Amphibians In Yellowstone

A new study published in the science journal Ecology Indicators highlights how environmental changes in Yellowstone National Park are leading to habitat loss for some amphibian species. As Yellowstone continues to heat up and dry out under the influence of climate change, certain amphibians that move across the park are expected to experience a loss of habitable zones. Authors of the study predict that continued climate change will “reduce snowpack, soil moisture, and forest cover” and diminish wetland habitats throughout Yellowstone National Park.

Will Amphibians Survive Climate Change?

Amphibians are ectothermic, meaning that they absorb heat from external sources in their environment to regulate their body temperatures. That being the case, hotter temperatures are potentially beneficial to amphibians in certain microclimates. Microclimates are small, restricted sections of an area that have different climatic states relative to the surrounding space. Warmer microclimates can help amphibians survive through the winter or forage for provisions during the day. However, warming temperatures that also drive dryer air and soils can limit amphibians’ ability to rehydrate while traveling cross stretches of land.

Amphibian hydroregulation is likewise dependent on factors in their environment, as they are unable to control water evaporation from their bodies. Amphibians require humidity and sufficient water availability to avoid dehydration. Terrestrial habitats that lack moist soils and forest cover from direct sun exposure can impede amphibians’ thermo-hydroregulation abilities.

Research Method and Design

Researchers of the amphibian-Yellowstone study mechanistically modeled the movement of amphibians within the park for the years 2000, 2050, and 2090 to gauge the “costs” (disadvantages) to amphibians under the influence of climate change. Model simulations included data relating to Yellowstone’s vegetation, weather, and details about animals’ morphology and physiology. Western Toads (Anaxyrus boreas) were used as the subject species for the model. Inferences were then made about other amphibians native to the park.

The results were mixed across the three “test areas” which were modeled; in one of the test areas, physiological movement costs increased, decreased in the second, and was mixed in the last. Authors of the study “predict that climate change will reduce the physiological costs for toads in some regions of YNP but increase them in others”. Snowpack loss and drying conditions throughout portions of Yellowstone may shrink wetlands, which could limit breeding sites for toads and make travel between breeding sites more costly. Other amphibian species are expected to experience worse consequences from warming and drying climates than toads. For example, Boreal Chorus Frogs (Pseudacris maculata), are less resistant to desiccation than toads because they are more dependent on wetlands for water and moisture.

In Conclusion

Strictly speaking, warming conditions do not affect all amphibians in Yellowstone National Park the same. Variations in weather and vegetation cover brought on by climate change may make moving across the stretches of land that surround wetlands more costly for some amphibian species, particularly those less tolerant to dry habitats.

Freshwater and Climate Change

Freshwater systems provide usable water for human consumption, technological development, and agriculture, while also serving as habitats for aquatic species. Therefore, freshwater systems are of crucial economic and ecological value. A 2021 study titled, ” “The Importance of Indirect Effects of Climate Change Adaptations On Alpine and Pre-Alpine Freshwater Systems” asserts that human-made changes to water hydrology and pollution from sewer outflows and agriculture chemicals are detrimental to freshwater systems.

What Is Freshwater?

Rivers, reservoirs, and streams are examples of freshwater systems. Freshwater is a subset of Earth’s water which is significantly less salty than marine waters (like seas and oceans). The United States Geological Survey, a branch dedicated to science within the United States Department of the Interior, defines freshwater as “water containing less than 1,000 milligrams per liter of dissolved solids, most often salt.” Though freshwater is renewed through the water cycle, it is a finite resource. If freshwater is used more quickly than it is naturally replenished, water security risks may be enhanced.

Research Method and Design

Authors of “The Importance of Indirect Effects of Climate Change Adaptations On Alpine and Pre-Alpine Freshwater Systems”, regard higher frequency of extreme meteorological events and increased temperatures as “direct effects” of climate change. These direct effects adversely influence the state and quality of aquatic regions. Direct effects also interact with human responses to climate change and produce “indirect effects”.

