This study provides a bio-economic assessment of the global climate suitability and probabilistic crop-loss estimates attributable to wheat leaf rust. We draw on a purpose-built, spatially explicit, ...ecoclimatic suitability model for wheat leaf rust to estimate that 94.4% of global wheat production is vulnerable to the disease. To reflect the spatiotemporal variation in leaf rust losses, we used a probabilistic approach to estimate a representative rust loss distribution based on long-term, state-level annual U.S. loss estimates. Applying variants of this representative loss distribution to selected wheat production areas in 15 epidemiological zones throughout the world, we project global annual
losses of 8.6 million metric tons of grain for the period 2000 to 2050 based on a conservative, baseline scenario, and 18.3 million metric tons based on a high-loss scenario; equivalent to economic losses ranging from $1.5 to $3.3 billion per year (2016 U.S. prices). Even the more conservative baseline estimate implies that a sustained, worldwide investment of $50.5 million per year in leaf rust research is economically justified.
The challenges of restoration in dryland ecosystems are growing due to a rise in anthropogenic disturbance and increasing aridity. Plant functional traits are often used to predict plant performance ...and can offer a window into potential outcomes of restoration efforts across environmental gradients. We analyzed a database including 15 yr of seeding outcomes across 150 sites on the Colorado Plateau, a cold desert ecoregion in the western United States, and analyzed the independent and interactive effects of functional traits (seed mass, height, and specific leaf area) and local biologically relevant climate variables on seeding success. We predicted that the best models would include an interaction between plant traits and climate, indicating a need to match the right trait value to the right climate conditions to maximize seeding success. Indeed, we found that both plant height and seed size significantly interacted with temperature seasonality, with larger seeds and taller plants performing better in more seasonal environments. We also determined that these trait–environment patterns are not influenced by whether a species is native or nonnative. Our results inform the selection of seed mixes for restoring areas with specific climatic conditions, while also demonstrating the strong influence of temperature seasonality on seeding success in the Colorado Plateau region.
Climate change threatens global wheat production and food security, including the wheat industry in Australia. Many studies have examined the impacts of changes in local climate on wheat yield per ...hectare, but there has been no assessment of changes in land area available for production due to changing climate. It is also unclear how total wheat production would change under future climate when autonomous adaptation options are adopted. We applied species distribution models to investigate future changes in areas climatically suitable for growing wheat in Australia. A crop model was used to assess wheat yield per hectare in these areas. Our results show that there is an overall tendency for a decrease in the areas suitable for growing wheat and a decline in the yield of the northeast Australian wheat belt. This results in reduced national wheat production although future climate change may benefit South Australia and Victoria. These projected outcomes infer that similar wheat‐growing regions of the globe might also experience decreases in wheat production. Some cropping adaptation measures increase wheat yield per hectare and provide significant mitigation of the negative effects of climate change on national wheat production by 2041–2060. However, any positive effects will be insufficient to prevent a likely decline in production under a high CO2 emission scenario by 2081–2100 due to increasing losses in suitable wheat‐growing areas. Therefore, additional adaptation strategies along with investment in wheat production are needed to maintain Australian agricultural production and enhance global food security. This scenario analysis provides a foundation towards understanding changes in Australia's wheat cropping systems, which will assist in developing adaptation strategies to mitigate climate change impacts on global wheat production.
This study addresses how future climate change impacts wheat growth in areas across Australian wheat belt, how wheat yield per hectare would change with/without adaptation options and how national wheat production would response to future climate change when autonomous adaptation options are adopted. Our results show that future climate change benefits South Australia and Victoria but has adverse effects on Queensland. Adaptations increase wheat yield and provide mitigation of the negative effects of climate change on national production by 2050s; however, these positive effects are insufficient to prevent a likely decline in production under RCP8.5 by 2090s.
