, could threaten two-thirds of the area’s bird species by the year 2100 if climate change goes unchecked, according to new research led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and George Mason University. This would represent a dramatic loss, as the region is home to 30% of all bird species globally. 

But Jeff Brawn, co-lead author of the Global Change Biology study, says birds are only part of the picture. 

“Compared to a more optimistic future precipitation scenario, we predict the ‘business-as-usual’ scenario will be potentially catastrophic for resident forest birds in the Neotropics. But really, we’re just using birds as an illustration in this study. We will likely see similar threats for mammals, reptiles, amphibians, arthropods, fungi, and plants. And the implications for agriculture are not insignificant either,” said Brawn, professor emeritus in the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.

Brawn and his colleagues previously analyzed the impact of longer dry seasons on 20 bird species in Panama, finding significantly lower population growth rates in several species. Although that study leveraged a robust 30-year dataset, he knew 20 species were only a drop in the bucket. Would the pattern hold for all 3,000 resident forest-dwelling bird species in the Neotropics? 

Brawn teamed up with David Luther, associate professor in the College of Science at George Mason University, and others, including UCLA’s Rong Fu, to forecast how precipitation will change by the year 2100 in the Neotropics under two climate scenarios. The business-as-usual scenario, known as SSP-8.5, represents a pessimistic vision of the future with no carbon mitigation. The team also modeled the impacts of SSP-2.6, which reflects aggressive mitigation action and a rapid transition to a low-carbon economy. 

Because birds already experience greater physiological and behavioral stress during dry periods — more difficulty finding food, weight loss, delayed reproduction, and greater mortality — the team focused specifically on how SSP-8.5 and SSP-2.6 might lengthen or shorten that season throughout the region. 

“Precipitation changes could have a huge impact on these systems, especially with regard to biodiversity, but temperature has dominated the climate change landscape until recently,” Luther said. “Precipitation has been neglected for too long.”

Mapping predicted changes in dry season length across the Neotropical region — comprising Central America, the Caribbean, and South America — the team then layered on the distribution of some 3,000 forest bird species to understand how their ranges might overlap with these changes. 

“We were able to say where the dry season is going to get longer or shorter, and to what extent, and how many species currently living in those places will be affected. This included species that might be disproportionately affected because they don't live anywhere else,” Luther said. “As a last measure, we overlaid the global layer of world protected areas and looked at whether they are going to get a lot drier or wetter.”

The SSP-8.5 analysis projected that the dry season will lengthen by at least 5% across three-quarters of Neotropical lowland forests. Those conditions will impact nearly 2,000 species of resident birds, according to the results. In stark contrast, only 10% of lowland forests will get drier under the more optimistic scenario, with just 90 bird species exposed to longer dry seasons. 

Longer dry seasons could make it harder for birds to access food resources, reproduce, and survive, but fewer rainy days could also have major implications for tropical ecosystems and species distributions on a more fundamental level.

“Think of a closed canopy rainforest. If it gets too dry, there's going to be a threshold where it’ll open up and become a savannah,” Brawn said. “A lot of the forest birds won't do well in savannahs, but the savannah birds will do better. And it’s possible some closed-canopy forest species may do better in an open forest. We don’t know how it will all play out.”

The maps highlight which areas will be hardest hit under both scenarios, but Luther says there’s another way to interpret the maps.

“An equally important way to look at this is to focus on places that are more stable into the future. If we're going to plan future conservation efforts, we should put extra effort into those areas because they're less likely to dry out. This will be especially important for prioritizing existing protected areas and potentially establishing new ones,” he said. “Hopefully conservation organizations will pay attention to this.”

The researchers hope the minimal predicted impacts under SSP-2.6 will motivate and expedite action by policymakers, but climate policy is only one piece of the puzzle.

“If anything, we're painting a rosy picture in this paper because we're not accounting for deforestation at all. If there's fewer trees, it's hotter and drier,” Brawn said. “Unfortunately, thousands of hectares of tropical forest disappear every year, so the situation is actually more worrisome.”

Luther adds, “The good news is these are all things we can solve, if we choose to. We can do the right thing.” 

The study, “Prospects for Neotropical forest birds and their habitats under contrasting emissions scenarios,” is published in the Global Change Biology [DOI: 10.1111/gcb.17544]. The study was supported by the Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences at Illinois; the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture Hatch Project ILLU-875-956; the National Science Foundation Climate and Large-scale Dynamics Program Award # 1917781; and the Department of Biology at George Mason University.

