People have a remarkable ability to remember and recall events from the past, even when those events didn't hold any particular importance at the time they occurred. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on November 23 have evidence that dogs have that kind of "episodic memory" too.
The study found that dogs can recall a person's complex actions even when they don't expect to have their memory tested.
"The results of our study can be considered as a further step to break down artificially erected barriers between non-human animals and humans," says Claudia Fugazza of MTA-ELTE Comparative Ethology Research Group in Budapest, Hungary. "Dogs are among the few species that people consider 'clever,' and yet we are still surprised whenever a study reveals that dogs and their owners may share some mental abilities despite our distant evolutionary relationship."
Evidence that non-human animals use episodic-like memory has been hard to come by because you can't just ask a dog what it remembers. In the new study, the researchers took advantage of a trick called "Do as I Do." Dogs trained to "Do as I Do" can watch a person perform an action and then do the action themselves. For example, if their owner jumps in the air and then gives the "Do it!" command, the dog would jump in the air too.
The fact that dogs can be trained in this way alone wasn't enough to prove episodic memory. That's because it needed to be shown that dogs remember what they just saw a person do even when they weren't expecting to be asked or rewarded. To get around this problem, the researchers first trained 17 dogs to imitate human actions with the "Do as I Do" training method. Next, they did another round of training in which dogs were trained to lie down after watching the human action, no matter what it was.
After the dogs had learned to lie down reliably, the researchers surprised them by saying "Do It" and the dogs did. In other words, the dogs recalled what they'd seen the person do even though they had no particular reason to think they'd need to remember. They showed episodic-like memory.
Dogs were tested in that way after one minute and after one hour. The results show they were able to recall the demonstrated actions after both short and long time intervals. However, their memory faded somewhat over time.
The researchers say that the same approach can most likely be used and adapted in a wide range of animal species, to better understand how animals' minds process their own actions and that of others around them.
"From a broad evolutionary perspective, this implies that episodic-like memory is not unique and did not evolve only in primates but is a more widespread skill in the animal kingdom," Fugazza says. "We suggest that dogs may provide a good model to study the complexity of episodic-like memory in a natural setting, especially because this species has the evolutionary and developmental advantage to live in human social groups."
For all those dog owners out there: your dogs are paying attention and they'll remember.
The environmental impact of your Thanksgiving dinner depends on where the meal is prepared.
Carnegie Mellon University researchers calculated the carbon footprint of a typical Thanksgiving feast -- roasted turkey stuffed with sausage and apples, green bean casserole and pumpkin pie -- for each state. The team based their calculations on the way the meal is cooked (gas versus electric range), the specific state's predominant power source and how the food is produced in each area.
They found that dinners cooked in Maine and Vermont, states that rely mostly on renewable energy, emit the lowest amounts of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that is tied to climate change. States that use coal power, such as Wyoming, West Virginia and Kentucky, have the highest carbon dioxide emissions.
"Food production -- how the food is grown or raised -- and meal preparation -- how the food is cooked -- both contribute to the carbon footprint. We broke our dinner down into its separate dishes, and then broke those down into the individual ingredients. For each ingredient, we tracked its carbon emissions from 'farm-to-fork.' Production and preparation both contribute about 50 pounds of carbon dioxide, but it varies from state to state and house to house," said Paul Fischbeck, professor of social and decisions sciences in the Dietrich College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Further examination showed high variability among similar stove types in different states. For example, cooking a 16-pound turkey in an electric oven in coal-dependent Wyoming emits 32 pounds of carbon dioxide. In Maine, cooking the same turkey in the same oven but with electricity generated primarily from renewable energy releases less than three pounds of carbon dioxide.
Generally, using gas ranges to cook leaves a smaller footprint than electric ranges, but the team found that does not hold true for 11 states whose primary sources for electricity are renewables and nuclear power.
Detailed breakdown for the carbon footprint for each state's Thanksgiving dinner. To see the chart in PDF, please click here. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University
Traveling to celebrate Thanksgiving only worsens the problem.
"Bringing relatives into town can easily double the carbon footprint of the meal," said Orchi Banerjee, a sophomore majoring in decision science. "American cars emit close to a pound of carbon dioxide per mile traveled. If your guests collectively drive more than 180 miles round trip, it may help the environment if they stayed home and cooked their own meal."
Flying is a completely different story. Four people who fly 600 miles round trip have a carbon footprint ten times that of an average prepared Thanksgiving meal, before they even sit down at the table.
