Constantine Alexander's blog

Joining Forces to Save the Seas: Unprecedented Partnership Has Potential to Transform Ocean Governance and Leverage Billions of Dollars for Ocean Health

Statement from Conservation International on the Global Partnership for Oceans announced by World Bank President Robert Zoellick 

 Following a presentation from World Bank President Robert Zoellick at The Economist World Ocean Summit in Singapore today, Conservation International announced its enthusiastic support of the Global Partnership for Oceans. The partnership, according to Zoellick, will be coalition of governments, international organizations, civil society groups and private interests, joining together to confront widely documented problems of over-fishing, pollution, habitat loss and climate change.

"The bottom line is our lives depend on oceans, but we need to better understand them. We need to adequately value oceans and the benefits they provide, and act on this knowledge. If we don't do this, we and future generations of people will be hurt," said Conservation International Chairman and CEO Peter Seligmann. "I commend Robert Zoellick and the World Bank on taking a critical step to catalyze the funding required by governments, businesses and civil society to secure ocean health for us and our children."

Conservation International has already demonstrated a successful ocean conservation model in the field with its Seascape approach, which aims to establish responsible governance and recovering ocean health at a large scale (hundreds of thousands or millions of square kilometers) through collaboration among governments of bordering nations, stakeholder groups and partner organizations.

"This partnership is timely because oceans are under threat and have not been properly managed. Demand for seafood and other benefits from the oceans are growing while marine ecosystems are declining in health," said Sebastian Troëng, Vice President of Marine Conservation at Conservation International. "Conservation International has talented staff and strong partnerships around the globe, but no organization has the ability to singlehandedly resolve the challenges facing the world’s oceans. Working with the World Bank in this Partnership, we bring together governments, businesses, financial institutions and local communities to support healthy and productive oceans in a way we could not have done alone."

Over the past decade, Conservation International has catalyzed the Eastern Tropical Pacific Seascape (a collaboration between Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador); the Papuan Bird's Head Seascape (Indonesia); the Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape (Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia); and the Abrolhos Seascape (Brazil).

"When the governance situation changes and countries establish marine protected areas, an average there is a 21 percent increase in the diversity, and a 28 percent increase in the size of the organisms inside the reserves relative to unprotected areas nearby," added Troeng. "Those same reserves have seen the tons of fish per square kilometer increase 446 percent on average. And research has shown that communities using marine protected areas have greater incomes, more diversified livelihoods and greater environmental awareness than nearby communities that do not have marine protected areas."

Conservation International is joined in this partnership by a number of developed and developing countries and country groupings, including island nations; non-government organizations and advocacy bodies like Environmental Defense Fund, the International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF), the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), National Geographic Society, The Nature Conservancy, Oceana, Rare and World Wildlife Fund (WWF); science bodies like the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA); industry groups like National Fisheries Institute, and the World Ocean Council whose members rely on sustainable seafood supplies or are dependent on ocean resources; international organizations including the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The Global Environment Facility, Global Ocean Forum, GRID Arendal (Norway), the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission and the World Bank Group.

 

Evolution of earliest horses driven by climate change

The hotter it gets, the smaller the animal?

		This is an artist's reconstruction of a modern horse compared with Sifrhippus. Credit: Danielle Byerley, UFL

When Sifrhippus sandae, the earliest known horse, first appeared in the forests of North America more than 50 million years ago, it would not have been mistaken for a Clydesdale.

It weighed in at around 12 pounds--and it was destined to get much smaller over the ensuing millennia.

Sifrhippus lived during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a 175,000-year interval of time some 56 million years ago in which average global temperatures rose by about 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

The change was caused by the release of vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere and oceans.

About a third of mammal species responded with a significant reduction in size during the PETM, some by as much as one-half.

Sifrhippus shrank by about 30 percent, to the size of a small house cat--about 8.5 pounds--in the PETM's first 130,000 years, then rebounded to about 15 pounds in the final 45,000 years of the PETM.

