Impending Changes Research Articles

Spatiotemporal Analysis of Water Balance Components and Their Projected Changes in Near-future Under Climate Change Over Sina Basin, India

Quantification of water-budget components is an essential step in the planning and management of water resources in any river basin. Recently several studies emphasized that climate change would inevitably affect terrestrial hydrology. This study applies distributed hydrological modeling using the Variable Infiltration Capacity (VIC) model to simulate the water balance components in the Sina basin, a drought-prone region in India. We analyzed the long-term spatiotemporal dynamics of precipitation, evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and baseflow components, and their alterations due to impending climate change. The study employed the Mann-Kendall test and Sen’s slope estimators to analyze the spatiotemporal trends of the water balance components during the baseline (1980–2010) and for the near future (2019–2040) periods. For the baseline period, precipitation exhibited an increasing trend, particularly during the monsoon season. On the evaluation of the annual water balance components, it showed that the basin has a low annual rainfall (~ 718 mm) and relatively a very high annual evapotranspiration (~ 572 mm) during 1980–2010, which might be the main reason for frequent droughts in the study basin. Further, for analyzing the climate change impacts on the water budget in the Sina basin, the VIC model was forced with outputs from a set of global climate models for near future (2019–2040) for two emission scenarios RCP4.5 and RCP8.5. Analysis of the results revealed that the water balance components in the near future would be negatively affected by climate change despite their increasing pattern in the baseline period. In comparison to the baseline (1980–2010), the surface runoff would decrease by as much as 32% for the near future, which stresses for planning and adaptation of appropriate mitigation measures in the basin.

Estimation of Engel curves for household expenditure on dry bean and processed bean in Mexico

Dry bean is the leading source of low-cost plant-based proteins in Mexico. However, in the years following the liberalization of the economy, Mexico experienced the erosion of a self-sufficiency index for this commodity. Impending changes in the international markets for proteins compel us to reevaluate the role of dry bean for Mexico’s food security. In the present paper we set out to analyze the last link of the marketing chain in Mexico’s dry bean market: the consumer. Using data on household expenditure for 2018, the relationship between income and expenditure on dry bean as well as on processed bean is ascertained by means of the Working-Leser Engel Curve equations system. Due to the presence of zero-expenditure households in the sample, we followed the two-step Heckit procedure for the possible selection bias. The results suggest that the budget share for dry bean and for processed bean drops as income increases. The corrected conditional elasticity for dry bean is −0.1056. For processed bean, the elasticity is −0.2286. The negative sign indicates that both commodities are inferior goods.

Дипломатические институты ЕС и их активность в контексте трансформации мирового порядка

The article is devoted to the analysis of the state of diplomatic institutions of the EU, their policies in the face of radical changes in the international environment. The transformation of the world order towards multipolarity has complicated the international environment, making it less favorable for the European Union. With the emergence of new potential centers that change the coordinates of the global economy and politics, the EU is forced to revise the foundations of its international behavior. So far, the EU‟s response to the upcoming, but so far vague configuration of the polycentric world is a firm commitment to multilateralism. But it was precisely the crisis of multilateralism at the global level that affected the EU itself, limiting its ability to deepen and expand integration. The events of the second decade of the 21st century posed the most complex tasks for the EU: the migration crisis, which has fallen as a result of tectonic events in the Middle East, fell on Europe, which did not recover from a systemic crisis. Disappointed in the traditional systemic parties, voters turned their attention to the Eurosceptics and populists of the right and left flanks. The impact of new trends and regional and world politics on the European Union is reflected in the 2016 “Global EU Strategy on Foreign and Security Policy”. First of all, the changes touched upon such a burning issue for the EU as enlargement. In October 2019, France, the Netherlands and Denmark blocked the start of EU accession negotiations for Albania and Northern Macedonia. On February 2, 2020, the European Commission approved a new “methodology” for negotiating EU accession. It can be assumed that the issue of considering the adoption of new member states into the EU ranks far away. Also, revision of the entry criteria with a shift in emphasis on the state of democratic institutions and the rule of law will close the EU‟s doors for new candidates for a long time. The emerging multipolarity poses the EU, its institutions and foreign policy, the difficult task of building an adequate policy in relation, primarily, to China. The EU‟s complex interaction with China is developing against the backdrop of unstable relations between Brussels and Washington. Misunderstandings and dissonance, friction between the EU and the United States are pouring into concrete actions on the part of the European Union aimed at limiting the destructive influence of its transatlantic ally on the world economy. The author draws attention to the fact that the analysis of the speech of the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, suggests thoughts of impending changes in the EU.

