Ocean acidification: Separating evidence from judgment – A reply to Dupont et al.

Recently ocean acidification as a major threat for marine species has moved from a consensus statement into a much discussed and even challenged conception. A simple meta-analysis of Hendriks et al. (2010) showed that based on results of pooled experimental evidence, marine biota may turn out to be more resistant than hitherto believed. Dupont et al. (in press) indicate the importance of evaluating the most vulnerable stages in the life cycle of organisms instead of only adult stages. Here we evaluate additional material, composed of experimental evidence of the effect of ocean acidification on marine organisms during adult, larval, and juvenile stages, and show that the observed effects are within the range predicted by Hendriks et al. (2010). Species-specific differences and a wide variance in the reaction of organisms might obscure patterns of differences between life stages. Future research should be aimed to clarify underlying mechanisms to define the effect ocean acidification will have on marine biodiversity. Conveying scientific evidence along with an open acknowledgment of uncertainties to help separate evidence from judgment should not harm the need to act to mitigate ocean acidification and should pave the road for robust progress in our understanding of how ocean acidification impacts biota of the ocean.     

气候变化对中国观鸟旅游的影响——基于鸟类物候变化的分析

全球观鸟活动的规模达到了每年几千万人次,观鸟旅游已经成为世界野生动物观赏业的重要组成部分。气候变化改变了鸟类物候期及其空间格局,这不仅会影响观鸟者的旅游活动,还会进一步对观鸟旅游利益相关者的生计产生影响。监测并尽早地识别出这些影响,提醒利益相关者采取有效的适应策略意义重大。本文引入物候期这一气候变化的"指示器"来反映开展观鸟旅游的重要资源基础——鸟类活动时间以及栖息地格局的变化。通过对1980-2010年中国26个地区的98个物候序列的鸟类研究进行荟萃分析发现:中国鸟类离开、抵达、停留时间以及鸟类栖息地的格局都已经发生了改变。春季、夏季鸟类会提前离开或抵达,但在秋季它们的活动会延迟。鸟类停留的时间主要呈现延长的趋势。温度升高会使鸟类停留时间变长,对观鸟旅游的开展有利。中国低纬度地区和西部地区鸟类停留时间更长。鸟类栖息地的格局呈现出向北和向西迁移的特征。游客和景区工作人员均已感知到鸟类活动时间以及栖息地格局的变化对观鸟旅游产生的影响。     

近30年中国中东部地区植物分布变化

在全球气候变暖背景下,某些植物分布范围会发生明显变化。但已有研究尚未对中国中东部地区近30年来的植物分布变化进行系统总结。采用荟萃分析方法（meta-analysis）,通过搜集已发表文献中关于植物引种、植被和物种分布及其变化等数据资料,得到近15年119个植物物种的251条分布变化证据,经与《中国木本植物分布图集》中记载的原分布记录（约20世纪80年代至90年代）对比,统计了不同物种的分布范围变化,并分析了变化原因。结果表明：近30年来,统计物种中80%在水平地带上发生北移,平均移动值约为3.37°;中东部地区植物分布响应气候变化的区域集中在北亚热带常绿阔叶林—暖温带落叶阔叶林过渡带以及中温带针阔叶混交林过渡带。分析发现20世纪50年代以来中国绝大多数地区有显著的增温趋势,升温导致温暖指数（Warmth Index）增加,满足植物生长的热量需求,是植物北移的重要原因。     

Stormwater control impacts on runoff volume and peak flow: A meta-analysis of watershed modelling studies