Scientists have assumed that rising temperatures or high concentrations of carbon dioxide primarily caused the "dwarfing" phenomenon in mammals during this period.

New research led by Ross Secord of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Jonathan Bloch of the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida offers evidence of the cause-and-effect relationship between temperature and body size.

Their findings also provide clues to what might happen to animals in the near future from global warming.

		Shown are the teeth of Sifrhippus at its larger size with teeth from the same species after its size shrank. Credit: Kristen Grace, UFL

In a paper published in this week's issue of the journal Science, Secord, Bloch and colleagues used measurements and geochemical composition of fossil mammal teeth to document a progressive decrease in Sifrhippus' body size that correlates very closely to temperature change over a 130,000-year span.

"The reduction in available oxygen some 50 million years ago led to a reduction in the body size of animal life," says H. Richard Lane, program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research. "What does that say about the future for Earth's animals?"

Bloch said that multiple trails led to the discovery.

One was the fossils themselves, recovered from the Cabin Fork area of the southern Bighorn Basin near Worland, Wyo.

Stephen Chester at Yale, a paper co-author, had the task of measuring the horses' teeth.

What he found when he plotted them through time caught Bloch and Secord by surprise.

"He pointed out that the first horses in the section were much larger than those later on," Bloch says. "I thought something had to be wrong, but he was right and the pattern became more robust as we collected more fossils."

Secord performed the geochemical analysis of the teeth. What he found was an even bigger surprise.

"It was absolutely startling when Ross pulled up the data," Bloch said. "We realized that it was exactly the same pattern that we were seeing with the horse body.

"For the first time, going back into deep time--tens of millions of years--we were able to show that indeed temperature was causing essentially a one-to-one shift in body size in this lineage of horse.

		From fossils, researchers determined oxygen levels on Earth some 56 million years ago. Credit: Kristen Grace, UFL

"Because it's over a long enough time, you can argue very strongly that what you're looking at is natural selection and evolution that it's actually corresponding to the shift in temperature and driving the evolution of these horses."

Secord says that the finding raises important questions about how plants and animals will respond to rapid change in the not-too-distant future.

"This has implications for what we might expect to see over the next century or two with climate models that are predicting warming of as much as 4 degrees Centigrade over the next 100 years," he says, which is 7 degrees Fahrenheit.

Those predictions are based largely on the 40 percent increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, from 280 to 392 parts per million, since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-19th century.

Ornithologists, Secord says, have already started to notice that there may be a decrease in body size among birds.

"One of the issues is that warming during the PETM happened much more slowly, over 10,000 to 20,000 years to increase by 10 degrees, whereas now we're expecting it to happen over a century or two."

"So there's a big difference in scale. One of the questions is, 'Are we going to see the same kind of response?' Are animals going to be able to keep up and readjust their body sizes over the next couple of centuries?"

Increased temperatures are not the only change to which animals may have to adapt.

Experiments show that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide lowers the nutritional content of plants, which could have been a secondary driver of dwarfism during the PETM.

Other co-authors of the paper are Doug Boyer of Brooklyn College, Aaron Wood of the Florida Museum of Natural History, Scott Wing of the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Mary Kraus of the University of Colorado-Boulder, Francesca McInerny of Northwestern University and John Krigbaum of the University of Florida.

The research was also funded by University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Contact: Cheryl Dybas
cdybas@nsf.gov
703-292-7734
National Science Foundation

World nourishment at risk of being diminished: Wild cereals threatened by global warming

A 28-year comparative study of wild emmer wheat and wild barley populations has revealed that these progenitors of cultivated wheat and barley, which are the best hope for crop improvement, have undergone changes over this period of global warming

		Wheats and barleys are the staple food for humans and animal feed around the world, and their wild progenitors have undergone genetic changes over the last 28 years that imply a risk for crop improvement and food production, reveals a new study. "The earliness in flowering time and genetic changes that are taking place in these important progenitor wild cereals, most likely due to global warming, can negatively affect the wild progenitors. These changes could thereby indirectly deteriorate food production," says professor Eviatar Nevo of the Insitute of Evolution at the University of Haifa who directed the study. Credit: Courtesy of the University of Haifa

A 28-year comparative study of wild emmer wheat and wild barley populations has revealed that these progenitors of cultivated wheat and barley, which are the best hope for crop improvement, have undergone changes over this period of global warming. The changes present a real concern for their being a continued source of crop improvement.

