Camera traps reveal newly discovered biodiversity relationship

Data scientists analyze photos from 15 tropical rainforests

RICE UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: AN ANALYSIS OF CAMERA TRAP DATA FROM 15 TROPICAL FORESTS FOUND UNIQUE TRAITS MAY BE MORE BENEFICIAL TO MAMMALS LIKE THE AFRICAN ELEPHANT IN AREAS WHERE PLANTS ARE HIGHLY PRODUCTIVE... view more 

CREDIT: DANIEL GORCZYNSKI

HOUSTON - (March 3, 2021) - In one of the first studies of its kind, an analysis of camera-trap data from 15 wildlife preserves in tropical rainforests has revealed a previously unknown relationship between the biodiversity of mammals and the forests in which they live.

Tropical rainforests are home to half of the world's species, but with species going extinct at a rapid pace worldwide, it's difficult for conservationists to keep close tabs on the overall health of ecosystems, even in places where wildlife is protected. Researchers found that observational data from camera traps can help.

"In general, rainforest ecosystems are extremely diverse, and our study shows that mammal communities in rainforests can be predictably different, and these differences may be controlled, in part, by differences in plant productivity in forests," said Rice's Daniel Gorczynski, a graduate student in biosciences and corresponding author of a study featured on the cover of the Royal Society's flagship biological research journal, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Gorczynski and more than a dozen co-authors, including his Ph.D. adviser, Rice ecologist Lydia Beaudrot, analyzed camera-trap photos from the Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring Network (TEAM), which uses motion-activated cameras to monitor species trends in tropical forests in Asia, Africa and South America.

Beaudrot, an assistant professor of biosciences, said the study's scientific contributions demonstrates the importance of having the same data collection replicated on the ground in forests all around the world.

"The TEAM data are an incredible resource for basic and applied ecology and conservation," she said. "Given the pace of tropical forest loss, it is more important now than ever to use standardized camera-trap data to understand environmental and anthropogenic effects on wildlife."

For each site, the researchers gathered data about all species of terrestrial mammals with an average body mass greater than 1 kilogram. All the mammal species studied at each site were treated as a single community, and data was compiled for communities with as many as 31 species and as few as five. The researchers also compiled the known functional traits for each species, such as body size, reproductive habits and diet. The combined functional traits of species in a community were used to calculate the community's "functional diversity," or the variety of roles in the forest's overall ecosystem that were filled by that community's species.

"We found that species with unique characteristics -- for example, species that are very large or eat unique foods -- are relatively more common in forests with high productivity," Gorczynski said, referring to the measure ecologists use to characterize the overall rate of plant growth within a forest. The research also showed that species with unique characteristics were less common at sites with low productivity.

"Higher productivity is thought to make rare resources, like certain food types that unique species often eat, more readily available, which unique species can capitalize on," he said. "And because they are unique, they don't have to compete as much with other species for rare resources, and they can persist at higher abundances."

The species that are considered unique vary by site, he said. Examples include elephants, tapirs and ground-dwelling monkeys.

Gorczynski said this relationship between mammal functional diversity and productivity had not been previously shown.

"Most studies of rainforest mammals rely on range maps, which don't give you an idea of how common different species are," he said. "We were able to find this relationship because we used camera trap observations. The observational data gives us an idea of how common different species are, which allows us to compare the relative abundances of species with different traits."

Study co-author Jorge Ahumada, a wildlife scientist at Conservation International, said the study also shows that destructive human activities, like deforestation, decrease the diversity of species' traits in protected areas.

"We found that in areas where local species extinctions have been documented due to significant deforestation or poaching, such as in Korup National Park in Cameroon, large carnivores like leopards and golden cats are the first to go," Ahumada said. "Without these apex predators, entire food chains can be thrown out of balance. Eventually, populations of smaller herbivores will skyrocket, forcing more competition for the same limited resources."

He said "simply counting the number of species in a tropical forest does not provide a full picture" of biodiversity or ecosystem health.

The researchers said more data science studies are needed to understand the ramifications of local species extinctions and address other fundamental questions in conservation, ecology and wildlife biology.

