Climate-change ecology articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    External ecological interactions and intrinsic biological parameters affect evolutionary pathways and animal diversity. Here, the authors use ruminant inner ear morphology to investigate patterns of diversity through 33 million years, finding clade-dependent climate and paleogeographic trends.

    • Bastien Mennecart
    • , Laura Dziomber
    •  & Loïc Costeur

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change and earlier snowmelt could potentially extend the growing season for alpine grassland plants. Here, the authors combine field and chamber controlled experiments to show that extending the summer period did not result in prolonged root and leaf growth.

    • Patrick Möhl
    • , Raphael S. von Büren
    •  & Erika Hiltbrunner

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change may be inducing phenological mismatches between trees and understory plants. Here, phenological models based on long-term data from herbarium specimens indicate that spring ephemeral wildflowers are more vulnerable to such mismatches in North America than in Eurasia.

    • Benjamin R. Lee
    • , Tara K. Miller
    •  & Richard B. Primack

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors use sedimentary DNA, pollen, fungal spores, chironomids, and microcharcoal from an alpine lake core to reconstruct vegetation across 12,000 years. They find that vegetation responded to climate in the early Holocene, followed by a shift to human activity from 6000 years onward corresponding with an increase in deforestation and agropastoralism.

    • Sandra Garcés-Pastor
    • , Eric Coissac
    •  & Inger Greve Alsos

  • Article
    | Open Access

    By using network motifs, a new view of the global hydrological cycle is offered. With them, it is revealed that the Amazon rainforest is a one-of-a-kind moisture recycling hub, which shows that the ecosystem may be subject to increased vulnerability

    • Nico Wunderling
    • , Frederik Wolf
    •  & Arie Staal

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The long-term effects of extreme climate events in early life are largely overlooked in forecasts of climate change impacts. Here, the authors show that raptorial red kites born during drought are disadvantaged throughout life, and including this climate legacy leads to substantial decreases in forecasted population size and time to extinction.

    • Fabrizio Sergio
    • , Giacomo Tavecchia
    •  & Steven R. Beissinger

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The CO2 fertilisation effect in forests remains controversial. Here, the authors disentangle the effect of CO2 on forest wood volume from other environmental factors, showing that elevated CO2 had a positive effect on wood volume in planted and natural US temperate forests.

    • Eric C. Davis
    • , Brent Sohngen
    •  & David J. Lewis

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In considering Asian monsoon intensity and precipitation during glacial-interglacial transitions in Chinese Loess Plateau, a new study finds that brGDGT-DLNN method can significantly extend the temporal scale record of the EASM and is not restricted by geographic location compared with stalagmite records.

    • Yukun Zheng
    • , Hongyan Liu
    •  & Weihang Liu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ability of organisms to acclimate to high temperatures is increasingly put to test by climate change. This global meta-analysis shows that plasticity of thermal limits in insects is widespread but unlikely to keep pace with climate change.

    • Hester Weaving
    • , John S. Terblanche
    •  & Sinead English

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether the positive effects of biodiversity on ecosystem functioning are maintained under multifaceted anthropogenic disturbance. In this experiment, the authors show that multiple simultaneous stressors can negate the positive effect of microbial diversity on soil functions.

    • Gaowen Yang
    • , Masahiro Ryo
    •  & Matthias C. Rillig

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Responses of agriculture and fisheries to climate change are interlinked, yet rarely studied together. Here, the authors analyse more than 3000 households from 5 tropical countries and forecast mid-century climate change impacts, finding that communities with higher fishery dependence and lower socioeconomic status communities face greater losses.

    • Joshua E. Cinner
    • , Iain R. Caldwell
    •  & Richard Pollnac

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Shrub encroachment trends are widespread yet complex. Here the authors demonstrate that not considering dispersal and fire leads to overestimating shrub expansion in Arctic tundra and therefore its role as carbon sink.

    • Yanlan Liu
    • , William J. Riley
    •  & Margaret S. Torn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Albedo changes caused by projected future urban land expansion will contribute to global warming without proper mitigation. This warming effect will be larger under higher emission scenarios than under lower emission scenarios.