Wheats and barleys are the staple food for humans and animal feed around the world, and their wild progenitors have undergone genetic changes over the last 28 years that imply a risk for crop improvement and food production, reveals a new study. "The earliness in flowering time and genetic changes that are taking place in these important progenitor wild cereals, most likely due to global warming, can negatively affect the wild progenitors. These changes could thereby indirectly deteriorate food production," says Prof. Eviatar Nevo of the Insitute of Evolution at the University of Haifa who directed the study.

Wheats are the universal cereals of Old World agriculture.The progenitors, wild emmer wheat and wild barley, which originated in the Near East, provide the genetic basis for ameliorating wheat and barley cultivars, which as earlier studies have shown, are themselves under constant genetic erosion and increasing susceptibility to environmental stresses.

The new study set out to examine whether the wild cereal progenitors are undergoing evolutionary changes due to climate change that would impact future food production. It was was headed by Prof. Nevo, along with Dr. Yong-Bi Fu from Canada, and Drs.Beiles, Pavlicek and Tavasi, and Miss Khalifa from the University of Haifa's Institute of Evolution, and recently published in the prestigious scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Ten wild emmer wheat and ten wild barley populations from different climates and habitats across Israel were sampled first in 1980 and then again at the same sites in 2008 and grown in a common greenhouse. The results indicated that over the relatively short period of 28 years, all 20 wild cereal populations examined, without exception, showed a dramatic change in flowering time. All populations sampled in 2008 flowered, on average, about 10 days earlier than those sampled in 1980. "These cereal progenitors are adapting their time of flowering to escape the heat," Prof. Nevo explains. The study also found that the genetic diversity of the 2008 sample is for the most part significantly reduced, but some new drought-adapted variants appeared that could be used for crop improvement. "The ongoing global warming in Israel is the only likely factor that could have caused earliness in flowering and genetic turnover across the range of wild cereals in Israel. This indicates that they are under environmental stress which may erode their future survival," says Prof. Nevo. "Multiple effects of the global warming phenomenon have been observed in many species of plants and animals," he adds. "But this study is pioneering in showing its infuence on flowering and genetic changes in wild cereals. These changes threaten the best genetic resource for crop improvement and thereby may damage food production."

A number of species did show positive adaptive changes resulting from global warming, such as earliness in flowering or migration into cooler regions. "But overall," says Prof. Nevo, "the genetic resources of these critical wild cereals are undergoing rapid erosion - and cannot be dismissed as a concern for future generations. Wild emmer wheat is the world's most important genetic resource for wheat improvement, and it is up to us to preserve it. We are utilizing our gene bank at the Institute of Evolution for transforming genes of interest to the crop. However, a much more extensive effort needs to be made to keep the natural populations thriving, by preventing urbanization and global warming from eliminating them".

Contact: Rachel Feldman
rfeldman@univ.haifa.ac.il
972-482-88722
University of Haifa

Climate change affects bird migration timing in North America

		Geographic variation in phenological response and example trajectories of temperature and arrival date. Credit: Hurlbert AH, Liang Z (2012) Spatiotemporal Variation in Avian Migration Phenology: Citizen Science Reveals Effects of Climate Change. PLoS ONE 7(2): e31662. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031662

Bird migration timing across North America has been affected by climate change, according to a study published Feb. 22 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The results are based on a systematic analysis of observations from amateur birdwatchers. This citizen science approach provided access to data for 18 common North American bird species, including orioles, house wrens, and barn swallows, across an unprecedented geographical region.

