Human-induced Changes Research Articles

Vegetation browning trend progressively leading to forest degradation in eastern himalaya in response to climatic and anthropogenic drivers

Vegetation is a major natural resource that plays an important role in maintaining ecological balance. Vegetation in the eastern Himalaya has experienced severe consequences owing to deforestation, fragmentation, land use land cover (LULC) conversion and climate change. Disturbances in vegetation have a close connection to browning trend because they modify the terrestrial ecosystems. Remote sensing derived vegetation indices and the availability of long-term satellite data allowed us to infer greening and browning tendencies across the Northeast Region (NER) of India. The present study has employed almost four decades (1982–2020) of satellite data (i.e. NDVI and LAI) and climate data (precipitation, soil moisture, temperature, solar radiation) to deduce the spatial pattern of greening and browning trends over major vegetation ecosystems, namely forest, grassland and cropland. Statistical metrics such as the Mann–Kendall test (τ) and the Theil–Sen median trend were computed to understand the greening and browning including vegetation degradation. The key findings exhibited that a noticeable large-scale greening trend of forests persisted in the first period (1982–2000) and switched to browning in the latest period (2000–2020). The statistically significant areas of browning trends over forest regions in NER was 5.6% which increased to 10.7–15.6%. The browning trends over grassland were more pronounced in the southernmost part of NER. Such changes were ascribed mostly to persistent warming and declining soil moisture. This was further exacerbated by human-induced LULC change. Over croplands, greening was prominent in Assam in the latest period, whilst other regions switched to browning. Trend analysis gives critical information on temperature-induced moisture stress leading to browning that might have potential implications for the forest, grassland and agriculture ecosystems. Specifically, the areas at Ziro Valley of Arunachal Pradesh showed high risk of forest degradation (i.e. 19% of the total forest area of 1816.54 km2), whereas areas around the Loktak Lake in Manipur exhibited high risk of cropland degradation. The states in the southernmost part of NER showed high risk of grassland degradation. Nearly 20–27% of the areas were identified as high risk of degradation. The study underscores the potential areas of NER where land management strategies need attention in the context of complex climatic factors along the side of anthropogenic influences.

Urbanization alters the geographic patterns of passerine plumage color in China

Urbanization has altered natural landscapes and serves as an environmental filter that selects species with specific traits. Coloration is an important trait associated with biotic interactions and thermoregulation, enabling species’ survival and reproductive success. However, few studies have focused on how species coloration changes in response to urbanization. Here, we used 547 passerine bird species from 42 cities and their corresponding non-urban communities in China to test whether urban species are darker and if they have duller plumage colors than their non-urban counterparts. Furthermore, we examined whether and how urbanization influences avian plumage color homogenization and the extent to which urbanization has altered the strength of the color–latitude geographic pattern in passerine birds across China. We found a 3.2% loss in the coloration space of birds after urbanization, although there were no significant differences in the individual dimensions of colorfulness and lightness between urban and non-urban birds. Avian communities in cities exhibited more plumage color homogenization than those in non-urban communities. There were significant latitudinal gradients in plumage colorfulness and lightness in non-urban communities, but these correlations were weaker in urban communities. Non-urban communities that were more colorful and lighter tended to be duller and darker in urban environments, and vice versa. Our results provide national-scale evidence that urbanization has led to reduced color diversity, increased color-based community similarity, and altered geographic patterns of avian plumage color gradients in China. These findings provide new insights into how rapid human-induced environmental changes have affected animal coloration during the Anthropocene.

Changing Conditions: Global Warming-Related Hazards and Vulnerable Rural Populations in Mediterranean Europe

Human-induced climate change has profound effects on extreme events, particularly those linked to global warming, such as heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires. These events disrupt ecosystems, emphasizing the imperative to understand the interactions among them to gauge the risks faced by vulnerable communities. Vulnerability levels vary primarily based on a community’s resources. Rural areas, especially in the Mediterranean region of Europe, are experiencing acute depopulation, creating a complex situation affecting various aspects of society, from economic declines to cultural heritage loss. Population decline in rural regions weakens resources, leading to the abandonment of built environments, fostering desertification, and elevating the risk of wildfires. Communities undergoing this deterioration process become exceptionally vulnerable, especially when dealing with and recovering from extreme natural phenomena. This review offers insights into the dynamics of these hazards and the predominant challenges in rural areas. By focusing on a topic that has received limited attention, the aim is to inform future research initiatives, ultimately improving risk assessment and mitigation strategies for these vulnerable communities.

