How life on Earth experiences climate change

Stockholm University

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The Björkliden Valley showing microclimate contrasts between sunlit vs. shaded slopes. Climate change-driven changes in e.g. cloudiness or shrub cover may lead to different rates of warming on these different slopes. Photo:

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Credit: Jonas Lembrechts

Climate change can look very different at the scale of a forest, field or hillside. A new review shows how changes in vegetation and atmospheric conditions can cause local microclimates to warm at very different rates from the regional climate - and why this matters for understanding how biodiversity will respond to climate change.

Climate change is usually described using regional or global averages. But most organisms experience the climate much closer to the ground or within microhabitats, where temperature and other conditions can differ substantially from those measured by weather stations or represented in large-scale climate models.

This local climate, known as the microclimate, does not necessarily change in the same way as the surrounding regional climate. In a new review published in Global Change Biology, researchers from around the world synthesise how climate change can alter microclimates and identify the processes responsible for these differences.

“Climate change is often described as a single number for a region. But organisms live in specific places – in a particular patch of forest or on a particular slope. The climate they experience can change at a very different rate from the regional average,” says Caroline Greiser, researcher at Stockholm University and lead author of the study.

Vegetation can change the local climate

One important driver is vegetation. Climate change can alter forests, shrublands and other vegetation, which in turn changes how much sunlight reaches the ground and how easily the ground loses heat to the atmosphere.

“Vegetation is not simply responding to climate change – it can also modify the climate experienced by organisms living under canopies,” says Greiser. “When vegetation changes, it changes the local energy balance, and this can lead to very different temperature trends within the same landscape.”

In one of the model simulations presented in the review, the expansion of shrubs and trees into open steppes in Turkey substantially altered near-ground air temperatures. On the hottest days, shrub encroachment resulted in temperatures up to 16 degrees lower than those in open areas. In a regional warming scenario, the open areas would warm up much faster.

Clouds and other atmospheric changes matter too

Microclimate is also influenced directly by changes in atmospheric conditions. For example, cloud cover controls how much solar radiation reaches the Earth's surface. A reduction in cloudiness can substantially increase solar heating in sun-exposed locations, while shaded areas, such as forest interiors or pole-facing slopes, may be less affected.

The review shows how such changes can interact with topography, vegetation, soil moisture and other factors to produce increasingly different microclimatic conditions over relatively short distances.

Until recently, it has been difficult to study these changes over long periods and across large areas. New sensor networks, long-term datasets and mechanistic models are now making it possible to investigate how changes in the atmosphere and vegetation translate into the microclimates experienced by organisms.

“The processes that determine microclimate are complex and involve both atmospheric and biological systems. Understanding them therefore requires collaboration between atmospheric scientists and ecologists,” says Greiser.

Why microclimate matters for biodiversity

Understanding how microclimates change could improve predictions of how species and ecosystems respond to climate change. Regional climate data may suggest that an area is warming, while local conditions can remain relatively buffered - or change even more rapidly – because of vegetation, topography and atmospheric processes.

Accounting for this variation could improve predictions of future species distributions and ecological interactions, and help inform conservation and land management strategies that are adapted to local climate change.

“If we want to understand where species will persist and where they will be most vulnerable, we need to know not only how the regional climate is changing, but also how that change translates into the microclimates organisms actually experience,” says Greiser.

Future microclimates, in this alpine landscape, will be shaped by topography, the evolution of snow and cloud cover, and the ongoing colonisation by trees. Photo: Eva Gril

Credit

Eva Gril

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Journal

Global Change Biology

DOI

10.1111/gcb.71140

Method of Research

Literature review

Subject of Research

Not applicable

Article Title

Climate change experienced by life on Earth – drivers and mechanisms of future trends in microclimates

Article Publication Date

21-Oct-2026

 

Study identifies world’s first corporate psychopath

Research finds that 17th century trader exhibited modern toxic leadership traits

Anglia Ruskin University

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New research suggests the same personality traits associated with toxic corporate leaders today may have been present at the very birth of global capitalism 400 years ago.