Nursing Practice in the Digital Age

An ongoing influx of technological breakthroughs and innovations will cause nurses to practice in an ever-changing landscape. These technological resources and societal changes will necessitate that nurses reexamine and redesign their practice. Nurses can embrace the impending changes and leverage technology to automate the routine activities of their practice and to support the complex data aggregation and integration necessary to understand their patients and communities. In that way, nurses can focus more of their cognitive expertise on the coordination, integration, and facilitation of care to promote healing and improved wellness of their patients and communities.

Mental health and climate change: tackling invisible injustice

Mental health and climate change: tackling invisible injustice

Defining Sex-Specific Habitat Suitability for a Northern Gulf of Mexico Shark Assemblage

Understanding the factors that influence species’ distributions is crucial for implementing effective management and conservation practices, yet difficult for highly vagile species like sharks. Many shark species demonstrate either spatial and/or temporal sexual segregation, further confounding accurate quantification of habitat suitability. Given the importance of understanding spatiotemporal patterns in the distribution of coastal shark assemblages, we sought to quantify sex-specific abiotic factors that influence seasonal variation in a coastal shark assemblage using data from a long-term fisheries-independent bottom longline program in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Catch data (individuals/100 hooks/hour) were coupled with a suite of potentially predictive variables: surface and bottom values for temperature (C) and salinity (psu), sea surface height (m), three-dimensional surface and bottom current velocity (u, v, w, in m/s), bottom dissolved oxygen (mg/l), depth (m), substrate grain size (mm), daylength (min), and distance from shore (km). Data were analyzed using boosted regression trees (BRT) to describe the relationships between catch data and environmental factors potentially influencing sex-specific species distribution and abundance. Between May 2006 and November 2018, we conducted 1,226 bottom longline sets and caught 13,742 individuals encompassing 67 species. The majority of the animals captured (74%) were elasmobranchs, primarily sharks. Two species from each of the following three categories were selected for further analyses: small coastal sharks (Atlantic sharpnose shark Rhizoprionodon terraenovae and blacknose shark Carcharhinus acronotus), large coastal sharks (blacktip shark C. limbatus and sandbar shark C. plumbeus), and shelf-associated sharks (smoothhound sharks, Mustelus spp. and scalloped hammerhead Sphyrna lewini). Depth and distance from shore were the strongest predictors of distribution and relative abundance, followed by longitude and bottom salinity; other factors (e.g. temperature, daylength, substrate grain size) were less predictive. For the six species examined, predictive factors were often the same for males and females, although the range of preferred values varied. Surprisingly, the importance of these predictors varied little across seasons. Collectively, our findings demonstrate that sexual segregation is the norm for sharks in the north-central Gulf of Mexico. Long-term fishery-independent monitoring to further quantify these sex-based differences in habitat use should be prioritized, particularly in light of impending climate change.

Light and warming drive forest understorey community development in different environments.

