Abstracts from the 132nd Meeting of the Tennessee Academy of Science November 18, 2022

Identification of refugia is an increasingly important adaptation strategy in conservation planning under rapid anthropogenic climate change. Granite outcrops (GOs) provide extraordinary diversity, including a wide range of taxa, vegetation types and habitats in the Southwest Australian Floristic Region (SWAFR). However, poor characterization of GOs limits the capacity of conservation planning for refugia under climate change. A novel means for the rapid identification of potential refugia is presented, based on the assessment of local-scale environment and vegetation structure in a wider region. This approach was tested on GOs across the SWAFR. Airborne discrete return Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data and Red Green and Blue (RGB) imagery were acquired. Vertical vegetation profiles were used to derive 54 structural classes. Structural vegetation types were described in three areas for supervised classification of a further 13 GOs across the region. Habitat descriptions based on 494 vegetation plots on and around these GOs were used to quantify relationships between environmental variables, ground cover and canopy height. The vegetation surrounding GOs is strongly related to structural vegetation types (Kappa = 0.8) and to its spatial context. Water gaining sites around GOs are characterized by taller and denser vegetation in all areas. The strong relationship between rainfall, soil-depth, and vegetation structure (R2 of 0.8–0.9) allowed comparisons of vegetation structure between current and future climate. Significant shifts in vegetation structural types were predicted and mapped for future climates. Water gaining areas below granite outcrops were identified as important putative refugia. A reduction in rainfall may be offset by the occurrence of deeper soil elsewhere on the outcrop. However, climate change interactions with fire and water table declines may render our conclusions conservative. The LiDAR-based mapping approach presented enables the integration of site-based biotic assessment with structural vegetation types for the rapid delineation and prioritization of key refugia.

Emissions from motor vehicles, power plants, deforestation, and other human sources are warming the Earth and damaging ecosystems and human well-being. Field observations from around the world have detected significant changes in terrestrial ecosystems and attributed them to climate change rather than other factors. Climate change has shifted the ranges of plants, animals, and biomes, altered the timing of life events such as plant flowering and animal migration, increased wildfires, and driven 75 frog and other amphibian species to extinction. Projections of future climate change and analyses of vulnerability indicate that unless we substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions, further warming may overwhelm the adaptive capacity of many species and ecosystems. Climate change could convert extensive land areas from one biome to another, alter global biogeochemical cycles, and isolate or drive numerous species to extinction. Natural resource managers are developing adaptation measures to help species and ecosystems cope with the impacts of climate change.