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Journal

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.17544 

Article Publication Date

22-Oct-2024

Disclaimer: AAAS and 

COP or CON? How Big Conservation Captured Biodiversity Protection

There are two approaches to protecting biodiversity. One is colonial, abusive and ineffective, but hugely profitable for certain actors.

By Fiore Longo

October 21, 2024

Source: African Arguments


Heads of state and ministers from across the world will meet for the COP16 biodiversity summit from 21 October to 1 November in Cali, Colombia. Credit: COP16.

Heads of state and ministers from across the world will meet for the COP16 biodiversity summit from 21 October to 1 November in Cali, Colombia. Credit: COP16.

Some 31 years after the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) came into force, the latest Conference of the Parties – as the regular jamborees of governments, NGOs and others with a stake in these conventions are known – starts this week in the bustling Colombian city of Cali.

This one, COP16, is particularly important as it’s supposed to resolve some vital but unfinished business concerning the new global “action plan” for biodiversity, known as the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.

Don’t be misled by the typically pedestrian title: what’s at stake here could dramatically affect millions of people around the world, especially Indigenous and local communities, because the Framework has a number of fatal flaws.

These collectively mean that what could, and should, have been a transformational initiative is instead repeating the same old approach to “biodiversity protection” – promoting a top-down, government- and international agency-driven colonial model that is rooted in racism and has been comprehensively discredited but persists nonetheless.

Symptomatic of how the new action plan was co-opted from the start was the decision to finance its implementation not by setting up an innovative global fund, as many nations in the Global South wanted, but rather to establish a fund under the auspices of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), a long-standing collaboration between the World Bank, various UN agencies, and governments.

The choice of the Global Environment Facility was highly problematic as the organisation does not require that Indigenous peoples have the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent over any projects it funds which may affect their lives, lands and rights.

And because the new fund, known as the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund (GBFF), is in a sense a subsidiary of the GEF, it has adopted its rules. The result is that it will only accept proposals to fund new biodiversity projects from one of the designated “GEF Agencies”. This is a group of 18 institutions all of which are multinational development banks or big conservation corporations like WWF or Conservation International that have long histories of complicity in human rights violations.
Following the money

Survival has analysed the documentation for all the 22 projects that have so far been approved. What we’ve found suggests that the worst fears of the GBFF’s critics were amply justified:Only one of the 22 projects so far approved will likely be of benefit to Indigenous people and is clearly directed to them.
The total fees to be paid to the proposer agencies – that is, above and beyond actual project activity costs – comes to 24% of the total funds available. The proportion of project funds staying within these agencies will likely be higher still.
Of the proposing (and implementing) agencies, the US chapter of WWF has been the most successful in capturing funds. Its five approved projects or concepts (including preparation grants) account for $36 million, almost exactly a third of the total funding. The next most successful – the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and Conservation International (CI), which have nine and two projects respectively – account for about a quarter of the total funds each. Together with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, these agencies will receive 85% of the first $110 million in funding.
One of the projects will fund (through WWF) Protected Areas in Africa which have long histories of dispossession of Indigenous people from their lands and brutality against them by eco-guards.

A huge chunk of funding is going towards the “30×30” target to increase the extent of Protected Areas to 30% of the Earth’s land and seas by 2030. This is of particular concern because National Parks, wildlife reserves and other conservation areas are already one of the biggest threats to Indigenous peoples.

Such parks have almost always involved brutal evictions and exclusions, violence and destruction of Indigenous livelihoods. These problems continue today, such as in the horrifying eviction of thousands of Maasai people from the Ngorongoro Conservation Area in Tanzania.

Survival International believes that the structure and operation of this whole funding model is fundamentally flawed. It is tilted strongly in favour of “business as usual”, top-down, conservation projects, rather than promoting a new, and much-needed, rights-based approach to biodiversity protection. And it’s almost entirely inaccessible to Indigenous people themselves.

We believe that the entire funding mechanism should be reconsidered. The GBFF needs to be given a completely new direction, wherein funding is primarily directed to Indigenous peoples and local communities. The funding of new or expanded “fortress conservation” projects should be prohibited.

