Characterizing Exposure to and Sharing Knowledge of Drivers of Environmental Change in the St. Lawrence System in Canada

Enhancing coastal areas governance for sustainable tourism in the context of urbanization and climate change in eastern Thailand

Mountain ecosystems have special significance for biodiversity and are vulnerable to climate and other environmental changes. However, few assessments of drivers of change have been conducted in these areas in comparison to other more accessible biomes. In this study, we developed an objective and broad definition of a mountain bird, and systematically reviewed the existing literature for the 34 European mountain and upland species identified in order to quantify which drivers of environmental change have been most consistently associated with positive or negative demographic responses. Raptors and gamebirds were the most‐studied species, whereas mountain specialists and arctic–alpine species were little studied. Using a standardized threat classification, the analyses reported significant negative impacts of hunting, collision with energy‐generation infrastructures, predation by competitive species, human disturbance and poisoning. There were significant positive effects for management of non‐target species, but less support for effects of drivers operating over longer timescales, such as climate and land‐use changes. Analysis of trends in drivers found evidence of increasing temperatures and vegetation encroachment, whereas agricultural impacts decreased, which was largely related to abandonment of grazing. A lack of fine‐grained studies investigating ecological mechanisms and population responses to widespread impacts were highlighted. We have found that some drivers are well studied, but we need to collect more detailed and longer‐term data on species requirements and on the impacts that bird populations face to devise priorities for conservation action and research for mountain and upland birds.

Extremely voluminous magmatic systems known as large igneous provinces (LIPs) punctuate Earth’s history, and the gases they release plausibly link large-scale geodynamic and magmatic processes with major climate shifts in Earth’s geological record. However, quantifying the relationships between magmatism, gas release and environmental changes remains challenging. In this Review, we explore the major insights and outstanding questions regarding the linked evolution of mantle melting, expansive magmatic systems and the redistribution of volatiles from the solid Earth to the atmosphere. The evolution of mantle melt generation during LIP episodes sets the fundamental tempo of magma emplacement throughout the crust. The progression of crustal LIP magmatism and associated hydrothermal activity help shape the chemical evolution of the continental lithosphere and surface environment. Percolation of magmatic and metamorphic volatiles can decouple the tempo of gas release — a potential key driver of environmental changes — from the tempo of extrusive volcanic activity. LIPs demonstrate how large-scale magmatic systems interact with the surrounding lithosphere to propel evolving regimes of magma and volatile transfer through the crust. New, temporally resolved constraints on the evolution of LIP plumbing systems are needed to keep pace with increasingly precise timelines of palaeoenvironmental change during LIP emplacement. Major environmental disruptions throughout Earth’s history are often linked to extensive magmatic events, termed large igneous provinces. This Review explores the coupled evolution of mantle melting, magmatism and volatile release over the life cycle of large igneous provinces.

Environmental change drivers (ECDs) impact ecological communities in various ways, from enrichment that increases species' performance and abundance, to stressors that reduce their reproduction and growth. These effects can affect species coexistence as well as impact ecosystem functioning and the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF). Predicting the impact of ECDs on communities and BEF relationships requires understanding how ECDs affect fundamental population parameters, including intrinsic rate of increase (r), carrying capacity (K), and interspecific interactions ( ). Here, we use numerical simulations based on theoretical models to show the explicit links between these parameters and the nature of BEF relationships. Depending on the mean and variance of the effects of ECDs on community members, BEF relationships increase or decrease in both their intercept and slope. We further derive hypotheses about how BEF relationships will be affected by multiple ECDs or when we consider multiple ecosystem functions. Our simple approach to understanding how ECDs affect BEF relationships provides a robust framework to explain why disparate studies and meta-analyses come to opposing conclusions about resilience or sensitivity of BEF relationships to anthropogenic influences. We show that modeling approaches offer a generalized and predictive understanding to guide biodiversity conservation, restoration, and green infrastructure design under environmental change.