Fischbeck noted that this does not mean he thinks everyone should stay at home or shouldn't enjoy a home-cooked meal.
"It is important to keep things in perspective. Yes, the carbon footprint of Thanksgiving is larger than an average meal, but compared to all the environmental lifestyle decisions that American family could make, these are very, very small potatoes," advised Fischbeck.
"So, eat in moderation, spend time with your friends and family and travel safely, but whatever you do, don't replace your turkey with roast beef. That could easily double the footprint of your feast," Fischbeck said.
Feral cat on Tilos island, Dodecanese, Greece. Analysis of this feral cat’s stool gave us the following information about its diet: Scolopendra sp. 1.8%, Carabinadae 19.6%, Teleostei indet. 1.8%, Alectoris chukar 1.8%, Passer sp. 1.8%, Passeriformes indet. 10.7%, Aves indet. 1.8%, Apodemus mystacinus 7.1%, Rattus rattus 23.2%, Mus domesticus 30.4%. Credit: Constantine Alexander. All rights reserved.
Feral cats are among the most damaging invasive species worldwide, particularly in Australia where they have caused the extinction of more than 20 mammal species. New work has developed priorities for feral cat research and management, including preventing further extinctions, testing new management tools, and increasing potential for native fauna to coexist with cats.
Managing the impacts of cats will be best achieved through a combination of actions, with tools that include guardian animals and grooming traps that spray a toxin onto passing individuals. Careful planning and monitoring are needed to ensure the most cost-effective and ecologically-sound outcomes are achieved from feral cat management.
"Given the urgency of the problem, we need a layered approach, including emergency intervention for species most at risk, and research that improves longer term management of feral cat impacts in larger areas," said Dr. Tim Doherty, lead author of the Mammal Review article.
Philidris nagasau and a young specimen of its Squamellaria host, which was planted by the ants and fertilized with their urine and feces. Picture: G. Chomicki, LMU.
The first farmers on the Fijian archipelago were ants: For millions of years, an ant species on the islands has nurtured epiphytes, which provide them with nesting sites. Moreover, the interaction is vital for the survival of both partners.
Many species of ants live in symbiosis with plants, and both partners in these relationships profit. One of the most remarkable of these interactions is that between the ant species Philidris nagasau and at least six members of the plant genus Squamellaria on the islands of Fiji, which is the subject of a new study by botany professor Susanne Renner from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and her Ph.D. student Guillaume Chomicki that is coming out in the journal Nature Plants. By reconstructing the evolutionary history of these relationships, the LMU researchers demonstrate that the ants began to actively cultivate their plant partners at least three million years ago -- long before humans in the Near East hit on the same idea.
The genus Squamellaria is made up of epiphytic species that grow on trees. The tiny ants begin their careers as gardeners by collecting seeds from the Squamellaria species to which they have become adapted. The insects then "plant" the seeds in fissures in the bark of the host tree, where they then germinate. "The plants colonize three or four tree species, which are also attractive for the ants, either because they produce readily accessible nectar, or because their bark is particularly soft, so that the ants can easily widen the cracks that form," Renner says. Squamellaria are adapted to this niche, as the hypocotyl of the germinating seedlings elongates into a unique 'foot', enabling the seedling to rapidly grow out of the bark crack and into the light. The seedlings then immediately form a tiny tuber with a preformed hole - the so-called domatium - into which ants enter to defecate and thereby fertilize the seedling. As the seedlings grow, the domatium becomes larger, forming a network of galleries connected to the outside, which the ants colonize to form large colonies, continuing to use some chambers for fecal matter, others just for their larvae. As epiphytes, Squamellaria species cannot draw on soil as a source of inorganic nutrients, and the ants promote their growth by supplying them with 'fertilizer'.
As the ants plant more seedlings, all of which they eventually colonize, they are creating a kind of village on the supporting tree, with many well protected nests. A single ant colony occupies many Squamellaria plants, only one of the many 'houses' containing the queen: "One often finds dozens of colonies, connected by ant highways, on a single tree. All of these individuals are the progeny of a single queen, whose nest is located in the center of the system," Chomicki explains.
In contrast to other instances of symbiosis between plants and ants, the interaction between Squamellaria and Philidris nagasau has become so specialized that neither partner can survive on its own. The LMU researchers were able to date the beginnings of the ant-plant symbioses by using the degrees of difference between homologous DNA sequences in both plants and ants as independent molecular clocks. -- Based on calibrated rates of mutation, one can work out approximately when the species involved in the interactions originated, and thus the earliest point at which the symbioses could have formed. The results indicate that the mutualistic relationship between Philidris and Squamellaria began about 3 million years ago, probably as a result of the evolution of reciprocally beneficial adaptations. The ants presumably "discovered" how to promote the growth and propagation of their hosts only after Squamellaria had adopted the epiphytic lifestyle.