Beta diversity partitioning reveals homogenization in bird community composition within the forest-agriculture landscape of the northern Taiwan coast

ContextThis study examined how human-induced landscape changes affected bird diversity in mountain villages with mixed forests and cultivated fields.ObjectivesWe focused on the bird species composition (beta diversity) to determine whether species homogenization varied with forest cover differences. This study developed it as a novel metric potentially quantifying homogenization level comparison in species functional groups.MethodsBird surveys were conducted at 27 sites with forest cover scattered from 0 to 100%. Bird species were divided into forest birds and nonforest birds. Beta diversity was partitioned into turnover and nestedness-resultant components, and their contribution ratio to Sørensen beta was used to examine the effect of forest cover and pairwise cover difference.ResultsOur results indicated that forest birds exhibited low turnover and low nestedness, whereas nonforest birds exhibited nestedness distribution characteristics. The nestedness-resultant contribution ratio of nonforest birds was higher, driven by forest cover difference (slope = 0.0080, Pseudo R2 = 0.35**) than that of forest birds (slope = 0.0018, Pseudo R2 = 0.02**). Thus, we quantify the result of forest cover decreased lead to the dominated by nestedness species in nonforest birds.ConclusionsThese findings highlight the distinct effects of environmental changes on these two bird functional groups. Although the Sørensen beta diversity increases with forest cover decrease, most are contributed by nestedness-resultant nonforest birds and lead to homogenization. Thus, it is recommended that conservation plans should separately address forest and nonforest bird species to avoid the risk of underestimating species homogenization due to anthropogenic land-use and habitat degradation.

Projection of climate change effects on flood inundation in the Gin River basin, Sri Lanka

Abstract. Human-induced climate change has altered the frequency and severity of heavy precipitation, droughts, and floods worldwide. Sri Lanka, a developing country in the Indian Ocean, has suffered frequent floods, affecting over 64 % of the population in the past decade. The Gin River, the primary drinking water source of the densely populated Galle district with over 1 million residents, faces recurrent flood disasters. Therefore, this study employed a multi-model ensemble to simultaneously simulate the impact of climate change on both river flow and inundation extent in the frequently flooded Gin River basin located in humid tropical monsoon region. Bias-corrected climate projections of an ensemble of five General Circulation Models (GCMs) from the Coupled Model Inter-comparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5 emission scenario were used to project future river flow and flood inundation in the Gin River basin, Sri Lanka. The validated Rainfall–Runoff–Inundation (RRI) model projected a 5 % increase in high flows (flows exceeding a 5 % probability of exceedance (<Q5)) at the downstream (Baddegama) gauging station and a 16 % increase at the upstream (Thawalma) gauging station in the future (2040–2060) in comparison to the past (1980–2000), which can be attributed to the elevated rainfall projected during the two monsoon seasons (southwest monsoon (May–September) and northeast monsoon (December–February)) by the GCM ensemble. In addition to the projected changes in high flows revealed by the RRI simulations, the model also yielded critical information about the expansion of annual maximum inundated extent in the basin by 3.5 % that will aid flood risk projection and sustainable management in the basin.

Climate change and the Bay of Bengal region: vulnerabilities, risks and the absent cooperation

ABSTRACT There are three challenges specific to the Bay of Bengal region in the context of climate change. Firstly, this is a climate-sensitive region that sits on the brink of several climate and human-induced environmental changes and challenges. Secondly, it is still a relatively understudied geographic area from the perspective of climate risks. Third, the process of securitisation of climate change and long-term risks to resources in this region has not taken place fully as traditional security challenges, geopolitics, and great power competition have become primary concerns. This paper looks at the climate vulnerabilities and risks prevalent in this region. It also looks at human-induced challenges like marine pollution and IUU fishing. It then evaluates the reasons why several of the collective promises in the region remain unfulfilled. It is followed by a brief discussion on the security implications of climate change which is followed by a conclusion.

