The importance of indirect effects of climate change adaptations on alpine and pre-alpine freshwater systems

1. Freshwater is vital to much life on Earth and is an essential resource for humans. Climate change,however, dramatically changes freshwater systems and reduces water quality, poses a risk to drinking water availability and has severe impacts on aquatic ecosystems and their biodiversity. 2. The direct effects of climate change, such as increased temperatures and higher frequency of extreme meteorological events, interact with human responses to climate change, which we refer to here as ‘indirect effects’. The latter possibly have even greater impact than the direct effects of climate change. Specifically, changes in land-use practices as responses to climate change, such as adjusted cropping regimes or a shift to renewable hydroelectricity to mitigate climate change, can very strongly affect freshwater ecosystems. 3. Hitherto, these indirect effects and the possibility of idiosyncratic outcomes are under-recognized. Here, we synthesize knowledge and identify threats to freshwater environments in alpine and pre-alpine regions, which are particularly affected by climate change. 4. We focus on the effects of adapted agriculture and hydropower production on freshwater quality and ecological status, as these examples have strong indirect effects that interact with direct effects of climate change (e.g., water temperature, droughts, isolation of populations). 5. We outline how failure to effectively account for indirect effects associated with human responses to climate change may exacerbate direct climate change impacts on aquatic ecosystems. If managed properly, however, human responses to indirect effects offer potential for rapid and implementable leverage to mitigate some of the direct climate change effects on aquatic ecosystems. To better address looming risks, policy- and decisionmakers must account for indirect effects and incorporate them into restoration planning and the respective sectorial policies

A Unitary Association-based conodont biozonation of the Smithian–Spathian boundary (Early Triassic) and associated biotic crisis from South China

The Smithian–Spathian boundary (SSB) crisis played a prominent role in resetting the evolution and diversity of the nekton (ammonoids and conodonts) during the Early Triassic recovery. The late Smithian nektonic crisis culminated at the SSB, ca. 2.7 Myr after the Permian–Triassic boundary mass extinction. An accurate and high-resolution biochronological frame is needed for establishing patterns of extinction and re-diversification of this crisis. Here, we propose a new biochronological frame for conodonts that is based on the Unitary Associations Method (UAM). In this new time frame, the SSB can thus be placed between the climax of the extinction and the onset of the re-diversification. Based on the study of new and rich conodont collections obtained from five sections (of which four are newly described here) in the Nanpanjiang Basin, South China, we have performed a thorough taxonomical revision and described one new genus and 21 new species. Additionally, we have critically reassessed the published conodont data from 16 other sections from South China, and we have used this new, standardized dataset to construct the most accurate, highly resolved, and laterally reproducible biozonation of the Smithian to early Spathian interval for South China. The resulting 11 Unitary Association Zones (UAZ) are intercalibrated with lithological and chemostratigraphical (δ$^{13}$C$_{carb}$) markers, as well as with ammonoid zones, thus providing a firm basis for an evolutionary meaningful and laterally consistent definition of the SSB. Our UAZ$_{8,}$ which is characterized by the occurrence of Icriospathodus ex gr. crassatus, Triassospathodus symmetricus and Novispathodus brevissimus, is marked by a new evolutionary radiation of both conodonts and ammonoids and is within a positive peak in the carbon isotope record. Consequently, we propose to place the SSB within the separation interval intercalated between UAZ$_{7}$ and UAZ$_{8}$ thus leaving some flexibility for future refinement and updating

Dirty cash (money talks) : 4AMLD and the money laundering regulations 2017.

Presents a socio-legal analysis of reforms made by the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017, implementing Directive 2015/849. Discusses the Regulations' approach to risk, including due diligence and de-risking. Considers their potential effectiveness, human rights implications and unintended effects. Questions the effectiveness of registration provisions to promote transparency

Linking human impacts to community processes in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems

Human impacts such as habitat loss, climate change and biological invasions are radically altering biodiversity, with greater effects projected into the future. Evidence suggests human impacts may differ substantially between terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, but the reasons for these differences are poorly understood. We propose an integrative approach to explain these differences by linking impacts to four fundamental processes that structure communities: dispersal, speciation, species-level selection and ecological drift. Our goal is to provide process-based insights into why human impacts, and responses to impacts, may differ across ecosystem types using a mechanistic, eco-evolutionary comparative framework. To enable these insights, we review and synthesise (i) how the four processes influence diversity and dynamics in terrestrial versus freshwater communities, specifically whether the relative importance of each process differs among ecosystems, and (ii) the pathways by which human impacts can produce divergent responses across ecosystems, due to differences in the strength of processes among ecosystems we identify. Finally, we highlight research gaps and next steps, and discuss how this approach can provide new insights for conservation. By focusing on the processes that shape diversity in communities, we aim to mechanistically link human impacts to ongoing and future changes in ecosystems

Linking human impacts to community processes in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.