The new study determined that much of the ocean's dissolved organic matter is made up of novel polysaccharides -- long chains of sugar molecules created by photosynthetic bacteria in the upper ocean. Bacteria begin to slowly break these polysaccharides, tearing out pairs of carbon and phosphorus atoms from their molecular structure. In the process, the microbes create methane, ethylene, and propylene gasses as byproducts. Most of the methane escapes back into the atmosphere. Illustration by Eric Taylor, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
For decades, marine chemists have faced an elusive paradox. The surface waters of the world's oceans are supersaturated with the greenhouse gas methane, yet most species of microbes that can generate the gas can't survive in oxygen-rich surface waters. So where exactly does all the methane come from? This longstanding riddle, known as the "marine methane paradox," may have finally been cracked thanks to a new study from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).
According to WHOI geochemist Dan Repeta, the answer may lie in the complex ways that bacteria break down dissolved organic matter, a cocktail of substances excreted into seawater by living organisms.
In a paper released in the November 14, 2016 issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, Repeta and colleagues at the University of Hawaii found that much of the ocean's dissolved organic matter is made up of novel polysaccharides--long chains of sugar molecules created by photosynthetic bacteria in the upper ocean. Bacteria begin to slowly break these polysaccharides, tearing out pairs of carbon and phosphorus atoms (called C-P bonds) from their molecular structure. In the process, the microbes create methane, ethylene, and propylene gasses as byproducts. Most of the methane escapes back into the atmosphere.
"All the pieces of this puzzle were there, but they were in different parts, with different people, in different labs, at different times," says Repeta. "This paper unifies a lot of those observations."
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and it is important to understand the various sources of methane in the atmosphere. The research team's findings describe a totally new pathway for the microbial production of methane in the environment, that is very unlike all other known pathways.
Leading up to this study, researchers like Repeta had long suspected that microbes were involved in creating methane in the ocean, but were unable to identify the exact ones responsible.
"Initially, most researchers looked for microbes living in isolated low-oxygen environments, like the guts of fish or shrimp, but they pretty quickly realized that couldn't be a major factor. Too much oxygenated water flows through there," says Repeta. Many researchers also examined flocculent material--snowy-looking bits of animal excrement and other organic material floating in ocean waters. "Some of those also have low-oxygen conditions inside them," he says, "but ultimately they didn't turn out to be a major methane source either."
Methane is produced when bacteria breakdown long-chain sugar molecules. Credit: UH SOEST.
In 2009, one of Repeta's co-authors, David Karl, found an important clue to the puzzle. In the lab, he added a manmade chemical called methylphosphonate, which is rich in C-P bonds, to samples of seawater. As he did, bacteria within the samples immediately started making methane, proving that they were able to take advantage of the C-P bonds provided by the chemical. Since methylphosphonate had never been detected in the ocean, Repeta and his team reasoned that bacteria in the wild must be finding another natural source of C-P bonds. Exactly what that source was, however, remained elusive.
After analyzing samples of dissolved organic matter from surface waters in the northern Pacific, Repeta ran into a possible solution. The polysaccharides within it turned out to have C-P bonds identical to the ones found in methylphosphonate--and if bacteria could break down those molecules, they might be able to access the phosphorus contained within it.
To confirm this idea, Repeta and his team incubated seawater bacteria under different conditions, adding nutrients such as glucose and nitrate to each batch. Nothing seemed to help the bacteria produce methane--until, that is, they added pure polysaccharides isolated from seawater. Once those were in the mix, the bacteria's activity spiked, and the vials began spitting out large amounts of methane.
"That made us think it's a two-part system. You have one species that makes C-P bonds but can't use them, and another species that can use them but not make them," he says.
Repeta and another co-author, Edward DeLong, a microbial oceanographer at the University of Hawaii, then began to explore how bacteria metabolize dissolved organic matter. Using a process called metagenomics, DeLong catalogued all the genes he could find in a sample of seawater from the north Pacific. In the process, he found genes responsible for breaking apart C-P bonds, which would allow bacteria to wrench phosphorus away from carbon atoms. Although DeLong was not certain which bacteria could actually do this, one thing was clear: If the gene was active, it would give an organism access to an important but rare nutrient in seawater.
