Dataset Information

Ecosystem heterogeneity determines the ecological resilience of the Amazon to climate change.

ABSTRACT: Amazon forests, which store ? 50% of tropical forest carbon and play a vital role in global water, energy, and carbon cycling, are predicted to experience both longer and more intense dry seasons by the end of the 21st century. However, the climate sensitivity of this ecosystem remains uncertain: several studies have predicted large-scale die-back of the Amazon, whereas several more recent studies predict that the biome will remain largely intact. Combining remote-sensing and ground-based observations with a size- and age-structured terrestrial ecosystem model, we explore the sensitivity and ecological resilience of these forests to changes in climate. We demonstrate that water stress operating at the scale of individual plants, combined with spatial variation in soil texture, explains observed patterns of variation in ecosystem biomass, composition, and dynamics across the region, and strongly influences the ecosystem's resilience to changes in dry season length. Specifically, our analysis suggests that in contrast to existing predictions of either stability or catastrophic biomass loss, the Amazon forest's response to a drying regional climate is likely to be an immediate, graded, heterogeneous transition from high-biomass moist forests to transitional dry forests and woody savannah-like states. Fire, logging, and other anthropogenic disturbances may, however, exacerbate these climate change-induced ecosystem transitions.

SUBMITTER: Levine NM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4725538 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Ecosystem heterogeneity determines the ecological resilience of the Amazon to climate change.

Levine Naomi M NM Zhang Ke K Longo Marcos M Baccini Alessandro A Phillips Oliver L OL Lewis Simon L SL Alvarez-Dávila Esteban E Segalin de Andrade Ana Cristina AC Brienen Roel J W RJ Erwin Terry L TL Feldpausch Ted R TR Monteagudo Mendoza Abel Lorenzo AL Nuñez Vargas Percy P Prieto Adriana A Silva-Espejo Javier Eduardo JE Malhi Yadvinder Y Moorcroft Paul R PR

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 20151228 3

Amazon forests, which store ∼ 50% of tropical forest carbon and play a vital role in global water, energy, and carbon cycling, are predicted to experience both longer and more intense dry seasons by the end of the 21st century. However, the climate sensitivity of this ecosystem remains uncertain: several studies have predicted large-scale die-back of the Amazon, whereas several more recent studies predict that the biome will remain largely intact. Combining remote-sensing and ground-based observ ...[more]

PMID: 26711984

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Project description:BackgroundClimate change has been shown to have long-term effects on mental health, yet, to date, there have been few studies on how children and adolescents experience and respond to ecological changes and how and why they engage in climate action. We explored empirically young people's views about climate change and how distinct cultural contexts influence individual climate action.MethodsWe invited children and adolescents (ages 7 to 18) and their caregivers from the general population in the United States and France to participate in semi-structured focus groups. We recruited 74 participants, 39 in the U.S. (33 children and adolescents, 6 parents) and 35 in France (32 children and adolescents, 3 parents). Focus groups with participants centered on their emotions, beliefs, and actions around climate change. We analyzed the focus group data and developed themes via grounded theory and symbolic interactionist approaches.ResultsMany participants described experiencing anger, hopelessness, guilt, and sadness in response to climate change, and a smaller number endorsed significant anxiety symptoms; many described frustration about needing to fix the mistakes of earlier generations. Younger participants frequently misunderstood the purpose of their parents' eco-conscious behaviors unless they were provided with age-appropriate explanations. Participants described a spectrum of experiences when trying to discuss climate change with peers and family, ranging from genuine support to apathy to hostility. Between the two samples, U.S. participants experienced more conflict with adults about climate change than French participants, but French participants described a greater lack of political agency compared to U.S.ParticipantsParticipants in both samples expressed a relatively balanced view of climate action, recognizing the significance of individual actions while acknowledging the limits of their power in the face of systemic issues. Some found hope and empowerment through climate action and building communities around it.ConclusionDiscussing with children and adolescents what adults are doing to mitigate climate change can provide reassurance, model prosocial behaviors, and inspire their own investment in climate action. Adults seeking to support the psychological well-being of young people should both support their concerns and actions around climate change and create avenues for young people to meaningfully engage in climate action.

Project description:Ecological restoration is widely practiced as a means of rehabilitating ecosystems and habitats that have been degraded or impaired through human use or other causes. Restoration practices now are confronted by climate change, which has the potential to influence long-term restoration outcomes. Concepts and attributes from the resilience literature can help improve restoration and monitoring efforts under changing climate conditions. We systematically examined the published literature on ecological resilience to identify biological, chemical, and physical attributes that confer resilience to climate change. We identified 45 attributes explicitly related to climate change and classified them as individual- (9), population- (6), community- (7), ecosystem- (7), or process-level attributes (16). Individual studies defined resilience as resistance to change or recovery from disturbance, and only a few studies explicitly included both concepts in their definition of resilience. We found that individual and population attributes generally are suited to species- or habitat-specific restoration actions and applicable at the population scale. Community attributes are better suited to habitat-specific restoration at the site scale, or system-wide restoration at the ecosystem scale. Ecosystem and process attributes vary considerably in their type and applicability. We summarize these relationships in a decision support table and provide three example applications to illustrate how these classifications can be used to prioritize climate change resilience attributes for specific restoration actions. We suggest that (1) including resilience as an explicit planning objective could increase the success of restoration projects, (2) considering the ecological context and focal scale of a restoration action is essential in choosing appropriate resilience attributes, and (3) certain ecological attributes, such as diversity and connectivity, are more commonly considered to confer resilience because they apply to a wide variety of species and ecosystems. We propose that identifying sources of ecological resilience is a critical step in restoring ecosystems in a changing climate.

Dataset Information

Ecosystem heterogeneity determines the ecological resilience of the Amazon to climate change.

Publications

Ecosystem heterogeneity determines the ecological resilience of the Amazon to climate change.

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