Drivers Of Environmental Change Research Articles

Nutrient enrichment intensifies the effects of warming on metabolic balance of stream ecosystems

AbstractClimate warming and eutrophication are leading drivers of environmental change, and both are likely to alter the role of freshwaters in the global carbon cycle. Recent studies demonstrate that warming of streams can increase freshwater contributions of CO2 to the atmosphere, yet little is known about how such contributions are modulated by the identity or supply of limiting nutrients. We quantified responses of ecosystem metabolism and metabolic balance to whole‐stream enrichments of either nitrogen or phosphorus across a 5°C range of ambient temperature. We show that nutrient enrichment drove large reductions in net ecosystem production, and interactions with temperature amplified these effects in warm N‐enriched streams. Partitioning of autotrophic and heterotrophic respiration revealed that these responses were driven by increased respiration of microbial heterotrophs. Our study provides direct experimental evidence that warming‐induced increases in CO2 emissions to the atmosphere are likely intensified in stream ecosystems subject to eutrophication.

Global Economic and Diet Transitions Drive Latin American and Caribbean Forest Change during the First Decade of the Century: A Multi-Scale Analysis of Socioeconomic, Demographic, and Environmental Drivers of Local Forest Cover Change

Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) contain more tropical high-biodiversity forest than the remaining areas of the planet combined, yet experienced more than a third of global deforestation during the first decade of the 21st century. While drivers of forest change occur at multiple scales, we examined forest change at the municipal and national scales integrated with global processes such as capital, commodity, and labor flows. We modeled multi-scale socioeconomic, demographic, and environmental drivers of local forest cover change. Consistent with LAC’s global leadership in soy and beef exports, primarily to China, Russia, the US, and the EU, national-level beef and soy production were the primary land use drivers of decreased forest cover. National level gross domestic product (GDP), migrant worker remittances and foreign investment, along with municipal-level temperature and area, were also significantly related to reduced forest cover. This challenges forest transition frameworks, which theorize that rising GDP and intensified agricultural production should be increasingly associated with forest regrowth. Instead, LAC forest change was linked to local, national, and global demographic, dietary and economic transitions, resulting in massive net forest cover loss. This suggests an urgent need to reconcile forest conservation with mounting global demand for animal protein.

Disentangling the last 1,000 years of human–environment interactions along the eastern side of the southern Andes (34–52°S lat.)

Researchers have long debated the degree to which Native American land use altered landscapes in the Americas prior to European colonization. Human-environment interactions in southern South America are inferred from new pollen and charcoal data from Laguna El Sosneado and their comparison with high-resolution paleoenvironmental records and archaeological/ethnohistorical information at other sites along the eastern Andes of southern Argentina and Chile (34-52°S). The records indicate that humans, by altering ignition frequency and the availability of fuels, variously muted or amplified the effects of climate on fire regimes. For example, fire activity at the northern and southern sites was low at times when the climate and vegetation were suitable for burning but lacked an ignition source. Conversely, abundant fires set by humans and infrequent lightning ignitions occurred during periods when warm, dry climate conditions coincided with ample vegetation (i.e., fuel) at midlatitude sites. Prior to European arrival, changes in Native American demography and land use influenced vegetation and fire regimes locally, but human influences were not widely evident until the 16th century, with the introduction of nonnative species (e.g., horses), and then in the late 19th century, as Euro-Americans targeted specific resources to support local and national economies. The complex interactions between past climate variability, human activities, and ecosystem dynamics at the local scale are overlooked by approaches that infer levels of land use simply from population size or that rely on regionally composited data to detect drivers of past environmental change.

Modeling the freshwater ecological response to changes in flow and thermal regimes influenced by reservoir dynamics