So-called indirect effects refer to human practices that are aimed at climate change mitigation. Indirect effects include land-use changes, alterations to freshwater systems, and increasing irrigation practices. Authors suggest that “indirect effects may, at least in the short term, overrun the impact of direct climate change on water bodies.” Though all biomes are predicted to be impacted by climate change, freshwater systems in alpine and pre-alpine regions may be disproportionately at risk due to agriculture and hydropower plants.

Hydropower installations in freshwater networks can fragment or isolate certain species populations which are ill-adapted for the changes in water flow and perpetuate biodiversity loss. By modifying the hydrology of freshwater systems, water usage for energy production can compound the direct effects of climate change to aquatic flora and fauna.

Agriculture can disturb freshwater systems as well, but in a much different way than hydropower plants. Climate change can intensify extreme weather event trends, such as floods, storms, and droughts; these effects can drive diminished crop yields. In the interest of mitigating decreased crop production brought on by climate change, agriculturalists may expand irrigation infrastructure or enhance fertilizer use. These adaptations can exacerbate the consequences which are already affecting crop growth cycles.

In Conclusion

Authors of the 2021 review claim that “rain-fed dairy farming is currently the most predominant form of agriculture, but in the future, these grasslands may become more and more dependent on irrigation”. Redirecting water for irrigation use can potentially limit the quantity of water available in freshwater ecosystems. Variability in weather regimes may contribute to further dependence on water from irrigation (rather than from rainfall) in the future. Some of the responses that agriculturalists are expected to as a response to a changing climate pose risks to freshwater systems. Policymakers must account for indirect impacts to alleviate worsening the ecological status and water quality within aquatic environments.

Heat Stress

Observed heatwave trends have been on the rise in the last four decades according to a research article published in January 2022. The study titled, “Increasing Heat-Stress Inequality In A Warming Climate”, projects further intensification of extreme heat events in the future. Excess heat events like heat waves are an immediate threat to human well-being, as they may contribute to crop failure, worsened wildfires, and heat-related deaths, such as heat exhaustion and heat stroke.

Researchers of the 2022 study claim that societies in the lowest-income regions are projected to have greater difficulties adapting to the challenges posed by a warming climate. Authors claim that their “findings demonstrate continued increases in heatwave exposure inequality because of delays in adaptation capacity in the developing world, compounded by a higher emergence of warming in low-latitude areas where most of the low-income countries occur”.

Research Method and Design

This study used heatwave data from the years 1980-2019 to model future temperatures for 2030-end of the century.

Heatwaves here are defined as “an event during which daily mean temperature exceeded the 97th percentile of local annual mean daily temperature in a reference period for at least three consecutive days”. Authors of the study claim that they are operating under the assumption that vulnerability to heatwave-related risks and degrees of suffering is determined by economic development status.

Researchers split all regions of the world into four socioeconomic classes for income: lowest, lower-middle, upper-middle, and highest, (based on the population weighted per-capita gross domestic product in 2015). They were then able to create a spectrum of economic adaptive capacities. Adaptation capacities include cooling systems, electricity, early detection, and warning systems, and infrastructure.

As reported in the study, a 60% global increase in the total number of heatwave days was recorded over the past 40 years. Average yearly heatwave seasons were 75% longer during the 2010s compared to those in the 1980s. Also, “the maximum decadal amplitude of shock heatwave was between 2.16 (Europe) and 3.27 (North America) °C higher in the 2010s as compared to the 1980s”. Although heatwaves intensified across all socioeconomic classes, the “low-income region” observed the greatest rate of increase in heatwave season length yearly.

In Conclusion

In the 2010s, the “high-income region” experienced 30% fewer heatwave days. Sensitivity to heat waves is significantly determined by a society’s adaptation efforts. Regions with relatively low incomes will face greater challenges and vulnerability to heatwaves due to their lack of access to resources that enable adaptation across sectors. Inferior adaptation capacities may hinder or delay institutional heatwaves responses to heatwaves, making societies with lower-scoring GDPs more susceptible to the impacts of rising temperature averages and excess heat.

