[MCN] 2 climate articles and 2 important footnotes

[Lance Olsen]

Eos January 12, 2022
https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220028 <https://doi.org/10.1029/2022EO220028>.

Drop in Rain Forest Productivity Could Speed Future Climate Change
As temperatures rise, tropical forests will become more stressed and photosynthesize less.
By Rachel Fritts <https://eos.org/author/r-fritts>

Excerpt 

In a new study, Clark et al. <https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006557> assessed tropical forests’ annual net primary productivity from 1997 to 2018….. They found that the stress associated with hotter temperatures outweighed the benefits of increased carbon dioxide. 

The new research provides further evidence that as nighttime temperatures continue rising and as more daytime hours exceed the optimum temperature for photosynthesis, productivity will decline. The authors warn that tropical forests could soon enter into a positive feedback loop that accelerates both global warming and tropical forest decline. As forests become less productive because of rising temperatures, they will soak up less carbon dioxide, which in turn will lead to more warming. This cycle could pose a major threat to the survival of these highly biodiverse ecosystems. (Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006557 <https://doi.org/10.1029/2021JG006557>, 2021

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Ecology Letters January 2022 
First published: 16 November 2021 
https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13927 <https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13927>

SYNTHESIS

Open Access

Global patterns of resilience decline in vertebrate populations
Pol Capdevila <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Capdevila%2C+Pol>,Nicola Noviello <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Noviello%2C+Nicola>,Louise McRae <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=McRae%2C+Louise>,Robin Freeman <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Freeman%2C+Robin>,Christopher F. Clements <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/action/doSearch?ContribAuthorRaw=Clements%2C+Christopher+F>

PDF <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/ele.13927>

Abstract

Maintaining the resilience of natural populations, their ability to resist and recover from disturbance, is crucial to prevent biodiversity loss. However, the lack of appropriate data and quantitative tools has hampered our understanding of the factors determining resilience on a global scale. Here, we quantified the temporal trends of two key components of resilience—resistance and recovery—in >2000 population time-series of >1000 vertebrate species globally. We show that the number of threats to which a population is exposed is the main driver of resilience decline in vertebrate populations. Such declines are driven by a non-uniform loss of different components of resilience (i.e. resistance and recovery). Increased anthropogenic threats accelerating resilience loss through a decline in the recovery ability—but not resistance—of vertebrate populations. These findings suggest we may be underestimating the impacts of global change, highlighting the need to account for the multiple components of resilience in global biodiversity assessments.

Excerpt from the text of article

“Overall, our study reveals a global loss of resilience across vertebrate populations, driven by unequal declines in resistance and recovery, a pattern intensified by increasing numbers of anthropogenically derived threats. These results also demonstrate that by focusing on mean population trends, rather than resilience, previous studies might have underestimated the extent of biodiversity loss. Therefore, our results emphasise the importance of accounting for the loss of resilience and its multiple components in future biodiversity projections to avoid underestimating the impacts of global change.”

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A core question: What is “resilience”?

2018 — “Resilience is a popular narrative for conservation and provides an opportunity to communicate optimism that ecosystems can recover and rebound from disturbances.” (Emily S. Darling and Isabelle M. Côté, Science, March 2, 2018). 

2014 — “Emerging from a wide range of disciplines, resilience in policy-making has often been based on the ability of systems to bounce back to normality, drawing on engineering concepts. This implies the return of the functions of an individual, household, community or ecosystem to previous conditions, with as little damage and disruption as possible following shocks and stresses”  (Tanner et al, Nature Climate Change,  December 18, 2014). 

1938 — Resilience. 1- The act or power of springing back to a former position or shape. 2. The quantity of work given back by a body that is compressed to a certain limit and then allowed to recover itself, as a spring under pressure suddenly relaxed.”  (Funk & Wagnall’s New Standard Dictionary of the English Language, vol.2, M-Z 1938

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“… the serious meaning in a concept lies in the difference it will make to someone if it is true.”

William James (1842 –1910)
Pragmatism. Meridian Books, 1955

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