Capturing the ecological effects of climate-induced shifts in hydrologic and thermal regimes in regulated river systems remains a challenge in regional-scale studies. In this study, we used a well-established species distribution model to analyze the results of a process-based hydrologic modeling approach that accounts explicitly for regulation impacts on river flow and temperatures. We also accounted for the stream network fragmentation resulting from dam blockage. This combined model framework can be used to predict historical environmental suitability of river reaches for specific fish species and estimate changes in suitability in response to changes in climate and reservoir operations. As a case study in the highly regulated and fragmented Tennessee River system, we examined the environmental suitability for nonnative rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), a species of high recreational value, and native blackfin darter (Etheostoma nigripinne), an endemic species of unique ecological importance. To quantify the impacts of reservoir regulation, we examined the historical environmental suitability, climate change signals, and the environmental drivers of change between the regulated and unregulated model setups. By the end of the 21st century (2080s), historically suitable streams for rainbow trout will disappear due to higher river temperatures. Only 8% of historically suitable streams for blackfin darter will remain but over half of them will be unreachable by current populations due to dam blockage. For river reaches influenced by reservoir regulations, the regulated model projects decreasing environmental suitability for blackfin darter while the unregulated model projects the opposite because of higher river temperatures. The contradictory climate signals between regulated and unregulated models highlight the necessity of considering reservoir regulation.

Accidental Introduction and Spread of Top Invasive Alien Plants in the European Union through Human-Mediated Agricultural Pathways: What Should We Expect?

Alien species are among the five drivers of environmental change with the largest relative global impacts. In particular, horticulture is a major introduction pathway of alien plants, but, together with intentional introductions, plants can also be introduced and spread via human-mediated involuntary pathways as contaminants and stowaways. Recurring accidental introductions of alien plants to new areas can be the prelude to invasion on a large scale. Agriculture represents a sector that is severely impacted by invasive alien species and, at the same time, it is likely to be one of the main factors responsible of biological invasions. So, the present review highlights risks related to accidental introduction though human-mediated agricultural pathways of a politically relevant group of alien plants, invasive alien plants of Union concern (IAPUC), that are species whose prevention and management is mandatory in the European Union according to Regulation (EU) n. 1143/2014. Even if most IAPUC have been primarily introduced as economic plants, several accidental pathways related to agriculture can be identified for each one of them. The implementation of technologies and the sharing of good practices, at a wide scale and at different levels of the society, would help in overcoming several problematic issues related to the accidental transport of IAPUC.

Reduced rainfall and resistant varieties mediate a critical transition in the coffee rust disease

Critical transitions, sudden responses to slow changes in environmental drivers, are inherent in many dynamic processes, prompting a search for early warning signals. We apply this framework to understanding the coffee rust disease, which experienced an unprecedented outbreak in Mesoamerica in 2012–2013, likely a critical transition. Based on monthly infection data from 128 study quadrats in a 45-ha plot in southern Mexico from 2014 to 2020, we find that the persistent seasonal epidemic following the initial outbreak collapses in an evident subsequent critical transition. Characteristic signals of “critical slowing down” precede this collapse and are correlated with reduced rainfall, as expected from climate change, and planting of rust-resistant varieties, an ongoing management intervention. Recoveries from catastrophes may themselves be experienced as a critical transition and managers should consider the larger dynamical landscape for the possibility of subsequent transitions. Early warning signals could therefore be useful when evaluating mitigation effectiveness.

Environmental drivers of dynamic soil erosion change in a Mediterranean fluvial landscape

BackgroundRainfall and other climatic agents are the main triggers of soil erosion in the Mediterranean region, where they have the potential to increase discharge and sediment transport and cause long-term changes in the river system. For the Magra River Basin (MRB), located in the upper Tyrrhenian coast of Italy, we estimated changes in net erosion as a function of the geographical characteristics of the basin, the seasonal distribution of precipitation, and the vegetation cover.Methods and findingsBased on rainfall erosivity and surface flow and transport sub-models, we developed a simplified model to assess basin-wide sediment yields on a monthly basis by upscaling the point rainfall input. Our calibration dataset of monthly data (Mg km-2 month-1, available for the years 1961 and 1963–1969) revealed that our model satisfactorily reproduces the net soil erosion in the study area (R2 = 0.81). For the period 1950–2020, the reconstruction of an annually aggregated time-series of monthly net erosion data (297 Mg km-2 yr-1 on average) indicated a moderate decline in sediment yield after 1999. This is part of a long-term downward trend, which highlights the role played by land-use changes and reforestation of the mountainous areas of the basin.ConclusionThis study shows the environmental history and dynamics of the basin, and thus the varying sensitivity of hydrological processes and their perturbations. Relying on a few climatic variables as reported from a single representative basin location, it provides an interpretation of empirically determined factors that shape active erosional landscapes. In particular, we showed that the most recent extreme storms associated with sediment yield have been characterised by lower cumulative rainfall, indicating a greater propensity for the basin to produce sediment more discontinuously over time.

