In the Anthropocene, in which we now live, climate change is impacting most life on Earth. Microorganisms support the existence of all higher trophic life forms. To understand how humans and other life forms on Earth (including those we are yet to discover) can withstand anthropogenic climate change, it is vital to incorporate knowledge of the microbial 'unseen majority'. We must learn not just how microorganisms affect climate change (including production and consumption of greenhouse gases) but also how they will be affected by climate change and other human activities. This Consensus Statement documents the central role and global importance of microorganisms in climate change biology. It also puts humanity on notice that the impact of climate change will depend heavily on responses of microorganisms, which are essential for achieving an environmentally sustainable future.

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Scientists' Warning to Humanity: Microorganisms and Climate Change

Biodiversity is essential to human well-being, but people have been reducing biodiversity throughout human history. Loss of species and degradation of ecosystems are likely to further accelerate in the coming years. Our understanding of this crisis is now clear, and world leaders have pledged to avert it. Nonetheless, global goals to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss have mostly not been achieved. However, many examples of conservation success show that losses can be halted and even reversed. Building on these lessons to turn the tide of biodiversity loss will require bold and innovative action to transform historical relationships between human populations and nature.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/356/6335/270.full.pdf

Biodiversity losses and conservation responses in the Anthropocene.

Local biodiversity trends over time are likely to be decoupled from global trends, as local processes may compensate or counteract global change. We analyze 161 long-term biological time series (15–91 years) collected across Europe, using a comprehensive dataset comprising ~6,200 marine, freshwater and terrestrial taxa. We test whether (i) local long-term biodiversity trends are consistent among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, and (ii) changes in biodiversity correlate with regional climate and local conditions. Our results reveal that local trends of abundance, richness and diversity differ among biogeoregions, realms and taxonomic groups, demonstrating that biodiversity changes at local scale are often complex and cannot be easily generalized. However, we find increases in richness and abundance with increasing temperature and naturalness as well as a clear spatial pattern in changes in community composition (i.e. temporal taxonomic turnover) in most biogeoregions of Northern and Eastern Europe.

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Meta-analysis of multidecadal biodiversity trends in Europe

BACKGROUND Ever since Darwin, natural scientists have turned to islands for inspiration and for model systems. For the past half century, they have done so largely within the paradigm established by Robert H. MacArthur and Edward O. Wilson’s Theory of Island Biogeography , which provided a quantitative, dynamic framework, based upon assumptions of geographically predictable patterns of immigration, extinction, and speciation. Although this approach has proven productive, its application to remote archipelagos and evolutionary time scales has been hampered by a rather static view of islands themselves, despite mounting evidence of their dynamism as platforms. We review recent progress in integrating the largely ecological thinking of their theory with insights on the longer-term dynamics of both the islands and their biotas. ADVANCES Classification and analysis of marine islands by their geophysical dynamics, and of their species by how they colonized, provides a step toward a more nuanced biogeography out of which new insights are already emerging. This perspective is exemplified by the general dynamic model of oceanic island biogeography, which predicts how immigration, speciation, and extinction respond to the typical life cycle of hotspot islands, with phases of emergence, development, and submergence. The model successfully predicts such emergent patterns as the occurrence of peak diversification on youthful, expanding islands with maximum vacant niche space. Diversity patterns analyzed for large numbers of data sets have confirmed the importance of in situ evolutionary dynamics on remote archipelagos, which typically possess steep island species–area relationships, especially for endemic taxa. We may infer that variations in propagule flow among islands within archipelagos are important in modulating these emergent diversity patterns. There is, for example, good support for an “island progression rule” in which older land masses donate colonists to younger islands (consistent with the generalization of islands as “sinks”), but there is also increasing evidence of “reverse colonization,” including from islands to continental regions. Advances are also being made in linking such island biogeographical models with the classic traits and syndromes of insular species, although this first demands that previous generalizations are rigorously reexamined using expanded data sets and modern techniques of analysis. A classic insular syndrome is the loss of dispersability of formerly dispersive species following island colonization, for which there is now good evidence for several taxa, including many genera of land birds. Yet, paradoxically, and perhaps controversially, it has also been inferred that many species of plants lacking specialized dispersal adaptations can colonize quite remote islands, often by nonstandard means of transport. Unfortunately, island evolutionary syndromes, such as loss of flight in birds, frequently predispose species to heightened extinction risk when islands are colonized and transformed by humans, as we also document. OUTLOOK Developments in theory and in analytical and modeling capabilities within biological and Earth system science, and the pooling of large numbers of data sets, enhancing statistical power, collectively hold the promise of a new synthesis in island biogeography. This synthesis will need to accommodate evidence of the long-term dynamics of remote island systems, whereby some lineages persist far longer than any particular island platform, while others founder as their sole island home sinks under the waves. The promise is of a biogeography in the tradition of the MacArthur–Wilson theory, generating and testing predictive models, but extended to accommodate a more sophisticated suite of insular geological and environmental dynamics, combined with a fuller understanding of patterns and processes of gene flow within and between archipelagos.