"The middle of the ocean is a nutrient-limited system," says Repeta. "To make DNA, RNA, and proteins, you need nitrogen and phosphorus, but in the open ocean, those nutrients are at such low concentrations that they're almost immeasurable." Instead of using free-floating nutrients in the water, Repeta says, DeLong's study showed that the microbes must somehow be able to crack into nitrogen and phosphorus hidden deep inside organic molecules.
Although Repeta's latest paper confirms that it is indeed possible for bacteria to break apart C-P bonds, he notes that it's still not a particularly easy means of getting nutrients. With phosphorus tied up in organic molecules, it can be exceedingly difficult for bacteria to reach. If microbes can find other sources of the nutrient, he says, they will inevitably use those first.
"Think of it like a buffet," Repeta says. "If you're a microbe, inorganic nutrients are like fruits and meats and all the tasty stuff that you reach for immediately. Organic nutrients are more like leftover liver. You don't really want to eat it, but if you're hungry enough, you will. It takes years for bacteria to get around to eating the organic phosphorus in the upper ocean. We don't exactly know why, but there's another really interesting story there if we can figure it out."
Land-use practices on tropical oceanic islands can have large impacts on reef ecosystems, even in the absence of rivers and streams. Land-based pollutants, such as fertilizers and chemicals in wastewater, infiltrate into the groundwaters beneath land and eventually exit into nearshore ecosystems as submarine groundwater discharge (SGD)--seeping into the coastal zone beneath the ocean's surface. In a study published recently in PLOS ONE, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM) scientists used a combination of field experiments and chemical analysis of water and algae to show that the quality of coastal groundwater plays a major role in determining the health of nearshore ecosystems in Hawai'i.
Various sources of pollution, such as agriculture or sewage treatment facilities, have identifiable chemical signatures, particularly the isotopes of nitrogen in the nutrients they contain. This study assessed groundwater quality, coastal water quality and reef health across six different bays on Maui with various potential sources of pollution. By comparing the nitrogen isotope signature of algae tissues and potential pollution, the research group traced nutrients in the algae back to their land-based sources.
This study is the first to show the extent of the impact of wastewater injection wells at KahuluiWastewater Reclamation Facility, Maui's highest-volume sewage treatment plant, on Kahului Bay. In addition to relatively high nutrient levels in marine surface waters in Kahului Bay, shallow areas were almost entirely dominated by a thick fleshy mat of colonial zoanthids, a phenomenon not reported anywhere else in the state. A concurrent companion study to this work, led by James Bishop at the UHM Department of Geology and Geophysics, found that water collected from beach sands, which represents coastal groundwater, next to the Kahului Wastewater Reclamation Facility contained up to 75% treated wastewater--highlighting the impact of wastewater in this area.
"Our timely study builds on previous research from UH scientists and recent federal court rulings that show that treated wastewater is illegally discharged to the ocean from injection wells at the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation facility via SGD to Kahekili Beach Park on West Maui," said Daniel Amato, lead author and recent graduate of the UHM College of Natural Sciences. "This is not an isolated or unique occurrence."
This is a schematic of submarine groundwater discharge in Maui, Hawaii. Credit: Bishop, et al. (2015)
Reefs adjacent to large areas of sugarcane agriculture were the most impacted of all the sites in this study. At Ku'au and Mā'alaea Bays, coastal waters contained nearly 100 times more nitrogen than less impacted locations due to fertilizer-enriched SGD. These high levels of nutrients were reflected in the tissues of common macroalgae and measures of reef community structure. A few species of macroalgae dominated intertidal and subtidal surfaces at Ku'au and Mā'alaea Bays. In contrast, areas where coastal groundwater nutrient levels were relatively low, researchers observed much greater diversity and corals were generally present, indicating a healthier, potentially more robust, ecosystem.
This study suggests that contaminated groundwater may present a chronic risk to nearshore marine ecosystems throughout the main Hawaiian Islands. These results are especially significant for coastal managers and lawmakers who will influence the future of land-use policy in Hawai'i. Of particular future interest is the possible benefit gained in health of our reefs by the reduction in Maui's sugarcane production. Reducing groundwater pollution could result in future increases in reef health and decreases in the occurrence of nuisance algal blooms for impacted areas.
