Medium, Vector, and Connector Weathers, Kathleen C.; Ponette-González, Alexandra G.; Dawson, Todd E.
Ecosystems,
01/2020, Letnik:
23, Številka:
1
Journal Article
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Fog and low-lying cloud (fog) play a significant role in the maintenance of ecosystems, from desert to alpine and from coastal to inland systems. Our central thesis is that fog provides ecosystems ...with critical water and nutrient subsidies, and also delivers pollutants, that often control ecosystem function. Fog is a medium, vector, and connector. In this mini-review, we synthesize recent research advances that reveal the diverse ways that fog shapes ecosystem processes. Crown wetting, elemental deposition, and light scattering and absorption are fundamental mechanisms by which fog has been shown to influence water fluxes, productivity, and decomposition in hyper-arid to ever-wet regions. These impacts are ultimately mediated by the structure and composition of biological systems that allow fog capture and utilization of resource subsidies. Climate change, and changes in land use, ocean circulation, and atmospheric pollution are simultaneously altering the nature of fog itself, and the architecture of the ecosystems adapted to capture it. The coupling between atmosphere and biosphere in fog-enshrouded areas raises new questions about past and future fog-dominated ecosystems, and their maintenance and diversity, in the face of global change.
Leveraging the anthropause WEATHERS, KATHLEEN C; OJIMA, DENNIS; COLLINGE, SHARON K ...
Frontiers in ecology and the environment,
08/2021, Letnik:
19, Številka:
6
Journal Article
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Weathers et al explains that disruptions like the lockdown implementation in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic have catapulted us into the "anthropause", providing a glimpse of how the Earth ...system rapidly adjusts to dramatic reductions in human activity. This anthropause is both a cultural and ecological inflection point. We now have a choice, which is to return to our pre-pandemic lives and livelihoods, or to leverage the anthropause to address ecological imbalances and injustices to change how, when, where, and with whom we create ecological knowledge. Meanwhile, three actions for bolstering social and ecological resilience, inspired by this unique moment in time, are suggested. These include bringing ecological knowledge to bear on complex problems, expanding and refocusing the lenses through which we view and practice ecology, and focusing on feedbacks within and among social and ecological systems.
Summary
1. Weather‐related episodic events are typically unpredictable, and their duration is often short. Abiotic and biological responses are often missed in routine monitoring. These responses ...are, however, now of particular relevance given projected changes in extreme weather conditions.
2. We present data from high‐frequency monitoring stations from lakes in Europe, North America and Asia that illustrate two classes of abiotic effects of weather events: (i) generally short‐lived effects of storms on lake thermal structure and (ii) the more prolonged effects of high rainfall events on dissolved organic matter levels and water clarity. We further relate these abiotic effects to changes in dissolved oxygen or in chlorophyll a levels.
3. Three differing causes for weather‐related decreases in surface dissolved oxygen levels were observed: (i) entrainment of anoxic water from depth, (ii) reduction in primary productivity and (iii) increased mineralisation of organic carbon delivered from the catchment.
4. The duration of in‐lake effects tended to be longer for events driven by weather conditions with a longer return period, that is, conditions that were relatively more severe and less frequent at a site. While the susceptibility of lakes to change was related in part to the severity of the meteorological drivers, the impacts also depended on site‐specific factors in some cases.
5. The availability of high‐frequency data at these sites provided insight into the capacity of the lakes to absorb current and future pressures. Several of the changes we observed, including increases in carbon availability, decreases in photosynthetically active radiation and increased disturbance, have the capacity to shift lakes towards an increased degree of heterotrophy. The magnitude and direction of any such change will, however, also depend on the magnitude and direction of climate change for a given location and on lake and catchment characteristics.
