Some Lessons Learned from Public Health on the Process of Adaptation

Lessons learned from more than 150 years of public health research and intervention can provide insights to guide public health professionals and institutions as they design and implement specific strategies, policies, and measures to increase resilience to climate variability and change. This paper identifies both some modifications to public health systems that may enhance adaptive capacity, and lessons drawn from the history of managing environmental and other threats in the public health sector that may have relevance for other sectors as they design approaches to increase their adaptive capacity to more effectively cope with climate variability and change. The views expressed are the author’s own and do not represent official US EPA policy.     

Nutrient regulation of organic matter decomposition in a tropical rain forest

Terrestrial biosphere-atmosphere CO2 exchange is dominated by tropical forests, so understanding how nutrient availability affects carbon (C) decomposition in these ecosystems is central to predicting the global C cycle's response to environmental change. In tropical rain forests, phosphorus (P) limitation of primary production and decomposition is believed to be widespread, but direct evidence is rare. We assessed the effects of nitrogen (N) and P fertilization on litter-layer organic matter decomposition in two neighboring tropical rain forests in southwest Costa Rica that are similar in most ways, but that differ in soil P availability. The sites contain 100-200 tree species per hectare and between species foliar nutrient content is variable. To control for this heterogeneity, we decomposed leaves collected from a widespread neotropical species, Brosimum utile. Mass loss during decomposition was rapid in both forests, with B. utile leaves losing >80% of their initial mass in <300 days. High organic matter solubility throughout decomposition combined with high rainfall support a model of litter-layer decomposition in these rain forests in which rapid mass loss in the litter layer is dominated by leaching of dissolved organic matter (DOM) rather than direct CO2 mineralization. While P fertilization did not significantly affect mass loss in the litter layer, it did stimulate P immobilization in decomposing material, leading to increased P content and a lower C:P ratio in soluble DOM. In turn, increased P content of leached DOM stimulated significant increases in microbial mineralization of DOM in P-fertilized soil. These results show that, while nutrients may not affect mass loss during decomposition in nutrient-poor, wet ecosystems, they may ultimately regulate CO2 losses (and hence C storage) by limiting microbial mineralization of DOM leached from the litter layer to soil.     

Trajectories of zooplankton recovery in the Little Rock Lake whole-lake acidification experiment.

Understanding the factors that affect biological recovery from environmental stressors such as acidification is an important challenge in ecology. Here we report on zooplankton community recovery following the experimental acidification of Little Rock Lake, Wisconsin, USA. One decade following cessation of acid additions to the northern basin of Little Rock Lake (LRL), recovery of the zooplankton community was complete. Approximately 40% of zooplankton species in the lake exhibited a recovery lag in which biological recovery to reference basin levels was delayed by 1-6 yr after pH recovered to the level at which the species originally responded. Delays in recovery such as those we observed in LRL may be attributable to "biological resistance" wherein establishment of viable populations of key acid-sensitive species following water quality improvements is prevented by other components of the community that thrived during acidification. Indeed, we observed that the recovery of species that thrived during acidification tended to precede recovery of species that declined during acidification. In addition, correspondence analysis indicated that the zooplankton community followed different pathways during acidification and recovery, suggesting that there is substantial hysteresis in zooplankton recovery from acidification. By providing an example of a relatively rapid recovery from short-term acidification, zooplankton community recovery from experimental acidification in LRL generally reinforces the positive outlook for recovery reported for other acidified lakes.     

Shared- and distributed-memory parallelization of a Lagrangian atmospheric dispersion model

This paper describes parallelization of a 3-D Lagrangian stochastic atmospheric dispersion model using both distributed- and shared-memory methods. Shared-memory parallelism is implemented through the use of OpenMP compiler directives. Distributed-memory parallelism relies on the MPI message-passing library. One or both (using MPI for inter-node and OpenMP for intra-node communication) of the parallel modes can be used depending upon the requirements of the problem and the computational platform available. The distributed-memory version achieves a nearly linear decrease in execution time as the number of processors is increased. As the number of particles per processor is lowered, performance is limited by the decrease in work per processor and by the need to produce one set of output files. The shared-memory version achieves a speedup factor of ∼1.4 running on machines with four processors.     

