Many of the species at greatest risk of extinction from anthropogenic climate change are narrow endemics that face insurmountable dispersal barriers. In this review, I argue that the only viable ...option to maintain populations of these species in the wild is to translocate them to other locations where the climate is suitable. Risks of extinction to native species in destination areas are small, provided that translocations take place within the same broad geographic region and that the destinations lack local endemics. Biological communities in these areas are in the process of receiving many hundreds of other immigrant species as a result of climate change; ensuring that some of the ‘new’ inhabitants are climate-endangered species could reduce the net rate of extinction.
A major issue in ecology, biogeography, conservation biology and invasion biology is the extent to which climate, and hence climate change, contributes to the positions of species' range boundaries. ...Thirty years of rapid climate warming provides an excellent opportunity to test the hypothesis that climate acts as a major constraint on range boundaries, treating anthropogenic climate change as a large-scale experiment. UK and global data, and literature. This article analyses the frequencies with which species have responded to climate change by shifting their range boundaries. It does not consider abundance or other changes. For the majority of species, boundaries shifted in a direction that is concordant with being a response to climate change; 84% of all species have expanded in a polewards direction as the climate has warmed (for the best data available), which represents an excess of 68% of species after taking account of the fact that some species may shift in this direction for non-climatic reasons. Other data sets also show an excess of animal range boundaries expanding in the expected direction. Climate is likely to contribute to the majority of terrestrial and freshwater range boundaries. This generalization excludes species that are endemic to specific islands, lakes, rivers and geological outcrops, although these local endemics are not immune from the effects of climate change. The observed shifts associated with recent climate change are likely to have been brought about through both direct and indirect (changes to species' interactions) effects of climate; indirect effects are discussed in relation to laboratory experiments and invasive species. Recent observations of range boundary shifts are consistent with the hypothesis that climate contributes to, but is not the sole determinant of, the position of the range boundaries of the majority of terrestrial animal species.
The development of Anthropocene biotas Thomas, Chris D
Philosophical transactions - Royal Society. Biological sciences,
03/2020, Letnik:
375, Številka:
1794
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Biodiversity has always responded dynamically to environmental perturbations in the geological past, through changes to the abundances and distributions of genes and species, to the composition of ...biological communities, and to the cover and locations of different ecosystem types. This is how the 'nature' that exists today has survived. The same is true in the Anthropocene. The entire planet surface has been altered by humans, ranging from direct vegetation transformation and removal of most of the world's megafauna, through to atmospheric changes in greenhouse gasses and consequent climatic changes and ocean acidification. These anthropogenic perturbations have led to the establishment of genes and species in new locations, thus generating novel communities and ecosystems. In this historical context, recent biological changes should be seen as responses to multiple drivers of change, rather than being a problem
. These changes are the means by which the biosphere is adjusting to and will ultimately survive the Anthropocene. Thus, management and conservation of the biological world, and our place in it, requires a transition from trying to minimize biological change to one in which we facilitate dynamism that accelerates the rates at which species and ecosystems adjust to human-associated drivers of change. This article is part of the theme issue 'Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions'.
Significance Non-native plants dominate global lists of invasive (harmful) species, yet plants introduced to Britain are both less widespread than native species and not increasing any more than ...native plants, and changes to native and non-native plant diversity are positively associated. The hypothesis that competitive exclusion will eventually enable introduced plants to drive native species extinct receives no support, according to analysis of extensive British data. A more parsimonious explanation is that both native and introduced plants are responding predominantly to other drivers of environmental change. The negative effects of non-native plants on British biodiversity have been exaggerated, and may also have been exaggerated in other parts of the world.
Plants are commonly listed as invasive species, presuming that they cause harm at both global and regional scales. Approximately 40% of all species listed as invasive within Britain are plants. However, invasive plants are rarely linked to the national or global extinction of native plant species. The possible explanation is that competitive exclusion takes place slowly and that invasive plants will eventually eliminate native species (the “time-to-exclusion hypothesis”). Using the extensive British Countryside Survey Data, we find that changes to plant occurrence and cover between 1990 and 2007 at 479 British sites do not differ between native and non-native plant species. More than 80% of the plant species that are widespread enough to be sampled are native species; hence, total cover changes have been dominated by native species (total cover increases by native species are more than nine times greater than those by non-native species). This implies that factors other than plant “invasions” are the key drivers of vegetation change. We also find that the diversity of native species is increasing in locations where the diversity of non-native species is increasing, suggesting that high diversities of native and non-native plant species are compatible with one another. We reject the time-to-exclusion hypothesis as the reason why extinctions have not been observed and suggest that non-native plant species are not a threat to floral diversity in Britain. Further research is needed in island-like environments, but we question whether it is appropriate that more than three-quarters of taxa listed globally as invasive species are plants.
...the European Commission, for example, is planning laws to control the 'adverse' impacts of species introduced through human activities, albeit without quite saying how those impacts should be ...defined. Rather than the catastrophic declines often portrayed, empirical evidence points to ecological increases in the number of terrestrial species in most of the world's regions over recent decades and centuries, even though the total number of species on the planet is declining.