 

The study, published in the Asian Journal of Business Ethics identifies Jeronimus Cornelisz, who was a merchant manager with the Dutch East India Company, as likely being the earliest documented example of a corporate psychopath.

 

The research, by Dr Clive Boddy of Anglia Ruskin University (ARU), is believed to be the first to systematically assess Cornelisz's behaviour using a recognised corporate psychopathy framework rather than relying solely on historical interpretation. The study found that he displayed all 10 of the core characteristics associated with corporate psychopaths.

These include the use of charm to gain trust; surrounding themselves with loyal supporters; removing potential challengers; creating divisions among rivals; establishing a climate of fear; avoiding responsibility when things go wrong; and pursuing power, money and control above all else.

The Dutch East India Company was the world’s first multinational shareholder-owned company, and they founded what became one of the world’s first stock exchanges in Amsterdam in 1602.

According to the study, Cornelisz’s case suggests that individuals motivated by power, wealth and personal advancement were attracted to commercial enterprises from the earliest days of capitalist business.

The research centres on the infamous wreck of the Batavia in 1629 on reefs off the coast of Western Australia. Following the shipwreck, approximately 200 survivors were stranded across a group of isolated islands. With senior officers having sailed to present-day Jakarta to seek rescue, Cornelisz, an under-merchant employed by the company, became the most senior corporate figure remaining among the survivors.

In the study, Dr Boddy explains how Cornelisz quickly consolidated power by replacing council members with loyal supporters, requiring personal oaths of allegiance and isolating potential opponents. Under his leadership, around 100 men, women and children were murdered, while some women were subjected to sexual violence. The killings were justified by Cornelisz as a means of conserving food and water supplies, but the murders also removed his perceived rivals.

Meanwhile, a group of survivors stranded by Cornelisz on a different island was led by a leader named Wiebbe Hayes. Hayes organised thorough hunts for fresh water and sustenance, and these searches found two freshwater wells, seabird eggs for food, as well as plentiful fish, wallabies and seals for meat. It was reported by one of Hayes’s followers to be enough food for all the survivors for a “thousand years”.

Dr Boddy, Associate Professor of Management at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and a pioneer in the field of corporate psychopathy, said: “What makes this case remarkable is that when we analysed Cornelisz using a modern management psychopathy framework, he displayed every major characteristic associated with corporate psychopaths.

"The same playbook we see in toxic workplaces today appears in this case from 1629. He removed opponents, rewarded loyalists, created fear, manipulated followers and pursued power at any cost.

"Perhaps the most striking finding is that another leader facing the same circumstances achieved completely different outcomes. Wiebbe Hayes built cooperation, discovered new resources and kept people alive.

"This was effectively a natural experiment in leadership. One group prospered while the other descended into murder and abuse.”

The study also argues that corporate psychopaths continue to pose a significant challenge for modern organisations, linking psychopathic leadership to workplace bullying, harassment, reduced employee wellbeing, higher staff turnover and organisational failure. The findings reinforce calls for employers to place greater emphasis on character, ethics and values when selecting senior leaders.

The full, open-access study Asia Bound: shareholder capitalism, corporate psychopathy and psychopathic leadership can be read here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13520-026-00274-y

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Journal

Asian Journal of Business Ethics

DOI

10.1007/s13520-026-00274-y

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Asia bound: shareholder capitalism, corporate psychopathy and psychopathic leadership

 

Artificial intelligence aids in the development of new active ingredients

Researchers at HIPS are developing building blocks for active ingredient production

Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research

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Nature offers a virtually limitless variety of chemical substances. Although these have been optimized over millions of years of evolution for their respective purposes, they have not been optimized for use as active ingredients in humans. For decades, researchers have therefore been attempting to genetically reprogram microbial producers of active ingredients so that they produce variants of their natural compounds with improved pharmaceutical properties. A major challenge in this endeavor is that the protein structures responsible for the production of natural products are extremely complex. Many changes to the corresponding blueprints therefore simply result in non-functional proteins. A team led by HIPS Junior Research Group Leader Dr. Kenan Bozhüyük has now addressed this problem with a new approach based on artificial intelligence. The idea is that if an AI can understand what makes production systems work, it may even be able to develop new building blocks for such systems that do not occur in nature—thereby further expanding chemical diversity for drug discovery. HIPS is a site of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research in collaboration with Saarland University.