    • Zutao Ouyang
    • , Pietro Sciusco
    •  & Jiquan Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The mechanisms underlying plant phenological shifts are debated. Here, based on phenological observations and ecosystem flux and climate data, Gu and colleagues provide evidence that warming-enhanced photosynthesis in a growing season contributes to earlier spring phenology in the following year in temperate and boreal forests.

    • Hongshuang Gu
    • , Yuxin Qiao
    •  & Lei Chen

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Postfire sagebrush seeding treatments are widely applied across the western USA but evidence for the success of this restoration approach has been variable. Examining >1500 wildfires, this study shows that positive treatment effects were only detected after considering systematic differences between treated and untreated sites due to effects of selection biases in restoration.

    • Allison B. Simler-Williamson
    •  & Matthew J. Germino

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Lianas are an important component of tropical forests. Here the authors compare liana and tree functional trait distributions from across the tropics and use a liana-tree competition model to show that a key hydraulic trait influences liana viability and its response to future climate conditions.

    • Alyssa M. Willson
    • , Anna T. Trugman
    •  & David Medvigy

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Organisms can alter their physiological response to warming. Here, the authors show that the ability to raise metabolic rate following exposure to warming is inverse to body size and provide a mathematical model which estimates that metabolic plasticity could amplify energy flux through ecosystems in response to warming.

    • Rebecca L. Kordas
    • , Samraat Pawar
    •  & Eoin J. O’Gorman

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Intra-specific variations may contribute to heterogeneous responses to climate change across a species’ range. Here, the authors investigate the phenology of two bird species across their breeding ranges, and find that their sensitivity to temperature is uncoupled from exposure to climate change.

    • Liam D. Bailey
    • , Martijn van de Pol
    •  & Marcel E. Visser

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Rapid adaptation will facilitate species resilience under global climate change, but its effects on plasticity are less commonly investigated. This study shows that 20 generations of experimental adaptation in a marine copepod drives a rapid loss of plasticity that carries costs and might have impacts on future resilience to environmental change.

    • Reid S. Brennan
    • , James A. deMayo
    •  & Melissa H. Pespeni

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Even evergreen tropical forests can have seasonal dynamics, which may be sensitive to disturbance. Here, the authors combine high-resolution remote sensing observations and microclimate data to show that forest fragmentation impacts canopy phenology dynamics in the Amazon forest.

    • Matheus Henrique Nunes
    • , José Luís Campana Camargo
    •  & Eduardo Eiji Maeda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Forest dynamics are monitored at large scales with remote sensing, but individual tree data are necessary for ground-truthing and mechanistic insights. This study on high temporal resolution dendrometer data across Europe reveals that the 2018 heatwave affected tree physiology and growth in unexpected way.

    • Roberto L. Salomón
    • , Richard L. Peters
    •  & Kathy Steppe

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Potential gains in future salmon habitat associated with glacier loss have yet to be quantified. This study projects future gains in Pacific salmon freshwater habitat within western North America by linking a model of glacier mass change for 315 glaciers, forced by five different Global Climate Models, with a simple model of salmon stream habitat potential.

    • Kara J. Pitman
    • , Jonathan W. Moore
    •  & Daniel E. Schindler

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Amid climate and land use changes, it is important to identify and monitor hotspots of animal activity where disease transmission can occur. Using experimental and observational methods in an East African savannah, this study shows water sources increase the concentration of faecal-oral parasites in the environment and that this effect is amplified in drier areas and following periods of low rainfall.

    • Georgia Titcomb
    • , John Naisikie Mantas
    •  & Hillary Young

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ongoing disproportionate increases in temperature and precipitation in the Alaska may alter the latitudinal gradients in greenup and snowmelt timings as well as carbon dynamics. With a broad range of datasets and model results, the authors show that the carbon response to early greenup or delayed snowmelt varies greatly depending upon local climatic limits.

    • JiHyun Kim
    • , Yeonjoo Kim
    •  & Crystal L. Schaaf

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Tree species that are expanding their distribution in response to climate change could be hindered or facilitated by disturbances. Here the authors analyse forest inventory data from the western US to test the hypothesis that wildfire can facilitate climate-induced range shifts in trees.