Human-induced environmental and climate change are widely blamed for causing rapid global biodiversity loss, but direct estimation of the proportion of biodiversity lost at local or regional scales are still infrequent. This prevents us from quantifying the main and interactive effects of anthropogenic environmental and climate change on species loss. Here, we demonstrate that the estimated proportion of species loss of 252 key protected vertebrate species at a county level of China during the past half century was 27.2% for all taxa, 47.7% for mammals, 28.8% for amphibians and reptiles and 19.8% for birds. Both human population increase and species richness showed significant positive correlations with species loss of all taxa combined, mammals, birds, and amphibians and reptiles. Temperature increase was positively correlated with all-taxa and bird species loss. Precipitation increase was negatively correlated with species loss of birds. Human population change and species richness showed more significant interactions with the other correlates of species loss. High species richness regions had higher species loss under the drivers of human environmental and climate change than low-richness regions. Consequently, ongoing human environmental and climate changes are expected to perpetuate more negative effects on the survival of key vertebrate species, particularly in high-biodiversity regions.

Resilience theory has emerged as a holistic concept well suited to analyzing tourism systems and which promises important insights into the sustainability of tourism destinations in the face of accelerating global environmental change (GEC). This article presents empirical research into the social-ecological resilience of tour operators using the case study destination of the Otago Peninsula, Dunedin, New Zealand. It addresses the following research question: How do birdwatching tour operators build resilience to drivers of environmental change, including climatic drivers, into their operations? Qualitative interviews with providers of a specific nature tourism sector activity – birdwatching – were conducted with stakeholders including tour operators, conservation organizations, and local government members. The findings highlight current and possible future challenges to birdwatching tourism on the Otago Peninsula. The paper introduces a conceptual framework which highlights the tour operators’ main coping strategies in response to key perceived social-ecological system (SES) drivers of change. Overall, tour operators perceived their main social-ecological resilience to be the diversity of the species of the Otago Peninsula, their business experience, and the strength of their local stakeholder network to respond to SES crises.

Development of an estuarine climate change monitoring program

Rapidly melting sea ice and thereto related access to formerly ice-covered petroleum reserves and future shipping lanes place the Polar Regions (particularly the Arctic) at the nexus of discourses on geopolitics and on the Anthropocene. Against this background, various studies across distinct fields in the social sciences have focused on polar politics mostly from a state-centric perspective but often neglected the growing significance of non-state actors in regional cooperation. This article discusses how state actors who formerly shaped and to this day dominate regional polar politics increasingly rely on the expertise, knowledge and financial resources of non-state actors (NGOs, private actors and rightsholder groups) in order to meet the complex multi-level challenges arising from environmental changes in both Polar Regions. The article relates particularly to the thematic field of oil and gas development, which is regarded as a driver of environmental changes in the Anthropocene and to which the Polar Regions (also known as “Climate Change Barometers” due to their vulnerability to environmental change) are very sensitive. As this is a current concern controversially discussed particularly in view of the changing Arctic (oil and gas development is prohibited in Antarctica at least until 2048), this article draws particularly on empirical findings from policy-making in the Arctic Council. To illustrate the scope of the argument, however, this article also considers the role of non-state actors in the Antarctic Treaty System and shows how through the inclusion of non-state actors political constellations have changed in polar politics. Against this backdrop, this article argues that the growing significance of non-state actors in polar regional cooperation indicates how the general say of state and non-state actors in international politics likely changes in the light of the age of the Anthropocene.

There is scientific consensus that human activities have been altering the atmospheric composition and are a key driver of global climate and environmental changes since pre-industrial times (IPCC, 2013). It is a pressing priority to understand the Earth system response to atmospheric aerosol input from diverse sources, which so far remain one of the largest uncertainties in climate studies (Boucher et al., 2014; Forster et al., 2007). As the second most abundant component (in terms of mass) of atmospheric aerosols, mineral dust exerts tremendous impacts on Earth’s climate and environment through various interaction and feedback processes. Dust can also have beneficial effects where it deposits: Central and South American rain forests get most of their mineral nutrients from the Sahara; iron-poor ocean regions get iron; and dust in Hawaii increases plantain growth. In northern China as well as the midwestern United States, ancient dust storm deposits known as loess are highly fertile soils, but they are also a significant source of contemporary dust storms when soil-securing vegetation is disturbed. Accurate assessments of dust emission are of great importance to improvements in quantifying the diverse dust impacts.