"The long-term goal of this research group is to bridge the disciplines of hydrology, geochemistry and marine biology to help answer pressing questions regarding the source and impact of nutrient pollution in Hawaiian coastal waters," said Craig Glenn, Henrietta Dulaiova and Celia Smith, the collaborating principal investigators and co-authors of the Hawai'i Sea Grant project.
A frenzy of rabbitfish feeding on kelp transplanted by a UNSW-led team of researchers off the coast of NSW in eastern Australia. Image: Adriana Vergés
Seaweed-eating fish are becoming increasingly voracious as the ocean warms due to climate change and are responsible for the recent destruction of kelp forests off the NSW north coast near Coffs Harbour, research shows. The study includes an analysis of underwater video covering a 10 year period between 2002 and 2012 during which the water warmed by 0.6 degrees.
"Kelp forests provide vital habitat for hundreds of marine species, including fish, lobster and abalone" says study first author Dr Adriana Vergés of UNSW and the Sydney Institute of Marine Science.
"As a result of climate change, warm-water fish species are shifting their range and invading temperate areas. Our results show that over-grazing by these fish can have a profound impact, leading to kelp deforestation and barren reefs.
"This is the first study demonstrating that the effects of warming in kelp forests are two-fold: higher temperatures not only have a direct impact on seaweeds, they also have an indirect impact by increasing the appetite of fish consumers, which can devour these seaweeds to the point of completely denuding the ocean floor.
"Increases in the number of plant-eating fish because of warming poses a significant threat to kelp-dependent ecosystems both in Australia and around the globe," she says.
The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The team recorded underwater video around August-time each year at 12 sites along a 25 kilometre stretch of coast adjacent to the Solitary Island Marine Park off northern NSW. During this period, kelp disappeared completely from all study sites where it was initially present. At the same time the proportion of tropical and sub-tropical seaweed-eating fish swimming in these areas more than tripled. Grazing also intensified, with the proportion of kelp with obvious feeding marks on it increasing by a factor of seven during the decade.
"We also carried out an experiment where we transplanted kelp onto the sea floor. We found that two warm-water species - rabbitfish and drummer fish - were the most voracious, eating fronds within hours at an average rate of 300 bites per hour" says Dr Vergés.
"The number of fish that consumed the smaller algae growing on rock surfaces also increased, and they cleared the algae faster when there was no kelp present. This suggests the fish may help prevent kelp regrowing as well, by removing the tiny new plants."
In Australia, kelp forests support a range of commercial fisheries, tourism ventures, and recreation activities worth more than $10 billion per year.
"The decline of kelp in temperate areas could have major economic and management impacts," says Dr Vergés.
The video footage used in the study from 2002 onwards was originally collected for a very different research project - to measure fish populations inside and outside sanctuary zones in a marine park. But the team realised it could also be used to determine whether kelp was present in the background or not. This unplanned use of an historic dataset is a good example of the value of collecting long-term data in the field, especially if it includes video or photos for permanent records.
In ideal conditions, kelp can grow up to 18 inches per day, and in stark contrast to the colorful and slow-growing corals, the giant kelp canopies tower above the ocean floor. Like trees in a forest, these giant algae provide food and shelter for many organisms. Also like a terrestrial forest, kelp forests experience seasonal changes. Storms and large weather events, like El Niño, can tear and dislodge the kelp, leaving a tattered winter forest to begin its growth again each spring. Credit: NOAA's National Ocean Service.
The first global assessment of marine kelp ecosystems shows that these critically-important habitats have exhibited a surprising resilience to environmental impacts over the past 50 years, but they have a wide variability in long-term responses that will call for regional management efforts to help protect their health in the future. The findings were published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists noted that kelp forests have a remarkable ability to recover quickly from extreme damage, but they can still be overwhelmed in some instances by the combination of global and local pressures.
This points to the need for regional management efforts that carefully consider local conditions when trying to offset human-caused impacts from climate change, overfishing and direct harvests, researchers said.
Kelp forests, the largest species of algae in shallow, coastal waters almost everywhere except the tropics, are a globally important foundation species that occupy almost half of the world's marine ecoregions. Often harvested directly, they help support commercial fisheries, nutrient cycling, shoreline protection, and are valued in the range of billions of dollars annually.
The new research was conducted by an international team of 37 scientists who analyzed changes in kelp abundance in 34 regions of the planet that had been monitored over the past 50 years.
"Kelp forests are cold-water, fast-growing species that can apparently withstand many types of environmental disturbances," said Mark Novak, an assistant professor of integrative biology in the College of Science at Oregon State University, co-author of the study, and an organizer of the international group at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis that conducted this research.
