Elevational patterns of warming effects on plant community and topsoil properties: focus on subalpine meadows ecosystem

Climate warming profoundly affects plant biodiversity, community productivity, and soil properties in alpine and subalpine grassland ecosystems. However, these effects are poorly understood across elevational gradients in subalpine meadow ecosystems. To reveal the elevational patterns of warming effects on plant biodiversity, community structure, productivity, and soil properties, we conducted a warming experiment using open-top chambers from August 2019 to August 2022 at high(2764 m a. s. l.), medium(2631 m a. s. l.), and low(2544 m a. s. l.) elevational gradients on a subalpine meadow slope of Mount Wutai, Northern China. Our results showed that three years of warming significantly increased topsoil temperature but significantly decreased topsoil moisture at all elevations(P<0.05), and the percentage of increasing temperature and decreasing moisture both gradually raised with elevation lifting. Warming-induced decreasing proportions of soil organic carbon(SOC, by 19.24%), and total nitrogen(TN, by 24.56%) were the greatest at high elevational gradients. Experimental warming did not affect topsoil C: N, p H, NO_(3)^(-)-N, or NH_(4)^(+)-N at the three elevational gradients. Warming significantly increased species richness(P<0.01) and Shannon-Weiner index(P<0.05) at low elevational gradients but significantly decreased belowground biomass(P<0.05) at a depth of 0–10 cm at three elevational gradients. Warming caused significant increases in the aboveground biomass in the three elevational plots. Warming significantly increased the aboveground biomass of graminoids in medium(by 92.47%) and low(by 98.25%) elevational gradients, that of sedges in high(by 72.44%) and medium(by 57.16%) elevational plots, and that of forbs in high(by 75.88%), medium(by 34.38%), and low(by 74.95%) elevational plots. Species richness had significant linear correlations with SOC, TN, and C: N(P<0.05), but significant nonlinear responses to soil temperature and soil moisture in the warmed treatment(P<0.05). The warmed aboveground biomass had a significant nonlinear response to soil temperature and significant linear responses to soil moisture(P<0.05). This study provided evidence that altitude is a factor in sensitivity to climate warming, and these different parameters(e.g., plant species richness, Shannon-Weiner index, soil temperature, soil moisture, SOC, and TN) can be used to measure this sensitivity.

Habitable Land Will Soon Become the World’s Scarcest Resource: Why Appalachia Should Choose Climate Change Havens over Millionaire Estates and Golf Courses

This research advocates for the construction of Climate Change Haven Communities across the Appalachian Region. The proposed development plan can be extended to the northern tier states across the US and also to the northern and mountainous regions of Europe and Asia. We present an analogy to the earlier climate change period of the Last Glacial Maximum/“Ice Age” in which these same northern regions of the planet were covered in ice sheets making them uninhabitable for most humans and many plant and animal species. In some significant ways, the Ice Age scenario can be a reverse-model for our current climate crisis. We also advocate strongly for the prevention of upscale real estate development projects in these same regions of the globe, as these will foreclose the possibility of safely sheltering the millions of persons who will be displaced by climate change over the next 5 to 10 years.

Social and Economic Considerations for Creating Sustainable Climate Change Haven Communities

As Climate Change Haven Communities are constructed across the Northern Hemisphere, it will be necessary to attract two types of migrants to populate them. The first group consists of professionals and companies in eco-sustainable businesses, such as law firms, insurance companies, investment firms, banking, technological innovation, mass media, medical research and pharmaceutical research. The second group will consist of persons engaged in organic/eco-sustainable agriculture whose crops and animal husbandry practices can be transferred successfully to Climate Change Haven regions. The present research focuses on the social and economic variables that must be taken into account to insure that each new Climate Change Haven Community becomes successfully integrated with the local population and forms a cohesive, harmonious social structure. Examples are given from the United States, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Changes in an Old Community

THE rainy season used to be the most irksome period of the year for Zhao Yunshu. A member of the Jinyuchi Beili Neighborhood Committee, she handled seemingly endless complaints, over the telephone and in person, about utility problems caused by rain. They included blocked drains, leaking roofs, and electricity failures. She would then cycle to the real estate maintenance station in search of suitable workers to do repairs, or talk to the people in charge about long-term solutions. This year’s rainy season, however, she spent most of her time sitting in the office drinking tea.

A Decade of Complete Change in a Muslim Community

Talking about changes in the Muslim-inhabited Niu Jie Street of Beijing, every member of the community would be all smiles. ＂Everything has changed; the mosque, the streetscape and the people, too,＂ they would say.