Additional co-authors include Chia Hsieh and Jadelys Tonos Luciano of Rice; Santiago Espinosa of both the Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí in Mexico and the Pontifical Catholic University of Ecuador; Steig Johnson of the University of Calgary in Canada; Francesco Rovero of both the University of Florence in Italy and the MUSE-Science Museum in Trento, Italy; Fernanda Santos of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi in Brazil; Mahandry Hugues Andrianarisoa of Centre ValBio in Madagascar; Johanna Hurtado Astaiza of the Organization for Tropical Studies in Costa Rica; Patrick Jansen of both the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Wageningen University in the Netherlands; Charles Kayijamahe of the International Gorilla Conservation Program in Rwanda; Marcela Guimara?es Moreira Lima of the Federal University of Pará in Brazil; and Julia Salvador of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Ecuador.

The research was funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, HP, the Northrop Grumman Foundation and other donors.

TEAM data was provided by the TEAM Network, a collaboration between Conservation International, the Smithsonian Institute and the Wildlife Conservation Society.

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Links and resources:

The DOI of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B paper is: 10.1098/rspb.2020.2098

A copy of the paper is available at: https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.2098

Conservation International: https://www.conservation.org/blog/new-science-protecting-high-seas-hotspots-wildlife-and-more

VIDEO is available at:

https://youtu.be/-PDR1NLmIRw

High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2021/03/0302_BIODIVERSE-mn-lg.jpg

CAPTION: An analysis of camera trap data from 15 tropical forests found unique traits may be more beneficial to mammals like the African elephant in areas where plants are highly productive and generate large quantities of biomass. (Photo by Daniel Gorczynski)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2021/03/0302_BIODIVERSE-dg-lg.jpg

CAPTION: Daniel Gorczynski (Photo courtesy of Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2021/03/0302_BIODIVERSE-lb160-lg.jpg

CAPTION: Lydia Beaudrot (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation's top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 3,978 undergraduates and 3,192 graduate students, Rice's undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 1 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger's Personal Finance.

Small-scale fisheries offer strategies for resilience in the face of climate change

STANFORD'S SCHOOL OF EARTH, ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES

Research News

 

Coastal communities at the forefront of climate change reveal valuable approaches to foster adaptability and resilience, according to a worldwide analysis of small-scale fisheries by Stanford University researchers.

Globally important for both livelihood and nourishment, small-scale fisheries employ about 90 percent of the world's fishers and provide half the fish for human consumption. Large-scale shocks -- like natural disasters, weather fluctuations, oil spills and market collapse -- can spell disaster, depending on the fisheries' ability to adapt to change. In an assessment of 22 small-scale fisheries that experienced stressors, researchers revealed that diversity and flexibility are among the most important adaptive capacity factors overall, while access to financial assets was not as important for individual households as it was at the community scale. The research was published Jan. 23 in the journal Climatic Change.

"The idea of assets not being essential at the household level is an empowering finding because we looked at a lot of places in developing nations without a lot of assets," said lead author Kristen Green, a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources (E-IPER) at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "It shows we can invest in non-financial or non-asset-based adaptive mechanisms, and fishers can still adapt."

Focusing on response mechanisms

The researchers measured adaptive capacity using a new framework with three response pathways: adapt, react and cope. Adaptation is defined as proactive planning or taking collective action, reaction as an unplanned response, and coping as passive acceptance of consequences. The team of 11 study authors determined whether or not each fishery community or household had capacity in the areas of knowledge, assets, diversity and flexibility, governance and institutions, and natural capital.

"These adaptive capacity domains don't work in isolation -- it's the recipes or combinations that are important for successful adaptation," Green said.

While previous research has calculated a quantitative or numerical resilience score for different regions and sectors, the focus on community response is fairly new, according to senior author Larry Crowder, the Edward Ricketts Provostial Professor and professor of biology in Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.

"Millions of people are dependent on making a living in small-scale fisheries, and some of them are currently doing it better than others," said Crowder, who is also a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "If we can identify the features that allow communities and individuals to be better prepared for those perturbations -- in other words, to have an adaptive response -- then we can try to build that capacity in communities that don't have it."

In one case study in their analysis, a tropical island in Vanuatu exhibited flexibility when a cyclone disrupted fishery reefs, infrastructure and fisher livelihoods. Because the fishers had agency over management of the marine area, they were able to temporarily open a previously closed section to maintain food supply and income.

"Part of our findings run counter to the emerging conventional wisdom that making specialists of fisherman is a good thing," Crowder said. "Historically, these fishers were generalists, and our findings suggest they're more able to adapt to fluctuating circumstances if they can maintain that generalist fishing approach."