Plant community composition and functional traits respond to chronic drivers such as climate change and nitrogen (N) deposition. In contrast, pulse disturbances from ecosystem management can additionally change resources and conditions. Community responses to combined environmental changes may further depend on land-use legacies. Disentangling the relative importance of these global change drivers is necessary to improve predictions of future plant communities. We performed a multifactor global change experiment to disentangle drivers of herbaceous plant community trajectories in a temperate deciduous forest. Communities of five species, assembled from a pool of 15 forest herb species with varying ecological strategies, were grown in 384 mesocosms on soils from ancient forest (forested at least since 1850) and postagricultural forest (forested since 1950) collected across Europe. Mesocosms were exposed to two-level full-factorial treatments of warming, light addition (representing changing forest management) and N enrichment. We measured plant height, specific leaf area (SLA) and species cover over the course of three growing seasons. Increasing light availability followed by warming reordered the species towards a taller herb community, with limited effects of N enrichment or the forest land-use history. Two-way interactions between treatments and incorporating intraspecific trait variation (ITV) did not yield additional inference on community height change. Contrastingly, community SLA differed when considering ITV along with species reordering, which highlights ITV's importance for understanding leaf morphology responses to nutrient enrichment in dark conditions. Contrary to our expectations, we found limited evidence of land-use legacies affecting community responses to environmental changes, perhaps because dispersal limitation was removed in the experimental design. These findings can improve predictions of community functional trait responses to global changes by acknowledging ITV, and subtle changes in light availability. Adaptive forest management to impending global change could benefit the restoration and conservation of understorey plant communities by reducing the light availability.

Riparian and adjacent upland forests burned synchronously during dry years in eastern Oregon (1650–1900 CE), USA

Riparian forests link terrestrial and freshwater communities and therefore understanding the landscape context of fire regimes in these forests is critical to fully understanding the landscape ecology. However, few direct studies of fire regimes exist for riparian forests, especially in the landscape context of adjacent upland forests or studies of long-term climate drivers of riparian forest fires. We reconstructed a low-severity fire history from tree rings in 38 1-ha riparian plots and combined them with existing fire histories from 104 adjacent upland plots to yield 2633 fire scars sampled on 454 trees. Historically (1650–1900), low-severity fires burned more frequently in upland than in riparian plots, but this difference was not significant (P=0.15). During more than half of the fire years at both sites, fires were extensive and burned synchronously in riparian and upland plots, and climate was significantly dry during these years. However, climate was not significantly dry when fires burned in only one plot type. Historically, entire riparian zones likely burned in these two study sites of the Blue Mountains during dry years. This study suggests that riparian and upland forests could be managed similarly, especially given the projected increases to fire frequency and intensity from impending climate change.

Media in Postapartheid South Africa: postcolonial politics in the age of globalization by Sean Jacobs