The researchers, led by Allen Hurlbert of University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that the average arrival time for all species and all locations was shifted earlier by almost a full day for every degree Celsius of warming of the spring temperature, and some species shifted their arrival time by as much as 3-6 days per degree. These results highlight both the power of citizen science for obtaining data, and the potential important impacts of climate change on migration patterns.

"We now have a much better idea of which parts of the country are seeing big shifts in migration timing, and which species may be least able to adapt to the changing climate", says Dr. Hurlbert.

Citation: Hurlbert AH, Liang Z (2012) Spatiotemporal Variation in Avian Migration Phenology: Citizen Science Reveals Effects of Climate Change. PLoS ONE 7(2):e31662. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0031662

Contact: Yael Franco
yfranco@plos.org
415-568-3169
Public Library of Science

Solved! Mystery that stumped ecosystem modelers

Scientists show that predator/prey relationships make possible the rich biodiversity of complex ecosystems

As scientists warn that the Earth is on the brink of a period of mass extinctions, they are struggling to identify ecosystem responses to environmental change. But to truly understand these responses, more information is needed about how the Earth's staggering diversity of species originated.

Curiously, a vexing modeling mystery has stymied research on this topic: mathematical models have told us that complex ecosystems, such as jungles, deserts and coral reefs, in which species coexist and interact with another, cannot persist--even though they obviously do.

But now, Stefano Allesina and Si Tang, both of the University of Chicago, have solved that vexing modeling mystery, and have thereby laid the groundwork for improvements in the modeling of complex ecosystems to environmental change.

The researchers' work, which was funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is published in this week's issue of Nature.

The tension between mathematical models of ecosystems and the existence of the Earth's rich biodiversity was first exposed about 40 years ago by the development of a ground-breaking mathematical model that represented the relationship between ecosystem stability and diversity; the model was developed by Robert M. May of Oxford University.

According to May's model, ecosystems that harbor large numbers of interacting species would necessarily be extremely unstable--so unstable that even slight perturbations, such as variable weather and environmental conditions, would be enough to trigger massive extinctions within them. Therein lies a paradox: According to May's modeling, the persistence in nature of the complex ecosystems we observe should be exceedingly improbable.

Ever since May released his modeling results, scientists have been attempting to identify factors that enable species to persist despite the general tendency towards instability and extinctions highlighted by May's results. Now, in their Nature paper, Allesina and Tang explain why May's results do not accurately describe ecosystems in which "Eat or be eaten", relationships (predator/prey relationships) are prevalent. Allesina explains: "May's model assumes that any two species in a large ecological network interact with one another at random, and without any consideration of the specific type of interaction between them, whether it is a predator-prey relationship, a mutualistic relationship or a competitive relationship."

But in their recent research, Allesina and Tang modeled ecosystems in which species consume each other in addition to interacting with one another as competitors or mutualists. Their results explain why large numbers of species do, in fact, thrive instead of necessarily going extinct as predicted by May's model. This advance provides the foundation for the development of increasingly sophisticated analyses of ecosystem responses to environmental change.

Allesina believes that it is predator/prey relationships (not competitor or mutualistic relationships) that provide the necessary stability for almost infinite numbers of species to exist in ecosystems. They do so by keeping the size of species populations in check at supportable levels. Allesina explains, "When prey are high, predators increase and reduce the number of prey by predation. When predators are low, prey decrease and thus reduce the number of predators by starvation. These predator/prey relationships thereby promote stability in ecosystems and enable them to maintain large numbers of species."

By contrast, mutualistic relationships may reinforce the growth of large populations and competitive relationships may depress population numbers to the point of ecological instability. Allesina says that May's model mixed various types of species interactions but could not represent these relationships accurately because of technical modeling constraints that he and Tang overcame.

"The results of Allesina and Tang's network analyses are important," says David Spiller, an NSF program director, "because they show that the stability properties of complex ecological systems are determined by the type of interaction among species (predation, competition, mutualism) and the strength of those interactions."