Incorporating diverse needs

The researchers found that diversity and flexibility were important at every scale, for both community and household adaptive capacity in responding to acute and chronic stressors -- for example, being able to diversify fishing portfolios or shift to other means of income. In addition to climate stressors, the researchers assessed responses to biological, economic, political and social changes, as well as environmental degradation and overfishing. The patterns that emerged from the study may be applied to adaptive capacity in other sectors, such as agriculture or manufacturing.

Using a broad "way of life" approach allowed the co-authors to consider what factors drive behavior, such as culture, heritage or spending time with their families -- not necessarily economics.

"From a Western perspective, sustainability would be a nice thing to have happen. But for people in these communities that are highly resource-dependent, it's not nice -- it's necessary," Crowder said. "Their future is potentially compromised if they and we don't help figure out how to make those lifestyles more sustainable in the long term."

The analysis revealed several examples of how Western-style management -- such as imposing fixed protection areas or maximizing one product that will make the most money -- doesn't always work for small-scale fisheries.

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Co-authors on the study include Jennifer Selgrath, Timothy Frawley, William Oestreich, Elizabeth Mansfield and Stephanie Green of the Hopkins Marine Station; and Jose Urteaga, Shannon Swanson, Francisca Santana and Josheena Naggea of E-IPER. Frawley is also affiliated with the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz; S. Green is also affiliated with the University of Alberta

Temperature and aridity fluctuations over the past century linked to flower color changes

Clemson researchers combined color descriptions from museum flower specimens dating back to 1895 with historic climate data to link changes in temperature and aridity with color change in the human-visible spectrum

CLEMSON UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: CLEMSON UNIVERSITY GRADUATE STUDENT CIERRA SULLIVAN USED HERBARIUM SPECIMEN DATA IN HER RESEARCH LINKING TEMPERATURE AND ARIDITY CHANGES TO FLOWER COLOR CHANGES OVER THE PAST 124 YEARS. view more 

CREDIT: CLEMSON UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF SCIENCE

CLEMSON, South Carolina - Clemson University scientists have linked climatic fluctuations over the past one and a quarter-century with flower color changes.

Researchers combined descriptions of flower color from museum flower specimens dating back to 1895 with longitudinal- and latitudinal-specific climate data to link changes in temperature and aridity with color change in the human-visible spectrum (white to purple).

The study, which was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, showed the change varied across taxa.

"Species experiencing larger increases in temperature tended to decline in pigmentation, but those experiencing larger increases in aridity tended to increase in pigmentation," said Cierra Sullivan, a graduate student in the College of Science's Department of Biological Sciences and lead author of the paper titled "The effects of climate change on floral anthocyanin polymorphisms."

Matthew Koski, an assistant professor of biological sciences, co-authored the paper.

Previous research by Koski and his team, including Sullivan, showed that the ultraviolet-absorbing pigmentation of flowers increased globally over the past 75 years in response to a rapidly degraded ozone layer. That study discussed how flower color changes could influence the behavior of pollinators, which have UV photoreceptors that enable them to detect patterns not visible to human eyes. This study discusses plant color change visible to humans.

"Although we see these changes in flower color, that doesn't inherently mean it's doomsday because the forest, plants and animals naturally respond to what's going on in their environment," Sullivan said. "Seeing changes is not necessarily bad, but it's something to which we should pay attention."

Researchers selected 12 species with reported floral color polymorphisms in North America, representing eight families and 10 genera.

Sullivan obtained herbarium specimen data from the Southeast Regional Network of Expertise and Collections (SRNEC), Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria, Consortium of California Herbaria and the Consortium of Northeastern Herbaria. She also checked Clemson University Herbarium's physical collection for specimens not already represented in SERNEC.

After researchers retrieved the date of specimen collection and latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates, they obtained historical bioclimatic data from the year and month that the plant was collected. That data included monthly precipitation, minimum, maximum and mean temperature, minimum and maximum vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and dew point temperature. Vapor pressure deficit is the difference between how much moisture is in the air and the amount of moisture that can be held when the air is saturated. It has implications for drought stress in plants -- higher VPD means more water loss from plants.

Researchers were able to get complete data sets for 1,944 herbarium specimens.

They found variation among the 12 species. Some increased in pigmentation, while others declined in color over the past century.

"It was all tightly linked to how much climatic variation they experienced over time across their range," Koski said.

