scholarly journals Historical species losses in bumblebee evolution

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 20141049 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fabien L. Condamine ◽  
Heather M. Hines
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Species Loss ◽  
Population Declines ◽  
Modern Species ◽  
Dominant Feature ◽  
History Of ◽  
Species Dynamics

Investigating how species coped with past environmental changes informs how modern species might face human-induced global changes, notably via the study of historical extinction, a dominant feature that has shaped current biodiversity patterns. The genus Bombus , which comprises 250 mostly cold-adapted species, is an iconic insect group sensitive to current global changes. Through a combination of habitat loss, pathogens and climate change, bumblebees have experienced major population declines, and several species are threatened with extinction. Using a time-calibrated tree of Bombus , we analyse their diversification dynamics and test hypotheses about the role of extinction during major environmental changes in their evolutionary history. These analyses support a history of fluctuating species dynamics with two periods of historical species loss in bumblebees. Dating estimates gauge that one of these events started after the middle Miocene climatic optimum and one during the early Pliocene. Both periods are coincident with global climate change that may have extirpated Bombus species. Interestingly, bumblebees experienced high diversification rates during the Plio-Pleistocene glaciations. We also found evidence for a major species loss in the past one million years that may be continuing today.

Diatoms in Saline Lakes Paleoclimate and Paleoecology Interpretations

2007 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 149-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik J. Ekdahl
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Warming ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Water Conservation ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Light Availability ◽  
Ionic Concentration ◽  
Mitigation Strategies ◽  
Environmental Response

Average global temperatures are predicted to rise over the next century and changes in precipitation, humidity, and drought frequency will likely accompany this global warming. Understanding associated changes in continental precipitation and temperature patterns in response to global change is an important component of long-range environmental planning. For example, agricultural management plans that account for decreased precipitation over time will be less susceptible to the effects of drought through implementation of water conservation techniques.A detailed understanding of environmental response to past climate change is key to understanding environmental changes associated with global climate change. To this end, diatoms are sensitive to a variety of limnologic parameters, including nutrient concentration, light availability, and the ionic concentration and composition of the waters that they live in (e.g. salinity). Diatoms from numerous environments have been used to reconstruct paleosalinity levels, which in turn have been used as a proxy records for regional and local paleoprecipitation. Long-term records of salinity or paleoprecipitation are valuable in reconstructing Quaternary paleoclimate, and are important in terms of developing mitigation strategies for future global climate change. High-resolution paleoclimate records are also important in groundtruthing global climate simulations, especially in regions where the consequences of global warming may be severe.

scholarly journals Small business and its place in promoting sustainable development

2021 ◽  
Vol 250 ◽  
pp. 06007
Author(s):  
Elena Korneeva ◽  
Natalia Skornichenko ◽  
Tatiana Oruch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Small Business ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Small And Medium Enterprises ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
The Sustainable Development ◽  
Development Goals ◽  
Medium Enterprises

Sustainable development is becoming a very important issue in the 21st century. Facing global changes such as the global warming, global climate change, as well as other pressing issue, all spheres of economy and social life need to take part in mitigating them and preventing disasters from happening. Our article studies the role of the small business in the above processes and the place of the small business in promoting sustainable development through its actions, public and social awareness and responsibility. We show how even small and medium enterprises can become a decisive power in tackling the climate change and promoting green thinking and sustainable awareness. This can be achieved through enhancing social responsibility of business companies which can greatly contribute to supporting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and promoting sustainable economic growth.

GEOLOGICAL MEMORY OF STARUNJA – AS THE COURSE OF PROTECTION OF THE WORLD NATURAL HERITAGE IN CARPATHIAN REGION OF UKRAINE

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-25
Author(s):  
Oleg Adamenko ◽  
Yaroslav Adamenko ◽  
Kateryna Radlovska ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Upper Pleistocene ◽  
Carpathian Region ◽  
The World ◽  
The Village ◽  
World Natural Heritage

Paleontological location of the Pleistocene fauna of hairy rhinos and mammoths near the village. Starunya Bogorodchany district of Ivano-Frankivsk region (Prykarpathian, Ukraine) is considered as a paleoclimatic rapper of global changes and a stratigraphic "bridge" linking stratigraphic patterns of the Upper Pleistocene of Western Europe and the plain territory of Ukraine. This is important for the reconstruction of global climate change and the transformation of natural and man-made geosystems.