    • Avery P. Hill
    •  & Christopher B. Field

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Phytoplankton communities are important players in biogeochemical processes, but are sensitive to global warming. Here, a meta-analysis shows how the varied responses of phytoplankton to rising temperatures could potentially alter growth dynamics and community structure in a future ocean.

    • S. I. Anderson
    • , A. D. Barton
    •  & T. A. Rynearson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Harmful algal and bacterial blooms are increasingly frequent in lakes and rivers. From the Sydney Basin, Australia, this study uses fossil, sedimentary and geochemical data to reveal bloom events following forest ecosystem collapse during the end-Permian event and that blooms have consistently followed warming-related extinction events, inhibiting the recovery of freshwater ecosystems for millennia.

    • Chris Mays
    • , Stephen McLoughlin
    •  & Vivi Vajda

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationships may vary with climate. Here, the authors study relationships of plant and soil microbial diversity with soil nutrient multifunctionality in 130 dryland sites in China, finding a shift towards greater importance of soil microbial diversity in arid conditions.

    • Weigang Hu
    • , Jinzhi Ran
    •  & Jianming Deng

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Warming will affect marine plankton biomass, but also its diversity and community composition in poorly understood ways. Here, the authors model the spatial distribution of 860 marine plankton species from 10 functional groups and identify the future hotspots of climate change impacts under RCP8.5.

    • Fabio Benedetti
    • , Meike Vogt
    •  & Nicolas Gruber

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Climate change is expected to have major impacts on forest tree diseases. Here the authors analyse long-term data of white pine blister rust in the southern Sierra Nevada, finding evidence of climate change-driven disease range expansion that was mediated by spatially varying host-pathogen-drought interactions.

    • Joan Dudney
    • , Claire E. Willing
    •  & John J. Battles

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the dynamics of species interactions can help predict community responses to climate change. A spatially explicit model finds that species interactions and competition mitigate the harmful impacts of climate change, and that temperature-dependent competition makes communities more variable and responsive to changing climates.

    • Anna Åkesson
    • , Alva Curtsdotter
    •  & György Barabás

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-distance bird migration timing is thought to be relatively inflexible despite climate change. Here, based on 13 years of mark-resight and geolocator-tracking data on bar-tailed godwits, the authors report a 6-day advance of departure time which is explained by an unexpected degree of individual plasticity.

    • Jesse R. Conklin
    • , Simeon Lisovski
    •  & Phil F. Battley

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The North Water polynya is a unique but vulnerable ecosystem, home to Indigenous people and Arctic keystone species. New palaeoecological records from Greenland suggest human abandonment c. 2200–1200 cal yrs BP occurred during climate-forced polynya instability, foreshadowing future ecosystem declines.

    • Sofia Ribeiro
    • , Audrey Limoges
    •  & Thomas A. Davidson

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known on how mitonuclear interactions influence genomic divergence among hybrid and parental lineages. A study of hybridizing wood warbler species complex finds a nuclear gene block with mitochondrial functions coevolves with mitochondrial genome, driven by climate-associated divergent selection underlying hybrid-parental population divergence.

    • Silu Wang
    • , Madelyn J. Ore
    •  & Darren Irwin

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Jiao et al. conducted a comprehensive evaluation of changes in water constraint on vegetation growth in the extratropical Northern Hemisphere between 1982 and 2015. They document a significant increase in vegetation water constraint over the last three decades.

    • Wenzhe Jiao
    • , Lixin Wang
    •  & Paolo D’Odorico

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It is unclear whether climate driven phenological shifts of tundra plants are consistent across the plant growing season. Here the authors analyse data from a network of field warming experiments in Arctic and alpine tundra, finding that warming differentially affects the timing and duration of reproductive and vegetative phenology.

    • Courtney G. Collins
    • , Sarah C. Elmendorf
    •  & Katharine N. Suding

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Long-term sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) records can help inform how biodiversity will likely respond to future climate change. Here, Liu et al. reconstruct plant diversity at the margin of the Tibetan Plateau over the last ~18,000 years using sedaDNA and use this record to predict future diversity change.

    • Sisi Liu
    • , Stefan Kruse
    •  & Ulrike Herzschuh

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