Longevity can buffer plant and animal populations against changing climatic variability

Both means and year-to-year variances of climate variables such as temperature and precipitation are predicted to change. However, the potential impact of changing climatic variability on the fate of populations has been largely unexamined. We analyzed multiyear demographic data for 36 plant and animal species with a broad range of life histories and types of environment to ask how sensitive their long-term stochastic population growth rates are likely to be to changes in the means and standard deviations of vital rates (survival, reproduction, growth) in response to changing climate. We quantified responsiveness using elasticities of the long-term population growth rate predicted by stochastic projection matrix models. Short-lived species (insects and annual plants and algae) are predicted to be more strongly (and negatively) affected by increasing vital rate variability relative to longer-lived species (perennial plants, birds, ungulates). Taxonomic affiliation has little power to explain sensitivity to increasing variability once longevity has been taken into account. Our results highlight the potential vulnerability of short-lived species to an increasingly variable climate, but also suggest that problems associated with short-lived undesirable species (agricultural pests, disease vectors, invasive weedy plants) may be exacerbated in regions where climate variability decreases.     

Determinants of habitat association in a sympatric clade of marine fishes

Triplefin fishes reach their greatest diversity in New Zealand with 26 endemic species, and habitat diversification has been implicated as a key factor in the divergence of this group. Despite this, it is unknown whether species-specific habitat patterns in these sympatric fishes are established by passive processes (e.g. differential mortality) or by habitat selection during settlement. We investigate this question by comparing the habitat associations of new recruits with those of conspecific adults in five species. In addition, the amount of variation in habitat use of conspecific recruits and adults was calculated to identify ontogenetic shifts in habitat association. The results indicated that while there were some differences between recruit and adult habitats, these differences were small in magnitude and habitat use of new recruits was similar to that of adult conspecifics. This finding was further supported by the small difference in variation of habitat use between conspecific recruits and adults. The study suggests that new recruits are actively involved in the selection of habitats at settlement and maintain the use of these throughout demersal life. Habitat use in these territorial species has a large influence on mate choice, thus habitat selection by new recruits would provide a powerful mechanism for pre-zygotic isolation between individuals with different habitat preferences. Together these findings support the notion that habitat diversification has been a major component in the radiation of this sympatric group.     

Social parasitism of queens and workers in the Cape honeybee (<Emphasis Type="Italic">Apis mellifera capensis</Emphasis>)

Workers of a queenless honeybee colony can requeen the colony by raising a new queen from a young worker brood laid by the old queen. If this process fails, the colony becomes hopelessly queenless and workers activate their ovaries to lay eggs themselves. Laying Cape honeybee workers (Apis mellifera capensis) produce female offspring as an additional pathway for requeening. We tested the frequency of successful requeening in ten hopelessly queenless colonies. DNA genotyping revealed that only 8% of all queens reared in hopelessly queenless colonies were the offspring of native laying worker offspring. The vast majority of queens resulted from parasitic takeovers by foreign queens (27%) and invading parasitic workers (19%). This shows that hopelessly queenless colonies typically die due to parasitic takeovers and that the parasitic laying workers are an important life history strategy more frequently used than in providing a native queen to rescue the colony. Parasitism by foreign queens, which might enter colonies alone or accompanied by only a small worker force is much more frequent than previously considered and constitutes an additional life history strategy in Cape honeybees.     

Methodological convergence as an issue within environmental cognition research

Two perspectives in the analysis of pointing and mapping tasks as the measure of representations of the large-scale environment are examined. These two perspectives are: (1) an individual difference approach; and (2) a cognitive representational approach. Convergence between methods assessing the same geographical/spatial knowledge is necessary as evidence for the existence of unified cognitive-spatial representations of the environment.Three sets of analyses interrelate performance on pointing and mapping tasks. In the first analysis, a confirmatory factor analytic model is applied to short tests of pointing and mapping accuracy to determine whether one or two factors are needed to account for covariation between the tests. In the second analysis, covariation among errors in pointing and mapping of specific locations is partitioned into general and specific method factors using the Schmid-Leiman procedure. In the third analysis, pointing errors for identical locations within the mapping and pointing tasks are directly compared on the basis of directional errors.The three analyses indicate that: (1) tests of pointing and mapping measure highly related abilities; (2) the targets used in pointing and mapping tasks are of differential importance in identifying general and specific method factors; and (3) there is little or no direct correspondence between directional errors made in pointing tasks and those occurring in mapping tasks for the same locations.When results of the three analyses are examined in relationship to criteria for convergence of pointing and mapping tasks, little evidence is found to suggest that directional errors in these tasks arise from a unified mental representation of the geographical environment. However, substantial predictable individual differences are apparent for both tasks.     