Two of the species that tended to get lighter in pigmentation are found in the western parts of North America that experienced more dramatic temperature changes than the species in the eastern United States, which had more moderate temperature increases.

"This study documents that flower color that is visually more obvious to humans is also responding to global change but is responding to different factors such as temperature and drought," Koski said.

He said such flower color changes are likely to affect plant-pollinator and plant-herbivore interactions and warrant further study.

Continued research will help give insight to how species will respond to the various aspects of climate change and which species are the most vulnerable to future climate projections," he said.

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This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology Grant 174590 and Clemson University. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the views of the funders.

'Best case' goals for climate warming which could still result in massive wildfire risk

A seemingly small difference in global warming levels could greatly impact wildfires worldwide, researchers have found

GIST (GWANGJU INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY)

Research News

 

IMAGE: IN A NEW STUDY, SCIENTISTS HAVE FOUND THAT BY PROJECTING TWO DIFFERENT TYPES OF FIRE WEATHER CONDITIONS, AN ADDITIONAL HALF-DEGREE OF WARMING COULD DRASTICALLY INCREASE THE LIKELIHOOD AND SIGNIFICANCE OF... view more 

CREDIT: PEXELS

Under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 2.0°C and, ideally, to 1.5°C, over preindustrial levels. However, even before that treaty was signed, scientists had already warned that those "best case" targets were unlikely to be achievable. Consequently, many fire weather studies are built with models that simulate much higher levels of climate warming.

Recently, researchers from South Korea, Japan, and the United States have found that by projecting the fire weather conditions under two mildly varying warming levels -- one in which the global climate warms by 1.5°C and the other by 2°C -- even just a half-degree of warming could significantly increase the likelihood and significance of wildfires!

"When it comes to the conditions that make wildfires more likely, a little bit of warming goes a long way," explained lead author Rackhun Son, Ph.D. candidate at Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Korea, "but, of course, this is troubling, because it is quite unlikely that we will only be experiencing a little bit of warming."

"Although it is reasonable to look at fire weather under more extreme circumstances, there is little sense in making goals without a good understanding of what might happen if you were to reach those goals," said co-author Seung-Hee Kim of Chapman University, "so, we asked 'what would happen if we did reach these goals? Would the fire weather conditions not become as severe?'"

That answer is complex, but this study's key finding is that just a half a degree of additional warming would likely create a notably greater danger of fire on the most widely inhabited continents, with dangers particularly concentrated in the Amazon rainforest and African savanna, and around the Mediterranean. "We also provided evidence that places like Australia and Indonesia are likely to reach peak levels of fire susceptibility even before we reach that lower threshold," said co-author Simon Wang of Utah State University.

The study does provide a silver lining of hope to this cloud of danger. Commenting on the implications of their findings, Dr. Wang comments, "If we were somehow able to suppress this extra half a degree of warming, we could reduce climate-driven extreme fire activities in many places, potentially saving many lives and billions of dollars."

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Their research has been published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Reference

Title of original paper: Changes in fire weather climatology under 1.5°C and 2.0°C warming
Journal: Environmental Research Letters
DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/abe675

About Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST)
Website: http://www.gist.ac.kr/

About the author

Jinho Yoon is Associate Professor of Earth Sciences and Environmental Engineering at GIST. His group focuses on understanding and predicting weather-climate extremes under climate change. Prof. Yoon's group is also analyzing aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions to understand the distribution and characteristics of clouds. Before coming to GIST, he was a scientist (level 3) at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. In 2004, Prof. Yoon received a PhD in Atmospheric Sciences from Iowa State University.

Ghosts of past pesticide use can haunt organic farms for decades

AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY

Research News

 

Although the use of pesticides in agriculture is increasing, some farms have transitioned to organic practices and avoid applying them. But it's uncertain whether chemicals applied to land decades ago can continue to influence the soil's health after switching to organic management. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have identified pesticide residues at 100 Swiss farms, including all the organic fields studied, with beneficial soil microbes' abundance negatively impacted by their occurrence.

Fungicides, herbicides and insecticides protect crops by repelling or destroying organisms that harm the plants. In contrast, organic agriculture management strategies avoid adding synthetic substances, instead relying on a presumably healthy existing soil ecosystem. However, some organic farms are operating on land treated with pesticides in the past. Yet, it's unclear whether pesticides have a long-lasting presence in organically managed fields and what the reverberations are to soil life, specifically microbes and beneficial soil fungi, years after their application. So, Judith Riedo, Thomas Bucheli, Florian Walder, Marcel van der Heijden and colleagues wanted to examine pesticide levels and their impact on soil health on farms managed with conventional versus organic practices, as well as on farms converted to organic methods.