Fog supplies water and nutrients to systems ranging from coastal forests to inland deserts. Fog droplets can also contain bacterial and fungal aerosols, but our understanding of fog biology is ...limited. Using metagenomic tools and culturing, we provide a unique look at fungal and bacterial communities in fog at two fog-dominated sites: coastal Maine (USA) and the Namib Desert (Namibia). Microbial communities in the fog at both sites were diverse, distinct from clear aerosols, and influenced by both soil and marine sources. Fog from both sites contained Actinobacteria and Firmicutes, commonly soil- and air-associated phyla, but also contained bacterial taxa associated with marine environments including Cyanobacteria, Oceanospirillales, Novosphingobium, Pseudoalteromonas, and Bradyrhizobiaceae. Marine influence on fog communities was greatest near the coast, but still evident in Namib fogs 50 km inland. In both systems, differences between pre- and post-fog aerosol communities suggest that fog events can significantly alter microbial aerosol diversity and composition. Fog is likely to enhance viability of transported microbes and facilitate their deposition, making fog biology ecologically important in fog-dominated environments. Fog may introduce novel species to terrestrial ecosystems, including human and plant pathogens, warranting further work on the drivers of this important and underrecognized aerobiological transfer between marine and terrestrial systems.
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•Coastal fogs from Namibia and Maine both contained diverse microbial communities.•Fog contains more ocean microbes (compared to soil) when fog is near the coast.•Fog results in more microbial species to be deposited onto land than air alone.•A fog event changes the composition of microbes in the air.
Collaborative research teams are a necessary and desirable component of most scientific endeavors. Effective collaborative teams exhibit important research outcomes, far beyond what could be ...accomplished by individuals working independently. These teams are made up of researchers who are committed to a common purpose, approach, and performance goals for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. We call such collaborations "high-performing collaborative research teams". Here, we share lessons learned from our collective experience working with a wide range of collaborative teams and structure those lessons within a framework developed from literature in business, education, and a relatively new discipline, "science of team science". We propose that high-performing collaborative research teams are created and maintained when team diversity (broadly defined) is effectively fostered and interpersonal skills are taught and practiced. Finally, we provide some strategies to foster team functioning and make recommendations for improving the collaborative culture in ecology.
Here we document the regional effects of Tropical Cyclone Irene on thermal structure and ecosystem metabolism in nine lakes and reservoirs in northeastern North America using a network of ...high-frequency, in situ, automated sensors. Thermal stability declined within hours in all systems following passage of Irene, and the magnitude of change was related to the volume of water falling on the lake and catchment relative to lake volume. Across systems, temperature change predicted the change in primary production, but changes in mixed-layer thickness did not affect metabolism. Instead, respiration became a driver of ecosystem metabolism that was decoupled from in-lake primary production, likely due to addition of terrestrially derived carbon. Regionally, energetic disturbance of thermal structure was shorter-lived than disturbance from inflows of terrestrial materials. Given predicted regional increases in intense rain events with climate change, the magnitude and longevity of ecological impacts of these storms will be greater in systems with large catchments relative to lake volume, particularly when significant material is available for transport from the catchment. This case illustrates the power of automated sensor networks and associated human networks in assessing both system response and the characteristics that mediate physical and ecological responses to extreme events.
For one-third of Earth’s land surface, precipitation passes through tree canopies (as throughfall or stemflow) before entering watersheds. Over a century of research has described fluxes of water and ...solutes along these “hydrologic highways”, yet little is known about their “traffic” –that is, the organisms and nonliving particulates frequently discarded from water samples after filtration in the lab. A comprehensive understanding of the composition of sub-canopy precipitation is necessary to estimate the total nutrient and pollutant inputs to watersheds for redistribution downstream, as well as to systematically investigate precipitation effects on organismal exchanges along the atmosphere–plant–soil continuum. Here, we review current concepts and research showing that the hydrologic highways from tree canopies to soil carry ecologically relevant quantities of biologic (viruses, microbes, microfauna, and meiofauna) and abiotic particulates. Their fate may have important consequences for the biogeochemistry and biodiversity of terrestrial systems.