More generally, the extraordinarily large sums (such as $700 billion annually) supposedly needed for biodiversity protection are being proposed by conservation corporations with a vested interest in creating such targets. Far less funding for biodiversity protection would really be required if the emphasis were to be on wider recognition of Indigenous peoples’ lands and rights, rather than the expensive, colonial, top-down, militarised approach, which remains the economic mainstay of the conservation industry.
Biodiversity credits: a new threat

As if all that were not worrying enough, the COP16 meeting will see the launch of a number of initiatives to create biodiversity credits.

The concept of biodiversity credits is similar to that of carbon markets, where companies or organisations can supposedly “offset” their climate change-causing pollution by buying carbon credits from projects elsewhere that believed to be preventing carbon emissions or actively remove carbon from the atmosphere. In reality, both the idea and the practice are deeply flawed: such projects put a price on nature, treating Indigenous and local communities’ lands as a carbon stock to be exchanged in the market so polluters can keep polluting, whilst the conservation industry benefits to the tune of billions of dollars. Indigenous peoples and local communities, on the other hand, end up dispossessed and stripped of their livelihoods.

Biodiversity credits, like carbon credits, are part of a new push for the commodification of nature. A recent statement from more than 250 environmental, human rights, development and community organisations worldwide (including Survival International) calls for an immediate suspension of the development of biocrediting schemes.

As well as the technical, moral, philosophical and practical problems with putting a price on the conservation of species or entire ecosystems, and trading them against destruction elsewhere, the idea poses a serious threat to Indigenous peoples. They would face growing pressure from land grabs as bio-offsetting projects seek to profit from the often rich biodiversity of the places in which Indigenous peoples live and that they have managed for generations.

Similar problems have occurred many times with carbon offsetting schemes already. Many Indigenous leaders simply say that the commodification of nature implicit in biocrediting and trading runs counter to their worldviews and values.

So how much hope is there for this COP? Not much, is the honest answer. The whole process of biodiversity protection has been captured almost as soon as it’s started by the same institutions that have enriched themselves at the expense of Indigenous peoples – the guardians of much of the world’s biodiversity – for decades.

At the very least, the right of Indigenous peoples to give – or withhold – their Free, Prior and Informed Consent to any project that affects them must be respected. Indigenous organisations, together with allies, will be doing everything possible to ensure it is.

The answer to how to protect the world’s biodiversity is really quite straightforward: respect Indigenous peoples’ land rights, and tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity destruction, namely the exploitation of the world’s resources for profit. How refreshing it would be if that were top of the COP agenda.

Fiore Longo is a researcher and campaigner at Survival International, the global movement for Indigenous peoples. She is also the director of Survival International France and Spain, and co-ordinates Survival’s Decolonize Conservation campaign. She has visited many Indigenous communities in Africa and Asia, who continue to suffer horrific human rights abuses in the name of conservation.

UN biodiversity talks: Is the world at a tipping point?

Katharina Schantz

DW

10/21/24

Two years on from a historic deal to halt nature's decline, there's concern about the lack of progress. Species are vanishing at an alarming rate, threatening human food supply, health and security.

A decline in biodiversity threatens the social and economic well-being of billions of people

Anuwar Hazarika/NurPhoto/picture alliance

Biodiversity — or the variety of all living things on Earth — is collapsing. That's because humans continue to push ecosystems to the brink through burning fossil fuels, intensive farming, urbanization and pollution.

In the past 50 years, populations of vertebrates have plummeted 73%, according to a recent report by conservation group WWF, while scientists estimate about a million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction, some in the coming decades.

But the diversity of interconnected living organisms is the foundation of healthy ecosystems, and the loss of even one species can upset the intricate balance.

To address these challenges, two years ago nearly 200 nations signed what was called at the time a "landmark" UN biodiversity deal to safeguard nature.

Now, over the next two weeks, thousands of policymakers, business leaders and civil society groups will gather in the Colombian city of Cali to track the deal's progress and tackle sticky issues like financing.

It's a crucial task because a decline in biodiversity also threatens the social and economic well-being of billions of people, say experts.

"If we don't protect our nature, we are actually undermining our economies, we are undermining our agriculture, and we will not be able in future to feed a population of 10 billion people on this planet," Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, told DW.

In Florida, ocean restoration groups help preserve reefs  02:29

Slow progress on national biodiversity plans

Leaders at the 2022 UN Biodiversity Conference laid out ambitious goals to protect 30% of land and sea areas by the end of the decade — up from 17% of land and nearly 8% of oceans. The deal, which is to biodiversity what the Paris Agreement is to climate, also aims to restore 30% of degraded areas.