Climate Change and Cultural Dynamics: Lessons from the Past for the Future

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Anderson ◽  
Kirk A. Maasch
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cultural Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Important Lesson ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Technological Civilization ◽  
Nuclear Warfare

As the twenty-first century winds onward, it is becoming increasingly clear that understanding how climate affects human cultural systems is critically important. Indeed, it has been argued by many researchers that how we respond to changing global climate is one of the greatest scientific and political challenges facing our planetary technological civilization, comparable and closely intertwined with concerns about biological or nuclear warfare, famine, disease, overpopulation, or environmental degradation. By any reasonable evaluation of the evidence, this century, and likely the several centuries that follow it, will be characterized by dramatic climate change, perhaps as significant in terms of its impact on our species as any climatic episodes that have occurred in the past. What we don’t know with much certainty is how these environmental changes will play out across the planet, and how individuals as well as nation states will respond to them. Archaeology has a major role to play in helping us move through this period of crisis, however, by showing us how human cultures in the past responded to dramatic changes in climate. As the work of many archaeological scholars has shown, climate change has not invariably proven to be a bad thing: it is how people respond to it that is critical (e.g. Anderson et al. 2007b; Cooper and Sheets 2012; Crumley 2000, 2006, 2007; Hardesty 2007; McAnany and Yoffee 2010; McIntosh et al. 2000; Redman 2004a; Sandweiss and Quilter 2008; Sassaman and Anderson 1996; Tainter 2000). Archaeology working in tandem with a host of palaeoenvironmental and historical disciplines has lessons for our modern world and, as this volume demonstrates, we as a profession are making great strides in getting our message out. Perhaps the most important lesson from the past is that people, through their actions, are the drivers of cultural change, including response to climate change. Societies are not, however, monolithic entities that ‘chose’ to succeed or fail; people as individuals, groups, or factions through their actions generate outcomes, and often some demonstrate remarkable flexibility and resilience (Cooper and Sheets 2012; Diamond 2005; McAnany and Yoffee 2010).

Memories and Expectations of Environmental Disaster: Some Lessons from the Marshall Islands

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rudiak-Gould
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Environmental Disaster ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Natural Protection ◽  
Human Habitation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Public Imagination

The Republic of the Marshall Islands, an archipelago of low-lying coral atolls in eastern Micronesia, is one of four sovereign nations that may be rendered uninhabitable by climate change in the present century. It is not merely sea level rise which is expected to undermine life in these islands, but the synergy of multiple climatic threats (Barnett and Adger 2003). Rising oceans and increasingly frequent typhoons will exacerbate flooding at the same time that the islands’ natural protection—coral reefs—will die from warming waters and ocean acidification. Fresh water resources will be threatened by both droughts and salt contamination from flooding. Although the reaction of the coral atoll environment to climate change is uncertain, it is likely that the islands will no longer be able to support human habitation within fifty or a hundred years (Barnett and Adger 2003: 326)—quite possibly within the lifetimes of many Marshall Islanders living today. In the public imagination, climate change in vulnerable, remote locations is the intrusion of contamination into a formerly pristine environment, of danger into a once secure sanctuary, of change into a once static microcosm (see Lynas 2004: 81, 124). Archaeologists, of course, know better than this: every place has a history of environmental upheavals, and the Marshall Islands is no exception. Researchers agree that coral atolls are among the most precarious and marginal environments that humans have managed to inhabit (Weisler 1999; Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 27), existing only ‘on the margins of sustainability’ (Weisler 2001). The islands in fact only recently formed: while the reefs are tens of millions of years old, the islets that sit on them emerged from the sea only recently, probably around 2000 BP (Weisler et al. 2000: 194; Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 31–2), just before the first people arrived (Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 31–2). The new home that these early seafarers found was not so much an ancient safe haven as a fragile geological experiment—land whose very existence was tenuous long before humans were altering the global climate.

scholarly journals Forecasting the impacts of chemical pollution and climate change interactions on the health of wildlife

2015 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 669-689 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela D. Noyes ◽  
Sean C. Lema
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Future Climate ◽  
Chemical Pollution ◽  
Climate Scenarios ◽  
Chemical Toxicity ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
Chemical Exposures