The availability of reliable information on local climatic-tourism conditions is a growing need due to the influence it exerts on the quality of the organizational strategy of tourist destination's, ...and travel experience. Evaluations of the tourism potential of the climate have been carried out on a daily or monthly resolution, thus limiting the collection of detailed information that makes it possible to fine-tune tourism management and operational decision-making on an intraday scale. This research is the first case study to analyse the climatic suitability for nature tourism, using the weather types method at hourly resolution. The study applies to arid tourist destinations in Isfahan province (Iran). The detailed resolution has made it possible to identify the time slots favourable to the development of nature tourism in those periods of the year recognized as critical in the daily resolution analyses. In the same way, the hourly resolution has also identified critical bands in those periods indicated as favourable in the evaluations to daily resolution. The hourly resolution provides detailed information that can allow tourists and also tourism managers to establish intraday adaptation strategies that make it possible to develop the activity even in places with extreme climates.
Aim
Species respond to environmental conditions and so reliable assessments of climate suitability are important for predicting how climate change could alter their distributions. Long‐term average ...climate data are often used to evaluate the climate suitability of an area, but in these aggregated climate datasets, inter‐annual variability is lost. Due to non‐linearity in species’ biological responses to climate, estimates of long‐term climate suitability from average climate data may be biased and so differ from estimates derived from the average annual suitability over the same period (average response). We investigate the extent to which such differences manifest in a regional assessment of climate suitability for 255 plant species across two 17‐year time periods.
Location
Cornwall in South‐West England provides a case study.
Taxon
Plantae.
Methods
We run a simple mechanistic climate suitability model and derive quantitative estimates of climate suitability for 1984–2000 and 2001–2017. For each period, we run the model using climate data representing average monthly values for that period. We then run the model for each year using monthly climate data for that year and average the annual suitability scores across each period (average response). We compare estimates of climate suitability from these two approaches.
Results
Average climate data gave higher estimates of suitability than the average response, suggesting bias against years of poor suitability in temporally aggregated climate datasets. Differences between suitability estimates were larger in areas of high climate variability and correlated with species’ environmental requirements, being larger for species with small thermal niches and narrow ranges of precipitation tolerance.
Main Conclusions
Incorporating inter‐annual variability into climate suitability assessments or understanding the extent to which average climate data might obscure this variance will be important to predict reliably the impacts of climate change on species distributions and should be considered when using mechanistic species distribution models.
Fritillaria imperialis is a bulbous plant that has increased commercial value and contributes to rural development in Turkey. It is widely utilized in traditional medicine and pharmacy, and has great ...potential for use in modern pharmaceuticals in the future. As the effects of climate change on this plant have not been documented, this study aimed to understand how climate change might affect F. imperialis. The methodology of the study was divided into three steps: (i) database development, including the current distribution zones of F. imperialis and climatic parameters such as temperature and precipitation data; (ii) determination of the plant’s temperature and precipitation requirements; and (iii) Ecocrop’s plant climate suitability modeling (PCSM). As a result of the study, it was determined that climatic suitability would decrease below 20% in the plant’s current distribution area between 2,000 m and 3,000 m altitude. For the zones between 500–1,000 m altitude, the climatic suitability will be as high as 100%. Although there are zones where climatic suitability will increase by 2070, the general trend shows that suitability will decrease. This change in the plant ecosystem is explained by the decreased winter precipitation and snowfall but increased temperature and evaporation at higher altitudes. Fritillaria imperialis is expected to shift its geographic distribution to lower altitudes because of climate change.
Over the course of history, humans have moved crops from their regions of origin to new locations across the world. The social, cultural and economic drivers of these movements have generated ...differences not only between current distributions of crops and their climatic origins, but also between crop distributions and climate suitability for their production. Although these mismatches are particularly important to inform agricultural strategies on climate change adaptation, they have, to date, not been quantified consistently at the global level. Here, we show that the relationships between the distributions of 12 major food crops and climate suitability for their yields display strong variation globally. After investigating the role of biophysical, socio-economic and historical factors, we report that high-income world regions display a better match between crop distribution and climate suitability. In addition, although crops are farmed predominantly in the same climatic range as their wild progenitors, climate suitability is not necessarily higher there, a pattern that reflects the legacy of domestication history on current crop distribution. Our results reveal how far the global distribution of major crops diverges from their climatic optima and call for greater consideration of the multiple dimensions of the crop socio-ecological niche in climate change adaptive strategies.