Climate Change Affecting Animals

Seabird species: Australian Pelican (Pelecanus conspicillatus)

A new review published in Ecology Letters, a peer-reviewed scientific journal, assessed seabird and marine mammals’ responses to climate change and climate variability. Researchers based their analysis on data from more than 480 preexisting studies and found that “the likelihood of concluding that climate change had an impact [on either marine mammals sea birds] increased with study duration”. In other words, studies that include data from longer lengths of time are going to be most useful for measuring climate change’s effects on the observed species.

Research Method and Design

From the 484 peer-reviewed studies that matched the researcher’s inclusion criterion, 2,215 observations were compiled into a database and mapped. This includes 1,685 observations for seabirds and 530 observations for marine mammals. 54% of observations for seabirds were distributed towards the northern hemisphere (39% of observations from temperate and polar regions). For marine mammals, 83% of observations were distributed toward the northern hemisphere (53% of observations from temperate and polar regions). For both seabirds and marine mammals, tropical and subtropical regions represented a mere 8% of total observations.

Authors of the preexisting studies found 38% of total observations to be related to climate change, 49% were attributed to climate variability, and 13% were attributed to both. Climate change refers to the long-term changes in weather patterns, typically over decades or longer, while climate variability is usually thought of as day-to-day shifts in weather.

According to the new review, “a significant majority of observations concluded that climate change had an effect on both the seabird and marine mammal groups across all the response classes”. Response classes include demography, distribution, condition, phenology, behavior, and diet. The analysis also states that species that had more limited temperature tolerance ranges and relatively long generation times were reported to be most affected by changes in climate. Generation times are temporal intervals between the birth of an individual organism and the birth of its offspring.

In Conclusion

The longer the duration of the original studies, the more likely authors were to infer that the observed changes in taxonomic groups were due to climate change rather than climate variability. 189 of the preexisting studies (669 observations) that demonstrated climate change effects had a time span above the estimated average threshold of 19 years. Generally, studies on marine mammals were able to demonstrate climate change responses based on shorter time scales (17± 5 years) versus seabirds (22 ± 3 years).

Cowspiracy Facts

fish near water’s surface

While fisheries generate food and profit, they could do much more harm than good for underwater ecosystems. The film Cowspiracy makes a convincing case for the deleterious effect of large-scale fishing operations on ocean environments, species variety, and abundance. Cowspiracy depicts modern fishing as a largely unsustainable industry that could lead to fishless oceans by 2048.

Fishing As Depicted By Cowspiracy

Fish and other marine life are mostly hunted as food. However, some species are used for other commodities. Sharks, for example, are sometimes hunted for their skin which can be used in the making of leather. Other species like whales and manatees are regularly harmed or killed unintentionally by getting caught in fishing nets. The Cowspiracy Facts page cites a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) document which states that in the year 2017, between 51 – 167 billion farmed fish had been killed for food.

That same year an estimated 250 – 600 billion crustaceans were also farmed and killed for food. Even animals that are not eaten by humans are caught and killed inadvertently because of drift netting or trawling. Susan Hartland of the Conservation Society says that animal populations are being extracted from oceans more quickly than they can recover. Marine species are therefore collapsing under the immense pressures of modern hunting. The unintended catches, sharks, sea turtles, and dolphins are called bykill.

Keystone Species and Trophic Cascades

Apex predators often act as keystone species, meaning that they have disproportionately large effects in their natural environments. This makes the removal of sharks particularly concerning. As top predators, many sharks species exert top down influence in their respective food webs. The removal of sharks, and other keystone species increases trophic cascade risks. Trophic cascades are the ecological chain of events triggered by the removal or addition of top predators.

Agriculture, Fishing and Algae Blooms

“Livestock operations on land have created more than 500 nitrogen flooded dead zones around the world in our oceans…” According to Dr. Richard Oppenlander, an environmental researcher featured in the Cowspiracy film. Water pollution comes in the form of pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, plastics and other waste material. However, animal agriculture is the leading cause of ocean pollution – a fact which is stated explicitly in the Cowspiracy film.