The study focused on so-called non-ribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPS for short. These large enzyme complexes function like molecular assembly lines. They produce a wide variety of biologically active natural compounds in microorganisms, including substances that have served as the basis for the development of numerous antibiotics, immunosuppressants, and cancer drugs. The problem is that a product can only be formed if the individual components interact precisely at the right moment. This is why NRPS are particularly difficult to modify in a targeted manner.

The researchers combined several pre-trained AI models with experimental test series to develop new so-called thiolation domains (T-domains). These building blocks act like movable transport arms within the NRPS: they pick up molecular intermediates and pass them on to the next processing station. In total, the team used AI to design 76 new T-domains, produced hundreds of different NRPS variants, and tested them in living cells.

The results showed that several of the AI-designed building blocks were functional. Some even enabled the formation of products in artificially combined enzyme systems and increased the yield up to three times compared to natural variants. In addition, at least one of the designed proteins proved to be more soluble and thermally more stable than the natural counterpart. Higher yields are not only important for future production. They also make it easier, even in the early stages of research, to obtain new natural compounds in sufficient quantities to determine their structure and investigate their effects more closely. A key factor was that the AI did not design the new building blocks in isolation, but rather tailored them to their immediate surroundings within the respective enzyme system. This is because whether such a building block functions depends heavily on its ability to interact with its neighboring regions.

“Our results show that artificial intelligence can be used not only to design individual proteins, but also to specifically redesign key building blocks of complex biological production systems,” says Bozhüyük. “AI does not replace experiments, but it helps us select promising candidates more quickly from among many possible variants.”

“The study shows that AI can significantly advance the development of new active compounds based on natural products,” says Prof. Rolf Müller, Scientific Director of HIPS and head of the department “Microbial Natural Products”. “If we can adapt such biosynthetic systems in a more targeted manner in the future, this will open up new possibilities for developing urgently needed drugs more efficiently and thus making them available for clinical applications more quickly.”

Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research:
Scientists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and its other sites in Germany are engaged in the study of bacterial and viral infections and the body’s defense mechanisms. They have a profound expertise in natural compound research and its exploitation as a valuable source for novel anti-infectives. As member of the Helmholtz Association and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) the HZI performs translational research laying the ground for the development of new treatments and vaccines against infectious diseases. https://www.helmholtz-hzi.de/en

Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland:
The Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) in Saarbrücken is a branch of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) in Braunschweig and was established by the HZI and Saarland University in 2009. Its researchers are searching mainly for new agents against infectious diseases, optimise these agents for application in humans and research ways how these agents can be transported best through the body to the site of action. https://www.helmholtz-hips.de/en/

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-026-77963-6

Method of Research

Experimental study

Subject of Research

Cells

Article Title

Generative AI designs functional thiolation domains for reprogramming non-ribosomal peptide synthetases

New materials library could help AI design better sodium-ion batteries 

University of Surrey

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The start of a new battery materials library could pave the way for future AI models to help scientists design sodium-ion batteries that charge faster, last longer and store more energy, according to new research from the University of Surrey. 

Sodium-ion batteries are being developed as a promising alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries, as sodium is much more abundant and widely available. However, improving the amount of energy they can hold and how well they perform over repeated charging is a major barrier to their wider use. 

In a new study published in the Journal of Materials Chemistry A, researchers investigated how changing the chemical makeup of sodium manganese oxide could improve its performance as a cathode – a key battery component that helps determine how much energy a battery can store and how well it performs. 

The team created a library of 28 different compositions, substituting some of the manganese with varying amounts of iron, titanium and vanadium, before comparing how each performed when tested in sodium-ion batteries. 

The results showed that iron was linked to higher energy-storage capacity, vanadium improved stability over repeated charging and discharging, and small amounts of titanium improved performance at higher rates. Some titanium-containing compositions also retained more than 90 per cent of their capacity after 100 cycles. 