Long-term dynamics of biomass production, soil chemical properties and plant species composition of alluvial grassland after the cessation of fertilizer application in the Czech Republic

The resilience, the ability of an ecosystem to recover after termination of perturbation, of highly productive Alopecurus grassland was investigated after the cessation of the following long-term fertilizer treatments applied under a two- or three-cut management regime: unfertilized control, PK, N₁₀₀PK, N₂₀₀PK, N₃₀₀PK and N₄₀₀PK. Annual application rates of pure nutrients per hectare were 0–400 kg for N, 40 kg for P and 100 kg for K. The dynamics of biomass production were measured for 16 years and the effect of former fertilizer treatments on soil chemical properties, biomass chemical properties, plant species composition and species richness were investigated 16 years after the last application of fertilizers. It was concluded that 16 years was not long enough to achieve resilience in plant-available soil P and K concentrations, N/P ratios in the plant biomass or plant species composition, but that it was long enough to achieve resilience in species richness. In the case of biomass production the effect of former fertilizer treatments was apparent in 10 of the 16 seasons investigated, indicating that resilience in biomass production must be evaluated using data from more than 1 vegetation season. The results of the study stress the necessity for long-term research because of high year-to-year variability in biomass production as well as long-term after-effects of fertilizer treatments in alluvial grassland.     

Large-scale diversity and biogeography of benthic copepods in European waters

A large-scale database concerning benthic copepods from the Arctic, Baltic Sea, North Sea, British Isles, Adriatic Sea and Crete was compiled to assess species richness, biodiversity, communities, ecological range size and biogeographical patterns. The Adriatic showed the highest evenness and the most species-rich communities. Assemblages from the North Sea, British Isles, Baltic and Crete had a lower evenness. The British Isles were characterised by impoverished communities. The ecological specificity of copepod species showed two diverging trends: higher specificity of species in more diverse assemblages was observed in the Adriatic, North Sea and Baltic. A uniformly high species specificity disregarding sample diversity was found on Crete and in the British Isles. Benthic copepod communities showed distinct patterns that clearly fit the predefined geographical regions. Communities were distinguishable and β-diversity was found to be high around Europe, indicating a high species turnover on the scale of this investigation. The British Isles and the North Sea were found to be faunistic links to the Baltic and the Arctic.     

Catalyzing sustainable fisheries management through behavior change interventions

Small-scale fisheries are an important livelihood and primary protein source for coastal communities in many of the poorest regions in the world, yet many are overfished and thus require effective and scalable management solutions. Positive ecological and socioeconomic responses to management typically lag behind immediate costs borne by fishers from fishing pressure reductions necessary for fisheries recovery. These short-term costs challenge the long-term success of these interventions. However, social marketing may increase perceptions of management benefits before ecological and socioeconomic benefits are fully realized, driving new social norms and ultimately long-term sustainable behavior change. By conducting underwater visual surveys to quantify ecological conditions and by conducting household surveys with community members to quantify their perceptions of management support and socioeconomic conditions, we assessed the impact of a standardized small-scale fisheries management intervention that was implemented across 41 sites in Brazil, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The intervention combines TURF reserves (community-based territorial use rights for fishing coupled with no-take marine reserves) with locally tailored social-marketing behavior change campaigns. Leveraging data across 22 indicators and 4 survey types, along with data from 3 control sites, we found that ecological and socioeconomic impacts varied and that communities supported the intervention and were already changing their fishing practices. These results suggest that communities were developing new social norms and fishing more sustainably before long-term ecological and socioeconomic benefits of fisheries management materialized.     

Developments in the Framing of Climate Change as a Public Health Issue in US Newspapers

News media are major channels for the transmission of information to the public and deliver news about the latest developments regarding health issues such as climate change. How the media frame such information may enhance public understanding and enable appropriate responses by individuals and communities. This study follows up on previous research examining media portrayals of climate change in US newspapers from 1 January 2007 to 31 December 2008. Here, we content analyze 270 news stories on climate change as a public health issue from five US newspapers between 1 January 2011 and 31 December 2012. Findings indicate that the total number of articles about climate change declined while emphasis on the public health dimension of climate change increased. The types of generic news frames (i.e., dramatic/substantive) most frequently used did not considerably change across the two time periods, however. To explain this, we discuss ways in which people may assess and spark change in news framing of public issues to better reach and influence a range of audiences.     

Air Pollution Damage to the Forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California

Numerous oxidant-injured ponderosa pine and other tree species have been detected in the lower elevation forests of the southern Sierra Nevada mountain range of California in the Sequoia National Forest, Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks, and on state and private lands. Affected pines were observed in a broad band following the many ridges that rise above the Central Valley floor to the 1900-2600 m elevation. Slight symptoms of ozone chlorotic mottle on ponderosa pine appeared from about 1000 m altitude, increased in severity as elevation increased and then diminished in severity above 2600 m. An apparent east to west gradient of disease was discovered; severity lessened as distance from the Central Valley increased. Atmospheric monitoring in three forested sites suggests that ozone occurs in doses sufficient to elicit symptoms of this widespread disease.