The researchers measured surface soil characteristics and the concentrations of 46 regularly used pesticides and their breakdown products in samples taken from 100 fields that were managed with either conventional or organic practices. Surprisingly, the researchers found pesticide residues at all of the sites, including organic farms converted more than 20 years prior. Multiple herbicides and one fungicide remained in the surface soil after the conversion to organic practices; though the total number of synthetic chemicals and their concentrations decreased significantly the longer the fields were in organic management. According to the researchers, some of the pesticides alternatively could have contaminated the organic fields by traveling through the air, water or soil from nearby conventional fields. In addition, the team observed lower microbial abundance and decreased levels of a beneficial microbe when fields had higher numbers of pesticides in the fields, suggesting that the presence of these substances can decrease soil health. The researchers say future work should examine the synergistic effects of pesticide residues and other environmental stressors on soil health.

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The authors acknowledge funding from Agroscope, Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, the Swiss National Science Foundation and the National Research Program 'Sustainable use of soil as a resource'.

The paper is freely available as an ACS AuthorChoice article here.

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More than 80 percent of all infant deaths in Zambian cohort experienced delays in receiving care

Identifying the circumstances surrounding these deaths is critical to reduce infant mortality rates

BOSTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

 

(Boston)--Children in Zambia under age 5 die at a rate that is between nearly six to more than 10 times higher than those in the U.S; it is estimated at 40-75 per 1000, compared to 6.98 per 1000. Identifying why these children are dying is the mission of Rotem Lapidot, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM).

"Significantly, over 80 percent of all community infant deaths involved some form of delay. While it is impossible to know what would have occurred in the absence of such delays, the majority of infant deaths in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, are from causes for which effective treatments currently exist," explained Lapidot, the corresponding author on the study that appeared online in the journal Pediatrics. A significant number of infants die in the community and are referred to as "brought in dead" (BID). There are limited data around the problem of infant community deaths and identifying the circumstances surrounding them is critical to reduce infant mortality rates.

In an effort to try and better identify common patterns of health seeking behaviors that contributed to these deaths, researchers from BUSM and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), analyzed free-text narratives from verbal autopsies from 230 families of BID infants younger than 6 months of age. They found almost 83 percent of infants had one or more delays in care--the most common delay being the family's decision to seek care (54.8 percent), even as severe symptoms were frequently described. Almost 28 percent of infants died in route to a healthcare facility. Delays in receiving adequate care, including infants dying while waiting in line at a clinic or during referral from a clinic to a hospital, occurred in almost 25 percent of infants. While a third of infants had been previously evaluated by a clinician in the days prior to their death.

According to the researchers, delays in care were the rule rather than the exception in this population of infants. "In many cases infants are dying because they do not receive existing treatments at all or receive them only after the illness has become unsalvageable. If our goal is to reduce child mortality, these findings have profound implications," adds Lapidot, who also is a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Boston Medical Center.

The researchers said it is important to emphasize that delays in seeking care are likely complex, multifactorial, and do not necessarily imply negligence by the child's caregivers. Logistical barriers they believe may be insurmountable, particularly in deeply impoverished, under-resourced communities, such as typified among the urban poor in Lusaka. "However, our current analysis suggests that there are relatively simple interventions that are low-tech and could be achieved at low cost to avoid such delays and save many infants lives," said Lapidot.

"By analyzing open-ended narratives from the verbal autopsies, we were able to explore the context surrounding infant deaths beyond what is written on a death certificate. We could gain a deeper understanding of the circumstances and social factors that led to the infant death, in the caregivers' own words. This type of data is often not reported in the scientific literature, but these voices and stories of infant death in underserved communities should be elevated and urgently listened to," added former BUSPH research fellow Anna Larson, MPH.

The data used in this study was collected as part of the larger Zambia Pertussis RSV Infant Mortality Estimation (ZPRIME) study. "In global health, we are often very focused on introducing new interventions, drugs, vaccines or technologies as strategies to reduce childhood mortality. What this study reminds us is that sometimes very simple interventions have the potential to save lives," said principal investigator of that study Christopher Gill, MD, associate professor of global health at BUSPH.