An automated approach was developed to analyse the large amounts of data generated by the experiments, with the resulting dataset used to train a machine-learning model. While the current library is too small for reliable predictions, expanding it could eventually allow AI to identify new battery compositions before they are made and tested in the lab. 

Dr Daniel Commandeur, Lecturer at the School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering and corresponding author of the study, said: 

“We rely heavily on lithium-ion batteries, but lithium resources are relatively scarce and unevenly distributed around the world. Sodium is far more abundant, making sodium-ion batteries an important technology to develop. 

“The challenge is finding materials that deliver the performance we need. This work is a first step towards building the larger datasets needed for machine learning to guide that search – helping us identify promising materials faster and accelerate the development of better sodium-ion batteries.” 

Expanding the approach to a much wider range of cathode materials could create the larger, high-quality datasets needed for machine learning to help speed up the discovery of new battery materials. 

 Eden Marks, PhD Student in Space Engineering and co-lead author of the study, said: 

“What stood out most was how relatively small changes in composition could shift the balance between how much energy a material can store, how it performs at higher rates and how well it lasts. Mapping those relationships gives us a much clearer picture of where to look next.” 

In future, expanding the materials composition library could help scientists tailor sodium-ion cathodes to different performance needs – whether the priority is storing more energy, charging faster or lasting through more charge cycles. 

[ENDS] 

Notes to editors 

• Dr Daniel Commandeur is available for interview; please contact mediarelations@surrey.ac.uk to arrange. 

• The full paper can be found here: https://doi.org/10.1039/d6ta04588j  

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Journal

Journal of Materials Chemistry A

DOI

10.1039/d6ta04588j

Article Title

Probing the composition space of V, Fe, and Ti substituted sodium manganese oxides for next-generation sodium-ion cathodes

 

Cyber Physical Systems: Security Concerns and Practices

New book explores security challenges, emerging technologies and practices for cyber-physical systems

Bentham Science Publishers

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Bentham Books announces the release of Cyber Physical Systems: Security Concerns and Practices, a comprehensive reference examining the security challenges and emerging practices associated with Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS). The book explores blockchain, cryptography, steganography, authentication, privacy, secure communication and resilient security architectures for increasingly interconnected cyber-physical environments.

About the Book

Cyber-Physical Systems integrate computing, communication and physical processes to enable intelligent monitoring, decision-making and automation across critical sectors. As these systems become increasingly interconnected, ensuring the security of data, devices, communication networks and physical operations has become essential.

This book examines fundamental and advanced approaches to CPS security, with particular emphasis on blockchain, cryptography and steganography. It discusses secure authentication, data transmission, decentralized security frameworks, privacy protection, data integrity and strategies for improving system reliability and resilience.

The book also explores practical applications of CPS security across healthcare, finance, smart grids, industrial automation and other intelligent environments. Emerging threats, implementation challenges and future research directions are discussed to provide readers with a comprehensive understanding of the evolving CPS security landscape.

Key Highlights

• Fundamental and advanced CPS security architectures
• Blockchain, cryptography and steganography for secure CPS
• Authentication, privacy and data integrity
• Secure communication and decentralized security frameworks
• Applications in healthcare, finance, smart grids and industrial automation
• Emerging security challenges and implementation strategies
• Future research directions for secure and resilient CPS

Readership

Students, researchers, faculty members, cybersecurity professionals, engineers, computer scientists and academics working in cyber-physical systems, cybersecurity, blockchain, artificial intelligence, secure communication, industrial automation and intelligent technologies.

About the Editors

Dr. Ashish Kumar is an Associate Professor at BML Munjal University, Gurugram, Haryana, India. He previously worked at Bennett University and Bharati Vidyapeeth’s College of Engineering, New Delhi. He received his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Engineering from Delhi Technological University in 2020 and completed his M.Tech. with distinction from GGS Indraprastha University. He has published more than 45 research papers and over 15 book chapters in Scopus-indexed books and has authored and edited books in artificial intelligence, computer vision and healthcare. His research interests include object tracking, image processing, artificial intelligence and medical imaging analysis. He is a Senior Member of IEEE and a lifetime member of ISTE.