Anthropogenic habitat loss and climate change are among the major threats to biodiversity. Bioclimatic zones such as the boreal and arctic regions are undergoing rapid environmental change, which will likely trigger changes in wildlife communities. Disentangling the effects of different drivers of environmental change on species is fundamental to better understand population dynamics under changing conditions. Therefore, in this study we investigate the synergistic effect of winter and summer weather conditions and habitat type on the abundance of 17 migratory boreal waterbird species breeding in Finland using three decades (1986–2015) of count data. We found that above‐average temperatures and precipitations across the western and northern range of the wintering grounds have a positive impact on breeding numbers in the following season, particularly for waterbirds breeding in eutrophic wetlands. Conversely, summer temperatures did not seem to affect waterbird abundance. Moreover, waterbird abundance was higher in eutrophic than in oligotrophic wetlands, but long term trends indicated that populations are decreasing faster in eutrophic than in oligotrophic wetlands. Our results suggest that global warming may apparently benefit waterbirds, e.g. by increased winter survival due to more favourable winter weather conditions. However, the observed population declines, particularly in eutrophic wetlands, may also indicate that the quality of breeding habitat is rapidly deteriorating through increased eutrophication in Finland which override the climatic effects. The findings of this study highlight the importance of embracing a holistic approach, from the level of a single catchment up to the whole flyway, in order to effectively address the threats that waterbirds face on their breeding as well as wintering grounds.

Moving from ecological impacts to social vulnerability in data-scarce places

Since the Palaeozoic era, fire as a potent driver of environmental changes, has dramatically shaped the terrestrial ecosystems. Fire affects soil structure and composition, which in turn affects the floral diversity of an area. This research work aims to examine the impact of fire on vegetation and the physicochemical nature of the soil in fire-affected and fire-free sites across the Mahaban and the surrounding forests, Swabi District, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. Quadrat quantitative ecological techniques were used for vegetation sampling in fire-free and fire-affected sites. In total, 219 plant species belonging to 173 genera and 70 families were recorded. Among the 219 plant species, 173 species were recorded from fire-free sites and the remaining 122 species were from fire-affected sites. The incidence of fire results in elevated organic matter, nitrogen, phosphorus, and lower calcium carbonate concentrations in the soil. The greatest species richness and evenness were observed across the fire-free sites. Our study concludes that the influence of edaphic and topographic factors on species richness varies between fire-affected and fire-free sites. Fire has significantly altered the nutrient availability in the studied region, and this is confirmed by soil analysis and vegetation research. It is suggested that further research in the field of fire ecology can produce valuable insights.

Assessing, valuing and mapping ecosystem services at city level: The case of Uppsala (Sweden)

Anthropogenic activities, such as grazing by domestic animals, are considered drivers of environmental changes that may influence the structure of interaction networks. The study of individual‐based networks allows testing how species‐level interaction patterns emerge from the pooled interaction modes of individuals within populations. Exponential random graph models (ERGMs) examine the global structure of networks by allowing the inclusion of specific node (i.e. interacting partners) properties as explanatory covariates. Here we assessed the structure of individual plant–frugivore interaction networks and the ecological variables that influence the mode of interactions under different land‐use (grazed versus ungrazed protected areas). We quantified the number of visits, the number of fruits removed per visit and the interaction strength of mammal frugivore species at each individual tree. Additionally we quantified ecological variables at the individual, microhabitat, neighborhood and habitat scales that generated interaction network structure under the different land uses. Individual plant–frugivore networks were significantly modular in both land uses but the number of modules was higher in the grazed areas. We found interaction networks for grazed and ungrazed lands were structured by phenotypic traits of individual trees, by the microhabitat beneath the tree canopy and were affected by habitat modifications of anthropogenic origin. The neighborhood surrounding each individual plant influenced plant–frugivore interactions only at the grazed‐land trees. We conclude that anthropogenic land uses influence the topological patterns of plant–frugivore networks and the frugivore visitation to trees through modification of both habitat complexity and the ecological traits underlying interactions between individual plants and frugivore species.

Conceptualizing food systems for global environmental change research