Tropical moist forests

No abstract available

Report and preliminary results of R/V POSEIDON cruise POS539, Varna (Bulgaria) - Varna (Bulgaria) November 6 - November 21, 2019

The R/V POSEIDON cruise POS539 took place in the northwestern basin of the Black Sea (42°30’N to 44°N and 29°E to 31°E). The overarching aim of the campaign was to obtain sediment and water samples, including suspended particle material, from the various redox zones of the Black Sea. The campaign lasted between November 6th and November 21st 2019 and the collected samples were taken in order to investigate the activity and physiology of microorganisms involved in the conversion of nitrogen compounds and degradation of organic carbon under various oxygen conditions. The main topics of the cruise were: (a) to quantify the contribution of archaeal nitrifiers to the nitrogen and carbon cycles, b) to measure the production and consumption of the powerful greenhouse gases CH4 and N2O, c) to record palaeoenvironmental changes in high resolution, and d) to describe the complexity and identity of biopolymers. For this, water and sediment samples were retrieved from 10 discrete shelf and slope stations. First, ‘deep water’ transect was conducted, which included three stations with water depths over 2000 m. The second perpendicular transect encompassed stations that gradually transitioned from the deep parts of the slope towards the shelf (ca. 80 m depth). Additionally, two stations were setup north and south of the shelf transect, respectively, for paleoceanographic studies. Throughout the cruise the weather conditions were overwhelmingly good, only towards the end of the campaign gusty winds of 7 Bft were recorded. The recorded oceanographic conditions were in agreement with the expected water properties at all stations. Station activities were completed on November 20th at 14:00 local board time. On November 21st at 10:30 local time, R/V POSEIDON reached the port of Varna, Bulgaria, thus concluding the POS539 expedition. Analyses and results from the samples and experiments will provide a basis for our understanding of the microbial control on the carbon and nitrogen cycle of the Black Sea.13032

Predicting tree distributions in an East African biodiversity hotspot : model selection, data bias and envelope uncertainty

The Eastern Arc Mountains (EAMs) of Tanzania and Kenya support some of the most ancient tropical rainforest on Earth. The forests are a global priority for biodiversity conservation and provide vital resources to the Tanzanian population. Here, we make a first attempt to predict the spatial distribution of 40 EAM tree species, using generalised additive models, plot data and environmental predictor maps at sub 1 km resolution. The results of three modelling experiments are presented, investigating predictions obtained by (1) two different procedures for the stepwise selection of predictors, (2) down-weighting absence data, and (3) incorporating an autocovariate term to describe fine-scale spatial aggregation. In response to recent concerns regarding the extrapolation of model predictions beyond the restricted environmental range of training data, we also demonstrate a novel graphical tool for quantifying envelope uncertainty in restricted range niche-based models (envelope uncertainty maps). We find that even for species with very few documented occurrences useful estimates of distribution can be achieved. Initiating selection with a null model is found to be useful for explanatory purposes, while beginning with a full predictor set can over-fit the data. We show that a simple multimodel average of these two best-model predictions yields a superior compromise between generality and precision (parsimony). Down-weighting absences shifts the balance of errors in favour of higher sensitivity, reducing the number of serious mistakes (i.e., falsely predicted absences); however, response functions are more complex, exacerbating uncertainty in larger models. Spatial autocovariates help describe fine-scale patterns of occurrence and significantly improve explained deviance, though if important environmental constraints are omitted then model stability and explanatory power can be compromised. We conclude that the best modelling practice is contingent both on the intentions of the analyst (explanation or prediction) and on the quality of distribution data; generalised additive models have potential to provide valuable information for conservation in the EAMs, but methods must be carefully considered, particularly if occurrence data are scarce. Full results and details of all species models are supplied in an online Appendix. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

La Montología Global 4D: Hacia las Ciencias Convergentes y Transdisciplinarias de Montaña a través del Tiempo y el Espacio