"It was already very difficult to agree on this, but the challenge lies ahead — because now, states have to implement what they agreed on," said Florian Titze, an international policy analyst at WWF in Germany.

To help track progress and ensure countries are implementing agreed targets, governments were required to submit updated national biodiversity strategies and action plans (NBSAPs) ahead of the Cali biodiversity summit. To date, only 34 out of 196 countries have done so. Germany is among those to have missed the deadline.

"Countries like Germany aren't feeling the pressure to submit their plans ..., because other countries haven't done so either," Titze told DW. "We only have another five years left until 2030. If the implementation of promises doesn't start now, we will likely miss the targets for 2030."


A new study found that 8.2% of oceans are now protected — a 0.5% increase since the 2022 biodiversity agreement. It also suggests that just 2.8% of that is effectively protected, calling the "gap between pledge and action vast."
What's holding back progress on implementing biodiversity plans?

This year's conference is expected to address the obstacles to updating and implementing action plans.

"What is often holding us back is a discussion with other sectors that feel that environmental policy is encroaching on them negatively on them or is problematic for competitiveness," said UN biodiversity chief Schomaker.

For instance, when the German government announced in 2023 it was going to abolish "environmentally harmful" tax breaks for diesel fuel, farmers took to the streets in their thousands to protest what they saw as a threat to their livelihoods.

Kazakhstan sees return of wild horses

Przewalski's horses were almost extinct. Now, animals from zoos in Germany and the Czech Republic are being released into the wilds of Kazakhstan.I

mage: David W Cerny/REUTERS

'Historic moment' for rare horses
The first steps into a new home: A Przewalski's horse carefully leaves the container in which it was transported from the Czech Republic to the Kazakh steppe. He will never forget the sight of the animals running into the steppe, Prague Zoo Director Miroslav Bobek told dpa news agency, calling it a "historic moment." The journey to get to this point was a long one.Image: ABDUAZIZ MADYAROV/AFP/Getty Images
The scent of freedom
The "Return Of The Wild Horses" community project of the Prague and Berlin zoos aims to reintroduce the animals to Kazakhstan. Przewalski's horses are one of the last wild horse breeds in the world and were almost extinct for a time. There are now around 2,400 animals worldwide, but only a few live in the wild.Image: ABDUAZIZ MADYAROV/AFP/Getty Images


The government postponed a full phaseout until 2026, although the UN's biodiversity deal aims to progressively reduce subsidies harmful to nature by $500 billion (€461 billion) a year by 2030.

"We are accelerating positive biodiversity spending, but it is still vastly outnumbered or outspent by subsidies that are negative for biodiversity and that's a key issue for us to attack," said Schomaker.

Who will pay for nature protection?

Who foots the bills for biodiversity spending will be up for discussion at Cali. At the last summit, developed countries pledged to raise $25 billion annually by 2025 and $30 billion by 2030 in financial aid for low-income countries to protect their nature.

But a recent report found only two countries — Norway and Sweden — had paid their fair share toward the target. Some 23 out of 28 countries analyzed "are paying less than half of what they pledged."

In a press conference ahead of the summit, Colombian Environment Minister Susana Muhamad called for developed countries to increase what they'd pledged "as we need to give a signal that the commitments that were agreed on ... are going on track."

Countries also agreed to earmark $200 billion a year for safeguarding biodiversity by 2030 through public and private sources, with negotiators expected to talk about how the huge sum will be raised in time.

Rich biodiversity hiding in Delhi’s urban sprawl 08:02

WWF's Titze hopes policymakers will agree on some aspects of their financing strategy. In a best-case scenario, this would include ways to distribute money to low-income countries, how to deal with subsidies harmful to biodiversity and the role of private sector financing.

"The question is how effective it will be? Can countries commit to concrete measures?" said Titze.
Finding financial solutions

Funding solutions that balance nature conservation with economic needs are on the agenda, said Schomaker.

Biodiversity credits are one tool being mooted. These schemes in theory would allow companies to offset environmental damage by buying credits from organizations or projects that safeguard or restore nature. Advocates say monetizing nature in this way would incentivize protection, while critics have said credits are a tool that invites greenwashing.

Also on the table are debt-for-nature-swaps, which entail relieving a country's debt in exchange for investment in conservation.

Another major discussion will center around the use of genetic data from nature and income that derives from that use — like in the pharmaceutical sector, where DNA sequencing of plants to produce medication can lead to multibillion-dollar profits.