Wildfires produce smoke that can affect an area >1000 times the burn extent, with far-reaching human health, ecologic, and economic impacts. Accurately estimating aerosol load within smoke plumes is ...therefore crucial for understanding and mitigating these impacts. We evaluated the effectiveness of the latest Collection 6.1 MODIS Multi-Angle Implementation of Atmospheric Correction (MAIAC) algorithm in estimating aerosol optical depth (AOD) across the U.S. during the historic 2020 wildfire season. We compared satellite-based MAIAC AOD to ground-based AERONET AOD measurements during no-, light-, medium-, and heavy-smoke conditions identified using the Hazard Mapping System Fire and Smoke Product. This smoke product consists of maximum extent smoke polygons digitized by analysts using visible band imagery and classified according to smoke density. We also examined the strength of the correlations between satellite- and ground-based AOD for major land cover types under various smoke density levels. MAIAC performed well in estimating AOD during smoke-affected conditions. Correlations between MAIAC and AERONET AOD were strong for medium- (r = 0.91) and heavy-smoke (r = 0.90) density, and MAIAC estimates of AOD showed little bias relative to ground-based AERONET measurements (normalized mean bias = 3 % for medium, 5 % for heavy smoke). During two high AOD, heavy smoke episodes, MAIAC underestimated ground-based AERONET AOD under mixed aerosol (i.e., smoke and dust; median bias = −0.08) and overestimated AOD under smoke-dominated (median bias = 0.02) aerosol. MAIAC most overestimated ground-based AERONET AOD over barren land (mean NMB = 48 %). Our findings indicate that MODIS MAIAC can provide robust estimates of AOD as smoke density increases in coming years. Increased frequency of mixed aerosol and expansion of developed land could affect the performance of the MAIAC algorithm in the future, however, with implications for evaluating wildfire-associated health and welfare effects and air quality standards.
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•Unprecedented wildfires have increased smoke density and aerosol pollution.•MAIAC provides robust estimates of AOD under medium and high smoke density.•MAIAC under- and overestimates AOD under mixed and smoke aerosol, respectively.•MAIAC overestimates ground-based AOD most over barren land.
Lead contamination of urban residential soils is a public health concern. Consequently, there is a need to delineate hotspots in the landscape to identify risk and facilitate remediation. Land use is ...a good predictor of some environmental pollutants. However, in the case of soil lead, research has shown that land use is not a useful proxy. We hypothesize that soil lead is related to both individual landscape features at the parcel scale and the landscape context in which parcels are embedded. We sampled soil lead on 61 residential parcels in Baltimore, Maryland using field-portable x-ray fluorescence. Thirty percent of parcels had average lead concentrations that exceeded the USEPA limit of 400 ppm and 53% had at least one reading that exceeded 400 ppm. Results indicate that soil lead is strongly associated with housing age, distance to roadways, and on a parcel scale, distance to built structures.
► We investigated the effect of landscape heterogeneity on lead in residential soil. ► Landscape heterogeneity was considered at two different spatial scales. ► We sampled soil lead on residential parcels using field-portable x-ray fluorescence. ► Soil lead was associated with housing age and distance to roadways and buildings. ► Research has implications for land planning, health policies and predictive models.
We investigated the influence of landscape heterogeneity on lead in residential soil using x-ray fluorescence and identified important correlations with elements of urban land cover.
Water quality measures for inland and coastal waters are available as discrete samples from professional and volunteer water quality monitoring programs and higher-frequency, near-continuous data ...from automated in situ sensors. Water quality parameters also are estimated from model outputs and remote sensing. The integration of these data, via data assimilation, can result in a more holistic characterization of these highly dynamic ecosystems, and consequently improve water resource management. It is becoming common to see combinations of these data applied to answer relevant scientific questions. Yet, methods for scaling water quality data across regions and beyond, to provide actionable knowledge for stakeholders, have emerged only recently, particularly with the availability of satellite data now providing global coverage at high spatial resolution. In this paper, data sources and existing data integration frameworks are reviewed to give an overview of the present status and identify the gaps in existing frameworks. We propose an integration framework to provide information to user communities through the the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) AquaWatch Initiative. This aims to develop and build the global capacity and utility of water quality data, products, and information to support equitable and inclusive access for water resource management, policy and decision making.
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