Sustainability and Productivity of Village Tank Cascade Systems: A Bibliometric Analysis and Knowledge Mapping

Research on social–ecological systems is rapidly expanding globally in response to human-induced climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecosystem degradation. Safeguarding these traditional agroecosystems is vital according to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In the last decade, there has been a growing research interest in the Village Tank Cascade Systems (VTCSs) of Sri Lanka, recognised as social–ecological systems. However, few studies have systematically analysed VTCS research in Sri Lanka. To examine this apparent knowledge gap in more detail, a bibliometric analysis and knowledge mapping were conducted to systematically analyse and interpret the state, trends, clusters, and emerging fields of VTCS research. In total, 159 peer-reviewed research publications between 1985 and 2023 were obtained from the Web of Science Core Collection, Scopus databases, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate to perform this analysis. Furthermore, this study employed the Sustainability Assessment of Food and Agriculture systems (SAFA) tool, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, to map the inclusion of sustainability and productivity dimensions in VTCS research, in alignment with the objectives set forth by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The study provides insight into dominant and neglected areas of future VTCS research.

Projecting heat-related cardiovascular mortality burden attributable to human-induced climate change in China

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been found to be particularly vulnerable to climate change and temperature variability. This study aimed to assess the extent to which human-induced climate change contributes to future heat-related CVD burdens. Daily data on CVD mortality and temperature were collected in 161 Chinese communities from 2007 to 2013. The association between heat and CVD mortality was established using a two-stage time-series design. Under the natural forcing, human-induced, and combined scenarios, we then separately projected excess cause-/age-/region-/education-specific mortality from future high temperature in 2010-2100, assuming no adaptation and population changes. Under shared socioeconomic pathway with natural forcing scenario (SSP2-4.5-nat), heat-related attributable fraction of CVD deaths decreased slightly from 3.3% [95% empirical confidence interval (eCI): 0.3, 5.8] in the 2010s to 2.8% (95% eCI: 0.1, 5.2) in the 2090s, with relative change of-0.4% (95% eCI:-0.8, 0.0). However, for combined natural and human-induced forcings, this estimate would surge to 8.9% (95% eCI: 1.5, 15.7), 14.4% (95% eCI: 1.5, 25.3), 21.3% (95% eCI:-0.6, 39.4), and 28.7% (95% eCI:-3.3, 48.0) in the 2090s under SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, respectively. When excluding the natural forcing, the number of human-induced heat-related CVD deaths would increase from approximately eight thousand (accounting for 31% of total heat-related CVD deaths) in the 2010s to 33,052 (68%), 63,283 (80%), 101,091 (87%), and 141,948 (90%) in the 2090s under SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0, and SSP5-8.5 scenarios, respectively. Individuals with stroke, females, the elderly, people living in rural areas, and those with lower education level would exhibit heightened susceptibility to future high temperature. In addition, Southern and Eastern regions of China were expected to experience a faster increase in heat-related attributable fraction of CVD deaths. Human activities would significantly amplify the future burden of heat-related CVD. Our study findings suggested that active adaptation and mitigation measures towards future warming could yield substantial health benefits for the patients with CVD. National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Effects of Land Use Change on Avian Diversity in the Semi-Arid Area of Longxi Loess Plateau