Reviewed by: Media in Postapartheid South Africa: postcolonial politics in the age of globalization by Sean Jacobs Keyan G Tomaselli (bio) Sean Jacobs (2019) Media in Postapartheid South Africa: postcolonial politics in the age of globalization. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press Jacobs provides a panoptic view of the South African media and how in its broadest sense such media negotiated, shaped and debated the political transition (chapter 1). He starts from the multiracial TV adverts flighted on SABC-TV for Castle Lager that anticipated – and/or pushed – for impending social change after 1976 (chapter 2). New kinds of socially-referenced sitcoms, soap operas and the forging of a national identity through appealing to the notion of the 'aspirational viewer' contextualises these shifts (chapter 3). These were driven by the emergence of black urban class-mobile consumers, identified by the international advertising agency, J Walter Thompson, a firm that responded most alertly to the conditions that were developing from the smoky aftermath of Soweto '76. Discussion follows on the idiosyncratic Africa-wide public sphere enabled by Big Brother. On a broader scale were MultiChoice's forays into Africa on the back of the PAS4 satellite that enabled Big Brother's appeal as an alternative pan-African public sphere (chapter 4). The way that the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) mobilised as a civil society organisation to defeat the liberation government's bizarre and genocidal denialist policy on HIV/AIDS, is the case study comprising chapter 5. Chapter 6 moves in a different direction, exploring the relationship between media and especially white Afrikaner political identities after apartheid. New media technologies will have shaped these on the one hand, while appropriation by Afrikaners of the global human rights discourses [End Page 134] of 'minority rights' and 'victimhood' after ceding political power in 1994, were imported into public discussion. The book's conclusion offers some insights into the demise of mass parties, mass media, the rise of new mediascapes and associated identities that centre on mobile technologies. Jacobs evokes national allegories that decentre media as the direct focus, while examining broader issues read through the media in general. As mentioned, the new allegory actually starts with the rebranding of Castle Lager, based on a longitudinal study of the beer's TV adverts conducted by Alex Holt during the 1980s period of apartheid reform. Holt's benchmark study underpins Jacobs' analysis of the wider trends buffeting the late apartheid political economy, and the ensuing contradictions that would contribute to its demise. Holt's analysis of advertising practices and new consumption patterns brought about by the growing black urbanisation, and the need for single advertising campaigns aimed at identifying new and growing multiracial class-based markets that no longer responded to 'separate' messages, underpin Jacobs's analysis. The idea of 'nation' thus emerged from the advertising industry as their most effective marketing strategy (41). Similar trends were evident in SABC-TV programming with a growing African-American presence prior to 1994 and in commissioned sitcoms like Suburban Bliss and Going Up, as analysed elsewhere by Dorothy Roome. The strength of chapter 2 (Branding South Africa in Prime Time) is that it extends Holt's until now neglected but visually and sonically rich approach in constructing a narrative on South African emergent national branding. Allied to these advertising messages, was their multiracialisation of characters and notable Castle's anthemic unifier. Chapter 3 (The Aspirational Viewer) on locally made dramas and soap operas draws links between early 'whites' or 'blacks'-only examples (ie after 1976 when TV was first introduced). The programmes made during the transition aimed at promoting the idea of a kind of unified but classless multiracial nation adopting free market capitalism. The entertainment education imperatives that influenced the SABC commissioning editors is mentioned, but not developed, though such a methodology was very strongly at work via national public health communication programmes and programming, which also involved very intensive audience response and behaviour-change analysis. This corpus of research led by Soul City and Johns Hopkins Health and Education in South Africa and its university affiliates might have been highlighted. [End Page 135] Chapter 4 (Big Brother MultiChoice) examines how reality TV challenged entrenched cultural values and sexual...

Neglected and Underutilized Fruit Species in Sri Lanka: Prioritisation and Understanding the Potential Distribution under Climate Change

Neglected and underutilized fruit species (NUFS) can make an important contribution to the economy, food security and nutrition requirement for Sri Lanka. Identifying suitable areas for cultivation of NUFS is of paramount importance to deal with impending climate change issues. Nevertheless, limited studies have been carried out to assess the impact of climate change on the potential distribution of NUFS. Therefore, we examined the potential range changes of NUFS in a tropical climate using a case study from Sri Lanka. We prioritized and modeled the potentially suitable areas for four NUFS, namely Aegle marmelos, Annona muricata, Limonia acidissima and Tamarindus indica under current and projected climates (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) for 2050 and 2070 using the maximum entropy (Maxent) species distribution modeling (SDM) approach. Potentially suitable areas for NUFS are predicted to decrease in the future under both scenarios. Out of the four NUFS, T. indica appears to be at the highest risk due to reduction in potential areas that are suitable for its growth under both emissions scenarios. The predicted suitable area reductions of this species for 2050 and 2070 are estimated as >75% compared to the current climate. A region of potentially higher climatic suitability was found around mid-county for multiple NUFS, which is also predicted to decrease under projected climate change. Further, the study identified high-potential agro-ecological regions (AERs) located in the mid-country’s wet and intermediate zones as the most suitable areas for promoting the cultivation of NUFS. The findings show the potential for incorporating predictive modeling into the management of NUFS under projected climate change. This study highlights the requirements of climate change adaptation strategies and focused research that can increase the resilience of NUFS to future changes in climate.