"The really surprising thing in this study was how much region-to-region variation we found, which is quite different from many other ecosystems. Thus, despite global threats like climate change and ocean acidification, the battle to protect our kelp forests of the future may best be fought locally - in the U.S., by states, counties, even individual cities and towns."
These forests can grow fast, tall, and are highly resilient - but also are often on the coastal front line in exposure to pollution, sedimentation, invasive species, fishing, recreation and harvesting. Even though "they have some of the fastest growth rates of any primary producer on the planet," the researchers wrote, there are limits to what they can take.
In their study the scientists concluded that of the kelp ecosystems that have been studied, 38 percent are in decline; 27 percent are increasing; and 35 percent show no detectable change. On a global scale, they are declining at 1.8 percent per year.
Where kelp resilience is eroding and leading to declines in abundance, impacts to ecosystem health and services can be far-reaching, the researchers wrote in their report.
Climate change is affecting most life on Earth, despite an average global temperature increase of just 1oC, say leading international scientists in a study published today in Science.
The scientific team, including researchers from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies (Coral CoE), The University of Queensland and the Queensland Museum in Australia, identified key ecological processes necessary to support healthy terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems. The study found that 82% of these processes, affecting genes to entire ecosystems, have been impacted by global warming.
The effects of these changes extend beyond natural ecosystems and increasingly impact the health and wellbeing of human societies.
"Temperature extremes are causing evolutionary adaption in many species, changing them genetically and physically," says Professor John Pandolfi of the Coral CoE and University of Queensland. "These responses include changes in tolerances to high temperatures, shifts in sex-ratios, reduced body size and migration of species."
"In marine systems, physiological responses to both climate warming and changing ocean conditions are widespread," he adds.
"People depend on healthy ecosystems for a range of goods and services, including food and clean water. Understanding the extent to which ecosystems have been impacted allows us to plan and adapt to rapid change."
"Some people didn't expect this level of change for decades," says senior author Associate Professor James Watson, from the University of Queensland. "The impacts of climate change are being felt everywhere, with no ecosystem on Earth being spared. It is no longer sensible to consider climate change as a concern only for the future."
"Emissions targets must be actively achieved and time is running out for a synchronised global response to climate change that safeguards biodiversity and ecosystem services," he adds.
"The study shows that genes, organisms, populations, species and processes are being impacted across all of Earth's major ecosystems," says Dr Tom Bridge from the Coral CoE and Queensland Museum.
"These multi-level biological impacts of climate change will affect humans. Increasing disease outbreaks, inconsistent crop yields and reduced fisheries productivity all threaten our food security."
These biological impacts, together with the renewed challenges to meet global emissions targets, highlighted by the recent UNEP Emissions Gap Report, show just how much work needs to be done to safeguard biodiversity in an era of global warming," adds Prof Pandolfi.
Global climate change has already impacted every aspect of life on Earth, from genes to entire ecosystems, according to a new University of Florida study. The paper appeared yesterday in the journal Science.
"We now have evidence that, with only a ~1 degree Celsius of warming globally, major impacts are already being felt in natural systems," said study lead author Brett Scheffers, an assistant professor in the department of wildlife, ecology and conservation in UF's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. "Genes are changing, species' physiology and physical features such as body size are changing, species are shifting their ranges and we see clear signs of entire ecosystems under stress, all in response to changes in climate on land and in the ocean."
During this research, Scheffers, a conservation ecologist, collaborated with a team of researchers from 10 countries, spread across the globe. They discovered that more than 80 percent of ecological processes that form the foundation for healthy marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems already show signs of responses to climate change.
"Some people didn't expect this level of change for decades" said co-author James Watson, of the University of Queensland in Australia. "The impacts of climate change are being felt with no ecosystem on Earth being spared."
Many of the impacts on species and ecosystems affect people, according to the authors, with consequences ranging from increased pests and disease outbreaks, unpredictable changes in fisheries, and decreasing agriculture yields. But research on these impacts also leads to hope.
"Many of the responses we are observing today in nature can help us determine how to fix the mounting issues that people face under changing climate conditions," Scheffers said. "For example, by understanding the adaptive capacity in nature, we can apply these same principles to our crops, livestock and aquacultural species."
"Current global climate change agreements aim to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius," said Wendy Foden, co-author and chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission's Climate Change Specialist Group. "We're showing that there are already broad and serious impacts from climate change right across biological systems."
