Interactions between topsoil properties and ecophysiological responses of mangroves (Avicennia marina) along the tidal gradient in an arid region in Qatar

This study investigated the interactions between topsoil properties and ecophysiological responses of Avicennia marina along the tidal gradient in an arid region in Qatar. In February 2017, three plots were established, each at a distance of 0 m (D0), 50 m (D50), and 100 m (D100) from the inland boundary of a mangrove forest. Soil samples were collected at 0–10-cm depth in each plot to determine the chemical properties, and the density of seedlings, saplings, and trees was measured. Moreover, above- (AGB) and below-ground biomass (BGB) were calculated using an allometric equation for A. marina with the measured diameter at breast height in February 2017. As an indicator of salt stress, chlorophyll fluorescence parameters were measured in October 2017. Salinity (45.60 ppt) and exchangeable sodium percentage (ESP; 29.02%) at D100 were significantly highest. AGB was higher at D100 (41.44 Mg ha–1) than at D0 (0 Mg ha–1) and D50 (7.33 Mg ha–1), and BGB was higher at D100 (44.91 Mg ha–1) than only at D0 (0 Mg ha–1). There was no significant difference in the density of seedlings, saplings, or trees or the chlorophyll fluorescence parameters among the plots. Salt stress was not induced despite the hypersalinity at this site, since A. marina growing in an arid climate can endure strong salinity. Soil pH was highest at D0, followed by at D50 and D100. Organic matter, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, and cation exchange capacity were significantly higher at D100 than at D0 and D50. Higher concentrations of nutrients on the seaward side might result from the tidal gradient and a large input of organic matter and low soil alkalinity.Qatar University Grant (QUUG-CAS-DBES-15/16-5); the Biodiversity Conservation Fund of Kazakhstan (Q1727701); the Korean Ministry of Environment (2014001310008

Climate Warming Consistently Reduces Grassland Ecosystem Productivity

Future climate may profoundly impact the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems. However, we do not know well how the functioning of different types of grassland ecosystems is associated with variation in temperature and precipitation. Here, we used long-term field measurements to examine how climatic changes between the 1980s and the 2010s (i.e., growing season temperature, precipitation, habitat moisture index, solar radiation, and sunshine duration) have affected aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) for all major grassland types in northern China. We found that ANPP consistently declined over the 30-year period across all types of grassland, on average by about 6.1%. Warming, associated with increased solar radiation and, hence, soil temperature, was the primary factor driving the decrease of ANPP. We further show that ANPP was more sensitive to climate change in alpine and lowland grasslands than in temperate grasslands. Together, our findings indicate that climate warming consistently reduces plant productivity of different types of grassland ecosystems, and emphasize the importance of soil temperature in driving the decline in grassland productivity under climate change.This study was funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB40000000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 41722107), the Natural Science Foundation of Qinghai Province (2020-ZJ-726), and the Open Project of the Qinghai Provincial Key Laboratory of Restoration Ecology in Cold Area (2020-KF-07)

Association of spring phenological traits with phylogeny and adaptation to native climate in temperate plant species in Northeast China

The effects of climate change on plant phenology have been widely recognized around the world. However, the effect of plant internal factors (such as phylogeny) on the variations in phenology among plant species remains unclear. In this study, we investigated the phylogenetic conservatism in spring phenological traits using phylogenetic signal and evolutionary models, including Brownian motion (BM) model, Ornstein–Uhlenbeck (OU) model and white noise (WN) model, based on the phenological data of 48 temperate plant species in Northeast China. We also explored the relative contributions of phylogeny and adaptation to native climate (i.e., the climate in native range of species) to the variations in the phenological traits among species using phylogenetic eigenvector regression and variance partitioning analysis. The results showed thatspring phenological traits conformed to the OU model, indicating thatspring traits were phylogenetically conserved. The effect of phylogeny on flowering traits was stronger than that on leaf-out traits. Additionally, the adaptation to native climate contributed more to the variations in spring phenological traits among species than phylogeny, and adaptation to native climate explained more variations in leaf-out traits than in flowering traits. Our results suggested that the spring phenological traits were constrained by both phylogeny and adaptation to native climate. However, the adaptation to native climate had a stronger effect on the variations in phenological traits than phylogeny. Therefore, the degree of similarity in spring phenological traits across closely related species depends on the degree of similarity in the environmental conditions where these close relatives are distributed.This work was supported by the National Key R & D Program of China (No. 2018YFA0606102), the Strategic Priority Research Program of Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDA19020303, No. XDA26010202), and the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41771056)