Road Transport of Late-Pregnant Mares Advances the Onset of Foaling

Cortisol is involved in the initiation of parturition and we hypothesized that increased maternal cortisol release advances the onset of foaling. Transport is a stressor for horses and induces an increase in cortisol release. To determine stress effects on the time of foaling, late-pregnant mares were transported by road for 3 hours (n = 12) or remained in their stable as controls (n = 4). Starting on day 325 of gestation, saliva and blood samples were taken for cortisol and progestin analysis, respectively. Fetomaternal electrocardiograms were recorded repeatedly. Mares were checked for impending parturition and changes in precolostrum pH. When pH decreased to 6.5, mares were either transported or left untreated. After birth, saliva was collected repeatedly from mares and their foals and heart rate (HR) was recorded. Foals were checked for maturity and health. Gestation length was 337 ± 2 days in stressed and 336 ± 2 days in control mares. Cortisol concentration increased from 3.3 ± 0.9 to 8.4 ± 0.8 ng/mL in transported mares (P < .001) and remained constant in controls. Maternal HR and heart rate variability (HRV) did not differ between groups and neither fetal HR nor HRV changed in response to transport. In transported mares, time from precolostrum decrease to parturition was shorter (40 ± 10 hours) than the respective time in controls (134 ± 49 hours, P < .01). Neither duration of foaling nor times to first standing and suckling of foals or the postnatum increase in HR and decrease in HRV differed between groups. In conclusion, transport-induced maternal cortisol release may have advanced the onset of foaling.

Transforming Purpose-Driven Business Education

Abstract This timely analysis by Lerzan Aksoy et al at Fordham University Gabelli School of Business highlights an urgent need for business education reformation worldwide. The authors, mindful of impending disruptive change, provoke new research and thinking to integrate “social innovation” more thoroughly into business school curricula and training. Their emphasis on a more reflective and values-centric approach to business education is most welcome given the dire complex of challenges we face globally.

Rice production threatened by coupled stresses of climate and soil arsenic

Projections of global rice yields account for climate change. They do not, however, consider the coupled stresses of impending climate change and arsenic in paddy soils. Here, we show in a greenhouse study that future conditions cause a greater proportion of pore-water arsenite, the more toxic form of arsenic, in the rhizosphere of Californian Oryza sativa L. variety M206, grown on Californian paddy soil. As a result, grain yields decrease by 39% compared to yields at today’s arsenic soil concentrations. In addition, future climatic conditions cause a nearly twofold increase of grain inorganic arsenic concentrations. Our findings indicate that climate-induced changes in soil arsenic behaviour and plant response will lead to currently unforeseen losses in rice grain productivity and quality. Pursuing rice varieties and crop management practices that alleviate the coupled stresses of soil arsenic and change in climatic factors are needed to overcome the currently impending food crisis.

Pastoral yak rearing system is changing with change in climate: an exploration of North Sikkimin Eastern Himalaya

Yak is an integral part of the livelihood of highlanders in Indian Eastern Himalaya where only subsistence agriculture is possible due to its difficult terrain and harsh climate. The tribal households of Lachen and Lachung in North Sikkim rear yaks at an altitude of 3000 to 5000 m in semi-pastoral system which is highly dependent on temperature and snowfall pattern. Any change in climatic factors is expected to affect the yaks and livelihood of the yak herders. Hence, an explorative study was conducted to understand how the pastoral yak rearing system is changing in the region with change in climate. The estimated temperature increment was 0.03–0.04 °C/annum which is corroborated by herders’ perceptions. They observed that the amount of snowfall has receded, especially in lower altitudes and the snowfall period shifted from November–December to January–March. The commencement of upward migration of yak herders advanced by 15–30 days due to increase in March temperature and the migration span extended by 45 days now. The downward migration is restricted to mid alleviation (2750–3000 m) now which was earlier about 2000 m whereas the upward migration has gone up farther about 500 m due to increasing temperature and unavailability of quality pasture. The study revealed that the pastoral yak rearing in North Sikkim is transforming to cope the impending climate change. However, to reduce the vulnerability of yak, research and extension efforts/policies should be concentrated on fodder production and pasture management suiting to the awaiting climate change.