Reform,Justice, and Sovereignty: A Food Systems Agenda for Environmental Communication

Food ecologies and economies are vital to the survival of communities, non-human species, and our planet. While environmental communication scholars have legitimated food as a topic of inquiry, the entangled ecological, cultural, economic, racial, colonial, and alimentary relations that sustain food systems demand greater attention. In this essay, we review literature within and beyond environmental communication, charting the landscape of critical food work in our field. We then illustrate how environmental justice commitments can invigorate interdisciplinary food systems-focused communication scholarship articulating issues of, and critical responses to, injustice and inequity across the food chain. We stake an agenda for food systems communication by mapping three orientations—food system reform, justice, and sovereignty—that can assist in our critical engagements with and interventions into the food system. Ultimately, we entreat environmental communication scholars to attend to the bends, textures, and confluences of these orientations so that we may deepen our future food-related inquiries.     

Morbidity and pollution: Model specification analysis for time-series data on hospital admissions

Time-series analysis of effects of pollutants on emergency hospital admissions indicates important synergistic interactions among pollutants and to a lesser degree nonlinearities in effects of single pollutants. Comparisons of alternative econometric specifications are made to determine the appropriateness of incorporating nonuniform pollution impacts. The data substantially support the existence of synergisms among pollutants with high levels of sulfur dioxide, SO₂ (particulates), increasing the impact of particulates (SO₂) on emergency hospital admissions. Marginal effects of either pollutant are, however, small at current ambient air quality levels. These results indicate that damage estimates were likely to be understated during the 1960's when pollution levels were high, while, at current levels of those pollutants considered here, marginal damages are lower than would be estimated in studies failing to incorporate synergistic and nonlinear impacts.     

Urbanization increases grassland carbon pools: effects of landscaping in Colorado's front range.

During the past few decades, urban and suburban developments have grown at unprecedented rates and extents with unknown consequences for ecosystem function. Carbon pools of soil and vegetation on landscaped properties were examined in the Front Range of Colorado, USA, in order to characterize vegetation and soils found in urban green spaces; analyze their aboveground biomass, vegetative C storage, and soil C storage; and compare these suburban ecosystem properties to their counterparts in native grassland and cultivated fields. Anthropogenic activities leave clear signatures on all three C compartments measured. Management level dominates the response of grass production, biomass, and N tissue concentration. This, in turn, influences the amount of C and N both stored in and harvested from sites. The site age dominates the amount of woody biomass as well as soil C and N. Soil texture only secondarily affects total soil carbon and total bulk density. Established urban green spaces harbor larger C pools, more than double in some cases, than native grasslands or agricultural fields on a per-area basis. Lawn grass produces more biomass and stores more C than local prairie or agricultural fields. Introduced woody vegetation comprises a substantial C pool in urban green spaces and represents a new ecosystem feature. After an initial decrease with site development, soil organic carbon (SOC) pools surpass those in grasslands within two decades. In addition to the marked increase of C pools through time, a shift in storage from belowground to aboveground occurs. Whereas grasslands store approximately 90% of C belowground, urban green spaces store a decreasing proportion of the total C belowground in soils through time, reaching approximately 70% 30-40 years after construction. Despite the substantial increase in C pools in this urban area, it is important to recognize that this shift is distinct from C sequestration since it does not account for a total C budget, including increased anthropogenic C emissions from these sites.     

Aspects of water column primary productivity in the Chukchi Sea during summer

Measurements of primary productivity, chlorophyll a, incident solar radiation, phosphate-P, silicate-Si, nitrate-N, nitrite-N, ammonium-N, temperature and salinity were made in the Marginal Ice Zone of the Chukchi Sea in summer 1974. Low to moderate levels of primary productivity (0.07 to 0.97 g C m^-2 half-day^-1) were observed; primary productivity exceeded 3 g C m^-2 half-day^-1 at two stations. Surface primary productivity was nitrogen-limited at most stations. Mean chlorophyll a concentration in the photic zone varied from 0.4 to 17.8 mg m^-3. Higher concentrations and significant subsurface accumulation of chlorophyll a, reaching 40 mg m^-3, were observed in July at stations near the ice-edge than those in open water. No chlorophyll maximum was noted in September, when values ranged from 0.4 to 2.2 mg m^-3. It is postulated that the contribution of sea-ice algae to the total chlorophyll content can be substantial, but that the stay of these cells in the water column may not be long. Non-linear regression estimates from solar radiation and chlorophyll-specific primary productivity data showed a maximal photosynthetic rate of 18 mg C mg chlorophyll a ^-1 half-day^-1, an optimal light intensity of 54 langleys half-day^-1, and markedly reduced primary productivity at moderately higher light intensities. These features indicate that phytoplankton was shade-adapted.