Malaria is a serious global health issue, resulting in an estimated 219 million cases and 660,000 deaths in 2010, many of them in Africa.1 Malaria transmission is tied closely to environmental variables such as rainfall and temperature—even when there’s plenty of rainfall to produce breeding pools for the Anopheles mosquitoes that spread malaria, hot temperatures can hamper mosquito development.2 Some early projections predicted that climate change would cause an increase in malaria cases,3 but more recent reports suggest it’s more likely that cases will shift in their distribution rather than rise overall.4 In this issue of EHP investigators at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) report their projections, using a new modeling tool, that there probably will not be a significant increase in malaria prevalence in West Africa, even during a worst-case scenario of increased rainfall in the region.5 The authors used the Hydrology, Entomology, and Malaria Transmission Simulator (HYDREMATS) to estimate the impact of climate change on malaria transmission in West Africa. HYDREMATS is a combined hydrology and entomology model of malaria transmission developed at MIT by coauthor Elfatih A.B. Eltahir, a professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and former graduate student Arne Bomblies, now an assistant professor at the University of Vermont. The model uses high-resolution data on environmental variables including rainfall, temperature, topography, and soil conditions to model ephemeral breeding pools that form during intense rains. The model also tracks the simulated behavior of individual mosquitoes as they interact with their environment. The researchers used current climate data to model vectorial capacity, a measure of how efficiently mosquitoes spread malaria. They then looked at climate predictions for the time period 2080–2099 and determined which combination of temperature and rainfall changes corresponded to best- and worst-case scenarios in terms of malaria transmission. They conducted simulations using the best- and worst-case climate projections to predict vectorial capacity under each new scenario. The model did not include changes in malaria transmission due to interventions such as spraying, mosquito netting, and preventive medications. Figure 1 A child with malaria receives care in Sierra Leone. This country lies in a part of West Africa that is already saturated with malaria, and prevalence is not projected to increase with climate change. Figure 1 An ephemeral pool in Niger provides a perfect breeding site for Anopheles mosquitoes. This and other northern parts of West Africa could become too hot to sustain malaria. The northernmost areas studied are currently too dry and warm for effective malaria transmission. According to the model, they could become more suitable only if the climate becomes substantially wetter, but even then high temperatures likely would prohibit sustained transmission. The middle areas are expected to see a decrease in suitability for malaria transmission even under the wettest predictions of future climate. Southern areas could become even more suitable for transmission, but the persistent prevalence of malaria in these areas means a rise in cases is unlikely unless many people immigrate. Therefore, the investigators conclude, it appears unlikely, on the basis of this model, that climate change will increase malaria transmission in West Africa.5 “The main advantage of our malaria transmission model is that it provides a more detailed and direct relationship among environmental variables and malaria transmission than previous models,” says coauthor Teresa K. Yamana, a PhD student. “This is especially true for rainfall, because the timing of rain is just as important as the amount of rain. For example, more puddles form if there’s a big storm compared to if the same amount of rain falls over the course of several days.” Another strength of the study is its consideration of a wide range of climate predictions. Yamana explains that climate impact studies may be based on the climate predictions of a single model without knowing whether that model accurately represents the region of interest. Others average the predictions made by multiple models, but this is not a good strategy in the case of West Africa: “Half of the predictions say the climate will be wetter, half say it will be drier,6” she says, “so the average is something close to no change in rainfall—this could end up being very far from the truth.” Jonathan Patz, director of the Global Health Institute at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, is impressed by the researchers’ modeling because it “included a range of best- and worst-case scenarios to avoid bias. They also considered both temperature and rainfall, essential for malaria estimates.” He says, “Their findings are consistent with expectations that temperature projections alone explain only a part of malaria risk, and disease risk will considerably depend on rainfall and other environmental factors, particularly hydrological dynamics that vary by location.”

International audience

The effects of anthropogenic climate change on biodiversity are well known for some high‐profile Australian marine systems, including coral bleaching and kelp forest devastation. Less well‐published are the impacts of climate change being observed in terrestrial ecosystems, although ecological models have predicted substantial changes are likely. Detecting and attributing terrestrial changes to anthropogenic factors is difficult due to the ecological importance of extreme conditions, the noisy nature of short‐term data collected with limited resources, and complexities introduced by biotic interactions. Here, we provide a suite of case studies that have considered possible impacts of anthropogenic climate change on Australian terrestrial systems. Our intention is to provide a diverse collection of stories illustrating how Australian flora and fauna are likely responding to direct and indirect effects of anthropogenic climate change. We aim to raise awareness rather than be comprehensive. We include case studies covering canopy dieback in forests, compositional shifts in vegetation, positive feedbacks between climate, vegetation and disturbance regimes, local extinctions in plants, size changes in birds, phenological shifts in reproduction and shifting biotic interactions that threaten communities and endangered species. Some of these changes are direct and clear cut, others are indirect and less clearly connected to climate change; however, all are important in providing insights into the future state of terrestrial ecosystems. We also highlight some of the management issues relevant to conserving terrestrial communities and ecosystems in the face of anthropogenic climate change.

Uniting the Global Gastroenterology Community to Meet the Challenge of Climate Change and Non-Recyclable Waste