‘Time come’: Britain's black futures past

Abstract Drawing on the research for my book Thinking Black: Britain, 1964–85, this article, given as the 2019 Historical Research/Wiley lecture, unpacks the sense of impending change in black political cultures of the long nineteen-seventies, and analyses how black politics worked to carve out new historical subjects. I show how, for those who sought to build new black futures in this moment, imagining these futures meant bringing past experiences of slavery and colonialism into the present as unfinished histories that would be a driving force of change for Britain.

The changing feel of place: the temporal modalities of atmospheres in Smithfield Market, London

Within the context of recent debates around urban atmospheres, this article examines the situatedness and partiality of urban experiences. Drawing on an ethnographic study of the Smithfield Market area, a neighbourhood undergoing a period of rapid urban regeneration as part of the ‘Culture Mile’ in the City of London, we explore how different individuals experience the changing feel of place. By focusing on the felt body, the article analyses the ways in which individuals with different attachments to the neighbourhood respond to the impending urban change and draw on selective temporal modalities of atmospheres in order to make specific claims to place. In particular, we identify three temporal modalities of atmospheres: the selective feel of the past, the contentious present feel and the ambivalent future feel. The article thus argues that studies of urban atmospheres need to pay more attention to the manifold bodily capacities, personal and social histories which mediate and position in diverse ways how places are experienced. More generally, this article makes an intervention into debates on urban atmospheres by analysing empirically how the variable interactions between sensory and temporal qualities produce diverse atmospheric constellations for different individuals.

Fluctuating fortunes: genomes and habitat reconstructions reveal global climate-mediated changes in bats' genetic diversity.

Over the last approximately 2.6 Myr, Earth's climate has been dominated by cyclical ice ages that have profoundly affected species' population sizes, but the impact of impending anthropogenic climate change on species' extinction potential remains a worrying problem. We investigated 11 bat species from different taxonomic, ecological and geographical backgrounds using combined information from palaeoclimatic habitat reconstructions and genomes to analyse biotic impacts of historic climate change. We discover tightly correlated fluctuations between species' historic distribution and effective population size, identify frugivores as particularly susceptible to global warming, pinpoint large insectivores as having overall low effective population size and flag the onset of the Holocene (approx. 10-12 000 years ago) as the period with the generally lowest effective population sizes across the last approximately 1 Myr. Our study shows that combining genomic and palaeoclimatological approaches reveals effects of climatic shifts on genetic diversity and may help predict impacts of future climate change.

Atmospheric change as a driver of change in the Canadian boreal zone1

Global anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and hazardous air pollutants have produced broad yet regionally disparate changes in climatic conditions and pollutant deposition in the Canadian boreal zone (the boreal). Adapting boreal resource management to atmospheric change requires a holistic understanding and awareness of the ongoing and future responses of terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems in this vast, heterogeneous landscape. To integrate existing knowledge of and generate new insights from the broad-scale impacts of atmospheric change, we first describe historical and present trends (∼1980–2015) in temperature, precipitation, deposition of hazardous air pollutants, and atmospheric-mediated natural disturbance regimes in this region. We then examine their associations with ecosystem condition and productivity, biological diversity, soil and water, and the carbon budget. These associations vary considerably among ecozones and likely undergo further changes under the emerging risks of atmospheric change. We highlight the urgent need to establish long-term, boreal-wide monitoring for many key components of freshwater ecosystems to better understand and project the influences of atmospheric change on boreal water resources. We also formulate three divergent future scenarios of boreal ecosystems in 2050. Our scenario analysis reveals multiple undesirable changes in boreal ecosystem structure and functioning with more variable atmospheric conditions and frequent land disturbances, while continuing business-as-usual management of natural resources. It is possible, though challenging, to reduce unwanted consequences to ecosystems through management regimes focussed on socio-ecological sustainability and developing resilient infrastructure and adaptive resource-management strategies. We emphasize the need for proactive actions and improved foresight for all sectors of society to collaborate, innovate, and invest in anticipation of impending global atmospheric change, without which the boreal zone will face a dim future.