Forest Degradation Index: A Tool for Forest Vulnerability Assessment in Indian Western Himalaya

The global climate is showing altered temperatures and precipitation levels. Forests can be a stabilizing force in climate change. They regulate the nutrient cycle, protect species and diversity, and support livelihoods that drive holistic growth. Presently, the forest ecosystem’s capacity to withstand change is being undermined by the rate of change, along with anthropogenic pressures and the specificities of mountainous regions. Here, we attempted to design a ‘forest vulnerability index’ using field measurements and household surveys. A total of 71 quadrants were laid out, and 545 respondents were interviewed in 91 villages along the altitudinal gradient (altitude 1800 m asl (Zone C)) of the Pauri district of Uttarakhand, India. The village-level data were normalized and combined to represent climate change impacts and the dimension of vulnerability. The IPCC (2014) protocol was used to assess forest vulnerability. The highest vulnerability was recorded in Zone ‘B’, and higher sensitivity, higher climate change impacts, and lower adaptive capacities were recorded in Zone ‘B’ and ‘C’. The approach is comparable within the district and between the states. In enhancing our shared understanding of forest degradation, the results are of value to policy/decision-makers, implementers, and adaptation funding agencies, who can use them to assess the scale, cause, and actions for adaptation

Target gastropods for standardizing the monitoring of tar mat contamination in the Arabian Gulf

This study proposes a standardization process for the monitoring the level of tar mat contamination in the Arabian Gulf. In the study, we selected target gastropod species and evaluated the ecological and ecotoxicological effects of tar mats on their populations, the bioaccumulation of heavy metals, and these species’ potential as bioindicator taxa for tar mat-associated heavy metals. The study was carried out at two sites on the Qatar coast on shoreline rocks, both of which have areas of tar mat coverage and areas without tar mats. The species selected as representative species for the ecoregion were the endemic Clypeomorus bifasciata persica (Houbrick, 1985) in the intertidal zone and the Echinolittorina arabica (El Assal, 1990) in the supratidal zone. Both are grazers and are niche restricted to hard substrates and daily scraping/grazing on the tar mat deposition zone of the shorelines. The key heavy metal indicators chosen were As, Ba, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Ni and Zn, and the gastropod species were divided into classes according to their size. Tar mat presence was found to negatively affect both the overall population size of Clypeomorus and different size classes, and lead to high levels of assimilation of heavy metals. Tar mat presence also negatively affected different size classes of Echinolittorina where large sizes were found to be most significantly affected. The results also demonstrated that Cu and Ni are the heavy metals most associated with tar mat contamination of this kind. Overall, our results confirmed that grazer gastropods are good bioindicators of tar mat-associated contaminants in shoreline ecosystems. Our study provides the database on the heavy metal contamination of the proposed target gastropods, and offers information that will be relevant for further monitoring and comparisons among threatened coastal areas in the Arabian Gulf.This research was supported by the Qatar Petroleum through the project of QU (QUEX-ESC-QP-TM-18/19)

The potential impact of climate change on linkages between above and below ground communities in low diversity ecosystems in extreme environments

There is growing evidence that ecosystem function depend on biodiversity. For example, experimental studies with different number of plant species show that microbial biomass, fungal abundance and N mineralisation rates increase with increasing plant diversity. Global warming is expected to have major impacts on ecosystems in future, influencing biodiversity in a wide range of ecosystems. Specifically, low diversity ecosystems in extreme environments are thought to be more vulnerable to global change than ecosystem with higher diversity, at the same time they have received less attention than ecosystems with higher diversity. At present, there are only a few long-climate change studies that have incorporated diversity and richness based on species level data for both above and below ground communities across several trophic levels. The impact on low diversity ecosystem in extreme environments is exemplified from preliminary results from two decades of experimental warming on the linkages between above and below ground communities across contrasting vegetation communities in the arctic. The study includes species level data on vascular plants, lichens, bryophytes, collembola, mites, fungi and bacteria.qscienc

