Introduction

[Extract] Stream 2 of the Commonwealth Government's Regional NRM Planning for Climate Change Fund supports the project "Knowledge to manage land and sea: A framework for the future" run by a consortium of scientists from James Cook University (JCU) and CSIRO. This report is the second major product of the consortium project, building on the first report: Climate Change Issues and Impacts in the Wet Tropics NRM Cluster Region (Hilbert et al. 2014). This second report provides syntheses of current knowledge about potential adaptation pathways and opportunities in response to climate change in the Wet Tropics Cluster (WTC) region (see below) across all relevant NRM sectors. The report is framed by the specific topics and issues defined by the NRM groups in the Wet Tropics Cluster (WTC) region (Appendix A), reflecting the planning processes and priorities of these groups as well as the characteristics of their regional communities. This report has two major aims: 1. To provide a review of potential adaptation pathways and opportunities across all NRM sectors in the WTC region, including a review of potential options for adaptation of species to climate change 2. To provide preliminary information about particular directions for adaptation in the Wet Tropics Cluster, based on collaboration with the four NRM bodies via the Brokering Hub

Where are the hot spots of ecosystem services?

Ecosystem services (ES) are the bridge between nature and society, and are essential elements of any community's wellbeing. Australia is a place of diverse climates with a narrow band of wet tropics in Far North Queensland. The Wet Tropics is environmentally diverse, iconic in biodiversity, and supplies numerous ES influencing community wellbeing of this region, Australian national economy, and global climate change mitigation efforts. However ES in the Wet Tropics have rarely been assessed. We dealt with two questions: i) how are ES spatially distributed across the Wet Tropics, ii) where are the hot spots of ES production. We have classified the Wet Tropics forests into four types: coastal eucalypt forests and wood lands, coastal rainforests, eucalypts hills and ranges, and wet highland rainforests. Vegetation data metrics have been collected from 70 plots of 0.05 ha each located from coast to more than 1000m above msl. We have spatially assessed the ES in these forest types. We have found spatial congruence and differences of ES production across the forest types. Different forests types have produced different ES in higher quantity. Our study has revealed that hot spots of ES production are widely distributed across the different forests types in the Wet Tropics. Disturbance regimes (cyclones, forest fire) and conservation priority in management options have also influenced the usual spatial trend of ES production. This study shall be useful for decision makers to incorporate ES into their natural resource management planning, and for practitioners to evaluate areas identified with ES significance

Ecosystem services based adaptation to climate change: why and how?

Ecosystem services (ES) are the benefits community receive from ecosystems. The necessity of ES for community well-being and sustainable development is universally accepted. ES have already been negatively impacted by climate change and will only deteriorate further during this century, if adequate adaptation measures are not taken. Noting ES are a relatively new dimension in the context of climate change, globally scientists and policy makers are busy searching for suitable adaptation options and ensuring an uninterrupted flow of ES. In this study, we have used climate change models, and synthesized the scholarly findings to answer two research questions (i) Why are ES based adaptations required? and (ii) What types of suitable adaptation options are available to ensure an uninterrupted supply (and flow) of ES? The study has been conducted in the Wet Tropics, Australia considering its outstanding national and global ecological significance. Our study has revealed that apart from the temporal and spatial variation, the magnitude of climate change impacts will be different for each ES. Therefore ES-based adaptations will ensure a sustainable supply and flow of ES, generating multiple ecological and community co-benefits. We have found a number of available adaptation options for different ES with substantial scientific evidence in the scholarly findings which can be implemented quite readily in the face of climate change. Some of these are: climate regulation- natural forests protection, agroforestry, planting higher wood density trees; water provision and regulation- upland forests protection, riparian restoration; coastal protection and erosion control- mangrove protection and landward facilitation, restoration of littoral forests, coastal plantation, green engineering; habitat provision-ecological connectivity, agroforestry; timber provision-planting tropical cyclone resistant trees. This study shall be useful for decision makers to incorporate suitable ES based adaptation options into their climate change related decisions, and for practitioners to select suitable adaptation options for interested ES

Mosaics of canopy openness induced by tropical cyclones in lowland rain forests with contrasting management histories in northeastern Australia