Drivers of change in mountain and upland bird populations in Europe

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.

Increased climate pressure on the agricultural frontier in the Eastern Amazonia\u2013Cerrado transition zone

Several large-scale drivers of both anthropogenic and natural environmental changes are interacting nonlinearly in the transition zone between eastern Amazonia and the adjacent Cerrado, considered to be another Brazilian agricultural frontier. Land-use change for agrobusiness expansion together with climate change in the transition zone between eastern Amazonia and the adjacent Cerrado may have induced a worsening of severe drought conditions over the last decade. Here we show that the largest warming and drying trends over tropical South America during the last four decades are observed to be precisely in the eastern Amazonia–Cerrado transition region, where they induce delayed wet-season and worsen severe drought conditions over the last decade. Our results evidence an increase in temperature, vapor pressure deficit, subsidence, dry-day frequency, and a decrease in precipitation, humidity, and evaporation, plus a delay in the onset of the wet season, inducing a higher risk of fire during the dry-to-wet transition season. These findings provide observational evidence of the increasing climatic pressure in this area, which is sensitive for global food security, and the need to reconcile agricultural expansion and protection of natural tropical biomes.

Contrasting drivers of belowground nitrogen cycling in a montane grassland exposed to a multifactorial global change experiment with elevated CO2 , warming, and drought.

Depolymerization of high‐molecular weight organic nitrogen (N) represents the major bottleneck of soil N cycling and yet is poorly understood compared to the subsequent inorganic N processes. Given the importance of organic N cycling and the rise of global change, we investigated the responses of soil protein depolymerization and microbial amino acid consumption to increased temperature, elevated atmospheric CO2, and drought. The study was conducted in a global change facility in a managed montane grassland in Austria, where elevated CO2 (eCO2) and elevated temperature (eT) were stimulated for 4 years, and were combined with a drought event. Gross protein depolymerization and microbial amino acid consumption rates (alongside with gross organic N mineralization and nitrification) were measured using 15N isotope pool dilution techniques. Whereas eCO2 showed no individual effect, eT had distinct effects which were modulated by season, with a negative effect of eT on soil organic N process rates in spring, neutral effects in summer, and positive effects in fall. We attribute this to a combination of changes in substrate availability and seasonal temperature changes. Drought led to a doubling of organic N process rates, which returned to rates found under ambient conditions within 3 months after rewetting. Notably, we observed a shift in the control of soil protein depolymerization, from plant substrate controls under continuous environmental change drivers (eT and eCO2) to controls via microbial turnover and soil organic N availability under the pulse disturbance (drought). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study which analyzed the individual versus combined effects of multiple global change factors and of seasonality on soil organic N processes and thereby strongly contributes to our understanding of terrestrial N cycling in a future world.

Modeling and Predicting Land Use Land Cover Spatiotemporal Changes: A Case Study in Chalus Watershed, Iran

Land use and land cover change (LULCC) is a main driver of global environmental change and has destructive effects on the structure and function of the ecosystem. This study attempts to detect temporal and spatial changes in LULC patterns of the Chalus watershed during the last two decades using multi-temporal Landsat images and predict the future LULC changes and patterns of the Chalus watershed for the year 2040. A hybrid method between segment-based and pixel-based classification was applied for each Landsat image 2001, 2014 and 2021 to produce LULC maps of the Chalus watershed. In this study, the transition potential maps and the transition probability matrices between LULC types were provided by the Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithm and the Markov Chain model, respectively, to project the 2021 and 2040 LULC maps. The achieved K-index values that compared the simulated LULC map with the actual LULC map of the year 2021 resulted in a Kstandard = 0.9160, Kno = 0.9379, Klocation = 0.9318 and KlocationStrata = 0.9320, showing a good agreement between the actual and simulated LULC map. Analysis of the historical LULC changes depicted that during 2001-2021, the significant increase of Agricultural land (14317 ha) and Barren area (9063 ha), and the sharp decline of Grassland (26215 ha) and Forest cover (5989 ha) were the major LULC changes in the Chalus watershed. The model predicted that Forest cover will continue to decrease from 29.46% (50720.2667 ha) in 2021 to 25.67% of area (44207.78694 ha) in 2040, as well as, unceasing expansion of Barren area, Agricultural land and Built-up area will be expected by 2040. Therefore, understanding the spatiotemporal dynamics of LULC change is extremely important to implement essential measures and minimize the destructive consequences of these changes.

