Climate-change ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using prey size measurements from ten Southern Ocean lanternfish species sampled across >10° of latitude, this study shows that higher temperatures were associated with smaller fish and an overall decrease in the size of fish relative to their prey. Ocean warming may therefore alter the diversity and size structuring of trophic interactions, reducing the stability of marine ecosystems.

    • Patrick Eskuche-Keith
    • , Simeon L. Hill
    •  & Eoin J. O’Gorman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change effects on animals are typically measured as decreases or increases in performance, compared to controls. Because both directions can have cascading effects at the ecosystem level, this study conducts a meta-analysis testing for deviations in biological responses using absolute rather than relative changes, showing that impacts on marine animals might have been largely underestimated.

    • Katharina Alter
    • , Juliette Jacquemont
    •  & Paolo Domenici

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors employed 203 eddy covariance towers to reveal a negative and varying elevation dependent pattern of CO2 uptake, under changes in Earth’s climate and human activities.

    • Da Wei
    • , Jing Tao
    •  & Xiaodan Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Global warming targets are considered inadequate to protect coral reefs, but this prognosis is based on models with similar approaches. This systematic review of studies that project coral responses to climate change found that divergent modelling methodologies had discrepancies in coral reef outcomes, and that those used for climate change syntheses may project more severe consequences than other methods.

    • Shannon G. Klein
    • , Cassandra Roch
    •  & Carlos M. Duarte

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Predicting species responses to climate change may be complicated by the influence of other factors. Here, the authors report that warming is linked to terrestrial and freshwater community shifts towards warm-adapted species overall, but body size, thermal niche breadth, species richness and baseline temperature modulate the trends.

    • Imran Khaliq
    • , Christian Rixen
    •  & Anita Narwani

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Protected areas are meant to defend species from direct exploitation and habitat loss, but they might also reduce climate change impacts. Here, the authors show that marine protected areas mitigate the impacts of marine heatwaves on reef fish communities.

    • Lisandro Benedetti-Cecchi
    • , Amanda E. Bates
    •  & Eneko Aspillaga

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Soil priming could release large amounts of soil C into the atmosphere. Here the authors show that experimental warming boosts soil priming and CO2 emissions in grasslands potentially due to microbial changes. Model accuracy could be improved by incorporating these mechanisms.

    • Xuanyu Tao
    • , Zhifeng Yang
    •  & Jizhong Zhou

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Combining ocean predictions with physiological understanding yields the ability to forecast habitat multiple years into the future for a wide variety of marine organisms. However, several challenges remain before we see the regular production and use of marine habitat forecasts.

    • Mark R. Payne

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The response of organic molecules to climate change is linked to warming, nutrient loading, and greenhouse gas emissions, according to an indicator developed to quantify the aggregated thermal response of individual organic molecules.

    • Ang Hu
    • , Kyoung-Soon Jang
    •  & Jianjun Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Using a global synthesis of size spectra data from pelagic food webs, this study finds that size structure is not driven by temperature as often suggested, but by the nutrient status of the system. This means that modest phytoplankton declines projected for key fishing grounds at mid-latitudes will amplify into substantial reductions in the supportable biomass of fish.

    • Angus Atkinson
    • , Axel G. Rossberg
    •  & Constantin Frangoulis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change is redistributing species poleward, threatening widespread socio-ecological disruption as key tipping-points are exceeded. This study examines space-time dynamics of kelp ecosystem collapse over a 15-year period along the warming coastline of eastern Tasmania and shows that an early-warning signal of kelp ecosystem collapse is recognisable well-in-advance.

    • Scott D. Ling
    •  & John P. Keane

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Agricultural soil C dynamics under climate change are difficult to predict. Here, the authors report that experimental warming increases soil organic C stocks in conservation agriculture but not in conventional agriculture, which appears driven by soil microbial responses to no tillage and C inputs from the crops.

    • Jing Tian
    • , Jennifer A. J. Dungait
    •  & Jizhong Zhou

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree species may be vulnerable to multiple global change factors. Here, the authors find that more than 17 thousand tree species are exposed to increasing anthropogenic threats, including many species classified as data-deficient in the IUCN Red List.

    • Coline C. F. Boonman
    • , Josep M. Serra-Diaz
    •  & Jens-Christian Svenning

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forecasting ecology can support proactive decision-making in the face of uncertain environmental conditions. Using case studies on whale entanglement and sea turtle bycatch, this study showcases the capacity for existing management tools to transition to a forecast configuration and provide skilful forecasts up to 12 months in advance.

    • Stephanie Brodie
    • , Mercedes Pozo Buil
    •  & Michael G. Jacox

  • Article
    | Open Access

    A species’ response to anthropogenic climate change may depend on its adaptations to past climate changes. Here, the authors use whole-genome resequencing and genetic-environment association to identify genes important for local adaptation and project adaptation under future climate scenarios across bank vole populations in Britain.

    • Silvia Marková
    • , Hayley C. Lanier
    •  & Petr Kotlík

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The deep ocean is increasingly subjected to human-induced environmental change, but little is known about species-specific responses to stressors, including those from deep sea mining. This study shows that elevated temperatures and simulated sediment plumes cause physiological stress in a cosmopolitan deep-sea jellyfish, confirming the detrimental impact of seabed mining.

    • Vanessa I. Stenvers
    • , Helena Hauss
    •  & Henk-Jan T. Hoving

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Coastal upwelling regions are among the most productive marine ecosystems but may be threatened by amplified ocean acidification. Here the authors show from community to molecular levels that phytoplankton in an upwelling region respond to short-term acidification exposure with iron uptake pathways and strategies that reduce cellular iron demand.