With mountain studies we use integrative approaches for geoliteracy about productive socioecological landscapes, and motivate further transdisciplinary research in montology. We conceived this white paper as a confluence of individual expertise and collective reasoning towards forming synergistic research clusters dealing with convergent mountain science, to advance montology to a new level, whereby innovative thinking about sustainability science and regenerative development incorporates alternative propositions for maintenance, improvement, or regeneration of living conditions of mountainscapes. We seek to use this contemporary framing of sustainability and ecological restoration as the impetus to better understand nature-culture relations, framed on lived-in mountains that operate in four dimensions (length, width, depth, and time) oriented at maximizing the cross-cutting of themes around mountains as productive socioecological systems, in a new academic institutionalized convergent unit. We conclude with a call for consilient, sustainable, regenerative development in the world’s mountains.La utilización de los estudios de montaña requiere de narrativas integradoras para la geoalfabetización sobre paisajes socioecológicos productivos y motiva más investigaciones transdisciplinares en el campo de la montología. Concebimos este artículo como la confluencia de la experiencia individual y el razonamiento colectivo hacia la formación de grupos de investigación sinérgicos que se ocupan de la ciencia de montaña convergente, para hacer avanzar la montología a un nuevo nivel, mediante el cual el pensamiento innovador sobre la ciencia de la sustentabilidad y el desarrollo regenerativo incorpora propuestas alternativas para el mantenimiento, la mejora, o regeneración de las condiciones de vida de los paisajes de montaña. Buscamos utilizar este marco contemporáneo de sustentabilidad y restauración ecológica como el ímpetu para comprender mejor las relaciones de la naturaleza y la cultura, desde una perspectiva transdisciplinar, en montañas habitadas que operan en cuatro dimensiones (largo, ancho, alto y tiempo). El artículo está orientado a potenciar la transversalidad de temáticas en torno a las montañas como sistemas socioecológicos productivos, en una nueva disciplina académica institucionalizada y convergente. Concluimos con un llamado a un desarrollo regenerativo, sustentable y consiliente en las montañas del mundo

An Information Management Framework for Environmental Digital Twins (IMFe) as a concept and pilot

Environmental science is concerned with assessing the impacts of changing environmental conditions upon the state of the natural world. Environmental Digital Twins (EDT) are a new technology that enable environmental change scenarios for real systems to be modelled and their impacts visualised. They will be particularly effective with delivering understanding of these impacts on the natural environment to non-specialist stakeholders. The UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) recently published its first digital strategy, which sets out a vision for digitally enabled environmental science for the next decade. This strategy places data and digital technologies at the heart of UK environmental science. EDT have been made possible by the emergence of increasingly large, diverse, static data sources, networks of dynamic environmental data from sensor networks and time-variant process modelling. Once combined with visualisation capabilities these provide the basis of the digital twin technologies to enable the environmental scientists community to make a step-change in understanding of the environment. Components may be developed separately by a network but can be combined to improve understanding provided development follows agreed standards to facilitate data exchange and integration. Replicating the behaviours of environmental systems is inevitably a multi-disciplinary activity. To enable this, an information management framework for Environmental digital twins (IMFe) is needed that establishes the components for effective information management within and across the EDT ecosystem. This must enable secure, resilient interoperability of data, and is a reference point to facilitate data use in line with security, legal, commercial, privacy and other relevant concerns. We present recommendations for developing an IMFe including the application of concepts such as an asset commons and balanced approach to standards to facilitate minimum interoperability requirements between twins while iteratively implementing an IMFe. Achieving this requires components to be developed that follow agreed standards to ensure that information can be trusted by the user, and that they are semantically interoperable so data can be shared. A digital Asset Register will be defined to provide access to and enable linking of such components. This previously conceptual project has now been enhanced into the Pilot IMFe project aiming to define the architectures, technologies, standards and hardware infrastructure to develop a fully functioned environmental digital twin. During the project lifespan this will be tested with by construction of a pilot EDT for the Haig Fras Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) that both enables testing of the proposed IMFe concepts and will provide a clear demonstration of the power of EDT to monitor and scenario test a complex environmental system for the benefit of stakeholders