Hazardous Chemicals: Agents of Risk and Change, 1800-2000 ed. by Ernst Homburg and Elisabeth Vaupel (review).

Reviewed by: Hazardous Chemicals: Agents of Risk and Change, 1800–2000 ed. by Ernst Homburg and Elisabeth Vaupel Adam M. Romero (bio) Hazardous Chemicals: Agents of Risk and Change, 1800–2000 Edited by Ernst Homburg and Elisabeth Vaupel. New York: Berghahn, 2019. Pp. 407. Industrial chemicals are a major driver of environmental, economic, and technological change. Their increased production in the nineteenth century contributed to the rapid growth of industrial economies and introduced novel risks and unprecedented harms. In the edited collection Hazardous Chemicals, eleven authors explore this "double-faced interaction between innovation and risk." They take a biographical approach to chemical histories that follow chemicals across a variety of intellectual domains to shed light on how humanity's relationship with hazardous substances is conditioned by a multitude of factors, from their material properties and economic demand to shifting cultural and scientific perceptions of poisons, toxicity, and pollution. The editorial introduction provides an excellent discussion of the history of poisons and dangerous substances and is helpful for highlighting one of the main methodological claims of the book: that focusing on a single chemical or class of chemicals can be useful for thinking through the complex and evolving "life cycle" of hazardous chemicals. The book is divided into three cumulative sections framed partly chronologically and partly topically around (1) chemical substances and (2) social and scientific questions their production and use generated. In the first section, Joost Mertens, for instance, explores copper arsenite pigments, their use in coloring foodstuffs and textiles, and the earliest history of chemical regulation and social chemical consciousness, while in the third, Amy Hay explores the controversial role of phenoxy herbicides in warfare as well as the contentious legal, health, and environmental implications of their use. One the most informative aspects of the book is how many chapters offer comparative international histories of chemicals and chemical regulation. For example, Alexander von Schwerin's chapter on cyclamates explores how a chemical substance viewed as harmful and thus regulated in one country can have a completely different life history in another. Chemical companies developed and marketed cyclamate sweeteners in the 1950s, but how those sweeteners were used and regulated differed substantially between the United States and West Germany, due in part to how toxicity was understood, whether an artificial sweetener was considered a foodstuff or a pharmaceutical, and even a consumer's previous relationship with weight-loss and diabetic foods. Overall, the edited collection offers scholars an excellent set of biographical chemical histories. However, despite this superb scholarship, it is difficult to escape the feeling that even an expansive book like this cannot [End Page 263] do the history of industrial chemicals justice. That is not the fault of the editors or the authors; instead it lies in the profundity of our modern chemical dilemma. This work begs the question of what a collective treatment of biographical chemical histories says about how we got to where we are today: an uneven yet thoroughly contaminated world. On the one hand, the authors argue that power was the most potent ingredient in the history of any hazardous chemical, whether that power was used by chemical companies to shape regulation of toxic substances, by U.S. public health officials to claim that Black people were inherently diseased, or by environmentalist organizations to push for a DDT ban that exposed farmworkers to increased harm. On the other, it says that the laboratory practices and laws used to regulate hazardous chemicals have failed us spectacularly. But most of all, the book shows that the universal framing of industrial chemicals in terms of innovation and risk continues to be too reductive, not just for this text, but for society as whole. As many stories in the book make clear, framing a company's purposeful poisoning of their workers, the public, and the environment as a need to balance innovation and risk discounts the malice and violence that has informed the past two centuries of industrial chemical production. It vacates power and reduces actual lives impacted to statistics of harm within a chemical cost-benefit analysis. For this reader, that means that the only answer to society's chemical dilemma lies not in the precautionary principle...