Biodiversity is under threat due to human-induced changes in land use. While various aspects of biodiversity are increasingly studied in response to these changes, there is limited understanding of their effects on the structure and composition of bird communities in dryland regions. We examined the impacts of land use change on birds in the semi-arid area of the Longxi Loess Plateau by considering taxonomic diversity, functional diversity, and phylogenetic diversity. We analyzed both the α- and β-diversity of avian communities across different dimensions of diversity and calculated functional and phylogenetic structures using the net relatedness index. Our findings revealed that species richness was highest in farmland and abandoned farmland, while artificial mixed forests exhibited the highest number of unique species. Functional and phylogenetic α-diversity was greater in farmland and abandoned farmland when compared to the other four land use types. Moreover, the taxonomic diversity in artificial mixed forests, artificial Caragana korshinskii forests, and artificial Platycladus orientalis forests surpassed that in typical grasslands, but no differences were observed in functional and phylogenetic diversity. Regarding β-diversity, turnover patterns dominated multidimensional dissimilarity, with taxonomic turnover and total dissimilarity lower than their functional counterparts but higher than phylogenetic counterparts. Based on the present findings, we emphasize the long-term cessation of ongoing silvicultural initiatives to safeguard bird diversity in the semi-arid region of the Longxi Loess Plateau. This is crucial for narrowly distributed species such as Alectoris magna, as they face heightened vulnerability to losses.

Future changes and distribution of water resources in China under global warming levels of 1.5–4.5 °C

Study regionChina (excluding Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan). Study focusFew studies have nationally evaluated China's spatiotemporal distribution of future runoff and per capita water resources (PCWR). Based on the SSP1-RCP2.6, SSP3-RCP7.0, and SSP5-RCP8.5 scenarios, the future runoff and PCWR in China under global warming levels of 1.5–4.5 °C are predicted. The calibrated Water and Energy Budget-based Distributed Hydrological Model with improved Snow physics for Global simulation (WEB-DHM-SG) was driven by the Inter-Sectoral Impact Model Intercomparison Project 3b (ISIMIP3b) protocol data to simulate runoff and future population data were used to predict the PCWR. Furthermore, the pre-industrial scenario was compared with future development scenarios to analyse the impact of human-induced climate change (HICC). New hydrological insights for the regionThe average annual runoff would increase by 6.9–27.6 % nationally and increase in 28 provinces, whereas it would decrease in the other 3 provinces. Seasonal runoff decreased in winter but increased in the other three seasons. Runoff is affected by HICC by 4.1–30.0 %. The national average PCWR would change by −7.5 % to 20.4 %. Water shortage conditions might be further intensified in nine provinces but relatively alleviated in the other 22 provinces. Our results can provide scientific support for the future national and regional water planning and management in China.

Caught in the crossfire: biodiversity conservation paradox of sociopolitical conflict

The current state of global biodiversity is confronted with escalating threats arising from human-induced environmental changes and a growing array of unpredictable challenges. However, effective conservation efforts are often hindered by limited knowledge, especially in developing economies such as the Philippines. The limitations imposed by these shortfalls in biodiversity knowledge hamper the capacity to protect biodiversity in light of the continuing extinction crisis. Our study revealed that areas with higher conflict levels exhibited lower species richness, fewer occurrence records, and reduced forest cover. This finding provides initial evidence for the relationship between sociopolitical conflict and biodiversity in the Philippines. We posit that the security risks caused by sociopolitical conflicts could have a negative impact on conservation efforts, particularly in terms of monitoring and implementing measures to protect natural resources. The links that bind armed conflict and biodiversity conservation are multifaceted and complex issues that warrant greater scientific and political attention. Finally, we identified 10 meaningful approaches to address shortfalls in biodiversity knowledge in conflicted areas, particularly incorporating conflict-sensitive approaches, considering the geopolitical context and conflict dynamics to adapt and align their strategies with local realities for more effective conservation efforts.

Climate warming contributes to the record-shattering 2022 Pakistan rainfall

A sequence of torrential rainstorms pounded Pakistan in the summer of 2022, shattering records by massive margins (7 sigma). The severe socioeconomic damages underscore the urgency of identifying its dynamic drivers and relationship with human-induced climate change. Here, we find that the downpours were primarily initiated by the synoptic low-pressure systems, whose intensity and longevity far exceeded their counterparts in history as fueled by a historically-high cross-equatorial moisture transport over the Arabian Sea. The moisture transport has been trending upward since the 1960s and, in 2022, along with the anomalous easterly moisture influx caused by the combination of La Niña and negative Indian Ocean Dipole events, created a corridor of heavy rainfall extending from central India toward southern Pakistan. While it is not yet established whether the observed trend of the cross-equatorial moisture transport has exceeded natural variability, model-based analysis confirms that it is consistent with the fingerprint of anthropogenic climate warming and will raise the likelihood of such rare events substantially in the coming decades.