Delegates will discuss fairly compensating countries with a lot of biodiversity — which are also frequently low-income — for the use of their genetic resources, as well as Indigenous communities who often preserve these species. That money could be channeled into protecting habitats.

While financial incentives can help, experts warn they must be paired with concrete action and political will to make lasting change.

"If we lose ecosystems and a tolerable climate, then human life as we know it will no longer be possible on this planet," said Titze. "We are talking about preserving our own civilization. There is little that could be more important."

Edited by: Jennifer Collins

This article was updated to reflect the change in NBSAPs.

 

Global study led by KAUST highlights the impact of livestock grazing in arid lands

King Abdullah University of Science & Technology (KAUST)

 

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New research reveals that livestock management is as important as climate in determining coverage of woody species in arid zones 

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Credit: © 2024 KAUST.

A KAUST-led team of 100 international researchers in 25 countries has provided some insights from a groundbreaking study that found that livestock management and climate best explain the coverage of woody species in arid environments.   

  

The BIODESERT research network, which spans 25 countries across all continents, carried out the first global study evaluating the variables that determine woody species coverage in arid zones. In this work, published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers analyzed livestock management, fire occurrence, climate and soil.   

  

Professor Fernando Maestre, Director of the BIODESERT research network and Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at KAUST, reveals: "One of the main findings we discovered is that livestock management is as important as climate in explaining the coverage of woody species in the world's arid zones. This includes grazing pressure — i.e., how many animals are in grazing plots — and the type of herbivore, whether it's cows, goats, horses, or sheep."   

  

Managing the number and type of animals per unit area could allow for more sustainable production in ecosystems in arid zones, which cover nearly half of the Earth's land surface. These areas are home to around 2 billion people who rely on livestock production, which in turn depends on the availability of forage. Today, grasses in these regions are increasingly being displaced by trees and shrubs.   

  

The lead author, KAUST postdoctoral researcher Lucio Biancari, emphasized that the information generated opens up possibilities for addressing the problem. "If climate were the most determining factor, our only option would be to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to try to curb climate change. This is a complex long-term process, and being global, it often feels distant from local regions. But since livestock management is an equally influential factor, alternative and complementary actions can be proposed at the level of producers and public policies related to production and conservation."   
  

Maestre emphasized that the project is generating information that can help producers better manage pastures in drylands. "For example, we are identifying areas and environmental conditions under which grazing pressure could be increased without harming the ecosystem, and where it would be detrimental."   

  

Maestre indicated that the project will continue to expand its academic and territorial boundaries in the future. "On the one hand, we will keep processing the data we've generated and publishing scientific papers. On the other, we will expand the network to hyper-arid areas, particularly in the Arabian Peninsula, to better understand how grazing pressure affects these ecosystems."   

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Journal

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.adn6007 

Article Title

Drivers of woody dominance across global drylands

 

A national indicator for a just energy transition

PNAS Nexus

 

image: 

The relationship between transition vulnerability and CO2 emission per capita at the national level. We report the results in 2019 to reflect the current status of each country. 

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Credit: Shen et al

The Energy Transition Vulnerability Index (ETVI) quantifies the vulnerability of nations to adverse impacts of transitioning away from fossil fuels. The COP28 agreement has called for all countries to wind down use of fossil fuels to combat climate change—but the agreement stipulates that these transitions should not disproportionately harm historically marginalized and vulnerable stakeholders. Xunpeng Shi and colleagues create a method of quantifying energy transition vulnerability for 135 countries from 2010 to 2020. The indicator focuses on exposure—which captures the magnitude of the changes required—, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, using multiple indicators for each dimension of vulnerability. Exposure is quantified by the share of fossil fuels in the energy mix and the contribution of fossil fuels to a country's revenue. Sensitivity is assessed by a country’s energy consumption, poverty rate, level of inequality, and demographics. Adaptive capacity is measured through economic development, scientific and technological capabilities, educational attainment, and financial resources. Overall, countries in the Global South are in a more challenging position than the Global North. Vulnerability has decreased globally since 2010, but the COVID-19 pandemic interrupted this trend. The authors recommend that countries with high emissions but low vulnerability, which the authors term “leapfrog countries,” including the US, Canada, and Australia, aggressively transition, while countries with the reverse positionality—low emissions but high vulnerability—, which the authors term “potential challenges countries” should focus on sustainable economic growth without growing emissions. According to the authors, the ETVI can help countries pinpoint problems with their energy transition efforts and help international actors direct support to the most vulnerable nations as the transition unfolds. 