Animal agriculture run-off upsets nutrient balances in aquatic ecosystems by introducing phosphorus, nitrogen, manure and potassium from chemical fertilizers. These excess nutrients can cause alae blooms, leading to uninhabitable zones for marine species. Blooms of algae drain sunlight and deplete oxygen levels – making the environment unsuitable for most other lifeforms in the ecosystem.

Bottom trawling contributes to inhabitable zones similarly. Bottom trawling, also referred to as “dragging” involves casting a fishing net to the sea floor. Trawling disturbs sediments along the sea floor which causes carbon to be released. Once carbon dioxide is released from sediments, it is then absorbed by ocean seawater. Elevated carbon levels allow water to trap in more heat and further facilitate algae and plant overgrowth.

COP26

COP26 is the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference which took place this November 2021, in Glasgow. This conference was supposed to accelerate action towards achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (limiting global average temperature rise to well below 2℃ by the middle of the 21st century). According to the Paris Climate Agreement, participant nations are also encouraged to pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5℃ relative to preindustrial levels by mid-century.

COP26 was to be the latest installment in this ongoing conversation between world leaders, corporations, and intergovernmental committees.

The Glasgow Pact

Toward the end of the 2 weeks United Nations Climate Change conference, a change was made to the wording of the Glasgow Pact. The phasing out of coal was changed to the phasing down of coal. The latter wording can be found in the Glasgow Pact document. Sources reveal that this change was first proposed by representatives from India, and garnered support from China. As coal combusts, several airborne pollutants are released, including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon dioxide, particulates, and ash. Coal burning is a prominent element of climate destabilization, as it contributes to global warming and increasingly acidic oceans. Though COP26 is the first climate agreement to explicitly mention coal, the tentative promise to phase down coal use this century is not assuring.

The Glasgow Pact “emphasizes the need to mobilize climate finance from all sources to reach the level needed to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement, including significantly increasing support for developing country Parties, beyond USD 100 billion per year…”. As for the US$100 billion per year by 2020 pledge, first proposed in 2009, the Glasgow Pact “notes with deep regret that the goal” has not yet been met, but secures no further progress on this front. This is a failure to small island nations and countries with highly vulnerable economies that are already feeling the effects of climate change and are predicted to be disproportionately affected due to less resilient economies.

Protests outside of COP26 erupted before the final event officially concluded. Hundreds of civil society representatives were dissatisfied with the conclusions reached during the climate convention. Even more frustrations have been articulated online.

The 7th subtitle, “Implementation“, makes no explicit commitments

The “implementation” section of the Glasgow pact likewise makes no explicit commitments. Without the implementation of targets, meaningful action can not be achieved. That said, more promises are likewise insufficient answers to immediate to answer immediate concerns for relief and infrastructure investments. COP26 has largely failed small island nations and those with emerging economies in this regard.

Rainforests

Rainforest ecosystems are inhabited by more plant and animal species than any other terrestrial ecosystem. As the planet’s oldest living environments, they host rich webs of biodiversity and interacting species which help sustain the ecosystems that embed them. Unfortunately, rainforests are presently threatened by deforestation, over-exploitation, and climate change.

The leading cause of rainforest destruction may be livestock and feed crops. Clearing forests to make way for land pastures and agriculture feed plots is done in Costa Rica, Honduras, and El Salvador to meet the demand for American beef. Cattle ranching is a low cost, low maintenance operation to run in the tropics. Cattle ranching generates profit for land owners, farmers and distributors.

Nonetheless, livestock feeding plots require sections of forests and other vegetation to be cleared first to make space for pastures and animal crops. Clearing vegetation can increases risks to various processes that rainforest vegetation help carry out, including enhanced water absorption into soils, sequestration of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, summoning rainfall, providing nutrients to plant-consuming species and serving as habitats for arboreal species. These are examples of ecosystem services provided to rainforest environments and the species within them. Services like these emerge from the biological, chemical and physical functions in rainforest environments.