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Other authors on this study included BUSPH's William MacLeod, ScD; Christopher Gill, MD; Anna Larson Williams; Andrew Enslen, from the University of California, San Diego and Ronke Olowojesku from the University of Georgia.

Funding for this study was provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Seagrass loss around the UK may be much higher than previously thought

FRONTIERS

Research News

 

The loss of seagrass in the waters around the UK is much higher than previously estimated. A new study published in Frontiers in Plant Science concludes that, with high certainty, at least 44% of the UK's seagrasses have been lost since 1936, of which 39% has been since the 1980s. This study is one of the first of its kind to bring together seagrass data from diverse sources and give a systematic estimate of the current and historic extent of seagrass, as well as seagrass loss in the UK.

The study was a collaboration between researchers at University College London, Kings College London, and Swansea University.

Seagrasses as climate change superheroes Nature-based solutions are essential to mitigate the effects of the climate crisis, and seagrasses are highly suitable candidates for the job. While they cover only 0.1% of the ocean floor worldwide, seagrasses are one of the largest global carbon sinks, storing carbon in marine soils many times faster than terrestrial forests. Healthy seagrasses also support marine biodiversity, including commercially important (such as bass) and charismatic species (such as seahorses), and provide ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling, increasing shoreline stability, and supporting coastal livelihoods. But different human activities, such as industrial, agricultural, and coastal development, have led to worldwide declines.

Previous studies had estimated that the worldwide loss of seagrasses is at least 29%, but the current status of many seagrass meadows is unknown. A better knowledge of where losses have occurred would allow us to protect current seagrass meadows and re-plant and restore degraded or lost ones. Dr Alix Green, lead author of the study, says: "Raising the profile of this undervalued ecosystem will undoubtedly support its protection and rejuvenation."

Estimating the extent of seagrass meadows The purpose of the study was to estimate the current aerial extent of seagrass for the UK and to estimate the recent and historic percentage loss of seagrass.

The two species of seagrass indigenous to the UK are Zostera marina and Zostera noltii, both protected under several EU Directives and the UK's Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. The researchers collected several datasets from different sources to research the current aerial extent of seagrasses. Any data collected since 1998 were categorized as 'contemporary', and data older than 1998 as 'historical'. The researchers used three methods to assess seagrass loss with high, medium, and low certainty.

Dr Green says: "Our paper establishes the best estimate of current seagrass extent in the UK, confirming at least 8,493 hectares, and documents a loss of at least 39% of aerial cover in the last 30 years. Historically, we show that this loss could be as much as 92%, and that these meadows could have stored 11.4 Mt of carbon and supported approximately 400 million fish." Worryingly, these estimates are likely under-representative of the true loss.

Protecting what is left, restoring what is lost These results show the urgency of protecting current seagrass meadows and restoring degraded or lost ones. They also show that not all seagrass meadows in the UK have suffered equally, while some seagrass sites show signs of recovery. The observation that seagrasses can recover from environmental degradation is encouraging and should motivate conservation initiatives. Co-author Dr Peter Jones, University College London, adds: "The next decade is a crucial window of opportunity to address the inter-related crises of biodiversity loss and climate change - the restoration of seagrass meadows would be an important contribution to this. This will involve restrictions such as reduced boat anchor damage, restricting damaging fishing methods and reducing coastal pollution, including through marine protected areas."

Dr Richard Unsworth, co-author and lecturer at Swansea University and director of the marine conservation charity Project Seagrass said: "Our systematic documentation of the loss of seagrass needs to be seen as a positive moment to start the rejuvenation of our coastal seas. Now is the time to create financial mechanisms that reduce the flow of nutrients into our coastal seas, and offsetting mechanisms to allow a pathway of carbon finance into the conservation and restoration of these systems. By reversing this loss, we can improve our fisheries, reduce coastal erosion and fight climate change."

Dr Green concluded: "The catastrophic losses documented in this research are alarming but offer a snapshot of the potential of this habitat if efforts are made to protect and restore seagrass meadows across the UK. We hope that this work will spur continued, systematic mapping and monitoring of seagrass meadows across the UK and encourage restoration and rehabilitation projects. These meadows have the potential to support our bountiful fisheries and help us win the fight against climate change and environmental degradation. The UK is lucky to have such a resource in our waters, and we should fight to protect it!"