Allesina says that he and Tang intend to further improve their ecosystem model by embedding into it well-known interactions that exist between particular species. He also says that the insights gleaned through this study may be used to improve models of other types of networks that are unrelated to ecology, such as various types of gene regulatory networks and chemical reactions.

Remarkably, Allesina says that he and Tang cracked the biodiversity mystery without supercomputers or other high-tech instruments that are so frequently at the core of current biological discoveries: "We did the necessary calculations with just a pen and paper after finding a 1988 article on quantum physics that gave us the key to crack the problem."

Contact: Lily Whiteman
lwhitema@nsf.gov
703-292-8310
National Science Foundation

Hold the salt: Coastal drinking water more vulnerable to water use than climate change

Credit: California Coastal Commission Public Education Program

Human activity is likely a greater threat to coastal groundwater used for drinking water supplies than rising sea levels from climate change, according to a study conducted by geoscientists from the University of Saskatchewan and McGill University in Montreal.

Grant Ferguson from the U of S Department of Civil and Geological Engineering worked with Tom Gleeson from McGill's Department of Civil Engineering to examine data from more than 1,400 coastal watersheds. What they found was that with the exception of very flat coastal areas that can be inundated with sea water – rare in North America – most coastal aquifers are relatively unaffected by rising sea level.

What does appear to affect these aquifers is humans pumping water from wells for drinking, domestic use and irrigation.

"The bulk of the research in recent years has focused on climate change effects on coastal groundwater but increases in water demand could be more important," Ferguson says. "This is particularly true in growing coastal cities and towns where groundwater is often an important water supply."

Aquifers are geological formations such as sand or gravel that are saturated with water, much like a sponge. Wells draw fresh water from these aquifers, which are then recharged through surface water such as rain and melting snow.

Coastal aquifers, however, are bordered on one side by seawater that can start to migrate into the formation – and into wells – if too much fresh water is drawn out. Similarly, rising sea levels can cause seawater to enter into the formation. To date, only problems related to pumping have been documented in Canada.

"Coastal aquifers are very vulnerable to increased water demand so we have real policy opportunities," Gleeson says. "We can reduce consumption of groundwater in coastal areas or manage groundwater use wisely."

It is estimated that one billion people world-wide live in coastal areas, and many are dependent on ground water. In Canada, about 25 per cent of people rely on groundwater, with some areas almost totally dependent on the resource.

The paper, "Vulnerability of coastal aquifers to groundwater use and climate change," was published online February 19 in Nature Climate Change. The research was made possible in part through support from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Gleeson is a CIFAR Junior Fellow.

Contact: Michael Robin
michael.robin@usask.ca
306-966-1425
University of Saskatchewan

Iconic marine mammals are 'swimming in sick seas' of terrestrial pathogens: UBC researchers

Steller sea lion with tumor. Credit: M Haulena. Taken under authority of U.S. Marine Mammal Permit No. 14326-02 issued to the National Marine Mammal Lab, Seattle, WA.

Parasites and pathogens infecting humans, pets and farm animals are increasingly being detected in marine mammals such as sea otters, porpoises, harbour seals and killer whales along the Pacific coast of the U.S. and Canada, and better surveillance is required to monitor public health implications, according to a panel of scientific experts from Canada and the United States.

UBC scientists Stephen Raverty, Michael Grigg and Andrew Trites and Melissa Miller from the California Department of Fish and Game, presented their research today at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada.

They called for stronger collaboration among public health, coastal water policy and marine mammal health research sectors to reduce land-sea transfer of pathogens and toxins. These terrestrial sourced pollutants are killing coastal marine mammals and likely pose risks to human health.

Between 1998 and 2010, nearly 5,000 marine mammal carcasses were recovered and necropsied along the British Columbia and Pacific Northwest region of the U.S., including whales, dolphins and porpoises, sea lions and otters.

"Infectious diseases accounted for up to 40 per cent of mortalities of these marine animals," says Stephen Raverty, a veterinary pathologist with the Animal Health Centre in the British Columbia Ministry of Agriculture and Lands, and an adjunct professor in UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit.