The growth of human populations has driven our demand for food and textiles to rise, which has ramped up animal agriculture in tropical forests. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), agriculture approximately 15% of the Amazon forest has been removed due to agricultural practices since 1960s. Of the land being used by humans, 80% of it is dedicated to grazing areas for horses, cattle, sheep, or pigs. Put another way, cattle ranching for agriculture is the central use of land in the Amazon basin, which includes Brazil, Peru and Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Guyana, Surinam and French Guyana. These regions are subjected to slash and burn clearing before feeding pastures can be established. Therefore, cattle ranching is the leading cause of deforestation in the Amazon Basin. On top of that, animal agriculture contributes to methane emissions, ocean acidification and worsened air quality.

Savetheamazon.org refers to the plant and animal species of the Amazonian rainforests as its “wealth’. The site posits that up to 80% of developed nation’s diets are sourced from tropical rainforests. Our fruits, (avocados, coconuts, figs, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, pineapples, and tomatoes) vegetables (corn, potatoes and yams) spices, (cayenne, chocolate, cinnamon, ginger, sugar cane, turmeric) have their origins in tropical ecosystems.

Without these contributions, the diets of developed nations would be severely restricted. Equally as important, rainforests like the Amazon help abate flooding by storing tremendous amounts of rainwater in its plants and soils. However, the continued functionality of tropical rainforests depends on how sustainably we use the land. Harvesting from rainforests at rates faster than they are able to naturally replenish themselves may contribute to permanent changes of the ecological structures within rainforests.

Why Are Whales Important

A new study published in Nature sheds light on the roles whales play in marine ecosystems. Baleen whales are the largest carnivorous marine mammals, so naturally, they feed on tremendous amounts of krill, zooplankton, and other prey. Krill is turned over in the stomachs of whales (Mysticeti). Once krill have been digested, their iron contents are released back out into ocean ecosystems, where it floats toward the water’s surface due to water pressure. Iron-rich excrement yields nutrients for phytoplankton, which are microscopic plants that use photosynthesis to make energy.

Phytoplankton are then consumed by other creatures in the environment, including krill! Krill feed on the phytoplankton that grow using the nutrients from recycled metabolized – recycled – krill. In other words, baleen whales populations perpetuate nutrient cycling. At one level, krill are consumed by whales. Subsequently, whale waste supplements phytoplankton growth, which helps sustains krill populations.

By comparing the prey consumption more than 300 tracked whales in this new study to per-capita consumption estimates from the early 20th century, researchers were able to reason that southern krill populations has to be considerably higher than they are today. Whales were found to eat up to three times more krill and other prey than previous assessments have supposed.

Research Method and Design

Researchers used metabolic models to estimate whale feeding volumes. Whale tagging and acoustic acoustic measurements were used to calculate whale prey densities in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Southern Oceans. Their results suggest that previous assessments greatly underestimated baleen whale prey consumption. Further, researchers reason that larger whale populations would add to the “productivity” of marine ecosystems by perpetuating iron recycling.

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Researchers were able to determine how much whales eat by tagging individual whales by attaching electronic devices on their backs. These electronic devices carry cameras, microphones and of course, GPS locators. These electronic tags, in conjunction with acoustic measurements of prey biomass, informed researchers on whale eating cycles and intake volume. Of course, prey intake varies between different species of whale.

The Krill Paradox

The famous krill paradox refers to the mystery in marine ecosystems regarding the removal of large predators, like whales. When whales are hunted, and their populations consequently decrease, so do the population sizes of krill. This perplexes researchers because they intuitively expect krill populations to grow wildly in the absence of whales which eats thousands of tons of krill daily. Instead, the opposite is true: as whales are removed from the ecological system, krill populations shrink. The new study illuminates exactly why this phenomenon occurs. Krill depend on whales to produce nutrients for the microscopic plants that they eat. Declines in whale species members leads to fewer iron being sent toward the water’s surface in the form of whale excrement. Which ultimately contributes to less plentiful meals available for krill populations.