“Dogged” Search of Fresh Nakhla Surfaces Reveals New Alteration Textures

Special Issue: 74th Annual Meeting of the Meteoritical Society, August 8-12, 2011, London, U.K.International audienceCarbonaceous chondrites are considered as amongst the most primitive Solar System samples available. One of their primitive characteristics is their enrichment in volatile elements.This includes hydrogen, which is present in hydrated and hydroxylated minerals. More precisely, the mineralogy is expected to be dominated by phyllosilicates in the case of CM chondrites, and by Montmorillonite type clays in the case of CI. Here, in order to characterize and quantify the abundance of lowtemperature minerals in carbonaceous chondrites, we performed thermogravimetric analysis of matrix fragments of Tagish Lake, Murchison and Orgueil

Phylogenetic patterns of extinction risk : the need for critical application of appropriate datasets

In order to conduct a replicable analysis of the possible phylogenetic patterns of extinction risk, one must first formulate a clear set of definitions of ecosystem boundaries and risk categories. Subsequently, a robust and internally consistent dataset that includes all the available information on species distributions and risk assessments must be assembled. Here, we review the dataset and methodology of a recent paper focused on phylogenetic patterns of plant extinction risk in the Eastern Arc Mountains of Kenya and Tanzania and point out some of the limitations of inferring such patterns from inadequate and biased data. We show that bias in the dataset is probably responsible for the conclusion that Vulnerable species are more closely related than expected by chance, and provide guidelines for the construction of an appropriate dataset for such an analysis

Land cover change and carbon emissions over 100 years in an African biodiversity hotspot

Agricultural expansion has resulted in both land use and land cover change (LULCC) across the tropics. However, the spatial and temporal patterns of such change and their resulting impacts are poorly understood, particularly for the pre-satellite era. Here we quantify the LULCC history across the 33.9 million ha watershed of Tanzania's Eastern Arc Mountains, using geo-referenced and digitised historical land cover maps (dated 1908, 1923, 1949 and 2000). Our time series from this biodiversity hotspot shows that forest and savanna area both declined, by 74% (2.8 million ha) and 10% (2.9 million ha), respectively, between 1908 and 2000. This vegetation was replaced by a five-fold increase in cropland, from 1.2 million ha to 6.7 million ha. This LULCC implies a committed release of 0.9 Pg C (95% CI: 0.4-1.5) across the watershed for the same period, equivalent to 0.3 Mg C ha(-1) yr(-1) . This is at least three-fold higher than previous estimates from global models for the same study area. We then used the LULCC data from before and after protected area creation, as well as from areas where no protection was established, to analyse the effectiveness of legal protection on land cover change despite the underlying spatial variation in protected areas. We found that, between 1949 and 2000, forest expanded within legally protected areas, resulting in carbon uptake of 4.8 (3.8-5.7) Mg C ha(-1) , compared to a committed loss of 11.9 (7.2-16.6) Mg C ha(-1) within areas lacking such protection. Furthermore, for nine protected areas where LULCC data is available prior to and following establishment, we show that protection reduces deforestation rates by 150% relative to unprotected portions of the watershed. Our results highlight that considerable LULCC occurred prior to the satellite era, thus other data sources are required to better understand long-term land cover trends in the tropics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

The perihelion activity of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko as seen by robotic telescopes

Around the time of its perihelion passage the observability of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Earth was limited to very short windows each morning from any given site, due to the low solar elongation of the comet. The peak in the comet's activity was therefore difficult to observe with conventionally scheduled telescopes, but was possible where service/queue scheduled mode was possible, and with robotic telescopes. We describe the robotic observations that allowed us to measure the total activity of the comet around perihelion, via photometry (dust) and spectroscopy (gas), and compare these results with the measurements at this time by Rosetta's instruments. The peak of activity occurred approximately two weeks after perihelion. The total brightness (dust) largely followed the predictions from Snodgrass et al. (2013), with no significant change in total activity levels from previous apparitions. The CN gas production rate matched previous orbits near perihelion, but appeared to be relatively low later in the year