"In many cases, the diseases found in these marine mammals have similar or genetically identical agents as those infecting pets and livestock. We don't yet know how these diseases are affecting the health of marine mammals" says Raverty.

For example, researchers recently identified the first case of Neospora caninum in sea otters. The parasite is known to cause infectious abortions in dairy cattle and muscular and bone diseases in dogs. Cryptococcus gatti, a fungus typically associated with dead and decomposing eucalyptus trees in tropical regions, has been found in some harbour and Dall's porpoises.

"The marine mammals that died of severe brain disease were infected with two common parasites, Toxoplasma and Sarcocystis, which are shed in the feces of feline and opossum hosts," says Michael Grigg, a researcher with the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases and adjunct professor in UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit. "Expansion of host range for the opossum and climate change may be important factors contributing to the increased incidence of infection from these land-based pathogens "

"We can expect increased health risks for humans, pets and marine mammals sharing the same polluted marine habitat – including along the shorelines right here in downtown Vancouver," says Andrew Trites, director of UBC's Marine Mammal Research Unit. "In a way, marine mammals are the canary in the coal mine – we must consider ourselves warned and take appropriate action."

The team recommends better management of urban pest populations, maintaining wetland marshes, reducing run-off from urban areas near the coast, and monitoring water quality to prevent pathogens and toxins from entering the marine food chain. Collaboration amongst coastal regions and countries is also crucial.

"Marine mammals recognize no borders, and neither do pathogens and parasites," says Raverty.

Contact: Brian Lin
brian.lin@ubc.ca
604-818-5685
University of British Columbia

Yosemite's alpine chipmunks take genetic hit from climate change

		An alpine chipmunk (Tamias alpinus) is shown at Yosemite's Ten Lakes Pass at an elevation of 9,631 feet. Credit: Risa Sargent

Global warming has forced alpine chipmunks in Yosemite to higher ground, prompting a startling decline in the species' genetic diversity, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The study, appearing Sunday, Feb. 19, in the advance online publication of the journal Nature Climate Change, is one of the first to show a hit to the genetic diversity of a species because of a recent climate-induced change in the animals' geographic range. What's more, the genetic erosion occurred in the relatively short span of 90 years, highlighting the rapid threat changing climate can pose to a species.

With low genetic diversity a species can be more vulnerable to the effects of inbreeding, disease and other problems that threaten species survival, the researchers said.

"Climate change is implicated as the cause of geographic shifts observed among birds, small mammals and plants, but this new work shows that, particularly for mountain species like the alpine chipmunk, such shifts can result in increasingly fragmented and genetically impoverished populations," said study lead author Emily Rubidge, who conducted the research while a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology and the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. "Under continued warming, the alpine chipmunk could be on the trajectory towards becoming threatened or even extinct."

Rubidge worked with Craig Moritz, professor of integrative biology and director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology; James Patton, professor emeritus of integrative biology and curator of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology; and Justin Brashares, associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management.

The new findings build upon previous research that found major shifts in the range of small mammals in Yosemite National Park since the early 1900s. In 2003, biologists at UC Berkeley began an ambitious resurvey of Yosemite's birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians, retracing the steps originally taken between 1914 and 1920 by Joseph Grinnell, founder and former director of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology.

The Grinnell Resurvey Project, led by Moritz and museum colleagues, found that many small mammals in Yosemite moved or retracted their ranges to higher, cooler elevations over the past century, a period when the average temperature in the park increased by 3 degrees Celsius, or about 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

It is no surprise that the alpine chipmunk (Tamias alpinus) would be more sensitive to the temperature change, since it is a high-elevation species endemic to California's Sierra Nevada, the researchers said. In the early 1900s, Grinnell and colleagues sighted alpine chipmunks at elevations of 7,800 feet. Now, the alpine chipmunk appears to be sticking to even higher elevations, retracting its range by about 1,640 feet upslope.