Human impacts such as habitat loss, climate change and biological invasions are radically altering biodiversity, with greater effects projected into the future. Evidence suggests human impacts may differ substantially between terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems, but the reasons for these differences are poorly understood. We propose an integrative approach to explain these differences by linking impacts to four fundamental processes that structure communities: dispersal, speciation, species-level selection and ecological drift. Our goal is to provide process-based insights into why human impacts, and responses to impacts, may differ across ecosystem types using a mechanistic, eco-evolutionary comparative framework. To enable these insights, we review and synthesise (i) how the four processes influence diversity and dynamics in terrestrial versus freshwater communities, specifically whether the relative importance of each process differs among ecosystems, and (ii) the pathways by which human impacts can produce divergent responses across ecosystems, due to differences in the strength of processes among ecosystems we identify. Finally, we highlight research gaps and next steps, and discuss how this approach can provide new insights for conservation. By focusing on the processes that shape diversity in communities, we aim to mechanistically link human impacts to ongoing and future changes in ecosystems

Conodont taxonomy, quantitative biochronology and evolution in the immediate aftermath of the permian-triassic boundary

The most lethal mass-extinction of the history of life occurred at the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB), about 252 million years ago. It resulted in the decimation of about 90% of marine taxa and led to the replacement of typical Palaeozoic by typical modern marine communities. During the aftermath of the mass-extinction, the biotic recovery is traditionally characterized as delayed, due to protracted hostile environmental conditions (climate warming, global anoxia…). Establishing the time frame of the mechanisms of the biotic recovery profoundly relies on biostratigraphical data. Pelagic organisms like conodonts and ammonoids quickly recovered after the mass-extinction, reaching diversity level comparable to that of before the crisis in less than a million year. Conodonts were cosmopolitan and had unmatched evolutionary rates, making them major biostratigraphical fossils from the early Palaeozoic to the end of the Triassic. They are of particular importance across the Permian-Triassic boundary and are the cornerstone of all Changhsingian -Griesbachian (latest Permian to earliest Triassic) biostratigraphical scales. This thesis provides biochronological framework to the interval encompassing the end-Permian mass-extinction and to the basal Triassic (namely, the Griesbachian and the early Dienerian). Our model particularly focused on South China (equatorial realm) and Kashmir (tropical realm) and is reproducible within the Tethyan realm. This dissertation is supplemented on one side by an exploratory study on the taxonomy of the genus Neogondolella based on empirical analyses and on the other side by a review of the biotic recovery during the Griesbachian time interval. The first goal of this thesis is to explore and re-assess the taxonomy of conodonts across the latest Permian and the earliest Triassic. We describe a new shallow-water section in the Nanpanjiang Basin (South China) with an exceptional conodont record of basal Triassic age. These results are combined with synchronous conodont records of five other sections in South China (Equatorial realm) with various depositional environments. We conducted unitary association analyses, based on maximal associations of species rather than on single first occurrences and generated a quantitative biochronological model. The new robust zones extend across the PTB and are laterally reproducible within the Nanpanjiang Basin. This publication was the target of a Comment (Appendix C) by Jiang et al. (2016). We reacted to the Comment with a Reply explaining the advantages of the unitary association methods over the traditional interval zones method. In a next step, we extended our investigations to the Tropical realm and the base of the Dienerian. We conducted a high resolution sampling and reassessed the conodont biochronology and isotopic records of the Member E of Guryul Ravine section. We precisely constrain the Griesbachian-Dienerian boundary at Guryul Ravine and show that it is marked by a perturbation in the carbon cycle and a turnover of the conodont faunas. Both events are probably linked to a major climate change during this interval. The diversity and the abundance of the conodonts of the Guryul ravine section brought the opportunity to test the possibility to quantify the morphological variability of conodonts thanks to empirical classifications. We conducted cluster analyses on the population of conodonts from Guryul Ravine supplemented with holotypes of conodonts typical from the studied time interval. We show that even non-statistical groups can still distribute the holotypes and produce homogeneous clusters. Finally, we studied an exceptional fossil assemblage of Griesbachian age from the Batain Plain of Oman. The faunas retrieved from the Asselah boulder include pelagic and benthic communities which thrived in a well-oxygenated environment in carbonate-saturated water that did not undergo the harsh environmental conditions that prevailed on the continental shelves. We provide a review of the Griesbachian and suggest that the impact of the end-Permian mass-extinction has been overestimated