Abstract. River flow regimes, including long-term average flows, seasonality, low flows, high flows and other types of flow variability, play an important role for freshwater ecosystems. Thus, climate change affects freshwater ecosystems not only by increased temperatures but also by altered river flow regimes. However, with one exception, transferable quantitative relations between flow alterations and ecological responses have not yet been derived. While discharge decreases are generally considered to be detrimental for ecosystems, the effect of future discharge increases is unclear. As a first step towards a global-scale analysis of climate change impacts on freshwater ecosystems, we quantified the impact of climate change on five ecologically relevant river flow indicators, using the global water model WaterGAP 2.1g to simulate monthly time series of river discharge with a spatial resolution of 0.5 degrees. Four climate change scenarios based on two global climate models and two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios were evaluated. We compared the impact of climate change by the 2050s to the impact of water withdrawals and dams on natural flow regimes that had occurred by 2002. Climate change was computed to alter seasonal flow regimes significantly (i.e. by more than 10%) on 90% of the global land area (excluding Greenland and Antarctica), as compared to only one quarter of the land area that had suffered from significant seasonal flow regime alterations due to dams and water withdrawals. Due to climate change, the timing of the maximum mean monthly river discharge will be shifted by at least one month on one third on the global land area, more often towards earlier months (mainly due to earlier snowmelt). Dams and withdrawals had caused comparable shifts on less than 5% of the land area only. Long-term average annual river discharge is predicted to significantly increase on one half of the land area, and to significantly decrease on one quarter. Dams and withdrawals had led to significant decreases on one sixth of the land area, and nowhere to increases. Thus, by the 2050s, climate change may have impacted ecologically relevant river flow characteristics more strongly than dams and water withdrawals have up to now. The only exception refers to the decrease of the statistical low flow Q90, with significant decreases both by past water withdrawals and future climate change on one quarter of the land area. However, dam impacts are likely underestimated by our study. Considering long-term average river discharge, only a few regions, including Spain, Italy, Iraq, Southern India, Western China, the Australian Murray Darling Basin and the High Plains Aquifer in the USA, all of them with extensive irrigation, are expected to be less affected by climate change than by past anthropogenic flow alterations. In some of these regions, climate change will exacerbate the discharge reductions, while in others climate change provides opportunities for reducing past reductions. Emissions scenario B2 leads to only slightly reduced alterations of river flow regimes as compared to scenario A2 even though emissions are much smaller. The differences in alterations resulting from the two applied climate models are larger than those resulting from the two emissions scenarios. Based on general knowledge about ecosystem responses to flow alterations and data related to flow alterations by dams and water withdrawals, we expect that the computed climate change induced river flow alterations will impact freshwater ecosystems more strongly than past anthropogenic alterations.

Fire regime is affected by climate and human settlements. In the Mediterranean, the predicted climate change is likely to exacerbate fire prone weather conditions, but the mid- to long-term impact of climate change on fire regime is not easily predictable. A negative feedback via fuel reduction, for instance, might cause a non-linear response of burned area to fire weather. Also, the number of fires escaping initial control could grow dramatically if the fire meteorology is just slightly more severe than what fire brigades are prepared for. Humans can directly influence fire regimes through ignition frequency, fire suppression and land use management. Here we use the fire regime model FIRE LADY to assess the impacts of climate change and local management options on number of fires, burned area, fraction of area burned in large fires and forest area during the twenty-first century in three regions of NE Spain. Our results show that currently fuel-humidity limited regions could suffer a drastic shift of fire regime with an up to 8 fold increase of annual burned area, due to a combination of fuel accumulation and severe fire weather, which would result in a period of unusually large fires. The impact of climate change on fire regime is predicted to be less pronounced in drier areas, with a gradual increase of burned area. Local fire prevention strategies could reduce but not totally offset climate induced changes in fire regimes. According to our model, a combination of restoring the traditional rural mosaic and classical fire prevention would be the most effective strategy, as a lower ignition frequency reduces the number of fires and the creation of agricultural fields in marginal areas reduces their extent.

Climate Change and Agroforestry: Adaptation, Mitigation and Livelihood Security

Freshwater ecosystems are vital for global biodiversity and ecosystem services. Freshwater ecosystems are susceptible to the impacts of environmental change, which may cause irreversible damage to these ecosystems upon which huge amount of biodiversity and ecosystem services are dependent. Within the next few decades the climate change will have considerable ecological impacts on most of the fresh water ecosystems as per the current climatic predictions. Different freshwater ecosystems will be affected differently by climate change. One of the most important and major impact to be caused by climate change will be on fresh water flow regime. The speed of climate change will be abrupt and uneven rather than slow and even. Impacts caused by climate change on freshwater ecosystems will be visible both physically and chemically. It is very hard and more complex to forecast the impact on freshwater recourses due to climate change. In most of the cases, climate change together with other man made pressures will cause much damage to freshwater ecosystems. It is very difficult to predict impact of climate change on freshwater ecosystems in the next few decades using current global climate models. Rather than focusing on impact assessment a risk–based approach should be adopted to assess and respond to climate change. A number of measures are required to protect freshwater ecosystems such as reducing extraction of water from ground and surface water, maintaining water flows, management of macrophytes, artificial oxygenation and mixing, sediment removal etc. so that fresh water ecosystems are not affected largely by small climate induced changes. When a diversity of healthy habitats of freshwater ecosystems can be maintained, the assimilative ability of freshwater ecosystems will be further strengthened. Incorporation of long lasting, observed study data with models and manipulative experiments will assist the progress of mechanistic, and hence predictive, perceptive of responses to future climate change.