Altered leaf elemental composition with climate change is linked to reductions in photosynthesis, growth and survival in a semi‐arid shrubland

Abstract Climate change will increase heat and drought stress in many dryland areas, which could reduce soil nutrient availability for plants and aggravate nutrient limitation of primary productivity. Any negative impacts of climate change on foliar nutrient contents would be expected to negatively affect the photosynthetic capacity, water use efficiency and overall fitness of dryland vegetation. We conducted a 4‐year manipulative experiment using open top chambers and rainout shelters to assess the impacts of warming (~2°C, W), rainfall reduction (~30%, RR) and their combination (W + RR) on the nutrient status and ecophysiological performance of six native shrub species of contrasting phylogeny in a semi‐arid ecosystem. Leaf nutrient status and gas exchange were assessed yearly, whereas biomass production and survival were measured at the end of the study. Warming (W and W + RR) advanced shoot growth phenology and reduced foliar macro‐ (N, P, K) and micronutrient (Cu, Fe, Zn) concentrations (by 8%–18% and 14%–56% respectively), net photosynthetic rate (32%), above‐ground biomass production (28%–39%) and survival (23%–46%). Decreased photosynthesis and growth in W and W + RR plants were primarily linked to enhanced nutritional constraints on carbon fixation. Poor leaf nutrient status in W and W + RR plants partly decoupled carbon assimilation from water flux and led to drastic reductions in water use efficiency (WUEi; ~41%) across species. The RR treatment moderately decreased foliar macro‐ and micronutrients (6%–17%, except for Zn) and biomass production (22%). The interactive impacts of warming and rainfall reduction (W + RR treatment) on plant performance were generally smaller than expected from additive single‐factor effects. Synthesis. Large decreases in plant nutrient pool size and productivity combined with increased mortality during hotter droughts will reduce vegetation cover and nutrient retention capacity, thereby disrupting biogeochemical processes and accelerating dryland degradation with impending climate change. Increased macro‐ and micronutrient co‐limitation of photosynthesis with forecasted climate change conditions may offset any gains in WUEi and productivity derived from anthropogenic CO2 elevation, thereby increasing dryland vegetation vulnerability to drought stress in a warmer and drier climate. The generalized reduction in leaf nutrient contents with warming compromises plant nutritional quality for herbivores, with potential cascading negative effects across trophic levels.

Technological disruptions in services: lessons from tourism and hospitality

Purpose Technological disruptions such as the Internet of Things and autonomous devices, enhanced analytical capabilities (artificial intelligence) and rich media (virtual and augmented reality) are creating smart environments that are transforming industry structures, processes and practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore critical technological advancements using a value co-creation lens to provide insights into service innovations that impact ecosystems. The paper provides examples from tourism and hospitality industries as an information dependent service management context. Design/methodology/approach The research synthesizes prevailing theories of co-creation, service ecosystems, networks and technology disruption with emerging technological developments. Findings Findings highlight the need for research into service innovations in the tourism and hospitality sector at both macro-market and micro-firm levels, emanating from the rapid and radical nature of technological advancements. Specifically, the paper identifies three areas of likely future disruption in service experiences that may benefit from immediate attention: extra-sensory experiences, hyper-personalized experiences and beyond-automation experiences. Research limitations/implications Tourism and hospitality services prevail under varying levels of infrastructure, organization and cultural constraints. This paper provides an overview of potential disruptions and developments and does not delve into individual destination types and settings. This will require future work that conceptualizes and examines how stakeholders may adapt within specific contexts. Social implications Technological disruptions impact all facets of life. A comprehensive picture of developments here provides policymakers with nuanced perspectives to better prepare for impending change. Originality/value Guest experiences in tourism and hospitality by definition take place in hostile environments that are outside the safety and familiarity of one’s own surroundings. The emergence of smart environments will redefine how customers navigate their experiences. At a conceptual level, this requires a complete rethink of how stakeholders should leverage technologies, engage and reengineer services to remain competitive. The paper illustrates how technology disrupts industry structures and stimulates value co-creation at the micro and macro-societal level.