Study on Different Size-fractionated Phytoplankton Assemblage Change in the Mesocosm Ecosystem

A algal bloom process had been simulated via field mesocosm experiment, and the change of phytoplankton assemblage of different sizes in different growing phases had been studied. Nutrients addition could promote the growth of phytoplankton In the mesocosm of Prorocentrum donghaiense （M1） and the mesocosm of natural waters （M2）, and the peaks of chlorophyll a were 112.79 mg/m and 235.60 mg/m, respectively. The restraining effect of nano-phytoplankton on pico-phytoplankton growth was stronger in M2 than in M1. When nutrients were abundant, the relative growth rate of diatom was higher than that of P. donghaiense, and they reached the peak quickly and then came to die out very fast. The decreasing of Si promoted diatom bloom to die out.

Response of Photosynthetic Plankton Communities to Late-Holocene Climate Change on the Tibetan Plateau

Sediment records from Tibetan lakes record dramatic climatic variability of the Tibetan Plateau in NW China during the Holocene.Here we investigated ancient communities of photosynthetic microbial communities in

Community structure and spatial-temporal variation of netzphytoplankton in the Bering Sea in summer

Marine biodiversity is changing in response to altered physical environment, subsequent ecological changes as well as anthropogenic disturbances. In this study, phytoplankton samples in situ collected in the Bering Sea in July of 1999 and 2010 were analyzed to obtain phytoplankton community structure and spatial-temporal variation between the beginning and end of this decade, and the correlation of phytoplankton community dynamics and environmental factors was investigated. A total of 5 divisions, 58 genera and 153 species of phytoplankton belonging to 3 ecological groups were identified. The vast majority of phytoplankton consisted of diatoms accounting for 66.7% of the total species and 95.2% of the total abundance. Considering differentiation in spatial extent and phytoplankton sample types, there were subtle changes in species composition, large altering in abundance and significant variation in spatial distribution between two surveys. The abundance peak area was located at the Bering Strait while sub peak was found at the Bering Sea Basin. The boreal-temperate diatom was the dominant flora, which was subsequently replaced by eurythermal and frigid-water diatom. Phytoplankton community in the Bering Sea was not a simplex uniform community but composed of deep-ocean assemblage and neritic assemblage. The deep-ocean assemblage was located in the northwestern Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea Basin, dominated by boreal-temperate species（Neodenticula seminae, Thalassiothrix longissima, Amphiprora hyperborean, Chaetoceros atlanticus, Thalassiosira trifulta, etc.） and eurychoric species（Thalassionema nitzschioides, Ch. compressus, Rhizosolenia styliformis, etc.）, and characterized by low abundance, even interspecies abundance allocations, diverse dominant species and high species diversity. The neritic assemblage was distributed on the continental shelf and slope of Bering Sea and was mainly composed of frigid-water species（Th.nordenski？ldii, Ch. furcellatus, Ch. socialis, Bacteriosira fragilis, etc.） and eurythermal and euryhaline species（L.danicus, Ch. curvisetus, Coscinodiscus curvatulus, etc.）, and it was characterized by high abundance, uneven interspecies allocations, prominent dominant species and low species diversity. Spatial-temporal variation of species composition and abundance of phytoplankton in the Bering Sea was directly controlled by surface circulation,nutrient supply and ice edge.

Impact of climate change on the small mammal community of the Yukon boreal forest

Long-term monitoring is critical to determine the stability and sustainability of wildlife populations,and if change has occurred,why.We have followed population density changes in the small mammal community in the boreal forest of the southern Yukon for 46 years with density estimates by live trapping on 3-5 unmanipulat­ed grids in spring and autumn.This community consists of 10 species and was responsible for 9%of the ener­gy flow in the herbivore component of this ecosystem from 1986 to 1996,but this increased to 38%from 2003 to 2014.Small mammals,although small in size,are large in the transfer of energy from plants to predators and decomposers.Four species form the bulk of the biomass.There was a shift in the dominant species from the 1970s to the 2000s,with Myodes rutilus increasing in relative abundance by 22%and Peromyscus maniculatus decreasing by 22%.From 2007 to 2018,Myodes comprised 63%of the catch,Peromyscus 20%,and Microtus species 17%.Possible causes of these changes involve climate change,which is increasing primary production in this boreal forest,and an associated increase in the abundance of 3 rodent predators,marten(Martes ameri­cana),ermine(Mustela ermine)and coyotes(Canis latrans).Following and understanding these and potential future changes will require long-term monitoring studies on a large scale to measure metapopulation dynamics.The small mammal community in northern Canada is being affected by climate change and cannot remain sta­ble.Changes will be critically dependent on food-web interactions that are species-specific.