AI-driven remote sensing enhances Mediterranean seagrass monitoring and conservation to combat climate change and anthropogenic impacts

Seagrasses are undergoing widespread loss due to anthropogenic pressure and climate change. Since 1960, the Mediterranean seascape lost 13–50% of the areal extent of its dominant and endemic seagrass-Posidonia oceanica, which regulates its ecosystem. Many conservation and restoration projects failed due to poor site selection and lack of long-term monitoring. Here, we present a fast and efficient operational approach based on a deep-learning artificial intelligence model using Sentinel-2 data to map the spatial extent of the meadows, enabling short and long-term monitoring, and identifying the impacts of natural and human-induced stressors and changes at different timescales. We apply ACOLITE atmospheric correction to the satellite data and use the output to train the model along with the ancillary data and therefore, map the extent of the meadows. We apply noise-removing filters to enhance the map quality. We obtain 74–92% of overall accuracy, 72–91% of user’s accuracy, and 81–92% of producer’s accuracy, where high accuracies are observed at 0–25 m depth. Our model is easily adaptable to other regions and can produce maps in in-situ data-scarce regions, providing a first-hand overview. Our approach can be a support to the Mediterranean Posidonia Network, which brings together different stakeholders such as authorities, scientists, international environmental organizations, professionals including yachting agents and marinas from the Mediterranean countries to protect all P. oceanica meadows in the Mediterranean Sea by 2030 and increase each country’s capability to protect these meadows by providing accurate and up-to-date maps to prevent its future degradation.

Navigating ecological novelty towards planetary stewardship: challenges and opportunities in biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere.

Human-induced global changes, including anthropogenic climate change, biotic globalization, trophic downgrading and pervasive land-use intensification, are transforming Earth's biosphere, placing biodiversity and ecosystems at the forefront of unprecedented challenges. The Anthropocene, characterized by the importance of Homo sapiens in shaping the Earth system, necessitates a re-evaluation of our understanding and stewardship of ecosystems. This theme issue delves into the multifaceted challenges posed by the ongoing ecological planetary transformation and explores potential solutions across four key subthemes. Firstly, it investigates the functioning and stewardship of emerging novel ecosystems, emphasizing the urgent need to comprehend the dynamics of ecosystems under uncharted conditions. The second subtheme focuses on biodiversity projections under global change, recognizing the necessity of predicting ecological shifts in the Anthropocene. Importantly, the inherent uncertainties and the complexity of ecological responses to environmental stressors pose challenges for societal responses and for accurate projections of ecological change. The RAD framework (resist-accept-direct) is highlighted as a flexible yet nuanced decision-making tool that recognizes the need for adaptive approaches, providing insights for directing and adapting to Anthropocene dynamics while minimizing negative impacts. The imperative to extend our temporal perspective beyond 2100 is emphasized, given the irreversible changes already set in motion. Advancing methods to study ecosystem dynamics under rising biosphere novelty is the subject of the third subtheme. The fourth subtheme emphasizes the importance of integrating human perspectives into understanding, forecasting and managing novel ecosystems. Cultural diversity and biological diversity are intertwined, and the evolving relationship between humans and ecosystems offers lessons for future stewardship. Achieving planetary stewardship in the Anthropocene demands collaboration across scales and integration of ecological and societal perspectives, scalable approaches fit to changing, novel ecological conditions, as well as cultural innovation. This article is part of the theme issue 'Ecological novelty and planetary stewardship: biodiversity dynamics in a transforming biosphere'.