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Gender assumptions harm progress on climate adaption and resilience


ARC CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE FOR CORAL REEF STUDIES

NEWS RELEASE 3-MAR-2021

Research News



IMAGE: PURSUING GENDER EQUALITY IN CLIMATE CHANGE POLICY AND PRACTICE IS CRITICAL. view more

CREDIT: JACQUI LAU.

Scientists say outdated assumptions around gender continue to hinder effective and fair policymaking and action for climate mitigation and adaptation.

Lead author of a new study, Dr Jacqueline Lau from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (Coral CoE at JCU) and WorldFish, said gender--alongside other identities like race, class and age--has a powerful influence on people's experience of, and resilience to, climate change.

She said the four most common and interlinked assumptions found are: women are innately caring and connected to the environment; women are a homogenous and vulnerable group; gender equality is a women's issue and; gender equality is a numbers game.

"Although there is a global mandate to work towards gender equality in climate change mitigation and adaptation, efforts are hindered by a set of assumptions about gender, long critiqued in development studies," Dr Lau said.

The study draws on post-2014 gender and climate change literature, to give an overview of how the gender assumptions manifest across recent work in adaptation, mitigation and broader climate change policy, practice and research.

The review of the literature takes a closer look at how these assumptions narrowly diagnose the causes of gender inequality.

"As a result, we see too many strategies that have unintended--and even counterproductive--consequences," said Dr Pip Cohen, from WorldFish.

"For instance, strategies that target women only may overburden them, cause a backlash, or obscure the vulnerabilities of other groups."

The study offers lessons for a more informed pursuit of gender equality in climate change research, policy and practice.

The authors said progressing gender equality means breaking down stereotypes and prejudices about gender--creating environments to enable all people to exercise their agency to cope, change and adapt.

Dr Lau said she was surprised to find so many examples of gender assumptions in climate change practice. She explained that a first step in disrupting these assumptions is to lay them bare and explain why development research has found them to be problematic.

"The social and cultural expectations about what it is to be a woman or a man in any given society will shape people's wellbeing," Dr Lau said.

She said alongside efforts to dismantle broader barriers to gender equality, better and more coordinated efforts are needed from practitioners and researchers to disrupt and counteract unhelpful assumptions.

"Pursuing gender equality in climate change policy and practice is critical, and decades of experience in development offer lessons for how to do it well," Dr Lau said.

"Ultimately, we want to see equitable opportunities for all people to realise their full potential. Where no one is left behind."

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PAPER

Lau J, Kleiber D, Lawless S, Cohen P. (2021). 'Gender equality in climate policy and practice hindered by assumptions'. Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/s41558-021-00999-7

Air pollution fell sharply during lockdown

Traffic significantly underestimated as cause of nitrogen oxide pollution in cities

UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK

Research News


IMAGE: THE INNSBRUCK ATMOSPHERIC OBSERVATORY IS LOCATED ON THE ROOF OF THE BRUNO SANDER HOUSE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK IN THE CENTER OF THE TYROLEAN CAPITAL. view more
CREDIT: UNIVERSITY OF INNSBRUCK

The far-reaching mobility restrictions at the beginning of the Corona pandemic in March 2020 created a unique situation for atmospheric sciences: "During the 2020 lockdown, we were able to directly investigate the actual effects of drastic traffic restrictions on the distribution of air pollutants and on the emission of climate gases," says Innsbruck atmospheric scientist Thomas Karl. With his team, he has now published a detailed analysis of air quality during the first lockdown in the city of Innsbruck, Austria, in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. "We find significantly greater decreases of air pollutants than of carbon dioxide, for example," the researcher says, summarizing the results. In the past year, some studies showed contradicting results because the influence of weather was often not factored in, on the one hand, or a detailed comparison with emission data was not possible, on the other hand. Based on a unique measurement strategy in combination with detailed source emission data, the Innsbruck researchers can now provide a reliable analysis. Their results confirm assumptions inferred from earlier work: "The decrease in nitrogen oxides and other pollutants due to reduced traffic is stronger than often assumed," emphasizes Thomas Karl. "We find that the proportion of nitrogen oxides emitted from traffic is higher than often assumed, while the proportion from domestic, commercial and public energy consumption is lower." The European energy transition, with the switch to cleaner combustion in the residential and industrial sectors, is having a positive effect on air quality and has been underestimated in some cases. Atmospheric researcher Thomas Karl summarizes "We project that in many European inner cities, comparable to Innsbruck, more than 90 percent of nitrogen oxide emissions are caused by traffic".