Climate suitability for tourism in South Africa Fitchett, Jennifer M; Robinson, Dean; Hoogendoorn, Gijsbert
Journal of sustainable tourism,
06/2017, Letnik:
25, Številka:
6
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Tourism Climate Indices (TCIs) have been used extensively in the global North to quantify the climatic suitability of tourist destinations. TCIs have very seldom been applied in the global South. ...This gap in the literature is significant, due to the considerable growth that tourism sectors in the global South have experienced over recent decades. Moreover, many of these countries seldom have the infrastructure to modify indoor climates and effectively mitigate against poor weather. We present TCI results for 18 tourist destinations across South Africa. With mean annual TCI scores for the period 1995-2015 spanning 76.5 for Port Nolloth to 93 for the Pilansberg, the comparatively favourable climatic conditions in South Africa relative to much of Europe and North America is confirmed. There is distinct seasonality in TCI scores for the majority of study locations, yet the dichotomy between the South African summer and rainfall zones ensure a net balance in climatic suitability countrywide year-round. Time trends in TCI scores over recent decades indicate non-significant change for the majority of locations, and all significant trends indicate slight improvements in the climatic suitability for tourism. These results present a promising outlook of sustained climatic suitability of the region for tourism.
Studies of biological invasions at the macroscale or across multiple scales can provide important insights for management, particularly when localized information about invasion dynamics or ...environmental contexts is unavailable. In this study, we performed a macroscale analysis of the roles of invasion drivers on the local scale dynamics of a high‐profile pest, Lymantria dispar dispar L., with the purpose of improving the prioritization of vulnerable areas for treatment. Specifically, we assessed the relative effects of various anthropogenic and environmental variables on the establishment rate of 8010 quadrats at a localized scale (5 × 5 km) across the entire L. dispar transition zone (the area encompassing the leading population edge, currently from Minnesota to North Carolina). We calculated the number of years from first detection of L. dispar in a quadrat to the year when probability of establishment of L. dispar was greater than 99% (i.e., waiting time to establishment after first detection). To assess the effects of environmental and anthropogenic variables on each quadrat's waiting time to establishment, we performed linear mixed‐effects regression models for the full transition zone and three subregions within the zone. Seasonal temperatures were found to be the primary drivers of local establishment rates. Winter temperatures had the strongest effects, especially in the northern parts of the transition zone. Furthermore, the effects of some factors on waiting times to establishment varied across subregions. Our findings contribute to identifying especially vulnerable areas to further L. dispar spread and informing region‐specific criteria by invasion managers for the prioritization of areas for treatment.
Understanding which species are introduced and become invasive, and why, are central questions in invasion science. Comparative studies on model taxa have provided important insights, but much more ...needs to be done to unravel the context dependencies of these findings. The cactus family (Cactaceae), one of the most popular horticultural plant groups, is an interesting case study. Hundreds of cactus species have been introduced outside their native ranges; a few of them are among the most damaging invasive plant species in the world. We reviewed the drivers of introductions and invasions in the family and seek insights that can be used to minimize future risks. We compiled a list of species in the family and determined which have been recorded as invasive. We also mapped current global distributions and modelled the potential global distributions based on distribution data of known invasive taxa. Finally, we identified whether invasiveness is phylogenetically clustered for cacti and whether particular traits are correlated with invasiveness. Only 57 of the 1922 cactus species recognized in this treatment have been recorded as invasive. There are three invasion hotspots: South Africa (35 invasive species recorded), Australia (26 species) and Spain (24 species). However, there are large areas of the world with climates suitable for cacti that are at risk of future invasion-in particular, parts of China, eastern Asia and central Africa. The invasive taxa represent an interesting subset of the total species pool. There is a significant phylogenetic signal: invasive species occur in 2 of the 3 major phylogenetic clades and in 13 of the 130 genera. This phylogenetic signal is not driven by human preference, i.e. horticultural trade, but all invasive species are from 5 of the 12 cactus growth forms. Finally, invasive species tend to have significantly larger native ranges than non-invasive species, and none of the invasive species are of conservation concern in their native range. These results suggest fairly robust correlates of invasiveness that can be used for proactive management and risk assessments.
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