Tropical Cyclone 'Rona' crossed the coast of the Daintree lowlands of northeastern Australia in 1999. This study reports on its impact on forest canopy openness at six lowland rain forest sites with contrasting management histories (old-growth, selectively logged and regrowth). Percentage canopy openness was calculated from individual hemispherical photographs taken from marked points below the forest canopy at nine plots per site 3±4 mo before the cyclone, and at the same points a month afterwards. Before the cyclone, when nine sites were visited, canopy openness in old-growth and logged sites was similar, but significantly higher in regrowth forest. After the cyclone, all six revisited sites showed an increase in canopy openness, but the increase was very patchy amongst plots and sites and varied from insignificant to severe. The most severely impacted site was an old-growth one, the least impacted a logged one. Although proneness to impact was apparently related to forest management history (old-growth being the most impacted), underlying local topography may have had an equally strong influence in this case. It was concluded that the likelihood of severe impact may be determined at the landscape-scale by the interaction of anthropogenic with meteorological, physiographic and biotic factors. In the long term, such interactions may caution against pursuing forest management in cyclone-prone areas

Leptin interacts with glucagon-like peptide-1 neurons to reduce food intake and body weight in rodents

AbstractThe adipose tissue hormone, leptin, and the neuropeptide glucagon-like peptide-1 (7–36) amide (GLP-1) both reduce food intake and body weight in rodents. Using dual in situ hybridization, long isoform leptin receptor (OB-Rb) was localized to GLP-1 neurons originating in the nucleus of the solitary tract. ICV injection of the specific GLP-1 receptor antagonist, exendin(9–39), at the onset of dark phase, did not affect feeding in saline pre-treated controls, but blocked the reduction in food intake and body weight of leptin pre-treated rats. These findings suggest that GLP-1 neurons are a potential target for leptin in its control of feeding

Fifteen years of ocean observations with the global Argo array

More than 90% of the heat energy accumulation in the climate system between 1971 and the present has been in the ocean. Thus, the ocean plays a crucial role in determining the climate of the planet. Observing the oceans is problematic even under the most favourable of conditions. Historically, shipboard ocean sampling has left vast expanses, particularly in the Southern Ocean, unobserved for long periods of time. Within the past 15 years, with the advent of the global Argo array of pro ling oats, it has become possible to sample the upper 2,000 m of the ocean globally and uniformly in space and time. The primary goal of Argo is to create a systematic global network of pro ling oats that can be integrated with other elements of the Global Ocean Observing System. The network provides freely available temperature and salinity data from the upper 2,000 m of the ocean with global coverage. The data are available within 24 hours of collection for use in a broad range of applications that focus on examining climate-relevant variability on seasonal to decadal timescales, multidecadal climate change, improved initialization of coupled ocean–atmosphere climate models and constraining ocean analysis and forecasting systems.En prens

Endemic Acinetobacter baumannii in a New York Hospital

Acinetobacter baumannii is an increasingly multidrug-resistant (MDR) cause of hospital-acquired infections, often associated with limited therapeutic options. We investigated A. baumannii isolates at a New York hospital to characterize genetic relatedness.Thirty A. baumannii isolates from geographically-dispersed nursing units within the hospital were studied. Isolate relatedness was assessed by repetitive sequence polymerase chain reaction (rep-PCR). The presence and characteristics of integrons were assessed by PCR. Metabolomic profiles of a subset of a prevalent strain isolates and sporadic isolates were characterized and compared.We detected a hospital-wide group of closely related carbapenem resistant MDR A. baumannii isolates. Compared with sporadic isolates, the prevalent strain isolates were more likely to be MDR (p = 0.001). Isolates from the prevalent strain carried a novel Class I integron sequence. Metabolomic profiles of selected prevalent strain isolates and sporadic isolates were similar.The A. baumannii population at our hospital represents a prevalent strain of related MDR isolates that contain a novel integron cassette. Prevalent strain and sporadic isolates did not segregate by metabolomic profiles. Further study of environmental, host, and bacterial factors associated with the persistence of prevalent endemic A. baumannii strains is needed to develop effective prevention strategies

ABCA7 p.G215S as potential protective factor for Alzheimer’s disease

Genome-wide association studies (GWASs) have been effective approaches to dissect common genetic variability underlying complex diseases in a systematic and unbiased way. Recently, GWASs have led to the discovery of over 20 susceptibility loci for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Despite the evidence showing the contribution of these loci to AD pathogenesis, their genetic architecture has not been extensively investigated, leaving the possibility that low frequency and rare coding variants may also occur and contribute to the risk of disease. We have used exome and genome sequencing data to analyse the single independent and joint effect of rare and low frequency protein coding variants in 9 AD GWAS loci with the strongest effect sizes after APOE (BIN1, CLU, CR1, PICALM, MS4A6A, ABCA7, EPHA1, CD33, CD2AP) in a cohort of 332 sporadic AD cases and 676 elderly controls of British and North American ancestry. We identified coding variability in ABCA7 as contributing to AD risk. This locus harbors a low frequency coding variant (p.G215S, rs72973581, MAF=4.3%) conferring a modest but statistically significant protection against AD (p-value= 6x10-4, OR=0.57, 95% CI 0.41-0.80). Notably, our results are not driven by an enrichment of loss of function variants in ABCA7, recently reported as main pathogenic factor underlying AD risk at this locus. In summary, our study confirms the role of ABCA7 in AD and provide new insights that should address functional studies