Emission models need to be adjusted

In urban regions across Europe, the air quality thresholds for nitrogen oxides and other pollutants are regularly exceeded. It is not always easy to determine which polluters are responsible for how much emission. Until recently, the key method for quantifying emissions has relied on exhaust emission tests on test stands that were then extrapolated in a model. However, the actual amount of air pollutants emitted by a vehicle or a heating appliance in everyday use can depend on many factors. The diesel scandal has made it clear how inconclusive measurements on the test stand can be, when interpreting their impact on the environment. Assessment of air management by environmental and health authorities heavily depends on atmospheric models that rely on accurate emission data. Until now, it was very difficult to assess actual air pollutants emitted in a specific region and constraining their emissions. The team led by Thomas Karl from the Department of Atmospheric and Cryospheric Sciences at the University of Innsbruck closes this gap with the so-called eddy covariance method, which measures air composition and wind flow in detail and thus allows conclusions to be drawn about the air pollutant emission strengths. With the Innsbruck Atmospheric Observatory (IAO) set up at the University of Innsbruck, the air over Innsbruck is now being continuously studied.


The current study was financed by the Austrian Science Fund FWF.

 

Climate change 'winners' may owe financial compensation to polluters

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, WOODROW WILSON SCHOOL OF PUBLIC AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Research News

Climate change is generally portrayed as an environmental and societal threat with entirely negative consequences. However, some sectors of the global economy may actually end up benefiting.

New economic and philosophical research argues that policymakers must consider both the beneficial effects of climate change to "climate winners" as well as its costs in order to appropriately incentivize actions that are best for society and for the environment.

The study by researchers from Princeton University, University College Cork, and HEC Montréal appears to be the first to develop a systematic, ethical framework for addressing climate winners -- as well as those harmed -- using financial transfers.

Their approach, called "Polluter Pays, Then Receives," requires polluters to first compensate those most harmed by climate change. Subsequently, polluters would be eligible to receive compensation from those who are passively benefiting from climate change.

Published in Economics & Philosophy, the article emphasizes that, through climate change, greenhouse gas emitters affect a variety of individuals and groups both positively and negatively at different regional or sectoral scales, sometimes at the expense of other groups -- what economists call "externalities."

"With a global issue like climate change, it's difficult for people to make decisions that account for the harm or benefit their actions cause, because those effects aren't directly or proportionally felt by that actor," said study co-author Kian Mintz-Woo, a former postdoctoral research associate at the Princeton University Center for Human Values and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs. "Our research argues that payments are one way to help correct incentives: Harms should be redressed, and then beneficial actions should be rewarded."

Mintz-Woo recently joined the department of Philosophy and the Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork.

While globally the negative consequences of climate change are expected to far outweigh the benefits, some groups or places may experience net benefits. For example, countries at far northern latitudes or specific industries may see improved agricultural conditions, additional tourism, or lower energy costs.

"Not systematically considering or accounting for beneficial climate effects makes it easier for climate impact skeptics to think that climate change discussions are oversimplified or alarmist," said study co-author Justin Leroux, professor of applied economics at HEC Montréal and CIRANO research fellow. "Another motivation of our study was to address the unfairness that arises when some benefit from climate change while others are suffering harm. It's a question of solidarity -- both sharing benefits that weren't truly earned and compensating losses that weren't the fault of those harmed."

The authors say this compensation approach could be experimented with at a regional or national level before being introduced globally. They explore how it might be implemented in a federal nation using the example of Canada. A national carbon tax could be used to collect funds from greenhouse gas emitters. Those revenues would first and foremost be used to compensate victims. In addition, a corporate tax would be levied on the sectors of the economy that gain passively from climate change, like tourism, which could benefit from more tourists taking advantage of longer summers in Arctic regions. Revenue from the additional corporate tax would be shared with the greenhouse gas emitters. Introducing a policy to reward emitters may sound surprising, but the authors emphasize that those emitters would first need to pay for their harms before receiving any benefit payments.

"Payments from passive winners to polluters could either help the polluters more fully compensate the groups that have been harmed by their actions or help fund the polluters' own climate adaptation responses," Mintz-Woo said.

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"What do climate change winners owe, and to whom?" was published online Feb. 23. The article is available open access, thanks to support from the Princeton University Library Open Access Fund Program. The research is co-authored by Kian Mintz-Woo (University College Cork and Princeton University) and Justin Leroux (HEC Montréal and CIRANO).