Changing Svalbard: Tracing interrelated socio-economic and environmental change in remote Arctic settlements

Abstract The archipelago of Svalbard is a good example of an Arctic locale undergoing rapid changes on multiple levels. This contribution is a joint effort of three anthropologists with up-to-date ethnographic data from Svalbard (mostly Longyearbyen and Barentsburg) to frame and interpret interconnected changes. The processes impacting Svalbard are related to issues such as geopolitical interests, and increasing pressure by the Norwegian government to exercise presence and control over the territory. Our interpretations are based on a bottom-up approach, drawing on experiences living in the field. We identify three great ruptures in recent years – the avalanche of 2015, the gradual phasing out of mining enterprises and the COVID-19 pandemic – and show how they further impact, accelerate or highlight preexisting vulnerabilities in terms of socio-economic development, and environmental and climate change. We discuss the shift from coal mining to the industries of tourism, education, and research and development, and the resulting changed social and demographic structure of the settlements. Another facet is the complexity of environmental drivers of change and how they relate to the socio-economic ones. This article serves as an introductory text to the collection of articles published in Polar Record in 2021/2022 with the overarching theme “changing Svalbard”. Issues discussed range from socio-economic change and its implications for local populations including identity of place, through tourism (value creation, mediation, human–environment relations, environmental dilemmas, balancing contradictory trends), to security and risk perception, and environmental and climate change issues.

A multi-proxy study of Holocene environmental and climate change in the Pechora Delta

Abstract. The Arctic and subarctic regions have been the focus of a great deal of research during the recent years. Their high-latitude areas are thought to play a crucial role in climatic forcing and, thus, may be particularly sensitive to climate change. Arctic freshwater ecosystems are especially susceptible to the negative consequences of global environmental change drivers. Paleoclimatic investigations provide a better insight into the climate and environmental situation of certain regions and water objects in the past and help to predict their future changes, as well as to identify the development trends of the Earth s climate as a whole. The multy-proxy study of 96-cm long sediment core obtained in Lake Arcto-Pimberto (68 26.114 N, 053 32.311 E, the Pechora River delta, Nenets Autonomous Okrug) reflect regional paleoecological and climate changes in the north of the Eastern European plain over the last 6400 year. Based on the subfossil Cladocera, diatom and palynological analysis of the bottom sediment of the arctic lake Arkto-Pimberto, we received preliminary information on environmental and climatic changes, as well as on changes in vegetation character in the area around the water body.

Future climate and land-use intensification modify arthropod community structure

Climate change and land-use intensification pose increasing threats to biodiversity, with climate change expected to eventually surpass other global environmental change drivers and become the greatest threat to biodiversity in the future. Understanding the combined ecological impacts of multiple global change drivers is crucial to predict future scenarios of biodiversity change. However, experimental evidence for the impacts of land-use intensification under current and future climate scenarios is lacking, even though this is imperative for understanding future trajectories of biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. We experimentally tested for the simultaneous effects of land-use intensification and climate change on arthropod biodiversity in a field-scale grassland experiment known as the Global Change Experimental Facility (GCEF). Specifically, we tested whether future scenarios of climate change are likely to exacerbate impacts of land-use intensification on arthropod diversity and abundance across different trophic levels by sampling aboveground arthropod communities in low and high land-use intensity grasslands under current and future climatic conditions. We found that climate change reduced total abundances of arthropods and increased evenness of the whole community, while only having trophic level-specific effects on detritivore abundance and evenness. Land-use intensification reduced abundance of the whole community, predators and detritivores, but only eroded species richness of the whole community and herbivores, with the magnitude of declines in predator and detritivore abundance depending on the climate scenario. Additionally, both land-use intensification and climate altered species composition of the whole community and within the predator, herbivore, and detritivore trophic levels. We show that climate change and land use intensification cause simultaneous shifts in arthropod abundance, species richness, and species composition across trophic levels. Changes in arthropod communities as a result of climate change and land-use intensification will likely have profound consequences for ecosystem functioning under future environmental conditions.

Functional trait data for vascular plant species from northeastern North America.