Argo data 1999-2019: two million temperature-salinity profiles and subsurface velocity observations from a global array of profiling floats.

© The Author(s), 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Wong, A. P. S., Wijffels, S. E., Riser, S. C., Pouliquen, S., Hosoda, S., Roemmich, D., Gilson, J., Johnson, G. C., Martini, K., Murphy, D. J., Scanderbeg, M., Bhaskar, T. V. S. U., Buck, J. J. H., Merceur, F., Carval, T., Maze, G., Cabanes, C., Andre, X., Poffa, N., Yashayaev, I., Barker, P. M., Guinehut, S., Belbeoch, M., Ignaszewski, M., Baringer, M. O., Schmid, C., Lyman, J. M., McTaggart, K. E., Purkey, S. G., Zilberman, N., Alkire, M. B., Swift, D., Owens, W. B., Jayne, S. R., Hersh, C., Robbins, P., West-Mack, D., Bahr, F., Yoshida, S., Sutton, P. J. H., Cancouet, R., Coatanoan, C., Dobbler, D., Juan, A. G., Gourrion, J., Kolodziejczyk, N., Bernard, V., Bourles, B., Claustre, H., D'Ortenzio, F., Le Reste, S., Le Traon, P., Rannou, J., Saout-Grit, C., Speich, S., Thierry, V., Verbrugge, N., Angel-Benavides, I. M., Klein, B., Notarstefano, G., Poulain, P., Velez-Belchi, P., Suga, T., Ando, K., Iwasaska, N., Kobayashi, T., Masuda, S., Oka, E., Sato, K., Nakamura, T., Sato, K., Takatsuki, Y., Yoshida, T., Cowley, R., Lovell, J. L., Oke, P. R., van Wijk, E. M., Carse, F., Donnelly, M., Gould, W. J., Gowers, K., King, B. A., Loch, S. G., Mowat, M., Turton, J., Rama Rao, E. P., Ravichandran, M., Freeland, H. J., Gaboury, I., Gilbert, D., Greenan, B. J. W., Ouellet, M., Ross, T., Tran, A., Dong, M., Liu, Z., Xu, J., Kang, K., Jo, H., Kim, S., & Park, H. Argo data 1999-2019: two million temperature-salinity profiles and subsurface velocity observations from a global array of profiling floats. Frontiers in Marine Science, 7, (2020): 700, doi:10.3389/fmars.2020.00700.In the past two decades, the Argo Program has collected, processed, and distributed over two million vertical profiles of temperature and salinity from the upper two kilometers of the global ocean. A similar number of subsurface velocity observations near 1,000 dbar have also been collected. This paper recounts the history of the global Argo Program, from its aspiration arising out of the World Ocean Circulation Experiment, to the development and implementation of its instrumentation and telecommunication systems, and the various technical problems encountered. We describe the Argo data system and its quality control procedures, and the gradual changes in the vertical resolution and spatial coverage of Argo data from 1999 to 2019. The accuracies of the float data have been assessed by comparison with high-quality shipboard measurements, and are concluded to be 0.002°C for temperature, 2.4 dbar for pressure, and 0.01 PSS-78 for salinity, after delayed-mode adjustments. Finally, the challenges faced by the vision of an expanding Argo Program beyond 2020 are discussed.AW, SR, and other scientists at the University of Washington (UW) were supported by the US Argo Program through the NOAA Grant NA15OAR4320063 to the Joint Institute for the Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) at the UW. SW and other scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) were supported by the US Argo Program through the NOAA Grant NA19OAR4320074 (CINAR/WHOI Argo). The Scripps Institution of Oceanography's role in Argo was supported by the US Argo Program through the NOAA Grant NA15OAR4320071 (CIMEC). Euro-Argo scientists were supported by the Monitoring the Oceans and Climate Change with Argo (MOCCA) project, under the Grant Agreement EASME/EMFF/2015/1.2.1.1/SI2.709624 for the European Commission