Toads in Qatar: The species present and their probable original source

Toads are likely to have been introduced to Qatar, but little information is available on toad populations in the country, including the species present and their probable origin. Therefore, we collected tissue samples for analysis from 32 toads found in six different locations in northern and central Qatar. Phylogenetic analysis based on16S rRNA mitochondrial DNA identified two haplotypes in Qatar, which are identical to those of Sclerophrys regularis from Ismalia and from Rasheed (Rosetta) in Egypt. One haplotype is very common in central Qatar, while the other is more common in the north. It is possible that toads have been introduced from Egypt to Qatar on multiple occasions, although we cannot reject the possibility of a single introduction event containing toads of both haplotypes with subsequent dispersal across the country.This research was funded through a student grant by the Department of Biological and Environmental sciences, Qatar University: QUST-CAS-SPR 15\16-6. One of the authors (RV) was supported by postdoctoral grants from FCT, Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia SFRH/BPD/79913/2011 financed by The European Social Fund and the Human Potential Operational Programme, POPH/FSE

Assessment of climate change pattern in the Pauri Garhwal of the Western Himalayan Region: based on climate parameters and perceptions of forest-dependent communities

© 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG. This study assessed the climate change in Pauri district, Uttarakhand, India, a region highly vulnerable to climate change with potentially high loss of livelihoods and lives. The scale of change in the district’s climate was analyzed using meteorological station data (1901–2000) and grid data (1985–2015). Perceptions of climate change among forest-dependent communities in three altitude zones ( 1800 m asl (zone C)) in the study region were surveyed with respect to 14 climate-specific indicators. Annual mean, maximum, and minimum temperature of seasonal data indicated increasing trends except monsoon. Percentage cloud cover showed an increase, of approximately 3%, while diurnal temperature displayed decreasing trends. Rainfall in the district showed a decreasing trend, with more than 50% of years 1985–2015 receiving less rainfall than the annual average. More than 90% of respondents in zones A and B, and around 65–70% respondents in zone C, reported changes in climate parameters. These findings confirm the long-term observable changes in climate in the region and demonstrate the utility of station data, grid data, and surveys of local communities’ perceptions when analyzing climate change. The analysis provided important clues about the nature of climate changes in the district. The results can be used to reduce the gap between bottom-up understanding and top-down policies and to formulate precautionary and ongoing site-specific adaptation practices for communities in different altitude zones in the study region, leading to effective and efficient mitigation of climate change impacts

Prioritization of Socio-Ecological Indicators for Adaptation Action in Pauri District of Western Himalaya

Socio-ecological systems have increasingly faced climate-change impacts, which have adversely affected the lives and property of inhabitants. The present study aims to prioritize adaptation actions along an altitudinal gradient (1801 m asl (Zone C)) in Pauri District, Uttarakhand. A cross-sectional survey research design was employed to prioritize adaptation action from 545 randomly selected households in 91 villages. A multi-disciplinary bottom-up indicator-based approach was applied to identify and normalize sectoral indicators, and PCA was used to prioritize sectoral indicators. Adaptation actions were designed with prioritized sectoral indicators along the altitude and stakeholder consultations. The prioritized indicators varied along the altitudinal gradient, and more than 50% of the indicators for the same sector were different along an altitudinal gradient. Sectoral adaptation planning along the altitude is pertinent in the mountain because they contribute to adaptation planning differently. Additionally, the mainstreaming of adaptation strategies with national and regional development measures is also required. Finally, cross-sectoral resource management that combines users, planners, scientists, and policymakers should be formulated along the altitude within the district. These findings contribute to minimizing the gap between policy/program fabrication and local requirements. The evidence-based valuable knowledge for decision-makers could enable Himalayan communities to adapt to the impacts of climate change effectively. Adaptation planning is also critical for designing adaptation projects for the Green Climate Fund, Adaptation Fund, and funds from multilateral and bilateral agencies. It will facilitate Nationally Determined Contributions, which aims to adapt better to climate change by enhancing investments in development programs in vulnerable sectors