To test the genetic impact from that loss of geographic range, researchers compared genetic markers from 146 modern-day alpine chipmunks with those from 88 of their historical counterparts. Samples were collected from seven paired sites throughout Yosemite.

As a control, the researchers also looked at the genetics – both historic and modern – of lodgepole chipmunks (Tamias speciosus), a lower elevation species that had not changed its range over the past century.

The analysis of genetic markers revealed a significant decline in "allele richness" among the recently sampled alpine chipmunk populations compared with their historic counterparts. Moreover, the researchers noted that the modern chipmunks were more genetically differentiated across sites than in the past, a sign of increased fragmentation in the alpine chipmunk population.

In comparison, there were no significant changes in genetic diversity detected among the lodgepole chipmunks, a species found at elevations from 4,900 to 9,800 feet.

"Much of what we read and hear about the effects of climate change on biodiversity is based on model projections and simulations, and these models typically involve many moving parts and lots of uncertainty," said Brashares. "Thanks to the baseline provided by Joseph Grinnell's pioneering efforts in the early 20th century, we are able to go beyond projections to document how climate is altering life in California. The research led by Emily is novel and important because it shows empirically that climate change has led to the loss of genetic diversity in a wild mammal over the last several decades."

Moritz added that this study exemplifies how patterns of change in California's ecosystems can be uncovered through analyses of fossil, historic and modern records.

"At the heart of this whole enterprise is the incredibly dense historic record and specimens we have at UC Berkeley from 100 years ago," said Moritz. "These collections allow us to conduct sophisticated analyses to better understand how ecosystems are reacting to environmental changes, and to create more detailed models of future changes."

Other study co-authors are Marisa Lim, a UC Berkeley undergraduate student in integrative biology; and Cole Burton, former UC Berkeley graduate student in environmental science, policy and management (now a research associate at the University of Alberta in Canada).

Funding for this research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, UC Berkeley's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, the Yosemite Fund, the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation.

Contact: Sarah Yang
scyang@berkeley.edu
510-643-7741
University of California - Berkeley

Southwest pueblo-dwellers key to modern climate policy?

Anthropology gives scientists and policy-makers an edge, a new window to learn from the past

Vulnerability to climate change presents policy challenges to local, state, regional, national and international entities, particularly at a time when the public and policy-makers still struggle conceptually with the complexities of rising ocean levels, falling water tables and shifting ecoclines. How can we plan sustainably for an unknowable future outcome? Arizona State anthropologist Michelle Hegmon says, look back to simpler times.

Hegmon believes that there is power in the scope of our own human history and experience: "Anthropologists are able to humanize complex situations and ask what it was like to live in societies over long periods of time. Understanding more how different societies adapted to change and what it was like to live in those societies reveals ways to approach our own modern social dilemmas." She investigates these issues with an innovative approach that involves drawing on seven dimensions of human security developed by the United Nationals Development Programme. Hegmon has developed methods of applying these dimensions – originally intended to today's world – to understand human experience in the archaeologically known past.

A professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change in ASU's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Hegmon's forward-thinking research focuses on decades of work she and ASU colleague Margaret Nelson have done in the Mimbres region of southwest New Mexico. The duo demonstrated that what had been perceived as the end of the Mimbres culture (the disappearance of a spectacular style of pottery) was actually a reorganization, in which people left their large villages, relocated to smaller hamlets scattered across the region, and began to make and use new styles.

Understanding what fueled past societies' resilience, the implications for future human security and how to apply that knowledge to modern times is the focus of Hegmon's talk "Socially created vulnerabilities and their human costs: Archaeological perspectives," on Friday, Feb. 19 at the annual American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

Hegmon's study of this transition offer lessons about the pressures that face societies in times of changing climate. One of the key issues, she notes is that "there are always tradeoffs." A policy that is good for the environment may be difficult for some people; an irrigation system that buffers people from fluctuations in rainfall may make them more vulnerable to floods.