In Conclusion

The conclusions of this study may have potential for marine ecosystem restoration efforts. Species like whales are evidently essential for the continued functionality of marine ecosystems, and should therefore be protected.

Environmental DNA

EDNA (Environmental DNA) sampling is a method of surveying distribution patterns and population sizes for species within an ecological community. EDNA makes use of genetic deposits that organisms leave behind. Ecologists use hair, fecal matter, feathers, and any other forensic-like evidence that they can find in an environment. Using EDNA to sample populations is minimally invasive and does not involve extracting genetic material directly from the targeted organisms. Anthropogenic disturbances continue to plague ecosystems the world over, affecting species abundance, species variety, migratory patterns, and habitats.

Without biodiversity measurements, conservations can’t know how which species are being lost, or how species populations change over time. Measuring biodiversity is not as simple as measuring force or distance; biodiversity can be understood in a multitude of ways. For example, some researchers use species richness -the total number of different species – to quantify diversity. Others may count the number of individual organisms of each species in an area. What’s important is that the community being sampled gives researchers basic information about the occurrence, distribution, and abundance of the species being observed. Using environmental DNA can avoid putting unnecessary stress on the environment and species involved. Conservationists, then, can use environmental DNA to survey species and habitats while doing their part to keep ecosystems intact.

Sampling builds our knowledge of species and how they are distributed which informs conservation projects and environmental policy. Environmental DNA can carry information about the life of the organism involved, like other creatures it may have interacted with or what foods may be part of its diet. This may not always be possible by photographing species. While it may be possible by capturing and tagging animals, these methods present other limitations.

Some species are simply difficult to detect. This could be because the species itself may be incredibly small, or its population sizes are spread thin, making the targeted species too elusive to observe by conventional means. Sampling with EDNA can eliminate limitations associated with capturing species, photographing them, or tracking them. However, EDNA can not be used to determine population quality information such as bodily features and sex ratios. Therefore, DNA retrieved from environments must be used in conjunction with other detection techniques in some cases.

Places Most Affected by Climate Change

The lowest-income nations have economies that are the least capable of adapting to climate change’s effects. Dealing with decreases in crop yields and infrastructure damage as a result of climate change is more difficult in countries that have vulnerable economies because people in these regions tend to be more dependent on agriculture and other contributions from nature, such as fishing or logging. Increases in weather extremes could also threaten tourism in small island developing states. Under the influence of climate change, the least developed communities are expected to have a harder time rebuilding with limited finances and resources.

On the other hand, the countries most capable of adapting to climate change are those that have relatively high incomes and low economic vulnerability. These nations are more equipped to deal with climate destabilization than low-income countries with high economic vulnerability. This is because higher-income nations can afford to invest in net-zero transition projects, adaptation technologies, and more resilient infrastructure.

COP26

The Conference of Parties (COP), established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), is a convention of governmental representatives and scientific experts for discussing climate change. COP26 will be the next COP gathering and will take place in November 2021. World leaders participating in COP26 will discuss topics ranging from mitigation strategies to extensive economic reforms.

Climate finances are the funds planned to be provided to highly vulnerable nations to aid in addressing climate change and its impacts. Funds like the Green Climate Fund were created as financial support systems that lower-income nations could draw from for new initiatives and adaptation. Alternative methods for climate finance include loans, export credits, and government donations. The pledge for $100 billion a year (by 2020) for developing nations has been discussed as a central issue since 2009.

COP26 is an opportunity for relatively high-income nations to sort out the details of their pending commitments. They are the primary beneficiaries of fossil fuel use and are therefore liable for the consequences associated with climate destabilization. The territories that make up the Group of 20 (G20) generate more than half of the world’s anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and make up most of the world’s gross domestic product. These nations then have the greatest responsibility to help support people in highly vulnerable regions and small island states.