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Journal

PNAS Nexus

Article Title

Quantifying energy transition vulnerability helps more just and inclusive decarbonization

Article Publication Date

22-Oct-2024

Does more diversity in the classroom also mean more tolerance?

A study from the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" at the University of Konstanz examines whether diversity in the classroom leads to greater tolerance among school students.

University of Konstanz

How do school students view ethnic and cultural diversity? Does learning together in a diverse classroom environment automatically lead to more tolerance and a reduction in prejudice on the part of German students? These questions were the focus of an experiment conducted by Christina Felfe de Ormeño, a professor of applied microeconomics at the University of Konstanz. In the study, she examined the willingness of native German students to engage in collaboration with students with a migration background. The latest issue of In_equality magazine reports on the results.

Her research shows that class composition plays a decisive role: When there were two large groups of similar size, this led to greater "in-group bias" among native German students. This means they were more likely to prefer working with other German students. In classrooms where students come from many different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, this kind of trend is less likely. "The results underscore the need to actively promote collaboration and social cohesion in today's education system. Diversity cannot drive this process on its own", says Christina Felfe de Ormeño. These effects should also be taken into account when distributing refugees across different regions.

In_equality magazine no. 7: In_clusion & Diversity
Diversity and Inequality play an important role in a range of research projects at the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality”. How did COVID-19 containment policies impact men and women? Which measures could potentially reduce the gender pay gap? What does a good response to multilingualism look like? The seventh issue of In_equality magazine "In_clusion & Diversity" shares some insights from this research.

Further topis in this issue:

• “Inclusive Communication Means: All Information is Accessible for Everyone.”
• Still a Divide. Why the Gender Pay Gap Persists – and What to Do about It.
• Special Effects in Crises Times. Covid-19 Containment Policies Affected Men and Women Differently.
• A Whiff of Harry Potter. Studying on a Mentoring Scholarship in Oxford.
• Fathers Profit, Mothers Lose. Diverging Effects of Parenthood in American Care Work.
• Good Diversity News – and Challenges Ahead. A Plea for Rigorous Science-based Internventions to Advance Equality.
• Educations Matters. Employees’ View on AI in the Workplace.
• It’s the Strategy! Gender-specific Differences in Promotion Contests.

 

Key facts:

• Original publication: In_clusion & Diversity. In_equality magazine No. 7. Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality”, 2024.
• The In_equality magazine is published twice a year by the Cluster of Excellence. The texts can be reprinted after consulting with the magazine's editor. 
• Christina Felfe de Ormeño researched the willingness to cooperate between native students and students with a migration background at 57 German schools. She is a professor of applied microeconomics at the University of Konstanz and a Principal Investigator at the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality."
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How climate change will impact outdoor activities in the US

Using the concept of “outdoor days,” a study shows how global warming will affect people’s ability to work or enjoy recreation outdoors.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

 

It can be hard to connect a certain amount of average global warming with one’s everyday experience, so researchers at MIT have devised a different approach to quantifying the direct impact of climate change. Instead of focusing on global averages, they came up with the concept of “outdoor days”: the number days per year in a given location when the temperature is not too hot or cold to enjoy normal outdoor activities, such as going for a walk, playing sports, working in the garden, or dining outdoors.

In a study published earlier this year, the researchers applied this method to compare the impact of global climate change on different countries around the world, showing that much of the global south would suffer major losses in the number of outdoor days, while some northern countries could see a slight increase. Now, they have applied the same approach to comparing the outcomes for different parts of the United States, dividing the country into nine climatic regions, and finding similar results: Some states, especially Florida and other parts of the Southeast, should see a significant drop in outdoor days, while some, especially in the Northwest, should see a slight increase.

The researchers also looked at correlations between economic activity, such as tourism trends, and changing climate conditions, and examined how numbers of outdoor days could result in significant social and economic impacts. Florida’s economy, for example, is highly dependent on tourism and on people moving there for its pleasant climate; a major drop in days when it is comfortable to spend time outdoors could make the state less of a draw.

The new findings were published this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, in a paper by researchers Yeon-Woo Choi and Muhammad Khalifa and professor of civil and environmental engineering Elfatih Eltahir.