Abstract Global climate change is impacting organisms, biological communities and ecosystems around the world. While most research has focused on characterizing how the climate is changing, including modeling future climatic conditions and predicting the impacts of these conditions on biodiversity, it is also the case that climate change is altering the environmental impacts of chemical pollution. Future climate conditions are expected to influence both the worldwide distribution of chemicals and the toxicological consequences of chemical exposures to organisms. Many of the environmental changes associated with a warming global climate (e.g., increased average – and possibly extreme – temperatures; intense periods of drier and wetter conditions; reduced ocean pH; altered salinity dynamics in estuaries) have the potential to enhance organism susceptibility to chemical toxicity. Additionally, chemical exposures themselves may impair the ability of organisms to cope with the changing environmental conditions of the shifting climate. Such reciprocity in the interactions between climate change and chemicals illustrates the complexity inherent in predicting the toxicological consequences of chemical exposures under future climate scenarios. Here, we summarize what is currently known about the potential reciprocal effects of climate change and chemical toxicity on wildlife, and depict current approaches and ongoing challenges for incorporating climate effects into chemical testing and assessment. Given the rapid pace of new man-made chemistries, the development of accurate and rapid methods to evaluate multiple chemical and non-chemical stressors in an ecologically relevant context will be critical to understanding toxic and endocrine-disrupting effects of chemical pollutants under future climate scenarios.

scholarly journals Gene expression responses to thermal shifts in the endangered lichen Lobaria pulmonaria

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tania Chavarria Pizarro ◽  
Philipp Resl ◽  
Aleksandar Janjic ◽  
Silke Werth
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Gene Expression ◽  
Genetic Factors ◽  
Environmental Changes ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Thermal Conditions ◽  
Strong Response ◽  
Lobaria Pulmonaria ◽  
Green Algal

Anthropogenic climate change has led to unprecedented shifts in temperature across many ecosystems. In a context of rapid environmental changes, acclimation is an important process as it may influence the capacity of organisms to survive under novel thermal conditions. Mechanisms of acclimation could involve upregulation of stress response genes involved in protein folding, DNA damage repair and the regulation of signal transduction genes, along with a simultaneous downregulation of genes involved in growth or cell cycle, in order to maintain cellular functions and equilibria. We transplanted Lobaria pulmonaria lichens originating from different forests to determine the relative effects of long-term acclimation and genetic factors on the variability in expression of mycobiont and photobiont genes. We found a strong response of mycobiont and photobiont to high temperatures, regardless of sample origin. The green-algal photobiont had an overall lower response than the mycobiont. The gene expression of both symbionts was also influenced by acclimation to transplantation sites and by genetic factors. Lobaria pulmonaria seems to have evolved powerful molecular pathways to deal with environmental fluctuations and stress and can acclimate to new habitats by transcriptomic convergence. Although L. pulmonaria has the molecular machinery to counteract short-term thermal stress, survival of lichens like L. pulmonaria depends mostly on their long-term positive carbon balance, which can be compromised by warmer temperatures and reduced precipitation, and both these outcomes have been predicted for Central Europe in connection with global climate change

scholarly journals Urban climate in Central European cities and global climate change

2018 ◽  
Vol 51-52 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anita Bokwa ◽  
Petr Dobrovolný ◽  
Tamás Gál ◽  
Jan Geletič ◽  
Ágnes Gulyás ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Urban Climate ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Climate Modelling ◽  
Complex Data ◽  
Central European ◽  
European Cities ◽  
The Impact

Urban areas are among those most endangered with the potential global climate changes. The studies concerning the impact of global changes on local climate of cities are of a high significance for the urban inhabitants' health and wellbeing. This paper is the final report of a project (Urban climate in Central European cities and global climate change) with the aim to raise the public awareness on those issues in five Central European cities: Szeged (Hungary), Brno (Czech Republic), Bratislava (Slovakia), Kraków (Poland) and Vienna (Austria). Within the project, complex data concerning local geomorphological features, land use and long-term climatological data were used to perform the climate modelling analyses using the model MUKLIMO_3 provided by the German Weather Service (DWD).

scholarly journals Climate Imperialism: Ecocriticism, Postcolonialism, and Global Climate Change

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 138-155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Hartnett
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Fossil Fuels ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Indigenous Resistance ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Form ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Climate Crisis

Global climate change threatens to kill or displace hundreds of thousands of people and will irrevocably change the lifestyles of practically everyone on the planet. However, the effect of imperialism and colonialism on climate change is a topic that has not received adequate scrutiny. Empire has been a significant factor in the rise of fossil fuels. The complicated connections between conservation and empire often make it difficult to reconcile the two disparate fields of ecocriticism and postcolonial studies. This paper will discuss how empire and imperialism have contributed to, and continue to shape, the ever-looming threat of global climate crisis, especially as it manifests in the tropics. Global climate change reinforces disparate economic, social, and racial conditions that were started, fostered, and thrived throughout the long history of colonization, inscribing climate change as a new, slow form of imperialism that is retracing the pathways that colonialism and globalism have already formed. Ultimately, it may only be by considering climate change through a postcolonial lens and utilizing indigenous resistance that the damage of this new form of climate imperialism can be undone.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document