Decades of research has concluded that the percent of impervious surface cover in a watershed is strongly linked to negative impacts on urban stream health. Recently, there has been a push by municipalities to offset these effects by installing structural stormwater control measures (SCMs), which are landscape features designed to retain and reduce runoff to mitigate the effects of urbanisation on event hydrology. The goal of this study is to build generalisable relationships between the level of SCM implementation in urban watersheds and resulting changes to hydrology. A literature review of 185 peer-reviewed studies of watershed-scale SCM implementation across the globe was used to identify 52 modelling studies suitable for a meta-analysis to build statistical relationships between SCM implementation and hydrologic change. Hydrologic change is quantified as the percent reduction in storm event runoff volume and peak flow between a watershed with SCMs relative to a (near) identical control watershed without SCMs. Results show that for each additional 1% of SCM-mitigated impervious area in a watershed, there is an additional 0.43% reduction in runoff and a 0.60% reduction in peak flow. Values of SCM implementation required to produce a change in water quantity metrics were identified at varying levels of probability. For example, there is a 90% probability (high confidence) of at least a 1% reduction in peak flow with mitigation of 33% of impervious surfaces. However, as the reduction target increases or mitigated impervious surface decreases, the probability of reaching the reduction target also decreases. These relationships can be used by managers to plan SCM implementation at the watershed scale.     

What meta-analysis can tell us about vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification?

Ocean acidification has been proposed as a major threat for marine biodiversity. Hendriks et al. [Hendriks, I.E., Duarte, C.M., Alvarez, M., 2010. Vulnerability of marine biodiversity to ocean acidification: a meta-analysis. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2009.11.022.] proposed an alternative view and suggested, based on a meta-analysis, that marine biota may be far more resistant to ocean acidification than hitherto believed. However, such a meta-analytical approach can mask more subtle features, for example differing sensitivities during the life-cycle of an organism. Using a similar metric on an echinoderm database, we show that key bottlenecks present in the life-cycle (e.g. larvae being more vulnerable than adults) and responsible for driving the whole species response may be hidden in a global meta-analysis. Our data illustrate that any ecological meta-analysis should be hypothesis driven, taking into account the complexity of biological systems, including all life-cycle stages and key biological processes. Available data allow us to conclude that near-future ocean acidification can/will have dramatic negative impact on some marine species, including echinoderms, with likely consequences at the ecosystem level.     

Exploring the marine biotic index (AMBI): variations on a theme by Ángel Borja

The results of manipulating the input data to AMBI are explored using various transformations of numerical species abundance (NAMBI), biomass (BAMBI) and production (PAMBI) from a variety of stations on the NE Atlantic shelf at which the pollution/disturbance status is known. There is a close agreement between the proportions of species in the five AMBI ecological groups and a phylum level meta-analysis axis of increasing environmental impact. All AMBI measures provide a better monotonic relationship with the impact axis than do traditional species diversity measures, which show higher diversity at intermediate levels of disturbance. A marginally better relationship with the impact axis of the meta-analysis is achieved by a moderate (square root) transformation of the data. ‘Production’ data (an appropriate combination of abundance and biomass information) provide only a marginal improvement on abundance data, but are ecologically and functionally much more relevant. Severe transformation of the data, culminating in presence/absence, degrades the relationship with the impact axis, but if only simple species lists are available then these may still be useable in making an environmental assessment.     

黑河流域土地利用变化对土壤有机碳和全氮储量的影响——元分析（英文）

Land use and cover change(LUCC) is an important indicator of the human-earth system under climate/environmental change,which also serves as a key impact factor of carbon balance,and a major source/sink of soil carbon cycles.The Heihe River Basin(HRB) is known as a typical ecologically fragile area in the arid/semi-arid regions of northwestern China,which makes it more sensitive to the LUCC.However,its sensitivity varies in a broad range of controlling factors,such as soil layers,LUCCs and calculation methods(e.g.the fixed depth method,FD,and the equivalent mass method,ESM).In this study,we performed a meta-analysis to assess the response of soil organic carbon(SOC) and total nitrogen(TN) storage to the LUCC as well as method bias based on 383 sets of SOC data and 148 sets of TN data from the HRB.We first evaluated the calculation methods and found that based on the FD method,the LUCC caused SOC and TN storage to decrease by 17.39% and 14.27%,respectively;while the losses estimated using the ESM method were 19.31% and 18.52%,respectively.The deviations between two methods were mainly due to the fact that the FD method ignores the heterogeneity of soil bulk density(BD),which may underestimate the results subsequently.We then analyzed the response of SOC and TN storage to various types of the LUCC.In particular,when woodland and grassland were converted into cultivated land or other land types,SOC and TN suffered from heavy losses,while other LUCCs had minor influences.Finally,we showed that increasing the depth of the soil layers would reduce the losses of SOC and TN storage.In summary,we identified a series of controlling factors(e.g.soil layer,the LUCC and calculation method) to evaluate the impact of the LUCC on SOC and TN storage in the HRB,which should be considered in future research.     