“This is something very new in our attempt to understand impacts of climate change impact, in addition to the changing extremes,” Choi says. It allows people to see how these global changes may impact them on a very personal level, as opposed to focusing on global temperature changes or on extreme events such as powerful hurricanes or increased wildfires. “To the best of my knowledge, nobody else takes this same approach” in quantifying the local impacts of climate change, he says. “I hope that many others will parallel our approach to better understand how climate may affect our daily lives.”

The study looked at two different climate scenarios — one where maximum efforts are made to curb global emissions of greenhouse gases and one “worst case” scenario where little is done and global warming continues to accelerate. They used these two scenarios with every available global climate model, 32 in all, and the results were broadly consistent across all 32 models. 

The reality may lie somewhere in between the two extremes that were modeled, Eltahir suggests. “I don’t think we’re going to act as aggressively” as the low-emissions scenarios suggest, he says, “and we may not be as careless” as the high-emissions scenario. “Maybe the reality will emerge in the middle, toward the end of the century,” he says.

The team looked at the difference in temperatures and other conditions over various ranges of decades. The data already showed some slight differences in outdoor days from the 1961-1990 period compared to 1991-2020. The researchers then compared these most recent 30 years with the last 30 years of this century, as projected by the models, and found much greater differences ahead for some regions. The strongest effects in the modeling were seen in the Southeastern states. “It seems like climate change is going to have a significant impact on the Southeast in terms of reducing the number of outdoor days,” Eltahir says, “with implications for the quality of life of the population, and also for the attractiveness of tourism and for people who want to retire there.”

He adds that “surprisingly, one of the regions that would benefit a little bit is the Northwest.” But the gain there is modest: an increase of about 14 percent in outdoor days projected for the last three decades of this century, compared to the period from 1976 to 2005. The Southwestern U.S., by comparison, faces an average loss of 23 percent of their outdoor days.

The study also digs into the relationship between climate and economic activity by looking at tourism trends from U.S. National Park Service visitation data, and how that aligned with differences in climate conditions. “Accounting for seasonal variations, we find a clear connection between the number of outdoor days and the number of tourist visits in the United States,” Choi says.

For much of the country, there will be little overall change in the total number of annual outdoor days, the study found, but the seasonal pattern of those days could change significantly. While most parts of the country now see the most outdoor days in summertime, that will shift as summers get hotter, and spring and fall will become the preferred seasons for outdoor activity.

In a way, Eltahir says, “what we are talking about that will happen in the future [for most of the country] is already happening in Florida.” There, he says, “the really enjoyable time of year is in the spring and fall, and summer is not the best time of year.”

People’s level of comfort with temperatures varies somewhat among individuals and among regions, so the researchers designed a tool, now freely available online, that allows people to set their own definitions of the lowest and highest temperatures they consider suitable for outdoor activities, and then see what the climate models predict would be the change in the number of outdoor days for their location, using their own standards of comfort. For their study, they used a widely accepted range of 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) to 25 C (77 F), which is the “thermoneutral zone” in which the human body does not require either metabolic heat generation or evaporative cooling to maintain its core temperature — in other words, in that range there is generally no need to either shiver or sweat.

The model mainly focuses on temperature but also allows people to include humidity or precipitation in their definition of what constitutes a comfortable outdoor day. The model could be extended to incorporate other variables such as air quality, but the researchers say temperature tends to be the major determinant of comfort for most people.

Using their software tool, “If you disagree with how we define an outdoor day, you could define one for yourself, and then you’ll see what the impacts of that are on your number of outdoor days and their seasonality,” Eltahir says. 

This work was inspired by the realization, he says, that “people’s understanding of climate change is based on the assumption that climate change is something that’s going to happen sometime in the future and going to happen to someone else. It’s not going to impact them directly. And I think that contributes to the fact that we are not doing enough.”

Instead, the concept of outdoor days “brings the concept of climate change home, brings it to personal everyday activities,” he says. “I hope that people will find that useful to bridge that gap, and provide a better understanding and appreciation of the problem. And hopefully that would help lead to sound policies that are based on science, regarding climate change.”

The research was based on work supported by the Community Jameel for Jameel Observatory CREWSnet and Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab at MIT.

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Written by David L. Chandler, MIT News

Paper: “Climate Change Impact on “Outdoor Days” over the United States”

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2024GL111607

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Journal

Geophysical Research Letters

DOI

10.1029/2024GL111607 

Article Title

“Climate Change Impact on 'Outdoor Days' over the United States”