Reply to the Comment on “Quantitative biochronology of the Permian–Triassic boundary in South China based on conodont unitary associations”

1. Introduction In their Comment, Jiang et al. (2016) claim that the discordance between our zonation (Brosse et al., 2016) and the interval zones does not rest on the use of the Unitary Association method (Guex, 1991 and Guex et al., 2015) per se but on our “failure to use the most recent published conodont ranges from some key Chinese sections”. They add that our analysis is based on “unreliable taxonomic data sets with unjustified taxonomic re-assessments”, and hence, that we did not demonstrate that the Unitary Association method performs better than traditional interval zones. Additionally, the Comment by Jiang et al. (2016) contains misunderstandings pertaining to the method used in our study (Brosse et al., 2016). Our goal was to apply the Unitary Association Method on a dataset of conodont distributions from South China around the Permian–Triassic boundary (PTB) in order to reassess the quality of the corresponding data and to provide a discrete and robust alternative zonation to the continuous, First-Occurrence-based interval zones. Such interval zones are routinely utilized in Permian and Triassic conodont biostratigraphy, regardless of their abundant internal contradictions. Three categories of points of contention can be extracted from the Comment of Jiang et al. (2016): method, selection of data and taxonomy, and illustrations. Each of these is addressed separately below. 2. Method Fig. 1 complies with the recommendation of Jiang et al. (2016) and takes into account all the recent literature, summarizing the most recent published conodont ranges from the relevant sections. The reader will immediately observe that the sequences of First Occurrences (FOs) used in the most recently published interval zones occupy contradictory positions between the different sections. This is precisely the main criticism expressed in our work. This problem cannot be solved by simply standardizing the taxonomy of the considered taxa. Many contradictions do persist after taxonomic homogenization. As conceded by Jiang et al. (2016), FOs are prone to diachronism. But contrary to what Jiang et al. (2016) suggest, sampling effort is not the only nor the main reason for such diachronism and PTB sections from South China are no exceptions in this respect. Fig. 9 of Brosse et al. (2016) demonstrates the contrary. Ironically enough, Jiang et al. (2016) acknowledge that Last Occurrences (LOs) can be diachronous because of local, ecological differences, but they exclude that FOs can be affected. In reality, these authors unduly equate every local FO with an alleged instantaneous spreading of a species across all sections. Incidentally, such an unwarranted assumption also deliberately ignores that speciation is an intrinsically space-restricted evolutionary process

Evolutionary Trends of Triassic Ammonoids

International audienc

Timing of global regression and microbial bloom linked with the Permian-Triassic boundary mass extinction: implications for driving mechanisms

New high-resolution U-Pb dates indicate a duration of 89 ± 38 kyr for the Permian hiatus and of 14 ± 57 kyr for the overlying Triassic microbial limestone in shallow water settings of the Nanpanjiang Basin, South China. The age and duration of the hiatus coincides with the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) and the extinction interval in the Meishan Global Stratotype Section and Point, and strongly supports a glacio-eustatic regression, which best explains the genesis of the worldwide hiatus straddling the PTB in shallow water records. In adjacent deep marine troughs, rates of sediment accumulation display a six-fold decrease across the PTB compatible with a dryer and cooler climate as indicated by terrestrial plants. Our model of the Permian-Triassic boundary mass extinction (PTBME) hinges on the synchronicity of the hiatus with the onset of the Siberian Traps volcanism. This early eruptive phase released sulfur-rich volatiles into the stratosphere, thus simultaneously eliciting a short-lived ice age responsible for the global regression and a brief but intense acidification. Abrupt cooling, shrunk habitats on shelves and acidification may all have synergistically triggered the PTBME. Subsequently, the build-up of volcanic CO2 induced a transient cool climate whose early phase saw the deposition of the microbial limestone