Using legacy data to reconstruct the past? Rescue,rigour and reuse in peatland geochronology

There is a growing interest in the rescue and reuse of data from past studies (so-called legacy data). Data loss is alarming, especially where natural archives are under threat, such as peat deposits. Here we develop a workflow for reuse of legacy radiocarbon dates in peatland studies, including a rigorous quality assessment that can be tailored to specific research questions and study regions. A penalty is assigned to each date based on criteria that consider taphonomic quality (i.e., sample provenance) and dating quality (i.e., sample material and method used). The weights of quality criteria may be adjusted based on the research focus, and resulting confidence levels may be used in further analyses to ensure robustness of conclusions. We apply the proposed approach to a case study of a (former) peat landscape in the Netherlands, aiming to reconstruct the timing of peat initiation spatially. Our search yielded 313 radiocarbon dates from the 1950s to 2019. Based on the quality assessment, the dates—of highly diverse quality—were assigned to four confidence levels. Results indicate that peat initiation for the study area first peaked in the Late Glacial (~14,000 cal years BP), dropped during the Boreal (~9,500 cal years BP) and showed a second peak in the Subboreal (~4,500 cal years BP). We tentatively conclude that the earliest peak was mostly driven by climate (Bølling–Allerød interstadial), whereas the second was probably the result of Holocene sea level rise and related groundwater level rise in combination with climatic conditions (hypsithermal). Our study highlights the potential of legacy data for palaeogeographic reconstructions, as it is cost-efficient and provides access to information no longer available in the field. However, data retrieval may be challenging, and reuse of data requires that basic information on location, elevation, stratigraphy, sample and laboratory analysis are documented irrespective of the original research aims.     

Assessing spatial and temporal variability in water consumption and the maintainability oasis maximum area in an oasis region of Northwestern China

Water consumption is a key role in improving the efficiency and sustainability of water management in arid environments.In this study, we explored an approach based on meta-analysis, MODIS NDVI products, land-use spatial distribution, and soil water physical parameters to gain insight into long-term and large scale distribution of land use and water consumption, maintain maximum Zhangye Oasis area according to Heihe River runoff, and suitable water resource management in Zhangye Oasis. This approach was initiated in order to improve the efficiency of irrigation and water resource management in arid regions. Results showed that Heihe River runoff can maintain a maximum Zhangye Oasis area of 22.49×10~4 hm~2.During the 2000-2016 growing seasons, actual oasis water consumption ranged from 11.35×10~8 m~3 to 13.73×10~8 m~3, with a mean of(12.89 ± 0.60)×10~8 m~3; if maintaining agricultural production and oasis stability was chosen, oasis water consumption ranged from 10.24×10~8 m~3 to 12.37×10~8 m~3, with a mean of(11.62 ± 0.53)×10~8 m~3. From the perspective of water resources management and ecosystem stability, it is necessary to reduce the area of Zhangye Oasis or choose the minimum water consumption method to manage the oasis, to ease the pressure of water shortage and maintain stable and sustainable development of the Zhangye Oasis. These results can provide future practical guidance for water resource management of coordinated development of the economy and the environment in an arid area.