-
From Death Comes Life: Recovery and Revolution in the Wake of Epidemic Outbreaks of Mountain Pine Beetle
-
Excerpt : “Part of the initial increase in nutrients and moisture under dead and dying trees is due to reduced uptake,” Rhoades says. “But the sick and dead trees are also losing needles that fall to the ground and help retain soil moisture. And, as trees decay, they release nutrients back into the system.”
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Impacts Research Seen As Next Climate Frontier
-
Scientists hope the next U.S. president will devote more of the billion-dollar
climate change research program to impacts
SCIENCE VOL 322
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Global Warming, Elevational Range Shifts, and Lowland Biotic Attrition in the Wet Tropics
-
Many studies suggest that global warming is driving species ranges poleward and toward higher
elevations at temperate latitudes, but evidence for range shifts is scarce for the tropics, where the
shallow latitudinal temperature gradient makes upslope shifts more likely than poleward shifts.
Based on new data for plants and insects on an elevational transect in Costa Rica, we assess the
potential for lowland biotic attrition, range-shift gaps, and mountaintop extinctions under projected
warming. We conclude that tropical lowland biotas may face a level of net lowland biotic attrition
without parallel at higher latitudes (where range shifts may be compensated for by species from
lower latitudes) and that a high proportion of tropical species soon faces gaps between current
and projected elevational ranges.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Impact of a Century of Climate Change on Small-Mammal Communities in Yosemite National Park, USA
-
We provide a century-scale view of small-mammal responses to global warming, without
confounding effects of land-use change, by repeating Grinnell’s early–20th century survey across
a 3000-meter-elevation gradient that spans Yosemite National Park, California, USA. Using
occupancy modeling to control for variation in detectability, we show substantial (~500 meters on
average) upward changes in elevational limits for half of 28 species monitored, consistent with the
observed ~3°C increase in minimum temperatures. Formerly low-elevation species expanded their
ranges and high-elevation species contracted theirs, leading to changed community composition at
mid- and high elevations. Elevational replacement among congeners changed because species’
responses were idiosyncratic. Though some high-elevation species are threatened, protection
of elevation gradients allows other species to respond via migration
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Biodiversity Under Global Change
-
Many common plant species, such as prairie grasses, have evolved traits for the efficient capture and use of two key resources that limit terrestrial productivity: nitrogen (N) and carbon dioxide (CO2). Over the past 60 years, human activity has vastly increased the availability of these resources. Atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased by 40%, and N availability has more than doubled. These changes are likely to have important consequences for species interactions, community structure, and ecosystem functioning. On
page 1399 of this issue, Reich investigates one important consequence, biodiversity loss, based on a long-term elevated CO2 and nitrogen fertilization experiment.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Peatland Response to Global Change
-
Peatlands can buffer the impact of external
perturbations, but can also rapidly shift to a
new ecosystem type, with large gains or losses
of stored carbon.
VOL 326 SCIENCE
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Amid Worrisome Signs of Warming, ‘Climate Fatigue’ Sets In
-
As scientists debate whether climate is changing faster than anticipated, some worry that a
drumbeat of dire warnings may be helping to erode U.S. public concerns about global warming
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Biodiversity and Climate Change
-
Efforts to elucidate the effect of climate change on biodiversity with detailed data sets and refined models reach novel conclusions.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
Drought Sensitivity of the Amazon Rainforest
-
Amazon forests are a key but poorly understood component of the global carbon cycle. If, as
anticipated, they dry this century, they might accelerate climate change through carbon losses and
changed surface energy balances. We used records from multiple long-term monitoring plots across
Amazonia to assess forest responses to the intense 2005 drought, a possible analog of future events.
Affected forest lost biomass, reversing a large long-term carbon sink, with the greatest impacts
observed where the dry season was unusually intense. Relative to pre-2005 conditions, forest subjected
to a 100-millimeter increase in water deficit lost 5.3 megagrams of aboveground biomass of carbon per
hectare. The drought had a total biomass carbon impact of 1.2 to 1.6 petagrams (1.2 × 1015 to
1.6 × 1015 grams). Amazon forests therefore appear vulnerable to increasing moisture stress, with the
potential for large carbon losses to exert feedback on climate change.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
-
The Genetic Architecture of Maize Flowering Time
-
Flowering time is a complex trait that controls adaptation of plants to their local environment in
the outcrossing species Zea mays (maize). We dissected variation for flowering time with a set of
5000 recombinant inbred lines (maize Nested Association Mapping population, NAM). Nearly a
million plants were assayed in eight environments but showed no evidence for any single largeeffect
quantitative trait loci (QTLs). Instead, we identified evidence for numerous small-effect QTLs
shared among families; however, allelic effects differ across founder lines. We identified no
individual QTLs at which allelic effects are determined by geographic origin or large effects for
epistasis or environmental interactions. Thus, a simple additive model accurately predicts flowering
time for maize, in contrast to the genetic architecture observed in the selfing plant species rice
and Arabidopsis.
Located in
Resources
/
Climate Science Documents