Water sprays from an open fire hydrant in Brooklyn, New York, in the midst of a July 2010 heat wave that affected much of the eastern United States.In 2007 the New York City Department of Environmental Protection first teamed up with Alianza Dominicana, a Washington Heights community organization, to educate city residents about the appropriate use of fire hydrants and other ways

The future impact of climate and land-use changes on Anatolian ground squirrels under different scenarios

Ongoing increases in air temperature and changing precipitation patterns are altering water temperatures and flow regimes in lotic freshwater systems, and these changes are expected to continue in the coming century. Freshwater taxa are responding to these changes at all levels of biological organization. The generation of appropriate hydrologic and water temperature projections is critical to accurately predict the impacts of climate change on freshwater systems in the coming decade. The goal of this review is to provide an overview of how changes in climate affect hydrologic processes and how climate-induced changes in freshwater habitat can impact the life histories and traits of individuals, and the distributions of freshwater populations and biodiversity. Projections of biological responses during the coming century will depend on accurately representing the spatially varying sensitivity of physical systems to changes in climate, as well as acknowledging the spatially varying sensitivity of freshwater taxa to changes in environmental conditions.

Agriculture production is directly dependent on climate change and weather. Possible changes in temperature, precipitation and CO2 concentration are expected to significantly impact crop growth and ultimately we lose our crop productivity and indirectly affect the sustainable food availability issue. The overall impact of climate change on worldwide food production is considered to be low to moderate with successful adaptation and adequate irrigation. Climate change has a serious impact on the availability of various resources on the earth especially water, which sustains life on this planet. The global food security situation and outlook remains delicately imbalanced amid surplus food production and the prevalence of hunger, due to the complex interplay of social, economic, and ecological factors that mediate food security outcomes at various human and institutional scales. Weather aberration poses complex challenges in terms of increased variability and risk for food producers and the energy and water sectors. Changes in the biosphere, biodiversity and natural resources are adversely affecting human health and quality of life. Throughout the 21st century, India is projected to experience warming above global level. India will also begin to experience more seasonal variation in temperature with more warming in the winters than summers. Longevity of heat waves across India has extended in recent years with warmer night temperatures and hotter days, and this trend is expected to continue. Strategic research priorities are outlined for a range of sectors that underpin global food security, including: agriculture, ecosystem services from agriculture, climate change, international trade, water management solutions, the water-energy-food security nexus, service delivery to smallholders and women farmers, and better governance models and regional priority setting. There is a need to look beyond agriculture and invest in affordable and suitable farm technologies if the problem of food insecurity is to be addressed in a sustainable manner. Introduction Globally, agriculture is one of the most vulnerable sectors to climate change. This vulnerability is relatively higher in India in view of the large population depending on agriculture and poor coping capabilities of small and marginal farmers. Impacts of climate change pose a serious threat to food security. “Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life” (World Food Summit, 1996). This definition gives rise to four dimensions of food security: availability of food, accessibility (economically and physically), utilization (the way it is used and assimilated by the human body) and stability of these three dimensions. According to the United Nations, in 2015, there are still 836 million people in the world living in extreme poverty (less than USD1.25/day) (UN, 2015). And according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), at least 70 percent of the very poor live in rural areas, most of them depending partly (or completely) on agriculture for their livelihoods. It is estimated that 500 million smallholder farms in the developing world are supporting almost 2 billion people, and in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa these small farms produce about 80 percent of the food consumed. Climate change threatens to reverse the progress made so far in the fight against hunger and malnutrition. As highlighted by the assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change (IPCC), climate change augments and intensifies risks to food security for the most vulnerable countries and populations. Few of the major risks induced by climate change, as identified by IPCC have direct consequences for food security (IPCC, 2007). These are mainly to loss of rural livelihoods and income, loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, livelihoods loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems and food insecurity (breakdown of food systems). Rural farmers, whose livelihood depends on the use of natural resources, are likely to bear the brunt of adverse impacts. Most of the crop simulation model runs and experiments under elevated temperature and carbon dioxide indicate that by 