Protected area characteristics that help waterbirds respond to climate warming

Protected area networks help species respond to climate warming. However, the contribution of a site's environmental and conservation-relevant characteristics to these responses is not well understood. We investigated how composition of nonbreeding waterbird communities (97 species) in the European Union Natura 2000 (N2K) network (3018 sites) changed in response to increases in temperature over 25 years in 26 European countries. We measured community reshuffling based on abundance time series collected under the International Waterbird Census relative to N2K sites' conservation targets, funding, designation period, and management plan status. Waterbird community composition in sites explicitly designated to protect them and with management plans changed more quickly in response to climate warming than in other N2K sites. Temporal community changes were not affected by the designation period despite greater exposure to temperature increase inside late-designated N2K sites. Sites funded under the LIFE program had lower climate-driven community changes than sites that did not received LIFE funding. Our findings imply that efficient conservation policy that helps waterbird communities respond to climate warming is associated with sites specifically managed for waterbirds.Peer reviewe

Trophic niche partitioning of five skate species of genus Bathyraja in northern and central Patagonia, Argentina

Overexploitation of marine communities can lead to modifications in the structure of the food web and can force organisms like elasmobranchs to change their feeding habits. To evaluate the impact that fisheries have on food webs and on the interactions between species, it is necessary to describe and quantify the diet of the species involved and follow it through time. This study compares the diet of five skate species using the data obtained from the by-catch of the Argentine hake (Merluccius hubbsi) fishery in north and central Patagonia, Argentina. Diet composition was assessed by analysing the digestive tract contents and trophic overlapping between species of the genus Bathyraja: Bathyraja albomaculata, Bathyraja brachyurops, Bathyraja macloviana, Bathyraja magellanica and Bathyraja multispinis. A total of 184 stomachs were analysed. The diets of B. albomaculata and B. macloviana mainly comprised annelids, whereas that of B. brachyurops primarily comprised fish, including hake heads discarded by the fishery. The diets of B. magellanica and B. multispinis were largely based on crustaceans. Despite the morphological similarities and their shared preference for benthic habitats, no complete diet overlaps were found between the different species. These results suggest that these skate species have undergone a process of diet specialisation. This is a common feeding strategy that occurs to successfully eliminate competition when resources are limited, which corresponds to the conditions found in an environment being affected by the pressures of overfishing.Fil: Tschopp, Ayelen. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; ArgentinaFil: Cristiani, Franco. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia "San Juan Bosco". Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Ciencias de la Salud - Sede Puerto Madryn. Departamento de Biología y Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Garcia, Nestor Anibal. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; ArgentinaFil: Crespo, Enrique Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia "San Juan Bosco". Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Ciencias de la Salud - Sede Puerto Madryn. Departamento de Biología y Ambiente; ArgentinaFil: Coscarella, Mariano Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico. Centro para el Estudio de Sistemas Marinos; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia "San Juan Bosco". Facultad de Ciencias Naturales y Ciencias de la Salud - Sede Puerto Madryn. Departamento de Biología y Ambiente; Argentin

Protected area characteristics that help waterbirds respond to climate warming

Protected area networks help species respond to climate warming. However, the contribution of a site's environmental and conservation-relevant characteristics to these responses is not well understood. We investigated how composition of nonbreeding waterbird communities (97 species) in the European Union Natura 2000 (N2K) network (3018 sites) changed in response to increases in temperature over 25 years in 26 European countries. We measured community reshuffling based on abundance time series collected under the International Waterbird Census relative to N2K sites' conservation targets, funding, designation period, and management plan status. Waterbird community composition in sites explicitly designated to protect them and with management plans changed more quickly in response to climate warming than in other N2K sites. Temporal community changes were not affected by the designation period despite greater exposure to temperature increase inside late-designated N2K sites. Sites funded under the LIFE program had lower climate-driven community changes than sites that did not received LIFE funding. Our findings imply that efficient conservation policy that helps waterbird communities respond to climate warming is associated with sites specifically managed for waterbirds

Benefits of protected areas for nonbreeding waterbirds adjusting their distributions under climate warming

Climate warming is driving changes in species distributions and community composition. Many species have a so-called climatic debt, that is, shifts in range lag behind shifts in temperature isoclines. Inside protected areas (PAs), community changes in response to climate warming can be facilitated by greater colonization rates by warm-dwelling species, but also mitigated by lowering extirpation rates of cold-dwelling species. An evaluation of the relative importance of colonization-extirpation processes is important to inform conservation strategies that aim for both climate debt reduction and species conservation. We assessed the colonization-extirpation dynamics involved in community changes in response to climate inside and outside PAs. To do so, we used 25 years of occurrence data of nonbreeding waterbirds in the western Palearctic (97 species, 7071 sites, 39 countries, 1993-2017). We used a community temperature index (CTI) framework based on species thermal affinities to investigate species turnover induced by temperature increase. We determined whether thermal community adjustment was associated with colonization by warm-dwelling species or extirpation of cold-dwelling species by modeling change in standard deviation of the CTI (CTISD). Using linear mixed-effects models, we investigated whether communities in PAs had lower climatic debt and different patterns of community change than communities outside PAs. For CTI and CTISD combined, communities inside PAs had more species, higher colonization, lower extirpation, and lower climatic debt (16%) than communities outside PAs. Thus, our results suggest that PAs facilitate 2 independent processes that shape community dynamics and maintain biodiversity. The community adjustment was, however, not sufficiently fast to keep pace with the large temperature increases in the central and northeastern western Palearctic. Our results underline the potential of combining CTI and CTISD metrics to improve understanding of the colonization-extirpation patterns driven by climate warming