Dr. Rohit Kumar Sachan is an Associate Professor at the Sharda School of Computing Science & Engineering, Sharda University, Greater Noida. He previously served at Bennett University and held research positions at IIT Kanpur, including Senior Project Engineer and Post-Doctoral Fellow at the C3i Hub. He earned his Ph.D. from Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNNIT), Allahabad. With approximately ten years of academic and research experience, his research interests include Cyber Security, Blockchain Forensics, Machine Learning Applications and Nature-Inspired Algorithms. He is an active member of IEEE and ACM.

Book Link: https://bit.ly/4i7E2rY

DOI: 10.2174/97988988171141260101
https://doi.org/10.2174/97988988170531260101

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DOI

10.2174/97988988170531260101 

 

Student motivation and responsibility shown to be key to tackling bullying in physical education

University of Córdoba

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Researchers from the Sport and Physical Education for Personal and Social Development research group (GIDEPSO) in the Department of Specific Didactics at the University of Córdoba

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Credit: University of Cordoba

Physical education has traditionally been one of the most eagerly awaited classes of the school day, since it lets students get out of the classroom, move around, and interact with their classmates in a different way — conditions that are conducive to learning values such as camaraderie and cooperation. However, the physical exposure and the dynamics of interaction, comparison, and competition that the class can entail still make some students uneasy, and, in settings where bullying occurs, turn it into a potentially unsafe space. In this context, the responses of those who witness bullying are crucial to either stopping or enabling it, and motivation and responsibility are key factorsdetermining whether they adopt active roles.

This is the conclusion of a study of more than 1,300 students ages 10 to 18 conducted by Rafael Clavero Prados, Javier Murillo Moraño, Rafael Zapata Lamana, and Juan De Dios Benítez Sillero, with the Sport and Physical Education for Personal and Social Development research group (GIDEPSO) in the Department of Specific Didactics at the University of Córdoba. To find out how bullying relates to motivation in physical education, they asked students "about their experience with bullying they had suffered or witnessed," while also assessing their motivation toward physical education and their levels of personal and social responsibility, explains researcher Rafael Clavero Prados. The results of the study, published in the journal Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy, focus on the role of bystanders and link their responses, whether active or passive, to their interest in sports: students who are more motivated to participate in physical education also show greater personal responsibility, which leads them to step in actively when faced with situations they consider unfair. At the other end of the spectrum, students who have been bullied show lower levels of motivation toward the subject.

Actively defending victims, however, takes more than a willingness to step in. For this to happen, "students must perceive themselves as capable of acting and feel a personal responsibility to do so," the authors argue, pointing to the importance of working at both the individual and social levels to help students recognize how their behavior either perpetuates unfair situations or helps stop them. Researcher Javier Murillo Moraño thus underscores the importance of "developing teaching models that increase social responsibility, which is associated with students more actively standing up for victims." For this reason, the GIDEPSO group maintains that teaching responsibility should be part of a broad bullying prevention strategy that also addresses student motivation, peer relationships, and the responses of those who witness these situations.

Learning to get along

The study is part of a series of research projects that GIDEPSO is carrying out to give teachers tools to combat bullying and to turn both physical education classes and youth sports into safe spaces where young people learn to get along. "The findings are important because they provide new evidence and help us complement the intervention programs we design for this purpose," explains Juan De Dios Benítez Sillero, the group's principal investigator. One example is the PrebullPE program, a hands-on model that the research group has already brought into classrooms and that addresses identifying bullying, managing emotions, and fostering social skills for a better school climate. In this way physical education can become a space for learning not only to cooperate and compete, but also to respect others, take on responsibilities, and stand up to injustice.

 

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Journal

Physical Education and Sport Pedagogy

DOI

10.1080/17408989.2026.2716877

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Understanding bullying and motivation in physical education: a serial mediation model through personal and social responsibility