Determining the impacts of climate change and human activities on vegetation change on the Chinese Loess Plateau considering human-induced vegetation type change and time-lag effects of climate on vegetation growth

ABSTRACT Since the initiation of the Grain for Green Project (GFGP) in 1999, dramatic change in vegetation status on the Loess Plateau. Spatially, geographical detector was employed to detect dominant variables influencing the spatial arrangement of normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). Temporally, lagged or accumulated monthly precipitation, temperature and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration indices (SPEIs) sensitive to the monthly NDVI were first detected for every individual pixel, and the correlation between the NDVI and meteorological elements with time-lag effects was established a random forest model of unchanged land cover, followed by attributing impacts of climatic alterations and human interventions through residual examination across changed land cover. The findings indicate that (1) precipitation, slope, and soil dominantly influence the spatial arrangement of the NDVI. (2) Precipitation in current the month and cumulative temperatures of the previous 1–2 months steadily affect vegetation growth significantly, the optimal accumulation time interval for SPEI around 2000 are 8 months and 4 months, respectively. (3) Increases in the average NDVI within woodland and meadow vegetation on the Loess Plateau were primarily driven by climate change before 2000, accounting for 76.2%, whereas after 2000 it was dominantly driven by human activities, accounting for 64.16%.

While clearing the forests: The social-ecological memory of trees in the Anthropocene.

The Anthropocene concept raises awareness of human-induced planetary changes but is criticized for being 'too global'. We examined the social-ecological memory that emerges from people-tree relationships in South American temperate territories, Chile. We integrated dendrochronology (analysis of tree rings of 35 memorial trees; 17 species) with dendrography (participant observation complemented with semi-structured and go-along interviews with 14 interviewees; six women, eight men). We found that assemblages of people-tree relationships reflect marked historical changes in the territory, associated with the historical clearing of forests, which may be imprinted in both tree growth rings and in the social meanings and practices associated with memorial trees. In devastated territories, practices of tree care emphasize interconnectedness, multispecies collaborations, and the blurring of boundaries between humans and other-than-humans. We discuss some of the interdisciplinary and relational insights of our study, which may prove valuable for future research, political agendas, and educational programs in South America and beyond.

Representing natural climate variability in an event attribution context: Indo-Pakistani heatwave of 2022

Attribution of extreme climate events to global climate change as a result of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions has become increasingly important. Extreme climate events arise at the intersection of natural climate variability and a forced response of the Earth system to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, which may alter the frequency and severity of such events. Accounting for the effects of both natural climate variability and the forced response to anthropogenic climate change is thus central for the attribution. Here, we investigate the reproducibility of probabilistic extreme event attribution results under more explicit representations of natural climate variability. We employ well-established methodologies deployed in statistical Earth System Model emulators to represent natural climate variability as informed from its spatio-temporal covariance structures. Two approaches towards representing natural climate variability are investigated: (1) where natural climate variability is treated as a single component; and (2) where natural climate variability is disentangled into its annual and seasonal components. We showcase our approaches by attributing the 2022 Indo-Pakistani heatwave to human-induced climate change. We find that explicit representation of annual and seasonal natural climate variability increases the overall uncertainty in attribution results considerably compared to established approaches such as the World Weather Attribution Initiative. The increase in likelihood of such an event occurring as a result of global warming differs slightly between the approaches, mainly due to different assessments of the pre-industrial return periods. Our approach that explicitly resolves annual and seasonal natural climate variability indicates a median increase in likelihood by a factor of 41 (95% range: 6-603). We find a robust signal of increased likelihood and intensification of the event with increasing global warming levels across all approaches. Compared to its present likelihood, under 1.5 °C (2 °C) of global near-surface air temperature increase relative to pre-industrial temperatures, the likelihood of the event would be between 2.2 to 2.5 times (8 to 9 times) higher. We note that regardless of the different statistical approaches to represent natural variability, the outcomes on the conducted event attribution are similar, with minor differences mainly in the uncertainty ranges. Possible reasons for differences are evaluated, including limitations of the proposed approach for this type of application, as well as the specific aspects in which it can provide complementary information to established approaches.

Warming temperatures exacerbate effects of microplastics in a widespread zooplankton species.