2030, a 3-7% decline in the yield of principal cereal crops like rice and wheat is likely in India by adoption of current production technologies. Global warming impacts growth, reproduction and yields of food and horticulture crops, increases crop water requirement, causes more soil erosion, increases thermal stress on animals leading to decreased milk yields and change the distribution and breeding season of fisheries. Fast changing climatic conditions, shrinking land, water and other natural resources with rapid growing population around the globe has put many challenges before us (Mukherjee, 2014). Food is going to be second most challenging issue for mankind in time to come. India will also begin to experience more seasonal variation in temperature with more warming in the winters than summers (Christensen et al., 2007). Climate change is posing a great threat to agriculture and food security in India and it's subcontinent. Water is the most critical agricultural input in India, as 55% of the total cultivated areas do not have irrigation facilities. Currently we are able to secure food supplies under these varying conditions. Under the threat of climate variability, our food grain production system becomes quite comfortable and easily accessible for local people. India's food grain production is estimated to rise 2 per cent in 2020-21 crop years to an all-time high of 303.34 million tonnes on better output of rice, wheat, pulse and coarse cereals amid good monsoon rains last year. In the 2019-20 crop year, the country's food grain output (comprising wheat, rice, pulses and coarse cereals) stood at a record 297.5 million tonnes (MT). Releasing the second advance estimates for 2020-21 crop year, the agriculture ministry said foodgrain production is projected at a record 303.34 MT. As per the data, rice production is pegged at record 120.32 MT as against 118.87 MT in the previous year. Wheat production is estimated to rise to a record 109.24 MT in 2020-21 from 107.86 MT in the previous year, while output of coarse cereals is likely to increase to 49.36 MT from 47.75 MT. Pulses output is seen at 24.42 MT, up from 23.03 MT in 2019-20 crop year. In the non-foodgrain category, the production of oilseeds is estimated at 37.31 MT in 2020-21 as against 33.22 MT in the previous year. Sugarcane production is pegged at 397.66 MT from 370.50 MT in the previous year, while cotton output is expected to be higher at 36.54 million bales (170 kg each) from 36.07. This production figure seem to be sufficient for current population, but we need to improve more and more with vertical farming and advance agronomic and crop improvement tools for future burgeoning population figure under the milieu of climate change issue. Our rural mass and tribal people have very limited resources and they sometime complete depend on forest microhabitat. To order to ensure food and nutritional security for growing population, a new strategy needs to be initiated for growing of crops in changing climatic condition. The country has a large pool of underutilized or underexploited fruit or cereals crops which have enormous potential for contributing to food security, nutrition, health, ecosystem sustainability under the changing climatic conditions, since they require little input, as they have inherent capabilities to withstand biotic and abiotic stress. Apart from the impacts on agronomic conditions of crop productions, climate change also affects the economy, food systems and wellbeing of the consumers (Abbade, 2017). Crop nutritional quality become very challenging, as we noticed that, zinc and iron deficiency is a serious global health problem in humans depending on cereal-diet and is largely prevalent in low-income countries like Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and South-east Asia. We report inefficiency of modern-bred cultivars of rice and wheat to sequester those essential nutrients in grains as the reason for such deficiency and prevalence (Debnath et al., 2021). Keeping in mind the crop yield and nutritional quality become very daunting task to our food security issue and this can overcome with the proper and time bound research in cognizance with the environment. Threat and challenges In recent years, climate change has become a debatable issue worldwide. South Asia will be one of the most adversely affected regions in terms of impacts of climate change on agricultural yield, economic activity and trading policies. Addressing climate change is central for global future food security and poverty alleviation. The approach would need to implement strategies linked with developmental plans to enhance its adaptive capacity in terms of climate resilience and mitigation. Over time, there has been a visible shift in the global climate change initiative towards adaptation. Adaptation can complement mitigation as a cost-effective strategy to reduce climate change risks. The impact of climate change is projected to have different effects across societies and countries. Mitigation and adaptation actions can, if appropriately designed, advance sustainable development and equity both within and across countries and between generations. One approach to balancing the attention on adaptation and mitigation strategies is to compare the costs and benefits of both the strategies. The most imminent change is the increase in the atmospheric temperatures due to increase levels of GHGs (Green House Gases) i.e. carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), nitrous oxide (N2O) and chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) etc into the atmosphere. The global mean annual temperatures at the end of the 20th

The impact of urban growth and climate change on heat stress in a sub-tropical Australian city