    • Robert H. Lampe
    • , Tyler H. Coale
    •  & Andrew E. Allen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How trees respond to increasing atmospheric dryness has important implications for forest growth. Here, the authors use a network of tree-ring records to quantify the multidecadal impact of vapour pressure deficit trends on boreal forests in Canada.

    • Ariane Mirabel
    • , Martin P. Girardin
    •  & Peter B. Reich

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change and land use change may have independent or interactive effects on species’ distributions. Here, the authors show that changes in bird, lepidopteran and plant ranges across Great Britain are often explained by individual or additive effects of land conversion and temperature change.

    • Andrew J. Suggitt
    • , Christopher J. Wheatley
    •  & Alistair G. Auffret

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change increases the frequency and intensity of drought events, affecting soil functions driven by microorganisms. Here, Metze et al. develop a method to estimate microbial growth rates in dry soils, and provide insights into the response of active microbes to drought today and in potential future climate conditions (high temperatures and CO2 levels).

    • Dennis Metze
    • , Jörg Schnecker
    •  & Andreas Richter

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Cetaceans such as dolphins and whales contribute to the cycling of essential nutrients in the surface ocean through defecation. Using a bioenergetic modelling approach, this study shows that the contribution of different cetaceans is heterogeneous both in terms of quantity and in quality, as the nutrient cocktails they release reflect the physiology and ecology of each species.

    • Lola Gilbert
    • , Tiphaine Jeanniard-du-Dot
    •  & Jérôme Spitz

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Marine heatwaves and mass bleaching mortality events threaten the persistence of coral communities on tropical reefs. This study demonstrates that the thermal tolerance of coral communities in Palau has likely increased since the late 1980s. Such ecological resilience could reduce future bleaching impacts if global carbon emissions are cut down.

    • Liam Lachs
    • , Simon D. Donner
    •  & James R. Guest

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    The response of aquatic and terrestrial organisms to climate change can depend on biological sex. A key challenge is to unravel the interactive effects of sex and climate change at the individual and population levels and the cascading effects on communities. This new understanding is essential to improve climate adaptation and mitigation strategies.

    • Elena Gissi
    • , Londa Schiebinger
    •  & Fiorenza Micheli

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Vegetation resilience to drought is underlain by plant physiological responses. Here, the authors combine remote sensing data, explainable machine learning and model simulations to map global vegetation responses to drought linked to physiological processes such as stomatal regulation and light use efficiency.

    • Wantong Li
    • , Javier Pacheco-Labrador
    •  & Rene Orth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Functional trait data could guide predictions of species responses to environmental change. Here, the authors show that winner and loser shrub species in the warming tundra biome overlap in trait space and may therefore be difficult to predict based on commonly measured traits.

    • Mariana García Criado
    • , Isla H. Myers-Smith
    •  & Anna-Maria Virkkala

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study presents an absolute metabolic index that quantifies how ocean temperature, dissolved oxygen and organismal mass interact to constrain the oxygen budget an organism can use to fuel aerobic metabolism. The index is calibrated with physiological measurements from purple sea urchin and red abalone and the authors test if the index can delimit the distribution of these two species.

    • Murray I. Duncan
    • , Fiorenza Micheli
    •  & Erik A. Sperling

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree growth in boreal forests is generally predicted to increase under warming. Here, the authors demonstrate a method to analyze physiologically informed temperature series of tree-ring data, finding potentially overlooked growth-temperature responses and projecting increasing risks of warming to boreal larch forests.

    • Wenqing Li
    • , Rubén D. Manzanedo
    •  & Neil Pederson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The capacity of coral reefs to keep pace with sea-level rise is central to their ability to continue to provide shoreline protection to vulnerable coastal communities. Here, the study shows that whereas restoration has the potential to minimize climate-change impacts, doing nothing will amplify them.

    • Lauren T. Toth
    • , Curt D. Storlazzi
    •  & Richard B. Aronson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Stomatal conductance is an important plant ecophysiological trait and a common parameter in earth system models. This global meta-analysis shows how CO2, warming and other global change factors affect stomatal conductance individually and interactively.

    • Xingyun Liang
    • , Defu Wang
    •  & David S. Ellsworth

  • Article
    | Open Access

    This study examines how the tropicalisation of shallow reefs changes functional niches for fishes in Japan and Australia. They discover that functional niches in tropical-temperate transitional communities are asynchronously invaded by tropical species, mediated more by habitat availability than competition with resident temperate species.

    • Mark G. R. Miller
    • , James D. Reimer
    •  & Maria Beger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phenological shifts driven by climate change are well-studied in plants and aboveground animals, but scarcely in belowground biota. Here, the authors show that soil warming causes phenological mismatches between plants, soil microbes and soil microarthropods in an alpine meadow.

    • Rui Yin
    • , Wenkuan Qin
    •  & Biao Zhu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drought can have complex effects on plants due to different responses of photosynthesis, growth and carbon storage. Here, the authors show that tree growth does not always stop before photosynthesis and non-structural carbohydrate may not accumulate.

    • R. Alexander Thompson
    • , Henry D. Adams
    •  & Nate G. McDowell

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The contribution of animal ecosystem engineers to coastal geomorphological processes is often neglected. Here, the authors combine observational, experimental and modelling work to demonstrate that ecosystem engineering by mussels is a much stronger driver of salt marsh accretion rates than expected.

    • Sinéad M. Crotty
    • , Daniele Pinton
    •  & Christine Angelini

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Desert-dwelling species are adapted to high temperatures, but further warming may push them beyond their physiological limits. Here, the authors integrate biophysical models and species distributions to project physiological impacts of climate change on desert birds globally and identify potential refugia.

    • Liang Ma
    • , Shannon R. Conradie
    •  & David S. Wilcove

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