•The rate of plant speciation is high and has accelerated during the Anthropocene.•Humans are causing the increase, principally by increasing the rate of hybridisation.•The current speciation rate ...may be higher than after previous mass extinctions.•The Anthropocene plant speciation rate could be comparable to the extinction rate.
Speciation rates need to be considered when estimating human impacts on the numbers of species on Earth, given that past mass extinctions have been followed by the accelerated origination of new taxa. Here, I suggest that the Anthropocene is already exhibiting a greatly accelerated plant speciation rate due to agriculture, horticulture, and the human-mediated transport of species, followed by hybridisation. For example, more new plant species have come into existence in Europe over the past three centuries than have been documented as becoming extinct over the same period, even though most new hybrid-origin species are likely to remain undetected. Current speciation rates are unusually high and they could be higher than during or after previous mass extinctions.
Illegal hunting is a persistent problem in many protected areas, but an overview of the extent of this problem and its impact on wildlife is lacking. We reviewed 40 years (1980-2020) of global ...research to examine the spatial distribution of research and socio-ecological factors influencing population decline within protected areas under illegal hunting pressure. From 81 papers reporting 988 species/site combinations, 294 mammal species were reported to have been illegally hunted from 155 protected areas across 48 countries. Research in illegal hunting has increased substantially during the review period and showed biases towards strictly protected areas and the African continent. Population declines were most frequent in countries with a low human development index, particularly in strict protected areas and for species with a body mass over 100 kg. Our results provide evidence that illegal hunting is most likely to cause declines of large-bodied species in protected areas of resource-poor countries regardless of protected area conservation status. Given the growing pressures of illegal hunting, increased investments in people's development and additional conservation efforts such as improving anti-poaching strategies and conservation resources in terms of improving funding and personnel directed at this problem are a growing priority.
Royal jelly and honey are two substances produced successively by the worker bee caste. Modern proteomics approaches have been used to explore the protein component of each substance independently, ...but to date none have quantitatively compared the protein profile of honey and royal jelly directly. Sequential window acquisition of all theoretical fragment-ion spectra mass spectrometry (SWATH-MS) was used to compare protein quantities of bee origin in mānuka and clover honey to royal jelly. Two analysis techniques identified 76 proteins in total. Peptide intensity was directly compared for a subset of 31 proteins that were identified with high confidence, and the relative changes in protein abundance were compared between each honey type and royal jelly. Major Royal Jelly Proteins (MRJPs) had similar profiles in both honeys, except MRJP6, which was significantly more abundant in clover honey. Proteins involved in nectar metabolism were more abundant in honey than in royal jelly as expected. However, the trend revealed a potential catalytic role for MRJP6 in clover honey and a nectar- or honey-specific role for uncharacterised protein LOC408608. The abundance of MRJP6 in mānuka honey was equivalent to royal jelly suggesting a potential effect of nectar type on expression of this protein. Data are available via ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD038889.
Biodiversity change under adaptive community dynamics Carroll, Tadhg; Cardou, Françoise; Dornelas, Maria ...
Global change biology,
July 2023, 2023-Jul, 2023-07-00, 20230701, Letnik:
29, Številka:
13
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Compositional change is a ubiquitous response of ecological communities to environmental drivers of global change, but is often regarded as evidence of declining “biotic integrity” relative to ...historical baselines. Adaptive compositional change, however, is a foundational idea in evolutionary biology, whereby changes in gene frequencies within species boost population‐level fitness, allowing populations to persist as the environment changes. Here, we present an analogous idea for ecological communities based on core concepts of fitness and selection. Changes in community composition (i.e., frequencies of genetic differences among species) in response to environmental change should normally increase the average fitnessof community members. We refer to compositional changes that improve the functional match, or “fit,” between organisms' traits and their environment as adaptive community dynamics. Environmental change (e.g., land‐use change) commonly reduces the fit between antecedent communities and new environments. Subsequent change in community composition in response to environmental changes, however, should normally increase community‐level fit, as the success of at least some constituent species increases. We argue that adaptive community dynamics are likely to improve or maintain ecosystem function (e.g., by maintaining productivity). Adaptive community responses may simultaneously produce some changes that are considered societally desirable (e.g., increased carbon storage) and others that are undesirable (e.g., declines of certain species), just as evolutionary responses within species may be deemed desirable (e.g., evolutionary rescue of an endangered species) or undesirable (e.g., enhanced virulence of an agricultural pest). When assessing possible management interventions, it is important to distinguish between drivers of environmental change (e.g., undesired climate warming) and adaptive community responses, which may generate some desirable outcomes. Efforts to facilitate, accept, or resist ecological change require separate consideration of drivers and responses, and may highlight the need to reconsider preferences for historical baseline communities over communities that are better adapted to the new conditions.
Compositional change is a ubiquitous response of ecological communities to environmental change, often regarded as evidence of declining “biotic integrity.” However, analogous compositional change in the genetic makeup of populations is often considered adaptive and necessary for long‐term population persistence. We posit that the predominant response of ecological communities to environmental change is, in fact, likely to be similarly adaptive, and we present a framework for studying such adaptive community dynamics. We argue that adaptive change in ecological communities should generally improve ecosystem function, thus highlighting the need to reconsider automatic preferences for historical baseline community states.
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