/pdf/island-biogeography-taking-the-long-view-of-nature-s-1j87wcnr89.pdf

Island biogeography: Taking the long view of nature’s laboratories

One-sixth of the global terrestrial surface now falls within protected areas (PAs), making it essential to understand how far they mitigate the increasing pressures on nature which characterize the Anthropocene. In by far the largest analysis of this question to date and not restricted to forested PAs, we compiled data from 12,315 PAs across 152 countries to investigate their ability to reduce human pressure and how this varies with socioeconomic and management circumstances. While many PAs show positive outcomes, strikingly we find that compared with matched unprotected areas, PAs have on average not reduced a compound index of pressure change over the past 15 y. Moreover, in tropical regions average pressure change from cropland conversion has increased inside PAs even more than in matched unprotected areas. However, our results also confirm previous studies restricted to forest PAs, where pressures are increasing, but less than in counterfactual areas. Our results also show that countries with high national-level development scores have experienced lower rates of pressure increase over the past 15 y within their PAs compared with a matched outside area. Our results caution against the rapid establishment of new PAs without simultaneously addressing the conditions needed to enable their success.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/116/46/23209.full.pdf

A global-level assessment of the effectiveness of protected areas at resisting anthropogenic pressures.

Wuliangsuhai wetland is one of the representative wetlands in arid—semiarid region. It is also a key breeding site as well as a stepping site for both East Asia—Australasia Flyway and Central Asia Flyway. From 2009 to 2012, surveys on migratory water birds and their habitat were carried out by using transects census and spot count methods. The surveys recorded more than 100 000 water birds, and 98 species were identified, which belong to 6 orders and 14 families. Among the 98 species, 55 are summer residents (breeding here) and 39 are travelers (only stay here shortly), which account for 56.12% and 39.80% of the total recorded bird species respectively. Further analysis on their migration pattern shows that spring migration is mainly from early March to mid May, which is shorter than autumn migration season (from early August to mid November). Most of the summer residents breed from early April to late May. High concentration of key protected species were observed from early April to early May and from early September to early November. The bird community structure is relatively stable in summer, but much more dynamic during the migration seasons (spring and autumn). Based on the study, recommendation to nominate Wuliangsuhai wetlands as Ramsar site, and flyway network site were put forward. Habitat management that address to the environmental determinants on bird distribution was also discussed.

Wuliangsuhai Wetlands: A Critical Habitat for Migratory Water Birds

The spatial overlapping analysis for China's natural protected area and countermeasures for the optimization and integration of protected area system.

Habitat management is essential for the conservation of wildlife, especially cranes. Here, we collected occurrence data at wintering grounds for four cranes (Leucogeranus leucogeranus, Grus monacha, Antigone vipio and G. grus) and analyzed associated environmental variables to model and project overall potential wintering habitat using Maxent. ENMTools was used to calculate the degree of niche overlap among cranes. Results showed that lakes in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are main habitats for the four focal species. Inland water and coastal wetlands in Jiangsu are also potential wintering areas. G. grus spreads over central and eastern China. The four cranes show tight niche overlap in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Poyang Lake is one of the most important habitat sites for all four cranes, according to modeling and niche overlap results. Po- yang Lake is cut into a dozen nature reserves, but a bigger nature reserve or system would be more effective for cranes. The conservation of these four crane species will be improved on the basis of this study.

Improving Conservation of Cranes by Modeling Potential Wintering Distributions in China

An occupied niche space implies resource use, and understanding the factors that lead to change in trophic niches is vital to assess food web structures. Quantifying niches and niche overlaps are important to assess interspecies resource partitioning and competition. In this study, stable carbon and nitrogen isotopes were used to characterize trophic niche width of and niche overlap among three commercially-important benthic-living fish (Carassius auratus, Pelteobagrus fulvidraco, and Silurus asotus) collected from northern and southern Poyang Lake. The separation of snails and mussels on the δ13C at southern part indicating the integration of terrestrial derived organic carbon, which led to larger trophic niche widths of fish in the south. The δ15N ratios of fishes were significantly higher in the northern Lake than in the southern part. Furthermore, the trophic overlaps were higher in the south than in the north. Trophic niche width of C. auratus was the smallest as their food sources were easy to acquire, and consumers tended to specialize and narrow their trophic niches when food resource is abundant. S. asotus, a predator species, was short of animal food sources due to heavy fishing pressure. Therefore, its diet broadened, and the trophic niche width was the largest.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s13157-018-0995-8.pdf

Lei Guangchun

Papers

Biodiversity losses and conservation responses in the Anthropocene.

Wuliangsuhai Wetlands: A Critical Habitat for Migratory Water Birds

The spatial overlapping analysis for China's natural protected area and countermeasures for the optimization and integration of protected area system.

Improving Conservation of Cranes by Modeling Potential Wintering Distributions in China

Trophic Niche Width and Overlap of Three Benthic Living Fish Species in Poyang Lake: a Stable Isotope Approach