What we learned from the Dust Bowl: lessons in science, policy, and adaptation

This article provides a review and synthesis of scholarly knowledge of Depression-era droughts on the North American Great Plains, a time and place known colloquially as the Dust Bowl era or the Dirty Thirties. Recent events, including the 2008 financial crisis, severe droughts in the US corn belt, and the release of a popular documentary film, have spawned a resurgence in public interest in the Dust Bowl. Events of the Dust Bowl era have also proven in recent years to be of considerable interest to scholars researching phenomena related to global environmental change, including atmospheric circulation, drought modeling, land management, institutional behavior, adaptation processes, and human migration. In this review, we draw out common themes in terms of not only what natural and social scientists have learned about the Dust Bowl era itself, but also how insights gained from the study of that period are helping to enhance our understanding of climate–human relations more generally

Fly-Tox: A panel of transgenic flies expressing pest and pollinator cytochrome P450s

This is the final version. Available from the publisher via the DOI in this record.There is an on-going need to develop new insecticides that are not compromised by resistance and that have improved environmental profiles. However, the cost of developing novel compounds has increased significantly over the last two decades. This is in part due to increased regulatory requirements, including the need to screen both pest and pollinator insect species to ensure that pre-existing resistance will not hamper the efficacy of a new insecticide via cross-resistance, or adversely affect non-target insect species. To add to this problem the collection and maintenance of toxicologically relevant pest and pollinator species and strains is costly and often difficult. Here we present Fly-Tox, a panel of publicly available transgenic Drosophila melanogaster lines each containing one or more pest or pollinator P450 genes that have been previously shown to metabolise insecticides. We describe the range of ways these tools can be used, including in predictive screens to avoid pre-existing cross-resistance, to identify potential resistance-breaking inhibitors, in the initial assessment of potential insecticide toxicity to bee pollinators, and identifying harmful pesticide-pesticide interactions.European Research Council (ERC)European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programmeBiotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC

Meeting the looming policy challenge of sea-level change and human migration

PRIFPRI3; ISI; 1 Fostering Climate-Resilient and Sustainable Food Supply; 5 Strengthening Institutions and GovernanceDSG

Assessing learning and memory in pigs

In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in (mini) pigs (Sus scrofa) as species for cognitive research. A major reason for this is their physiological and anatomical similarity with humans. For example, pigs possess a well-developed, large brain. Assessment of the learning and memory functions of pigs is not only relevant to human research but also to animal welfare, given the nature of current farming practices and the demands they make on animal health and behavior. In this article, we review studies of pig cognition, focusing on the underlying processes and mechanisms, with a view to identifying. Our goal is to aid the selection of appropriate cognitive tasks for research into pig cognition. To this end, we formulated several basic criteria for pig cognition tests and then applied these criteria and knowledge about pig-specific sensorimotor abilities and behavior to evaluate the merits, drawbacks, and limitations of the different types of tests used to date. While behavioral studies using (mini) pigs have shown that this species can perform learning and memory tasks, and much has been learned about pig cognition, results have not been replicated or proven replicable because of the lack of validated, translational behavioral paradigms that are specially suited to tap specific aspects of pig cognition. We identified several promising types of tasks for use in studies of pig cognition, such as versatile spatial free-choice type tasks that allow the simultaneous measurement of several behavioral domains. The use of appropriate tasks will facilitate the collection of reliable and valid data on pig cognition

Vulnerability and its discontents: the past, present, and future of climate change vulnerability research

The concept of vulnerability is well established in the climate change literature, underpinning significant research effort. The ability of vulnerability research to capture the complexities of climate-society dynamics has been increasingly questioned, however. In this paper, we identify, characterize, and evaluate concerns over the use of vulnerability approaches in the climate change field based on a review of peer-reviewed articles published since 1990 (n = 587). Seven concerns are identified: neglect of social drivers, promotion of a static understanding of human-environment interactions, vagueness about the concept of vulnerability, neglect of cross-scale interactions, passive and negative framing, limited influence on decision-making, and limited collaboration across disciplines. Examining each concern against trends in the literature, we find some of these concerns weakly justified, but others pose valid challenges to vulnerability research. Efforts to revitalize vulnerability research are needed, with priority areas including developing the next generation of empirical studies, catalyzing collaboration across disciplines to leverage and build on the strengths of divergent intellectual traditions involved in vulnerability research, and linking research to the practical realities of decision-making

Planned Relocation from the Impacts of Climate Change in Small Island Developing States: The Intersection Between Adaptation and Loss and Damage

An increasing number of people have to abandon their homes and livelihoods due to the adverse impacts of climate change. Humanmobility has always been part of people's lives, however, some movements, especially planned relocation in the context of climate change, have become involuntary. Non-economic losses occur and the question is whether the relocation of entire communities is still and adaptation response or falls under the realm of loss and damage (L&D) from climate change. This chapter explores the intersection between migration as an adaptation response and L&D with a focus on small island developing states. It analyses when human mobility can no longer be described as adaptation as non-economic losses become too high. It shows that existing frameworks are inadequate to assess community relocation in the context of L&D and non-economic losses. The chapter concludes that there is a spectrum leading from human mobility as an adaptation response to forced migration as L&D. It develops a new framework to assess planned relocation projects and provides concrete recommendations to reduce non-economic losses