The emergence of microplastics as a global contaminant of concern has coincided with climate change induced temperature warming in aquatic ecosystems. Warmer temperatures have been previously demonstrated to increase the toxicity of certain contaminants, but it is currently unclear if microplastics are similarly affected by temperature. As aquatic organisms simultaneously face microplastic pollution and both increasing and variable temperatures, understanding how temperature affects microplastic toxicity is pertinent in this era of human-induced global change. In this study, we investigate the effects of environmentally relevant microplastic exposure to Daphnia pulex survival, reproduction, and growth at three different temperatures. To simulate an environmentally relevant exposure scenario, we created microplastics with physicochemical characteristics often detected in nature, and exposed organisms to concentrations close to values reported in inland waters and 1-2 orders of magnitude higher. The three temperatures tested in this experiment included 12 °C, 20 °C, and 24 °C, to simulate cool/springtime, current, and warming scenarios. We found the highest concentration of microplastics significantly impacted survival and total offspring compared to the control at 20 °C and 24 °C, but not at 12 °C. The adverse effect of high microplastic concentrations on total offspring at warmer temperatures was driven by the high mortality of the juveniles. We observed no effect of microplastics on time to first reproduction or average growth rate at any temperature. Warmer temperatures exacerbated microplastic toxicity, although only for concentrations of microplastics not currently observed in nature, but these concentrations are possible in pollution hotspots, through pulses pollution events or future worsening environmental contamination. The results of our study illustrate the continued need to further investigate climate change related co-stressors such as warming temperatures in microplastic and pollution ecology, through environmentally realistic exposure scenarios.

ECR Spotlight – Jai Tiarks

ECR Spotlight is a series of interviews with early-career authors from a selection of papers published in Journal of Experimental Biology and aims to promote not only the diversity of early-career researchers (ECRs) working in experimental biology but also the huge variety of animals and physiological systems that are essential for the ‘comparative’ approach. Jai Tiarks is an author on ‘ Turbidity drives plasticity in the eyes and brains of an African cichlid’, published in JEB. Jai is a PhD candidate in the lab of Dr Suzanne M. Gray at the Ohio State University in Columbus, OH, investigating how human-induced changes to the environment affect sensory systems, specifically by looking at how vision responds to altered aquatic environments in an African cichlid fish.

Satellite remote sensing reveals overwhelming recovery of forest from disturbances in Asia

Forest ecosystems play key roles in mitigating human-induced climate change through enhanced carbon uptake; however, frequently occurring climate extremes and human activities have considerably threatened the stability of forests. At the same time, detailed accounts of disturbances and forest responses are not yet well quantified in Asia. This study employed the Breaks For Additive Seasonal and Trend method—an abrupt-change detection method—to analyze the Enhanced Vegetation Index time series in East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. This approach allowed us to detect forest disturbance and quantify the resilience after disturbance. Results showed that 20 % of forests experienced disturbance with an increasing trend from 2000 to 2022, and Southeast Asian countries were more severely affected by disturbances. Specifically, 95 % of forests had robust resilience and could recover from disturbance within a few decades. The resilience of forests suffering from greater magnitude of disturbance tended to be stronger than forests with lower disturbance magnitude. In summary, this study investigated the resilience of forests across the low and middle latitudes of Asia over the past two decades. The authors found that most forests exhibited good resilience after disturbance and about two-thirds had recovered to a better state in 2022. The findings of this study underscore the complex relationship between disturbance and resilience, contributing to comprehension of forest resilience through satellite remote sensing.摘要目前对于亚洲森林在应对气候变化和人类活动干扰方面的研究相对较少. 本研究利用BFAST突变检测方法, 分析了东亚, 南亚和东南亚的增强植被指数 (EVI) 长时间序列中检测到的森林扰动和恢复情况. 结果显示, 2000年至2022年期间, 约20%的森林经历了扰动, 且受到扰动的森林面积呈增加趋势, 东南亚国家受扰动的影响更为严重. 在扰动事件发生后, 95%的森林具有较好的恢复能力, 能够在受到扰动后的一段时间后恢复过来, 其中约有三分之二的森林在2022年时已经恢复到了较扰动前更好的状态.