Wisconsin's plant communities are responding to shifting disturbance regimes, habitat fragmentation, aerial nitrogen deposition, exotic species invasions, ungulate herbivory, and successional processes. To better understand how plant functional traits mediate species' responses to changing environmental conditions, we collected a large set of functional trait data for vascular plant species occupying Wisconsin forests and grasslands. We used standard protocols to make 76,213 measurements of 34 quantitative traits. These data provide rich information on genome size, physical leaf traits (length, width, circularity, thickness, dry matter content, specific leaf area, etc.), chemical leaf traits (carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, magnesium, ash), life history traits (vegetative and flower heights, seed mass), and traits affecting plant palatability (leaf fiber, fat, and lignin). These trait values derive from replicate measurements on 12+ individuals of each species from multiple sites and 45+ individuals for a selected subset of species. Measurements typically reflect values for individuals although some chemical traits involved composite samples from several individuals at the same site. We also qualitatively characterized each species by plant family, woodiness, functional group, and Raunkiaer lifeform. These data allow us to characterize trait dimensionality, differentiation, and covariation among temperate plant species (e.g., leaf and stem economic syndromes). We can also characterize species' responses to environmental gradients and drivers of ecological change. With survey and resurvey data available from >400 sites in Wisconsin, we can analyze variation in community trait distributions and diversity over time and space. These data therefore allow us to assess how trait divergence vs. convergence affects community assembly and how traits may be related to half-century shifts in the distribution and abundance of these species. The data set can be used for non-commercial purposes. The data set is licensed as follows: CC-By Attribution 4.0 International. We request users cite both the OSF data set and this Ecology data paper publication.

Biodiversity promotes ecosystem functioning despite environmental change.

Three decades of research have demonstrated that biodiversity can promote the functioning of ecosystems. Yet, it is unclear whether the positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning will persist under various types of global environmental change drivers. We conducted a meta‐analysis of 46 factorial experiments manipulating both species richness and the environment to test how global change drivers (i.e. warming, drought, nutrient addition or CO2 enrichment) modulated the effect of biodiversity on multiple ecosystem functions across three taxonomic groups (microbes, phytoplankton and plants). We found that biodiversity increased ecosystem functioning in both ambient and manipulated environments, but often not to the same degree. In particular, biodiversity effects on ecosystem functioning were larger in stressful environments induced by global change drivers, indicating that high‐diversity communities were more resistant to environmental change. Using a subset of studies, we also found that the positive effects of biodiversity were mainly driven by interspecific complementarity and that these effects increased over time in both ambient and manipulated environments. Our findings support biodiversity conservation as a key strategy for sustainable ecosystem management in the face of global environmental change.

An Agro-Based Society after Post-Industrial Society: From a Perspective of Economic Growth Paradigm

Since the Industrial Revolution, a new era has arisen called the Anthropocene, in which human actions have become the main driver of global environmental change outside the stable environmental state of the Holocene. During the Holocene, environmental change occurred naturally, and the Earth’s regulatory capacity maintained the conditions that enabled human development. Resource overexploitation of the industrial “Anthropocene”, under the principle of profit maximization, has led to planetary ecological crises, such as overloaded carbon sinks and climate changes, vanishing species, degraded ecosystems, and insufficient natural resources. Agro-based society, in which almost all demands of humans can be supported by agriculture, is characterized by life production. The substitution of Agro-based society for a post-industrial society is an evolutionary result of social movement, it is an internal requirement of a sustainable society for breaking through the resource constraint of economic growth. The core feature of agriculture is to use organisms as production objects and rely on life processes to achieve production goals. The substitution of Agro-based society for a post-industrial society is the precondition for a sustainable carbon cycle, breaking through the resource limits of the industrial “Anthropocene”, alleviating the environmental pressure of economic development, and promoting society from increasing disorderly entropy to orderly decreasing entropy. Meanwhile, technological advancements and growing environmental awareness of society make it feasible for the substitution of an agro-based society for a post-industrial society.

The life cycle of large igneous provinces

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.

Felsic volcanism as a factor driving the end-Permian mass extinction.

The Siberian Traps large igneous province (STLIP) is commonly invoked as the primary driver of global environmental changes that triggered the end-Permian mass extinction (EPME). Here, we explore the contributions of coeval felsic volcanism to end-Permian environmental changes. We report evidence of extreme Cu enrichment in the EPME interval in South China. The enrichment is associated with an increase in the light Cu isotope, melt inclusions rich in copper and sulfides, and Hg concentration spikes. The Cu and Hg elemental and isotopic signatures can be linked to S-rich vapor produced by felsic volcanism. We use these previously unknown geochemical data to estimate volcanic SO2 injections and argue that this volcanism would have produced several degrees of rapid cooling before or coincident with the more protracted global warming. Large-scale eruptions near the South China block synchronous with the EPME strengthen the case that the STLIP may not have been the sole trigger.