Hegmon and her collaborators at the AAAS symposium are also applying this approach to broad comparisons that investigate a variety of past societies in the U.S. Southwest and in North Atlantic (including the Norse settlement of Greenland and Iceland). What unites these approaches is the researchers' concern with drawing on the past to help the future, their comparative perspective, and their explicit concern with the human experience in these societies' successes and failures.

"With the right methods and questions, these new methods can humanize our understanding of what it was like to live in other times and places," says Hegmon. "That knowledge, even if it isn't always rosy, is critical to thinking about and developing solutions for our choices during a time of climactic change."

"Anthropology gives scientists and policy-makers an edge, a new window to learn from the past," she adds.

Hegmon holds a doctoral degree in anthropology from the University of Michigan. She has worked on projects that range from the archeology of the American Southwest, to examination of feminist theory, gender and archeology. Hegmon is part of several transdisciplinary teams, including the Long-Term Vulnerability and Transformation Project funded by the National Science Foundation, and the North Atlantic Bicultural Organization (NABO). She is also the director of MimPIDD (Mimbres Pottery Image Digital Database), funded by the Turner Foundation.

Contact: Margaret Coulombe
margaret.coulombe@asu.edu
480-727-8934
Arizona State University

Window into world's future oceans unveiled by NF-UBC Nereus team

UBC Fisheries Prof. Villy Christensen

An international team from the Nippon Foundation-University of British Columbia Nereus program has unveiled the first global model of life in the world's oceans, allowing scientists and policymakers to predict – and show through 3D visualizations – the state of life in the oceans of the future.

Combining scientific data from three major factors impacting our oceans – climate change, human activity (including fisheries and river run-off) and food web dynamics (fish eating fish), the Nereus model shows life under the sea from 1960 to 2060. Based on current policies, the model shows a strong decline in the biomass of large fish, while some small fish may actually be increasing.

"Our preliminary results show a global fish biomass of two billion tonnes, confirming earlier estimates taken from regional modeling," says UBC Fisheries Prof. Villy Christensen, who is presenting the research today at the Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Vancouver, Canada.

"This is the first comprehensive attempt to model life in our global oceans, and will require refining, but we can now show the future impact of choices we are making today, and answer the question: what must we do now to leave healthy oceans and fish to future generations?"

The Nereus model was developed by an international team of scientists in the Nereus – Predicting the Future Ocean program, a joint initiative between the Nippon Foundation and UBC. It is capable of analyzing data from four linked global models – Earth System, Ocean Life, Biodiversity Envelope, and Fisheries Management and Governance – to generate 3D scenarios based on different fisheries management choices and policies.

The Nereus model not only provides a first global view of life in our oceans, but also a predictive view of the future impacts of choices we are making now. The model includes a tool called "The Oracle," where the public can ask questions and the resulting answers illuminate the science lying behind the choices. For example, asking "How will fishing efforts impact future fish stocks?" leads to two scenarios. In one scenario, fishing efforts increase over time and result in dramatic declines in future biomass of large fish. In a second scenario, fishing efforts are gradually reduced, resulting in a slow, gradual recovery.

Yesterday, Professor Christensen announced formal partnerships between the Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus – Predicting the Future Ocean program and five renowned institutions: Duke University, Princeton University, University of Stockholm, Cambridge University, and the United Nations Environment Program's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC). Researchers from these institutions also joined Christensen in sharing their perspectives on the future of the world's oceans.

"What makes this partnership so exciting is the breadth and depth of expertise that it focuses on the oceans and our relationship to it," says Prof. Jorge L. Sarmiento, Director of the Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at Princeton University.

"We now have many of the world's best fisheries, climate, conservation, and social scientists working together, and it is only through this kind of interdisciplinary effort that we can begin to understand what humanity will need to do to save our oceans, the seafood we get from it, and the human communities that rely on it," says Sarmiento.

"The Nippon Foundation is pleased to see the first results of this innovative international collaboration," says Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, Chair of The Nippon Foundation. "We hope this unique network of marine science including both social and physical science will change the mindset of global community for the future ocean."

Contact: John Corry
john.corry@ubc.ca
604-506-7441
University of British Columbia