Physiomimetic Façade Design: Systematics for a function-oriented transfer of biological principles to thermally-adaptive façade design concepts

Adaptive façades are designed to actively regulate the exchange of material and energy flows and thus improve the balance between comfort and energy consumption. However, their technical complexity leads to higher development efforts, maintenance and costs, and ultimately fewer implementations. Embedded adaptive functions could be an opportunity to reduce these drawbacks. If embedded adaptivity is to work within a design, the particularities of geometry and material arrangements must be considered. Nature offers fascinating models for this approach, which frames the objectives of this doctoral dissertation. The dissertation examines both adaptive façades and biology criteria that support a function-oriented transfer of thermo-adaptive principles in the early design stage. The research work discusses whether the technical complexity can be reduced by biomimetic designs and which role geometric design strategies play for thermo-adaptive processes. The research work is divided into three phases, following the top-down process in the discipline biomimetics, supplemented by methods from product design and semantic databases. The first phase is dedicated to the analysis of the contextual framework and criteria of façades aiming at thermal adaptation. Further, transfer systematics are developed that guide the analysis and selection process. In the second phase, analogies in biology are collected that appear suitable. Selected examples are examined to identify and systematically describe their functional principle. Two exemplary descriptions herald the third phase, in which functional façade models are created and evaluated.The result of this research work provides a conceptual approach to generate function-imitating biomimetic façade designs, so-called physio-mimetic façade designs.A+BE I Architecture and the Built Environment No 4 (2022)Design of Construtio

The role of geometry for adaptability: Comparison of shading systems and biological role models

Dynamic shading systems represent the majority of realised adaptive façades. It seems that geometrically complex kinetic solutions have increased in recent years, mainly due to the use of parametric design tools and digital production. In most shading systems, however, geometry rarely plays a guiding role in the design. The kinetic mechanisms are confined to linear or planar geometries. Geometry plays an important role in biological organisms, because it is the decisive factor for efficiency and growth. Their growth patterns could provide new insights for dynamic shading designs. For this, spatial morphology criteria for shading systems were identified to obtain criteria directly related to geometry. These were supplemented by criteria on kinetic mechanisms. Then, biological analogies that correlate geometrical structures with adaptability were sought. Using biomimetic methods, particularly from functional morphology, principles in growth patterns were analysed and compared to shading systems. It revealed that the restriction to space, location, and material-inherent properties does not affect the solution diversity, but follows an evolutionary objective: Plants, for example, use ingenious geometrical structures to allow adaptation, mainly over lifetime but also dynamically. Whether these principles can be applied to the design of dynamic shading systems is then discussed. The aim of the paper is to provide impulses for further studies on adaptive shading systems that focus on the innovative use of space with greater flexibility in motion. The overall premise of the paper is to demonstrate the applicability of biomimetic methods for architectural engineering.Design of Construtio

Mapping of mosquito (Culicidae) breeding sites using predictive geographic information methods

Application of remote sensing and other GIS methods in the subject of mapping mosquito breeding sites has not been premised accordingly. Despite the facts that the duration of field surveys would be shortened and the effectiveness of action plans would be higher with the supportance of computer modelling techniques. This work aimed to evaluate the applicability of digital elevation models and aerial photographs in the prediction of mosquito breeding sites. Relief analysis was carried out seeking depressions based on elevation models created with TIN and kriging interpolation methods. Spectral analysis was performed on aerial photographs to identify the patches of higher water content or moisture. The results show that terrain analysis can not give acceptable results due to its resolution and accuracy. Spectral analysis of normal (visible range) photographs can be a useful tool in predicting of breeding sites. On grasslands the verificitaion revealed 91% correct results

Multi-active façade for Swedish multi-family homes renovation: Evaluating the potentials of passive design measures

In order to meet the Swedish energy efficiency objectives for the built environment until 2050, a particular building stock has to be addressed: the houses of the Million Homes Programme, an ambitious housing programme of the 1960s and 70s that resulted in a large number of standardized multi-family houses all over Sweden. These are in need of upgrading the energy and comfort quality to current standards, which provides an excellent opportunity to investigate the potentials of ‘prefabricated multi-active’ façades for refurbishments on large scale. While ‘prefabrication’ is linked to cost-effectiveness and high replicability, ‘multi-active’ addresses the potential of embedded active and passive measures for improved energy efficiency and energy regulation out of the façade. Integrated building services technologies, solar technologies or moveable components, such as shading systems, are considered active measures. Passive measures include physical and constructive measures, such as e.g. thermal insulation or selective coatings of glazing’s, and provide a “passive” energy flow control to improve the thermal quality of the building envelope. Many of these strategies are well-known, traditional solutions. Although they do not provide an energy-generating or -supplying function, they dynamically interact with environmental changes; preheating of supply air through the air cavity of a façade construction or adaptive thermal buffer zones are just few of many examples. The question is how traditional passive strategies can be used to contribute most effectively to the demanded energy efficiency. The paper presents first results from an assessment dealing with this question: Two traditional ‘passive’ façade strategies, a curtain wall system and closed balconies, have been analysed in regards to their impact on energy balance and their thermal behaviour in a defined renovation scenario. The assessment is aims to support the development of a multi-active facade concept suitable for large-scale refurbishments of the multi-family houses in Sweden, which is part of the initial phase in the pre-study “Multi-active façade”. The pre-study considers architectural, technological and constructive aspects, energy performance and indoor comfort optimization, but also economic feasibility and constraints to get replicable on large scale. So-called added values that concern the upgrade to modern living standards and expectations by inhabitants and the market value of the building are also touched. The paper discusses, based on a technology screening to identify suitable key measures, the energy saving potential and impact on thermal indoor comfort of two passive renovation strategies for facades.Design of Construtio